Life Together Matters

The last few months have been deeply painful for anyone who believes that, as the name of this blog suggests, we are all just here to walk each other home.  Politicians preach racial, ethnic, and religious profiling, police are trained to see our streets as was zones, private citizens in the United States insist on their "right" to arm themselves with military-grade weaponry, the people of Great Britain separate themselves from the European Union in protest over too many layers of unresponsive government, and random acts of violence tear cities apart in the name of, what? ISIS?  Homophobia?  Generalized fear and anxiety?  We seem to live in dark and fearful times.

The challenge for people of faith and good will is to figure out how to respond.  There are many possible options, among them withdrawal, prayer, social action, political activism.  Each has its benefits, of course. Withdrawal at least protects the heart and soul from the daily assaults of violence and fear-mongering, and withholds from the provocateur the reward of a response, either of fear or of sympathy.  Withdrawal may limit the spread of evil in the short run, but it does not promote the good.  Prayer is a powerful tool in the hands and hearts of believers, especially prayer that promotes the conversion of perpetrators, and reconciliation with victims.  Even more powerful is the kind of prayer that effects deep transformation of the inward life of the pray-er, the one who prays.  Social and political action are necessary elements in the healing of the world, but without confronting our own potential for anger and conflict, our efforts will drain us, and ultimately come to not very much.

While I have chosen to ground my spiritual practice in contemplation, and live in a hermitage, I remain committed to the principle that companionship, compassion, and love are the only things that can heal the world.  To be a companion to black people, gay, lesbian, and differently-gendered people, Muslim people, to whoever has been cast aside, wounded, and rejected by others, this is the Great Commandment of Christ, and as far as I can see, the only practice that has the power to heal the world's wounds.

Black Lives Matter.  The lives of the poor, the sick, the suffering, the oppressed matter.  These are the ones we are called to walk with, to live with, to stand with. Only in companionship and compassion can we make a lasting difference.  Walk with me.  Let me walk with you.

An Advent Meditation on Justice

 What follows is an Advent meditation which was shared today with my brothers and sisters in the Lindisfarne Community.  May it be a blessing to others.

Brothers and Sisters,

Many of us are deeply troubled by the violence in our streets.  Race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, class, even religion, all the things we thought back in the 60s and 70s that we'd confronted and named and faced down seem to be roaring back with a vengeance to divide God's beloved children into warring camps. And yet, the very word, religion, comes from a root that means to bind back together what has been separated.

The Indestructible Core

Has anyone else ever received the spiritual blow to your head, or heart, or ego, the one that turns everything upside down?  It's happened to me a couple of times, and I sometimes call it the "cosmic 2 x 4," it can hit that hard.

This one was completely unexpected.  A few weeks ago. the wonderful Elizabeth Gilbert posted a quick exchange from a recent interview onto her Facebook page.  At a public event, an attendee walked to the microphone and asked, "What do you know more than anything?" 

Back to School

It's September, and for us students and teachers, that means getting back to the work of teaching and learning.  For the past several years I have actively been and done both things, teaching in a small college as an adjunct assistant professor in Religious Studies, as well as crafting my doctoral dissertation on three texts that tell the stories of early medieval Celtic (and one Anglo-Saxon) saints.  Both endeavors are stimulating and inspiring, both get my intellectual juices flowing. And what's particularly fascinating is that in both settings I find, in Wesley's words, my heart strangely warmed.

Soul & Psyche 4: The New Sacred Awareness

David Tacey concludes his exploration of Jung, spirituality and religion with a short chapter which examines Jung's struggle over time to define his relationship with religion in general, and Christianity in particular.  It was in every way a vexed and painful relationship, covering two thirds of the twentieth century, a time in which religion and the life of the spirit were in great flux, certainly in the West, and arguably around the world.  We are living with the consequences of that flux today as the world writhes with the pain of racial, ethnic, and religious conflicts.  I think there are connections to be made, and I will attempt to make some of them here.

Still Becoming

Hello, Dear Ones,

I've been pondering what to blog about lately, which may be why this one's a little late.  There was the weekend I spent at a conference, where I learned quite a bit, mostly about how well I do (or not) when away from home and my usual comforts and disciplines.  There is the dissertation chapter I sent to my supervisors recently, and the resulting shift of focus, from Cuthbert of Lindisfarne to Brigit of Kildare.  And there's the online course in World Religions that I'm teaching this summer -- a course that I've taught many times now, but in a whole new format.  It took a lot of work to get the course built, and we didn't know whether it would actually run or not.  Today is the first day.

And then I saw the illustration at the top of this column,  "still becoming," with that gorgeous embroidered butterfly.  (Thank you, Louise Hay.) And I thought, that's it.  Taken individually, none of these topics is all that compelling, but all together I think they say something important about a life of faith.  At root, it's all about the process of becoming.  How many grandmas do you know who are working on doctorates? How many adjuncts in the humanities are pushing their administrators to allow them to teach their first online course?  How many academics in their late fifties are attending a range of conferences, not to present, but just to find out which ones address their research interests?  Sure, there are some out there, but not many.  Or at least, I haven't met many.