Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Seminary? Monastic? Ordained? Perspective from an 11 yo kiddo.

Last night, I had a moment of sadness when I was weighing whether or not I'd eventually return to seminary.  It rolls through my mind often. 

Will I pursue ordination (I have no idea)? Can I call myself a Monastic given that i am only half way through seminary? Im Franciscan but not a part of an order.... so I question myself. (The answer is yes, it's a New Monastic Movement in the world, outside the walls of the church.)

As I briefly mentioned this internal struggle to C, she put her hand on my foot, sitting across from me in the cozy room, and she said,  "Mom, you don't need a label. You don't need to be ordained. You already are a minister and a very good one.  And we have our church here...people come here and find rest... and we have our animals with our very Franciscan life....And mom, any time two people are gathered in His name it's church right? That means we have church all the time mom!"  

I burst into tears.  This Kid. 

There's a moment that comes along when a parent realizes that the Kid has absorbed the good stuff, even in the midst of hardship.  This was one of those very rare moments.  Thank you God.

Monday, January 27, 2020

Roots of Contemplative Christianity

I am a Contemplative. It started the moment of my concussion. Although I didn't have a name for it,  nor did I fully comprehend what was happening when I first picked up the pastels and later began to paint,  my entire being had shifted into a new way of knowing.  This piece by Father Richard Rohr explains the theological roots of contemplative Christianity, something I later learned in Seminary.


All Spiritual Knowing Must Be Balanced by Not-Knowing

Monday, January 27, 2020

It is amazing how religion has turned the biblical idea of faith around 180 degrees—into a need and even a right to certain knowing, complete predictability, and perfect assurance about whom and what God likes or doesnt like. Why do we think we can have the Infinite Mystery of God in our quite finite pocket? We supposedly know what God is going to say or do next, because we think our particular denomination has it all figured out. In this schema, God is no longer free but must followourrules andourtheology. If God is not infinitely free, we are in trouble, because every time God forgives or shows mercy, God is breaking God’s own rules with shocking (but merciful) freedom and inconsistency!  

In the fourth century, as the Christian church moved from bottom to the top, where it was protected and pampered by the Roman Empire, people like Anthony of the Desert, John Cassian, Evagrius Ponticus, and the early monks went off to the deserts to keep growing in the Spirit. They found the Church’s newfound privilege—and the loss of Jesus’ core values—unacceptable. It was in these deserts that a different mind calledcontemplationwas first formally taught.  

The Desert Fathers and Mothers gave birth to what we call theapophatictradition, knowing by silence and symbols, and not even needing to know with words. It amounted to a deep insight into the nature of faith that was eventually called the “cloud of unknowing” or the balancing of knowing with not needing to know. Deep acceptance of ultimate mystery is ironically the best way to keep the mind and heart spaces always open and always growing.  

We do needenough knowingto be able to hold our ground. We need a container and structure in which we can safely acknowledge that we do know a bit, in fact just enough to hold us until we are ready for a further knowing. In the meantime, we can happily exist in what some have calleddocta ignorantiaor “learned ignorance.” Such people tend to be very happy and they also make a lot of other people happy.