27 posts tagged “efm”
The spirit
likes to dress up like this:
ten fingers,
ten toes,
shoulders, and all the rest
at night
in the black branches,
in the morning
in the blue branches
of the world.
It could float, of course,
but would rather
plumb rough matter.
Airy and shapeless thing,
it needs the body's world,
instinct
and imagination
and the dark hug of time,
sweetness
and tangibility,
to be understood,
to be more than pure light
that burns
where no one is --
so it enters us --
in the morning
shines from brute comfort
like a stitch of lightning;
and at night
lights up the deep and wondrous
drownings of the body
like a star.
`MARY OLIVER
FROM "DREAM WORK"
****
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart ... try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
Ranier Maria Rilke
***
This post begins with the poem that Anna read to us last week. This week, we'll move into this poem, and into some of the work that came out of our reflection of vocation, calling and spiritual gifts.
***
“The other side has religion, and we need some,” said the Rev. Susan B. Thistlethwaite, president of Chicago Theological Seminary. “We need a more robust understanding of the role of religious values, values that prevent us from compromising the sanctity and dignity of human life. The left, because it is largely secular, did not do enough as the working class was finished off. And now the same thing is happening with the middle class. It is the loss of the left’s spiritual resources that has crippled the movement. The left forgot that nations, like individuals, have souls. Once you sell your soul, it is hard to get it back. History is not linear. History is about constant struggle. It is the struggle, if you come out of faith, which matters.”
****
"St. Francis de Sales was once approached by a disciple who said to him, "Sir, you speak so much about the love of God, but you never tell us how to achieve it. Won't you tell me how one comes to love God?"
And St. Francis replied, "There is only one way and that is to love Him." "But you don't quite understand my question. What I asked was, "How do you engender this love of God?" And St. Francis said, "By loving Him." Once again the pupil came back with the same question, "But what steps do you take? Just what do you do in order to come into the possession of this love?" And all St. Francis said, was, "You begin by loving and you go on loving and loving teaches you how to love. And the more you love, the more you learn to love."
And in our own day, Martin Buber has spoken in the same vein, replying to the question:
"What are we to do?" "What is to be done?" If you mean by this question, "What is one to do?" there is no answer. One cannot help himself. With one, there is nothing to begin. With one, it is all over. He who contents himself with explaining or asking what he is to do, talks and lives in a vacuum.
But he who poses the question with the earnestness of his soul on his lips and means, "What have I to do?'" he is taken by the hand by comrades he does not know but whom he will soon become familiar with, and they answer, "You shall not withhold yourself."
Thus again, the Way will teach you the Way, and the Way is learning not to withhold yourself. The Way is learning to be with life, in life, one with life,, more and more. And there is nothing else to be learned. And for this there are no techniques. We must not, therefore, look to a conference on religion and psychology to relieve us of the task of living our own lives. There are many who look to psychology or psychotherapy or to spiritual writing for answers, and this is all right up to a point, but pushed too far it becomes an escape from oneself, from one's own reality. If you keep asking, "How shall I do it?" you are not meeting your own life situation. Only your own life can teach yo how it is to believe. If we turn to psychology or to religion because we are afraid to face our own life, to sweat and to toil and to shed tears and to learn to love in the context of our own existential situation, then psychology and religion become obstacles to reality....."
Bernard Phillips, The Search Will Make You Free
quoted in Eighth Day of Creation by Elizabeth O'Connor
*****
Elizabeth O'Connor says in 'Eighth Day of Creation":
"When we talk about being true to ourselves --- being the person we are intended to be -- we are talking about gifts. We cannot be ourselves unless we are true to our gifts...
We ask to know the will of God without guessing that His will is written into our very beings. We perceive that will when we discern our gifts. Our obedience and surrender to God is in large part our obedience and surrender to our gifts (and how we would use them in response to God's love for us).
A primary purpose of the church is to help us discover our gifts, and in the face of our fears, to hold us accountable for them so we can enter into the joy of creating."
***
(Note, most of these quotes and excerpts were published on my blog "Alive on All Channels."
The cartoon was pinched from Mad Priest's blog)
*******
--Kabbalah
"Love God as God is a not-God, a not-mind, a not-person, a not-image.
--Meister Eckhard Sermon 12
"O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed."
--Gerard Manly Hopkins
"No Worst, There is None"
"Sweet are the uses of Adversity
which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
--Shakespeare
Why is it so important that you are with God
and God alone on the mountain top? It's
important because it's the place in which you
can listen to the voice of the One who calls
you the beloved. To pray is to listen to the
One who calls you "my beloved daughter,"
"my beloved son," "my beloved child." To pray is to let that voice
speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let that voice
resound in your whole being.
--Henri Nouwen**
Lucifer falls, Alice falls, so does Icarus. Humpty Dumpty falls.
The giant in "Jack and the Beanstalk" falls. Jack and Jill fall. The Titans
tumble earthwad for nine days straight. Elpenor slips headlong from Circe's.
roof. Adam and Eve supposedly fall, though in fact the theological idea of a
lapse into sin is Christian in origin, the necessary precondition for rapture. We must
fall so that Christ can raise us. Read Genesis, however, and you'll see that the authors
of the Hebrew scriptures, their imaginations defined perhaps by the long horizons of
the Fertile Crescent, conceive of expulsion in lateral terms. The central metaphor
is not descent but exile. Still, the experience of falling is so fundamental that is lends
itself to moral and existential embellishment.
Witnessed or not, an accidental fall entails a loss of dignity. Our upright posture most
distinguishes Homo erectus from that class of creatures that the Bible identifies as
"creeping," and no animal is creepier than that enigmatic serpent whose curse it is to
crawl upon the ground, just as no animal topples more easily than we do. Quadrupeds
wobble and trip when newborn, but rarely thereafter. Just think what a horrific sight it
is to see a racehorse go down. Implicit in the biblical stories is a kind of hierarchy of being
that seems to mirror the human body cosmologically. I suspect that Zeus and Baal and
Yahweh Himself may be associated with mountaintops and clouds in part because our eyes
are among our own most altitudinous organs. To be human is to defy gravity. To be a
snake is to embrace it. The snake is thus our anatomical opposite, though when we fall
-- or sleep, or have sex, or die -- we assume a serpentine posture, a fact implicit
in the symbolism of Genesis.
Only with the Hellenic distinction between the body and the spirit could we imagine the
dead ascending like helium balloons into the sky. The flight of Icarus is not merely an
allegory about human ambition. It is an allegory about our ambition to slip our mortal
bonds. Only the soul may ascend; the body must plummet. To be earthbound is to be
deathbound. In the theater of battle to fall means to die. The same logic governs the
collapse of architecture and empires, those collective attempts to defy gravity and time.
But there is also a pleasure in falling, in giving in, in assenting to gravity's pull. Although
we can fall into disgrace, we can also fall into a trance, or sleep, or love. What these
experiences have in common is the surrendering of the will -- to music, or to unconsciousness,
or to another. These are all varieties of bewilderment. In the absence of pain, falling ill
can accord some of the same pleasures as falling in love. There is a voluptuousness to
illness, the eros of the infantile. Even seemingly disastrous falls can be accompanied by
the joy of relief or the exhilaration of chaos.
***
"Contact! Contact!" Thoreau shouted at the heavens from atop Mount Ktaadn. "Where
are we? Who are we?" And the heavens did not reply."
From "Falling; Confessions of a lapsed forest Christian" by Donovan Hohn
Harpers Magazine, April 2008Do you know Flannery O’Connor’s short story entitled – succinctly – “Revelation”? It is about one Mrs Turpin from the deep South. Mrs Turpin is a hard-working, upright, church-going farmer’s wife. One day, at her doctor’s office, she is bad-mouthing the white trash and lazy blacks she has to put up with. Suddenly a mentally disturbed girl in the waiting room throws a book at her and calls her a “wart hog from hell”. Visibly shaken, Mrs Turpin returns to her farm, unable to get the girl’s offensive words out of her mind. “Wart hog” indeed! For Mrs Turpin knows that she is a good person, certainly far superior to red necks and “niggers”, and she reminds God of her rectitude, as well as of all the good work she does, especially for the church. Then she angrily asks, referring to the girl’s outrageous insult, “What did you send me a message like that for?” And then, suddenly – revelation! As she stares into the pigpen, Mrs Turpin is given a glimpse of “the very heart of mystery,” and she begins to absorb some “abysmal life-giving knowledge.” She has a vision of a parade of souls marching to heaven, with white trash, blacks, freaks, lunatics and other social outcasts up front, leading the way, and, taking up the rear, folk like herself, “marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order and common sense and respectable behaviour. They alone were on key. Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away.”
Yes, religion is a bargain, but revelation is no bargain, revelation is grace, it is free. Nothing is necessary, all is a gift. We have no rights, we are never owed, and we are never one up on the bastards and undeserving. That “scum” I thought I’d left behind – I didn’t: it was me too, and I took it with me. But no matter: God’s sun shines and his rain falls on the good and the evil without distinction. As Oxford Regius Professor of Divinity Marilyn McCord Adams puts it: “Expecting God to be interested in invidious distinctions among us would be like our judging the ladybugs to see which had paid us the appropriate honour!”
God is sheer, exuberant, overflowing, prodigal love, inside and out, from top to bottom. May God grant us the insight and wisdom that Mrs Turpin takes home with her that fateful night: “In the woods around her the invisible cricket choruses had struck up, but what she heard were the voices of the souls climbing upward into the starry field and shouting hallelujah.”
(from Faith and Theology)
***
This exercises uses as its texts, Psalm 139 (CHERISHED); Corinthians 12:1- 12 (GIFTED) ; Exodus 2:11-3:10 (PASSIONATE); Ephesians 4: 1-16 (COMMITTED); and 1 Corinthians 12: 14 -31 (COMMUNAL).
deBeer draws from James Fowler's work in creating a model for vocation in Weaving the New Creation (San Francisco: Harper, 1991).
Elizabeth O'Connor , in Eighth Day of Creation
"When we talk about being true to ourselves -- being the person we are intended to be -- we are talking about gifts. We cannot be ourselves unless we are true to our gifts...
We ask to know the will of God without guessing that His will is written into our very beings. We perceive that will when we discern our gifts. Our obedience and surrender to God is in large part our obedience and surrender to our gifts (and how we would use them in response to god's love for us.)
A primary purpose of the church is to help us discover our gifts, and in the face of our fears, to hold us accountable for them so we can enter into the joy of creating."
Enneagram test
Enneagram Institute
Don Richard Riso & Russ Hudson's website.
Enneagram type descriptions, online test (RHETI), articles and discussion board.
Helen Palmer's website
- Ennea Graphs
Images and a compilation of type descriptions by several authors. - The Enneagram Handbook
Booklet by Chris Wright (PDF-file). - The Trouble With Typing
Pitfals in using the Enneagram system (written by Thomas Condon). - Enneagram Test
Determine your Enneagram personality type.
- Enneagram type One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine
Descriptions of the personality types. - Instinctual variants
The self-preservation, the sexual and the social instinct. - TYPE CORRELATIONS
Psalm 139 (English Standard Version)
Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me!2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,"
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance ; in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.
****
REFLECTION
We reflected on
what kind of a world was described in this psalm?
Is it a world without free will? If God has searched us and known us, and knitted us together in our mothers' womb, is this a God who denies us choice and will? Does this God manipulate and control or grant ultimate freedoms to his creations?
Or -- is it more that this world is a world in which God is constantly present with us, amidst all the events of life, both good and bad? Is 'Presence' more the nature of God than God who looks like and acts like a human being?
Is this world like the world in which the parent watches over the child, and anticipates what the child will choose or will do? In that world the parent seeks to be present, even though the parent allows the child to explore freely and make mistakes and missteps.
Another point from which to view might be to see that , 'wherever I go I am there' -- that if I seek to live with the truth, I cannot ever get away from myself entirely. I must be present for all of the events of my life. As the Sufis say, our Presence is also implicate of the Presence of God within us as us.
Perhaps this is the world of exhilarated contact with God as the creative spirit, the Creator God in whose image we are made. When we are filled with this 'graced' presence of God, we can see that this Grace is always present, even though we cannot always see it or be aware of it.
The world of this psalm speaks of a world of companionship and a world of Grace.
***
WHAT IS A CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION IN THIS WORLD?
Being alive, having spirit, energy, enthusiasm, vision, vitality, connection. It is a celebration of each person as having their own special-ness. I am who I am no matter what. What I do doesn't necessarily change or impact the Being-ness that is me. I have knowledge of my own nature, and I see it reflected in the world around me. We might use the metaphor of air -- we are surrounded by it and permeated by it, and yet we might not be specifically aware of it as it connects to us in a moment-to-moment kind of way.
MAKE CONNECTION WITH YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE (ACTION).
Each person who wished to gave examples from their life, of having this kind of experience, and where it seemed to come from. Often, it was, indeed, 'graced' in that the person couldn't connect it to having 'done' anything in particular, it just came to them unsought in the midst of ordinary life.
CULTURE ?
In our world we are used to thinking in 'pairs of opposites' in terms of either/or. Our nervous system is binary, and we tend to see ideas in relationship to or opposed to other ideas. In this Psalm we might look at it as being coaxed into more of a both/and point of view. It's not that God knows us completely and is always with us in a claustrophobic way, as if God were a human being. How else can we evaluate except to measure how we know something, that is in human terms. God can know us completely and be present for us and to us in all of them events of life AND we can also be completely free.
INSIGHTS ? IMPLICATIONS FOR ACTION ?
This (life that we have been given . Now. ) is It. Everything that we need is here in the life that we have right now. There is nothing missing or absent. We always have the knowledge that Larger Life is there, somewhere available to us.
Several people had the insight, voiced in different ways, that its good to be present, to be open. Staying open to the possibilities before us seems to be important.We also voiced gratitude for the poet/ psalmist. That it's good to celebrate the writings and insights of others.
There are constant distractions to Mindfulness. that our own relationships and practices might be helpful towards maintaining greater mindfulness.
COLLECT
GOD YOU ARE ALWAYS THERE
NO -- HERE
YOU ARE WONDERFULLY MADE.
WE PRAY THAT WE KEEP OUR
EARS AND EYES OPEN TO YOU
EVEN IN JAIL.
SO THAT
WE MEND OUR BUTTERFLY NETS
WE STRENGTHEN WITH LAUGHTER
WE FEEL YOUR PRESENCE.
AMEN
****
JUST AS BEAUTY SEEKS A MIRROR.
BEGGARS, THEN , ARE THE MIRRORS OF GOD'S ABUNDANCE,
AND THEY THAT ARE WITH GOD ARE
UNITED WITH ABSOLUTE ABUNDANCE.
RUMI
***
Anne led our reflection tonight, based on Rumi's poem "Abundance is Seeking"...
We began by asking "what kind of a world is this? " in which abundance is seeking the beggars and the poor?
We had to start with asking how 'abundance' is used in this poem. Perhaps abundance is speaking about a state of awareness, or a graced state where we know and understand our connection with others in a broader more inclusive way....
We receive when we honor those with whom we share. But then again, it seems that we come back again and again to polarity, the economic differences between classes, cultures, between rich and poor. Our discussion of abundance was contentious, debating the different senses of 'abundance' that Rumi might be talking about...
Perhaps people with wealth want to buy 'beauty' (art , decor, etc). Perhaps abundance is more about an appreciation of what you have. Perhaps abundance is the potential of the individual. What does Rumi imply, concerning an absolute abundance? Would it be that all would have material needs met, or is he talking about something else? Perhaps absolute abundance has to do with caring for all people.
Rosa shared a story that she had heard that implied that when one has debts, one is carrying a lack of forgiveness. So, in that case, would forgiveness bring wealth as it's natural consequence?
Does both debt and abundance have life force in and of itself? Do these qualities pursue all of us equally, if we allow ourselves to open to receive?
Do these qualities seek their opposites? For example, a hungry person would seek having their hunger satisfied. So would abundance then naturally seek a beggar?
What would count as negative in this world?
We decided that it would be to turn one's back on need, or refusing to see need.
Abundance doesn't count the cost , so would true abundance have any waste?
We talked about stewardship, about recycling, that there aren't 'infinite' resources, that taking care of what has been entrusted to us is also part of the world of abundance.
What does the tradition say about this world?
We talked about the story of the woman who washed Jesus' feet with her hair and lavished him with perfume, and the disciples disapproved, and felt that it was wasteful. But Jesus' response was to honor her gift. That this lavish expression of love came from an abundant and overflowing heart. That a good many of the parables Jesus told had to do with upsetting the ordinary order of things, they were about turning reality and social respectability on its head. We might assume that we know the answers and the right responses, but we might not. We have to look at what brings us closer to communion with God and with other human beings.
We see or we know this beauty, and we reflect it.. Abundance is anyone who has something to give. Who has a gift or something to offer. When a person knows that they have a lot to give, a lot to contribute to others or to the society, then they begin to share out of that great abundance of God's generous gifts to us.
So, sharing is true abundance, and potential is then 'infinite' ....
COLLECT;
GOD YOU ARE INFINITY AND ABUNDANCE
WE PRAY THAT WE MIRROR THAT IN OURSELVES
AND HAVE GIFTS TO GIVE TO OTHERS
SO THAT WE MAY UNITE WITH GOD
WITH FULL HEARTS IN
ABSOLUTE ABUNDANCE
AMEN
*****

John de Beer
“A Biblical Framework for Vocation and Call”
Friday & Saturday
April 18 – 19
Episcopal Cathedral of St. Philip
“Your calling or vocation is to be your true self, to mature into the person in whom God delights. Vocation, identity, gifts and ministry are all interconnected. Too often the church has talked to you about your “ministries,” whether in the church or the world, without helping you to do the deeper work of discerning your vocation. Genuine vocation provides an authentic path that strengthens the sense of identity and freedom of those who respond to God’s call.”
-- John de Beer
In this course the Rev. de Beer will be leading us to do the deep work of discerning vocation. This course is for all who seek to reflect on their continued call to ministry. For Education for Ministry mentors, students and graduates, this is a unique option to enrich your experiences with Common Lesson 5, “Planning Your Ministry”. Each session will include presentations, individual reflection and group discussions.
Friday April 18
5:30 Registration opens
6:00 Dinner served
6:30 “Cherished and Called”
9:00 Adjourn
Saturday April 19
8:30 Coffee & Registration
9:00 “Gifted and Passionate”
12:00-12:45 Luncheon
1:00 -3:00 “Committed and Supported”
3:00-3:30 Q&A and Closing
The Rev. Dr. John de Beer is priest-in-charge of St. Mark's, Burlington, Mass. He received his Doctor of Ministry in Congregational Development, 2005, Seabury Institute, Evanston, Illinois; Master of Arts, Theology, 1969,University of Oxford, England; and B. Sc., Mathematics, Physics, 1966, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. He is one of the developers of Education for Ministry (EFM), a national program of the University of the South, School of Theology, and co-author of The Art of Theological Reflection.
The cost is $65 per person and includes all meals and study materials.
Register securely online at www.episcopalinstitute.org or print a mail-in form.
Clergy will be awarded Six (6) Contact Hours.
For further information on the Institute, programs and scholarships, please contact:
Nancy Armstrong Linda Scott
narmstrong@episcopalatlanta.org lscott@episcopalatlanta.org (404) 601-5353 or (800) 537-6743
Easter: the one true day
“Can there be any day but this,
Though many suns to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we miss:
There is but one, and that one ever.”
—George Herbert, “Easter” (1633)
*****
Go and read
Easter Sermon
by Kim Fabricius
who writes for the blog
Faith & Theology.
You might also check out his "Ten Propositions" lists for some interesting thinking and theological reflection.
A partial quote from the sermon:
"The peace they receive they must share, declare, and effect. And this peace takes the form of – forgiveness! Jesus says: “If you forgive people’s sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven” (John 20:23). And though the construction looks like a conditional, as if forgiveness were discretionary – as if the disciples might grant forgiveness to this one but withhold it from that one – the key to Jesus’ command is its gracious sweep and urgency. Forgiveness itself is God’s judgement on sin, and forgiveness itself is the condition that makes justice possible. Wrath – whatever that might mean – must be left to the Father. This is John’s version of Matthew’s Great Commission."
"If being Christian trumped being American, British, or whatever, and if the church itself practiced a politics of peace, then at least we would have something to say to government that wasn’t the mere echo of its own loud voice."
Kim add also, in comments:
"Let me add some Rowan Williams to Herbert McCabe (from the second edition of his great Arius [2001]). After suggesting that God is not a "person" or "individual" like us, Williams continues: "If God is not an individual, God does not compete with us for space; if God is not an individual, God's will cannot be adequately understood in the terms of self-assertion or contest for control in which so much of our usual discourse of will is cast. The implications for theology, for ethics and for prayer and spirituality are enormous; and we are still discovering them." Indeed."
I also recommend "A FUNNY KIND OF CHRISTIAN "
from the Guardian (UK)
"Perhaps this is how we ought to be re-telling the story of Christ's passion. For ever since the cross became a piece of jewellery, it has been drained of its power to sicken. Even before this the Romans had taken their hated instrument of torture and turned it into the logo of a new religion. Few makeovers can have been so historically significant. The very secular cross was transformed into a sort of club badge for Christians, something to be proud of."
"The French anthropologist René Girard is the modern voice that has done most to explain the nature of this moral change. Human societies, he argues, are often held together by scapegoating. From the playground to the boardroom, we pick on the weak, the weird or the different as a way of securing communal solidarity. At times of tension or division, there is nothing quite as uniting as the "discovery" of someone to blame - often someone perfectly innocent. For generations of Europeans, the Jews were cast in the role; in the same way women have been accused of being witches, homosexuals derided as unnatural, and Muslims dismissed as terrorists.
The crucifixion turns this world on its head. For it is the story of a God who deliberately takes the place of the despised and rejected so as to expose the moral degeneracy of a society that purchases its own togetherness at the cost of innocent suffering. The new society he called forth - something he dubbed the kingdom of God - was to be a society without scapegoating, without the blood of the victim. The task of all Christians is to further this kingdom, "on earth as it is in heaven". "
**************************Then the comments devolve into a wonderful free-for-all. You won't see the like in this country. The thin-skinned American columnists moderate comments to soft-peddle dissent. Disgusting.
***
Peter started us out this evening with a poem by Emmet Fox:
LOVE
'Love is by far the most important thing of all
It is the golden gate of paradise
Pray for the understanding of love
And meditate upon it daily
It casts out fear
It is the fulfilling of the law
Love is absolutely invincible
There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer
No disease that enough love will not heal
No door that enough love will not open
No gulf that enough love will not bridge
No wall that enough love will not throw down
No sin that enough love will not redeem
It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble
How hopeless the outlook
How muddled the tangle
How great the mistake
A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all
If only you could love enough
You would be the happiest and the most powerful being
In all the world.'
Continuing our discussion from last Monday, "
"To Show Him the Way To Responsibility and Love..."
we talked more about education, both teaching and learning. Group members talked about their own experiences both teaching and being attentive to the lessons in everything.
Our discussion also went to liturgy and what and how is the church teaching in it's liturgy and preaching? Is it teaching, or is the flow too much in one direction?
Our implications for action were;
How do we handle the 'non-alive liturgies' of our lives ( too much pressure to 'teach to the test' , to teach curriculum too rigidly, to be caught up in the form of things rather than the heart of the matter) ?
How do we re-kindle purpose and passion ? All professions and vocation run into this place where we are simply going through the motions? What is required to keep us 'on the field' and 'in the game' ?
What structures are most useful, and which ones get in the way?
When is more 'space between the monkey-bars' vital?
How can we most usefully solicit imput ? How then can we be responsive to imput to keep the process going?
How can we 'Be the Change we wish to see in the world' ? (Ghandi) How can you BE the thing that you are trying to teach?
Read less books.
Write your own book :)
COLLECT
GOD, YOU ARE TEACHER, LEARNER, AND LESSON.
WE PRAY THAT WE DON'T GET EXPELLED
AND THAT WE BECOME THE TEACHERS THAT WE ARE SEEKING
SO THAT WE CAN LEARN FROM OURSELVES AND OTHERS
AND LIFE.
AMEN
******
Oh -- and for your enjoyment, listen to the MP3 of Mahalia Jackson "It Is Well With My Soul."
Her singing is a complete meditation.
***
Martin Buber (in Hodes 1972)
Buber as a teacher
"He was basically a teacher - for me, the greatest teacher of our generation. He was an educator in the true sense of the word and within the limits of his own definition of it. He did not try to impose a self-evident formula upon his pupils, but posed questions which forced them to find their own answers. He did not want his pupils to follow him docilely, but to take their own individual paths, even if this meant rebelling against him. Because for him education meant freedom, a liberation of personality. Perhaps, too, it is as a great teacher, embracing a consideration of the whole of human existence in his approach to his pupils that his influence on our time will be most enduring.
The right way to teach, he said, was 'the personal example springing spontaneously and naturally from the whole man'. This meant that the teacher should constantly examine his conscience. Indeed, every man should do this; but a teacher most of all, as he could not teach others if his own example was flawed.
The purpose of education was to develop the character of the pupil, to show him how to live humanly in society. One of his basic principles was that 'genuine education of character is genuine education for community'….'For educating characters you do not need a moral genius,' Buber declared, 'but you do need a man who is wholly alive and able to communicate himself directly to his fellow beings. His aliveness streams out to them and affects them most strongly and purely when he has no thought of affecting them.'
The real teacher, he believed, teaches most successfully when he is not consciously trying to teach at all, but when he acts spontaneously out of his own life. Then he can gain the pupil's confidence; he can convince the adolescent that there is human truth, that existence has a meaning. And when the pupil's confidence has been won, 'his resistance against being educated gives way to a singular happening: he accepts the educator as a person. He feels he may trust this man, that this man is taking part in his life, accepting him before desiring to influence him. And so he learns to ask….
But his method was not pedagogical in the narrow sense. He was little concerned with the how of teaching, with such matters as syllabuses, methods and examinations. What concerned him was the why; how to give the pupil a sense of his identity, of his organic unity, how to show him the way to responsibility and love. This is what Buber looked for when judging the success of a teacher. And it was this emphasis which led teachers to come to him, slowly and then sometimes in groups, not to consult him about technical problems but to ask him what they should teach, how they should reconcile conscience and faith."
Aubrey Hodes (1972) Encounter with Martin Buber, pages 136 - 7, 140.
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We are currently 'in the midst' of a reflection, led by Beverly.
Beverly started us off by asking us to remember incidents of being taught or teaching someone something. Perhaps an incident that became a touchstone for the entire teacher/student paradigm.
Our group recounted many interesting anecdotes, looking into the heart of what it is to really learn.
As our group usually does, we spent a long time in discussion as we made the transition from our particular incidents to the formation of a metaphor that we could settle on for further reflection.
Our images, metaphors, and phrases of descriptions so far include 'recognition' 'a magnet' 'a sponge' 'the process of learning from teaching something' 'gently dug in the soil' 'planting a tree' 'a lotus flower in the mud' 'cross-pollination'
'mirroring -- like to like' 'snowball effect' 'immortality' 'creating an effect' 'sharing something' 'passing somethng on so it will continue' 'its the energy in the subject' 'energy transfer or perpetual energy machine' 'enthusiasm' 'determination' --
Our discussion was finding common threads in the stories of the moment or moments when something took hold and there was an 'awakening' or an 'aha' moment. What is transmitted within this experience?
***
If you in the class have comments during the week on this topic, add them on the blog.
Reflection continued next week.
COLLECT
GOD YOU ARE
IN OUR CONNECTIONS
IN OUR COMMUNICATION
IN THE GENTLY DUG SOIL
WE PRAY THAT
WE CARE TO CONNECT
OUR COMMUNICATION IS CLEAR
SO THAT WE MAY RECOGNIZE YOU MAGNETIC PRESENCE
AND ACT LIKE SPONGES.
AMEN
**************
Encounter with Martin Buber, pages 136 - 7, 140. |
Artwork is by Sami Bentil..
Contact at Sami Bentil Art
Peter led the reflection last week (March 10th) .
We used, as our entry point, a work of art.
The artist is Sami Bentil.
I don't have a photograph of the art, but visit Sami Bentil Art
to get the flavor of the artist's vision.
Peter had us reflect on the artwork, asking ourselves what the music depicted in the picture would sound like?
We came up with words like; 'constant beat' 'rhythmic' 'orchestra' 'shape-singing' 'solemn but not sad' and 'wind sounds' -- a mood is created, a feeling.
The we looked at the feelings expressed by the picture; 'loss' 'stories of family' 'being in the midst of it' 'jam session' 'family joy' 'connection' hearing the ancestors' 'glow of anticipation' 'pride' 'being of service'.
Then, "What did you focus on in the picture?" Where is the artwork 'calling' you?
There was a bowl shape, something that appeared to be water, and water in the background. Different figures in the foreground and background seemed to dominate for different people.
Then, "What is the world of this picture like?"
A world that is calling to its' people. A world of catharsis, a world that is based in community and in relationship. It is a world that feels the pull between 'now' and 'eternity'. A world of honor and uniqueness. A world that reflects.
Culture tells us that family is important, but value becomes very conditional. How we see the family is formed differently in the culture depicted and the culture that surrounds us.
Tradition tells us that 'we can't look at God's face.' It guides us to inner 'seeing', and a reverence that transitions us from inner to outer.
The spirit in the artwork is one of togetherness -- that the ultimate spirituality allows us to be together outside of time and space. In spirit, we can be 'as one' because in spirit, there is no time.
We decided that if we could say something to the artist it would be : 'thank-you" 'different expressions of thankfulness and intimate companionship with one another and with God'...
****
COLLECT
GOD YOU ARE SHAPE-SINGING THE MUSIC OF OUR ANCESTORS
THE PROMISE OF THE FUTURE
THE BLESSINGS OF THE PAST
WE PRAY THAT
WE MAY ACKNOWLEDGE OUR PRESENCE IN BOTH
OUR PAST (S) AND OUR FUTURE (S)
KNOW THE FACES OF OUR FATHERS AND MOTHERS
AND SEE IT IN EACH OTHER
SO THAT WE MAY COME TOGETHER
AS SPIRIT AND SONG AND TRUTH.
AMEN
*****
.
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