VT 1042 = 1235

This Sunday we will begin a seven-week worship series called “Voices Together and the Worlds Worship Creates.”  Here is an article I recently wrote for Anabaptist World magazine related to this:

This fall our congregation plans to do a worship series in which we take a closer look at our new hymnal, Voices Together.  Hybrid in-person and Zoom worship is not ideal for this.  Although we can’t all be in the same room, we can use the hymnal to explore the meaning of worship and the ways heritage and innovation continue to form a living faith.

My experience of a worship text is enriched by knowing the story behind it.  One of the new pieces in Voices Together has a story especially familiar to our congregation.  I tell it here in the hopes of enriching your worship experience, and to give an invitation.

On October 2, 2017 Edith Espinal moved into our church building.  Despite living in the US for 20 years she had recently lost her asylum court case, been given a deportation order, and been ordered to report to ICE, Immigration Customs Enforcement, for removal to Mexico.  She would be separated from her husband and three children, two of them US citizens.  Rather than be deported, Edith was one of many around that time who sought sanctuary in a church building, enabling her to continue advocating for her case from a location ICE had pledged not to enter.

As our congregation adapted to being a sanctuary church one member suggested writing a prayer in English and Spanish that could become part of our weekly worship.  We called it “The sanctuary prayer.”  It acknowledged God as our ultimate sanctuary, drew a wide circle around who is our neighbor, and asked that our own lives be defined by courage, peace, and justice.

God our sanctuary
grant us
and our neighbors                                         
near and far                                                   
courage in our hearts                                   
peace in our homes                                      
and justice in our streets.  Amen              

Dios nuestro santuario
concédenos a nosotros
y a nuestros vecinos
cercanos y lejanos
valentía en nuestros corazones,
paz en nuestros hogares
y justicia en nuestras calles.  Amén.      

We continued to pray this prayer throughout Edith’s time in sanctuary.  During this period it was selected for inclusion in the worship resources of the new hymnal and appears as VT 1042.

On February 18 of this year, 2021, Edith was finally allowed to leave sanctuary without threat of deportation.  She still checks in monthly with ICE, but can now live with her family and recently received her work permit.  We are overjoyed with her and prayerful that she will someday be granted permanent resident status.

Edith was in sanctuary for 1235 days.  The story behind VT 1042 is well-summarized in that other number: 1235.  It’s a long time, nearly three and a half years, to be praying for freedom. 

On Sunday, October 3, the four year anniversary weekend of her first entering sanctuary, our congregation will dedicate this piece in the hymnal with a “1235” sticker next to VT 1042.  If it would help you remember the story of Edith and all the others for whom this prayer was written, you are invited to do the same whenever it best suits you.

Joel

Neighbors

Yesterday was our monthly all-staff meeting at the church.  This includes the four of us who meet weekly (Gwen, Mark, Mim, and me), along with our building manager Jeff D, accountant Ellen K, and custodian Elizabeth C (her husband Kevin is also a custodian but works at a school during daytime hours).  It’s a special group to work with.

It’s a brief meeting – a chance to check in and share information.  I opened by reading our Vision for Ministry for the year: “We will cultivate beloved community by deepening relationships within and beyond our congregation.” 

I asked each person to tell of one way they are experiencing a deepening of relationships.  To my surprise, nearly all of us mentioned developing closer relationships with our immediate neighbors.  We agreed this was pandemic-related.  Being around the home more and having less places to go has made for more encounters and conversations with folks who live nearby. 

I’m not sure how wide of a national or global trend this is, but it is a potential positive side-effect of the virus.  It reminds me of a quote that I can’t locate in my files or on Google but I think is from the theologian Raimon Panikkar: “The world will be saved by the well-worn paths between neighbors.”  Or something like that.  Fact check welcome. 

A little over a week ago our neighbor with whom we share a driveway died after a steady decline in health.  Larry had become a good friend to us and formed a special bond with Ila who also enjoyed he and his wife Anne’s adorable puppies, and stash of cookies.  Yesterday evening Anne hosted a memorial service and supper for Larry in their large backyard, a lovely celebration of his life. 

One of the first things Larry told us when we first moved in captures his spirit for me.  He wanted us to know that our yard didn’t stop at the official boundary line, but that his yard was our yard (there is no fence or marker).  And not just the yard, but a playhouse, a little cottage, and his garage stocked with tools.  We took him up on his offer many times.

Larry and I had very different politics, and theology.  But his initial invitation to disregard the invisible line between us created the foundation of a relationship of neighborly love.  We will miss Larry dearly, and I’m grateful for the well-worn path between our homes.

Joel

The extended in-between

There are two images I find most helpful when thinking about transitions. 

One is concentric circles.  We grow and transition not along a line, but like trees, each new outer ring transcending but including every previous ring.  We are everything we ever have been- every stage, every phase and fashion.  The life and vitality are in the outer ring.  Even though we have left the season in which they were formed, the inner rings provide the strength.  They keep us real, solid and upright.  The poet Rilke wrote: “I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.  I may not complete this last one, but I give myself to it.”  I reflected on this image in the September 5 sermon.

A second image is more linear.  It’s the reverse of how we usually conceive a good story unfolding with a beginning, middle, and end.  Transitions start with an ending.  They move into a middle time when our previous way of being and making sense of things dissolves, often with no clear picture where we’re headed.  Then, after a time, sometimes years, we enter what we could rightly call a beginning. 

Ending -> In Between/Liminal Space -> Beginning

Although this theme of transitions was not pandemic-inspired, my return to church life has included coming to terms with the realization that we are in an extended in-between time.  Rather than a normal -> adaptation for an unusual event -> normal trajectory, church life and perhaps the wider culture seem to be experiencing the ending of something -> an extended in-between time when we don’t quite know what we’re doing and aren’t particularly good at what we’re trying to do -> new era, the shape of which we cannot yet see or grasp.

Today the four CMC office staff (Gwen, Mark, Mim and I) had our annual half-day fall retreat.  Much of our conversation focused on this in-between-ness, especially regarding all the forms of communication we put out there, where we and others allot energy and attention, and what is the heart of what we’re actually doing. 

There were a lot more questions than answers.  Which is another sign of being in an extended in-between time.  To go back to the widening circles imagery, the most fitting ending Rilke could offer for the poem was a question: “And I still don’t know: am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?”

Amidst the challenges, I find encouragement that the disorientation within the liminal and undefined spaces are exactly where the new creation emerges. 

We give thanks for the inner rings which give us strength.  We open ourselves to whatever life wishes to flow through us in the next ring outward.   

Joel      

What’s the news?

This summer I had a couple extended times of not checking the news.  It was kind of glorious.  I found myself less anxious, more attentive to the people and place around me.  More attentive to myself.  I guess another way of saying this is I was paying attention to other news.  The dew on the grass is extra heavy this morning.  Our next door neighbor’s kidneys are failing, but he’s in good care and good spirits.    

I’m not convinced the New York Times always selects the most important thing to be aware of for the day.  I don’t think our nervous systems were built to bear the assault of daily global hardships.  But I do want to be an informed citizen. 

Drought and wildfires in the West, hurricanes and floods in the South and East, refugees from Afghanistan, the abortion ban in Texas. 

How to hold knowledge in such a way that builds solidarity rather than dissipates energy?

I wonder about this sometimes as it relates with church and worship.  We engage current events and name injustices, but we also come together to get in touch with the transcendent.  Music does this for us.  Being in community does this.  Prayers.  Exultation.  Collective silence.

It’s a bit strange being “back” when we are still a mostly scattered congregation.  Each household is navigating its way.  Perhaps it’s a time when we’re paying greater attention to the news that feels most immediate to us – the people, creatures, and circumstances in our orbit for which we are most grateful and protective. 

If you feel like dropping a note, send me a headline.  How is it with your day, your month, your summer?  What’s new for your family, your work, your leisure?  What’s feeding your mind, your soul? 

Joel

A soul-centric model of human development

One of the great discoveries this summer was Bill Plotkin’s book Nature and the Human Soul.  Building on previous psychologist’s work around stages of human development, Plotkin offers a model linked with the natural world of seasons, directions, cycles, growth and diminishment.  In his model, each stage has a cultural and nature task, a gift, and a center of gravity.  Each quadrant and hemisphere also has unique qualities.  For example, Early Childhood and Late Elderhood are both in the East quadrant, with a focus on Spirit, being (rather than doing), and presence.  The South hemisphere, the first half of life, is focused more on the individual, while the North hemisphere, the second half of life, is focused on the collective.   Each passage between stages also has its unique features, which Plotkin clarifies is frequently a years-long process.

I’m a bit skeptical of a stages approach to human maturity, but appreciate that this is neither linear nor hierarchical.  In Plotkin’s analysis, US culture has a strong pull toward Early Adolescence, which as Stage 3 of 8 is a problem if the majority of folks of any age get stuck there.

Plotkin contrasts this Soul-centric or Eco-centric model with our more typical ego-centric model.

From p. 71, Nature and the Human Soul, by Bill Plotkin

Note, for example, that rather than the numbering going up to 8, it gets stuck on Stage 3 which goes up to 3F.  As vitally important as ego-development is, a person or culture that does not expand beyond this has no room for the gifts of late elderhood.  Life simply ends in failure since we can eventually no longer do the things an egocentric society deems valuable.   

My interest is not in a spiritual maturity competition, but rather how each phase of life offers new and unique opportunities to go deeper into our soulwork and serve the common good.    

If you have more interest in the first model you can read a blog by Bill Plotkin about it HERE

Or just buy the (big) book in which he dedicates a full chapter to each stage.

Joel