Early on the first day, while it was still dark, this is how the most important story in all of Christian tradition begins in the account in the Gospel of John. While it was still dark.

Before there was clarity. Before light makes a way. Before peace is found, when disappointment abounds, this is where the most important story begins…in the dark. Mary weeps alone outside the tomb.

She is the only person at the empty tomb in all four of the gospels. Let’s just stop right there. This is no April Fool’s joke. Mary is the only person at the empty tomb in all four of the gospels. I can’t believe some traditions still won’t ordain women!

Mary is the one who refused to turn away from the tragedy unfolding in her heart and her town. She showed up when the crowds were gone and the hope for another way seemed gone too. They expected their king to show up on a horse with swords and an army, instead Love was made manifest in the flesh, in the form of king who wore a crown of thorns and armed with healing ointments, he rode in on a donkey. The light came into the world and it was extinguished. Early on the first day, while it was still dark…

They were all forced to witness state sanctioned violence, where their friend and lover and brother Jesus had his life taken too early, this seemed to be end, the worst thing. All that seemed left now was an empty tomb.

I don’t know about you, but I know a little something about weeping outside the tomb of disappointment and despair, where the world suddenly seemed so different and indifferent to hope, where possibilities and plans died and it felt like God maybe didn’t see you. Do you know what that’s like? I know I do…

But as the story unfolds we learn that this tomb is in a particular place. Only the Gospel of John has this tomb in a garden.[1]

A garden is a powerful metaphor throughout the sacred stories in the Jewish and Christian traditions. And it is only a couple of chapters earlier in the Gospel of John that we encounter the garden at Gethsemane, a place whose name literally means “oil press,” and is located on the Mount of Olives just across a valley from Jerusalem. Jesus went there to pray and it also a place where he would be betrayed.

Here we find ourselves in a garden again. The empty tomb is in a garden. Mary awash in the madness of grief and misunderstanding, mistakes Jesus for the gardener.

She was weeping outside the tomb of disappointment and despair, where the world suddenly seemed so different and indifferent to hope, where possibilities and plans died and it felt like God maybe didn’t see her…but then Jesus says her name, first he calls her woman, which is like what? But then, he gets it and says “Mary!!!!”

She is named, being called out by name is being invited in and blessed, reminded that she is seen by the Divine, even in tragedy and pain, a stone of hopelessness was rolled away.

Because the thing about the tomb of the Easter story is that it is in a garden. And the truth of life in a garden is that while it is still dark, something new is fighting to break through to the light, the truth of life in a garden is that death and life, struggle and sprouts are all intricately woven together like a messy ball of roots deep in the cool soil.

This tomb is in a garden.

This morning I wonder whether Christian communities have been asking the wrong questions for a few thousand years: Jesus rose from the dead, do you believe it? Maybe the questions the Spirit offers us in this time are more like: How do we show up to the heartbreak and pain when the crowds are gone and hope seems gone too? How do we show up for one another even when all we can do is weep? How do we not let the worst thing be the last thing and have the last word?

Maybe this is captured in the words of Frederick Buechner, “The worst isn’t the last thing about the world. It’s the next to the last thing. The last thing is the best. It’s the power from on high that … that wells up from the rock-bottom worst of the world like a hidden spring. Can you believe it? The last, best thing is the laughing deep in the hearts of the saints, sometimes our hearts even. Yes. You are terribly loved and forgiven…”[2]

How do we live as people of faith and hope invested not just in the truth that Jesus’ body was freed to rise that morning, but also in the truth that we are freed to choose to rise too? We can keep showing up, even through tears, one day at a time.

In the words of one writer as ,“beloved community we look for the work of divine love amid the tragedies of personal existence and the injustices of social experience, even when most of the world believes that dream has long since died.”[3] We show up knowing that just maybe in the words of one writer, “Our hurts (can) now become the home for our greatest hopes.”[4]

This week after the glorious turnout for the March for Our Lives across the world, an outcry demanding change, taken to the streets, the students from Marjory Stone Douglas High School have been mocked and ridiculed and shamed by those invested in the status quo. Amid sorrow and suffering and terror and tragedies these students could choose to stay in their pain or to pass it on to others. Instead, even as they weep, they are pushing back, not with the swords of hateful words, but with boycotts and boldness. They are not letting the worst thing be the last thing. They are choosing to keep rising.

Toward the end of this part of the Easter story Mary proclaims, “I have seen the Lord!” and I wonder if she was saying something like, even outside the tomb of disappointment and despair, where the world suddenly seems so different and indifferent to hope, where possibilities and plans died, where there is sorrow and suffering and terror and tragedies, she begins to fully take in this truth: I am seen! You are seen! We are all seen. We can lean toward love and life and light even while it is still dark… We can choose to not let this worst thing be the last thing. We can choose to keep rising.

Even an empty place that feels like a tomb, even that sad or hard or worst thing, doesn’t have to have the last word. Maybe that tomb seems like the end, but maybe it’s a tomb… in a garden…

And the thing about a garden is that while it is still dark, something new is fighting to break through…some day, at some point, some thing new will be rising…

This meditation was followed by three minutes of silence.

[1] http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2807

[2] The Final Beast by Frederick Buechner

[3] D. Cameron Marchison Feasting on the Word Easter Day

[4] Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation April 1^st, 2018, Week Fourteen: Human Bodies, Jesus Bodily Resurrection http://email.cac.org/t/ViewEmail/d/675B331BC12E769B2540EF23F30FEDED/887B5458B26326910F8C96E86323F7F9

A Reflection for the fourth Sunday in Lent on John 3:14-21 and Gandhi, the movie, Directed by Richard Attenborough and written John Briley

You are a lifeline for my mental and spiritual and emotional wellness- this spiritual community and I am guessing churches and synagogues and mosques and faith communities everywhere of all kinds are lifelines right now for people all across the world- for those of us who refuse to give up hope on love, on civil conversation, on giving energy to the world we want.

Lately I have been thinking how much easier is to critique than to create. It is so much easier to destroy than to dare to dream beyond what is. It is easier to raise concerns than to take a personal risk and be the first in line. It requires much less of our true selves, much less of letting go of ego. The truth is, it is easier to condemn than to love.

Maybe that is why so much of Jesus teachings were made to be about condemnation and God’s wrath and judgment. That is easier for us to get our minds around as human beings. We know anger. We know disapproving of those people. Foundational to all this in part, might be this verse in the sacred text of the Christian tradition that is so widely known as this one: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

In American Christianity at least this verse has been used for a variety of things: a litmus test, a weapon, a measuring stick for how much judgment and wrath would come your way- whether your beliefs match up enough to pave a way to the “pearly gates” in the ever after. But today we are going to hold up different parts of this text so we can see the healing power of love, which is our theme for this season of Lent.

It is no accident that it begins like this: “For God so loved the world.” Let us pause right there.

Would that have inspired fewer witch-hunts and conquests if we had stopped there? For God so loved the world…

Jesus teachings begin with the commitment that whatever name we give that Greater Force, It loves us. We are literally expressions of that love in human form.

For God so loved the world.

We human beings have emphasized judgment over love, but the story of our history as spiritual seekers; the stories we read in our sacred text are about how God so loved the world. As one writer put it, “It was after all, love that stirred God’s heart at the pleading of the slaves in Egypt, and love that offered them both the guidance of the law and the security of the promised land…whenever inequality or injustice threatened the welfare of the poor and the powerless…God’s love raised up prophets who declared God’s desire for compassion- shown not just to insiders, but also to sojourners and foreigners…it was love that stirred the first-century church to open the doors of communion not only to Jews and Gentiles, but to the halt, the lame, the blind, the enuchs…”[1]

For God so loved the world…

So many of Jesus teachings are about healing and love. Here in the Gospel of John we have this poetic unfolding with serpents and the metaphors of light connecting love and incarnation and where Divine love is present in human history. We are presented with questions: Who is drawn to the light and who isn’t? What is salvation? Who gets it and how? Why? What healing can be found here and what is in another realm?

It turns out that in the Gospel of John, the writer or writers understood it differently than we hear it in our context. As W. Hulit Gloer writes, belief for the writer of John, isn’t about philosophical or theological concepts, “the opposite of belief is not unbelief but disobedience. To believe is to obey.”[2] So we can understand this verse to be saying something like, whoever obeys the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, whoever dares to live the Great Commandment, will have a particular kind of life…For God so loved the world, that the Universe gave all It had, to offer all creation what is needed for a heaven kind of life, so that everyone who obeys these teachings won’t die to greed, war and selfishness, in order to live a heaven kind of life.

It is easier to condemn than to love.

In the epic film Gandhi starring Ben Kingsley we are invited into a journey of liberation where we see the worst and best of human beings during India’s struggle for Independence. Throughout the process, Gandhi engages in fasts as part of his leadership for the movement. British soldiers took the lives of innocents at sacred spaces, Indians in the countryside starved as British viceroys thrived. Toward the end of the film, divisions between Hindus and Muslims where brought to the streets with swords and people of all ages were killed. The scene we enter now is after some of the most intense violence where many people died and a group of fighters comes to Gandhi as his health declines from fasting to plead with him to eat again.

Show clip from the movie Gandhi.

Maybe the verse we need for this time is the one that comes after the famous part. “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” It is easier to condemn than to love and yet Jesus teachings begin with the commitment that whatever name we give that Greater Force, It loves us.

For God so loved the world, the Universe wishes healing for all creation- it both is Love unfolding between us and among us, and also I believe our tradition offers love as a path for a particular kind of life, obeying the teachings of love leads somewhere good, it’s a path to healing and joy and wholeness for all.

As Jesus and Gandhi say in different ways. I know a way out of hell and it is love. For God so loved the world.

[1] Paul Shupe, Feasting on the Word: Fourth Sunday in Lent Kon 3:14-21

[2] W. Hulit Gloer

This messaged was shared at Urban Sanctuary Sunday February 18th, 2018.

Driven Into the Wilderness

Mark 1:9-15

⁹In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. ¹¹And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” ¹²And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. ¹³He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

¹⁴Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, ¹⁵and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

On Wednesday, many Christians around the world began the journey of Lent, a ritual and liturgical recounting of Jesus journey in the wilderness.

And on that same day we were all reminded yet again that we are in another kind of wilderness as a country. We are lost in the wilderness of greed, bowing down to false idols of all kinds, instead of protecting our kids and our sense of safety in public places. 17 more lost at once from one person and one gun.

We are in the wilderness… driven there by power and disconnection and violence. We are lost, thirsty, looking to be quenched-tempted by the lure of forces that care only about more and more and more…

What do we do in this wilderness place?

There are wildernesses beyond wildernesses in our world- places that are dry and inhospitable to hope. There are wildernessness created by the crush of capitalism, militarism, racism, addiction, sexism.

There are wildernesses beyond wildernesses in our world…

And this season I find myself thinking of the sorts of wildernesses that are hard and also generative. Are you with me?

Because it seems to me that after Jesus has his long, hard journey in that Judean wilderness, he makes this big bold statement about where God’s realm can be found and he says that it’s at hand… After testing and temptation, beasts and angels, Jesus sings out, “The Kingdom of God has come near…”

I have read and heard this passage in Mark more times than I can count, but I missed this before, Jesus wilderness journey was not asked for. He was pushed there, driven there.

And I don’t think that means God pushes the rest of us into wilderness places, but I do think it means God is present with us there, accompanying us somehow and working within us in ways we cannot fully understand.

Maybe the wilderness times that don’t kill us, move us. I have been pondering some of the wilderness seasons I survived. My parents divorce when I was a child where my life was split in two and then a serious bout of depression in college that forced me to rethink mental health and wellness…

These wilderness times were painful where I felt separate from the best of myself… and yet something powerful happened where the pain allowed an expansion in me that was deep and adorned with questions. In the words of the poet Rilke, “You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

For you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.

I struggle in these days to know what to do about all of the wildernesses beyond wildernesses in our world, but it is clear that for every beast there is an angel too.

On Thursday at the Homecoming and Opening Celebration of Recovery Café San Jose, we heard a story from Diana about her life before finding the Café. She knew lots of wilderness times and through her tears she shared about some of them. And yet as she stood there strong and proud, she finds herself in a different landscape with life and wholeness and most of the wilderness behind her. God did not push her into those wilderness places, but God was present with her there, accompanying her, working in her somehow. The healing community of Recovery Café brought her angels.

Maybe you are in the wilderness in your life right now and for this season of Lent together; our hope is to be intentional about creating spaces and rituals of healing- collectively, communally, and individually. We believe and live out together that love heals. The way out of the wilderness is the healing power of love- the space to share our stories, the space to say out loud what hurts and what needs a blessing, the space to be reminded there are angels to be seen.

May we accompany one another in all of our wilderness places… May it be so…

Good morning! It is wonderful to be with you again this morning since I missed the last two Sundays for a time of vacation with my family.

We surfed and read and played and ate with friends. And being Americans, there in Mexico right now in this time was interesting. People from all over the world wanted to talk to us about the current political climate. At one point a Canadian family said, “Let’s talk about Trump!” And Jeremy said, “Let’s not!”

Bracelets sold at the beach included not just floral hammer pants, wooden snack bowls and macaroons, but beautifully and colorfully beaded bracelets with an expletive next to the name of the 45^th president.

In a way he has become a global scapegoat for all that ails the planet. Denying climate change and the truth that democracy needs a free press. Denying science and racial bias. It’s him. It’s there. It’s that. It’s them. Our fingers and our complaints all aimed out there.

It is a much more difficult task to examine the ways we ourselves are participating in the construction of a world different than the one we say we want, it’s not comfortable to see how we are part of the problem. It’s harder to ask: How am I living contrary to the sacred?

That is really what the biblical word “unclean” means- contrary to the sacred, contrary to the vision of beloved community, the vision of love and healing and wholeness for all.

And that is the word used in the Gospel of Mark, we meet Jesus in a Synagogue calling a demon out of a man and the text says that it was an “unclean spirit.” So neither the ailing man or the ailment is given a name, we are just told it is a demon. And we see that Jesus doesn’t turn away from what is labeled as other.

Dr. Matt Skinner contends, The Book of “Mark wants us to know, here at the outset of Jesus’ public ministry — that Jesus’ authority will be a contested authority. Jesus’ presence, words, and deeds threaten other forces that claim authority over people’s lives. These other authorities have something to lose.”[1]

This is at the core of Jesus’ teachings- not turning away from what is real or raw, what is hard or harrowing, what is claiming to have authority over peoples lives. Being honest about what is, he says will bring liberation. Again and again Jesus refused to turn away from what is labeled other, saying the truth, naming what he saw, challenging authority, even when he encountered powers and principalities that threatened to undo him.

Be silent! He said.

Last Saturday our family joined the Women’s March in the Plaza in downtown Sayulita in the state of Narayit Mexico. We felt the urge to join with people around the world to say with our signs and our bodies that we resist the wall building, human being banning agenda and we have our own agenda, which is intersectional love.

So we showed up to the town square and it quickly became clear than in a little city with people from all over the world, this mini-crowd was mostly well to do older white women, as if a small cruise ship from San Francisco, CA had just dropped them off for a margarita and a march. The Women’s March was designed to uplift workers and women of color, but at our little gathering an older man awkward drummed rise up while a retired teachers screamed that it was time to listen up. Some of the women seemed to know each other and they took turns trying to shout their various agendas about women’s healthcare and protecting the dreamers. Then as if a record came to a screeching halt at a mediocre a party, a twenty something man, with long dark hair, and a body length black shawl with gold embroidery walked to the center of our now large circle. “Excuse me!” He said, with perfect English in a Mexican soaked accent. “You seem like well meaning people.” This was the moment where the collective hearts begin to race because how is this going to go. He went on with something like. “If you want to fight the Trump agenda. We must talk about capitalism. We must talk about multi-national corporations. We must talk about workers. We can create change with what we buy and how we make what we make.” It felt as if he was challenging what and who truly had authority over us.

At a time when the stock market is seeing historic highs, the Dow Jones, near an all-time high. The S&P 500. The Nasdaq. The small companies that make up the Russell 2000. Big corporations[2], the companies that likely makeup the portfolios of many of us gathered at that Women’s March, that young man invited all of us to stop long enough to truly see and to not turn away from the truth, to note what was claiming authority over our lives, our energy, our patterns, our power.

He named the demon of unrestricted capitalism that cannot have a conscience when corporations decide the rules and the earth is not invited to the table.

The demon that lives off of non-renewable resources and suppressing wages is not gone, of course, but something powerful happened that day when the truth was named. We couldn’t deny or turn away. It’s not out there.

Be silent!

What might happen in our lives individually and collectively when we join Jesus in not turning away in the presence of something that is contrary to the sacred? Jesus doesn’t turn away, he doesn’t deny or ignore. He acknowledges, sees, making way for liberation.

As Gary Charles notes, “From the onset of the Gospel, Mark signals that no oppressive boundary will stand or withstand the power of Jesus. All that is demonic within and beyond the religious structures of the synagogue will not survive in the face of the demon-tossing, Spirit-possessed son of God.”

I believe that the Universe, the Divine, the Sacred “approaches the unapproachable,” and the nameless, all that is labeled other and unclean, to deconstruct oppressive boundaries and offer wholeness. God approaches the other in all of us, we must not turn away.

In an interview with comedian Sarah Silverman and Homeboy Industries founder Father Gregory Boyle, he talked about creating a world where everyone belongs and how show up for what is, including people who are radically different, in a time of dramatic othering. He said, “We are all called to dismantle the barriers that exclude. We must come to terms and be friends with your own brokenness and your own wounds. And because if you aren’t, if you are a stranger to your own wounds, then you will be tempted to despise the wounded, which I think accounts for what is happening in the country…a wholesale despising…”

This is at the core of Jesus’ teachings- not turning away from what is real or raw, what is hard or harrowing, what is despised and what has harmful authority in people’s lives. It allowed a dismantling of the barriers that excluded.

And Jesus tells us that being honest about what is will bring liberation or maybe what Father Boyle calls radical kinship. Again and again Jesus did not turn away: from acknowledging what was real, naming what he saw, challenging authority, even when he encountered forces, powers and principalities that threatened to undo him.

We can join him. We can ask where we are living contrary to the sacred? Who and what has authority over us for real? We can choose to not turn away: from acknowledging what is real, naming what we see, challenging the authority give to our own brokenness, naming our own wounds, seeing our personal demons and the demons of the world in which we live, but, here’s the thing, not turning away, and instead naming our wounds, our brokenness, our demons, the “unclean” parts of the world, seeing them as they are, is part of how were are freed from letting them lead. Let love, healing, justice and wholeness lead.

Theses forces that can separate us from one another and from our Greater Love are not suddenly gone, but perhaps they can no longer have authority over us. As if we look them in the face, in our own face, we see selfishness and greed, militarism, rampant consumerism while so many sit in need, we can name what makes for liberation and double down on the Way of Jesus and shout to all these demons, “I see you. I will not turn away, now be silent!”

[1] http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2343

[2] http://money.cnn.com/data/markets/

Happy Epiphany! I am not sure what the proper greeting for this Christian season is, but I love a liturgical moment to stop and wonder. When the world has moved on from Christmas and the stores have already begun put out Valentine’s Day hearts on the shelves, this weekend Christians celebrate the manifestation of the Divine and how the Spirit guides the way with stars and accompanies those still seeking.

Mary Luti writes that Epiphany is:

“A season of signs, it starts with a star in the east and ends with fire on a mountain.

A season of voices, it starts with directions in a dream and ends with acknowledgment from a cloud.

A season of unveilings, it starts with a glimpse of baby skin and ends with a display of gleaming garments.

A season of worship, it starts with the homage of kings and ends with the prostration of disciples.

In the dead of winter, the church gives us God-sightings, gives them as if to persuade us that our world only appears solid, still, dark, and cold, but is in fact stirring all the time, ardent, vivid, and porous… Seeking is never over, there is always more to find. But in Epiphany, the Spirit seems to desire for us a momentary end of seeking…She lights the lamp and leads us:  “Come closer,” she says. “You’re getting warm. Now over here. A little more. Yes, yes. Now do you see…?”[1]

Our world only appears solid, still, dark and cold, but it is always stirring… Maybe epiphany is like that whisper or that gut feeling or that thing that keeps coming your way and you get the feeling that the Universe or God or the Force, or whatever name you give it, is trying to get a message to you?

It might be one you were waiting for or one you weren’t expecting.

There have been various points in my life where I thought God gave me a sign or a message, but for the most part it was only when I looked back that I could connect the dots of the signs and wonders completely.

This makes me think of the words of Sheldon Vanauken who said, “Signs must be read with caution. The history of Christendom is replete with instances of people who misread the signs.”[2]

Perhaps God is always trying to get to us, but maybe there are moments or seasons in our lives where particular messages are needed, like maybe when we are at a crossroads or in need of a major change or seeking to make meaning out of something or when something new is breaking through. I wonder if in these times, we can look for signs.

In the story we heard from the Gospel of Matthew, the author or authors want us, the readers, to experience, to see the all of the signs- signs that point to the connection between this new baby and all of Jewish history, from Moses to Jesus, from a Pharaoh who kills, to a Herod who kills, signs of bondage to freedom, through Egypt to Bethlehem. Signs in the dreams of Joseph and in the dreams of the Magi’s warning them it wasn’t safe to go back, signs that everything would be different with the final line, “they had to return home by another road.” And the star shows up four times and points them to Judea and then to Jesus. That is how we know it is a sign deserving of our attention, it happens multiple times.

Something new was breaking through and there were signs. Surprising, beautiful, bizarre and unbelievable signs and that itself is remarkable, but what if this story isn’t just about how God tries to get to us with signs, but how we respond.

It is not just what is being revealed around us and to us and among us, but how do we respond? What direction do we travel when something surprising and seemingly sacred shows up?

In the 1989 movie Field of Dreams Ray Kinsella an Iowa farmer, walks through his cornfield one evening and he hears a voice whispering, “If you build it, he will come.” He continues hearing this before finally seeing a vision of a baseball diamond in his field, which his family eventually constructs. Over the course of the story, signs from what seems like another realm show up in the form of dreams and whispers and connections beyond normal perception. And choosing to pay attention to these bizarre signs ultimately gave Ray healing as embarking on that journey allowed him to make amends for never forgiving his father or being forgiven himself.

I have never had a sign from the Universe quite like Ray. Instead for me they have been more gentle signs like when our cousin was on her way home to Portland and turned around because of instinct. She caught Eliza when she was born in 2011. Or signs for me have been like Sandy Hietala showing up at a worship service in 2015 to say we should explore gathering here.

Maybe Epiphany isn’t just about the wonders and signs being revealed around us and to us and among us, but how we respond? Do we pay attention? Do we do something about that message we got? Do we cultivate an inner space to listen to the whispers and lights? Do we not dismiss surprises? Do we welcome wonder?

Just as there is a star in the story for today, there is an Epiphany star with a word here for each of you. Last year my word was acceptance and it came to have multiple meanings for me, rich with hope and healing.

What signs are there for you this year? In these moments you are invited to come forward as you are comfortable and take a star. Pick a star, or let the star pick you. Don’t turn it over, until you have already picked the one you want. In Epiphany, the Spirit seems to desire for us a momentary end of seeking…She lights the lamp and leads us:  “Come closer,” she says. “You’re getting warm. Now over here. A little more. Yes, yes. Now do you see…?”[3]

Let us pay attention, let us do something about that message we got, let us cultivate an inner space to listen to the whispers and lights. Let us not dismiss surprises. Let us welcome wonder. What is your sign?

Come closer…

[1] https://sicutlocutusest.com/

[2] ― Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy: A Story of Faith, Tragedy and Triumph

[3] https://sicutlocutusest.com/

Shared at our Urban Sanctuary Sunday Gathering on 12/10/17

We are reading Pema Chodron’s book Practicing Peace during this season of Advent. We have copies available for those of you who are interested in exploring it more. It is short book and a quick read, but profound.

In the final chapter she quotes a German political thinker Rudolph Bahro who said, “When an old culture is dying, the new culture is created by those people who are not afraid to be insecure.”

Chodron is writing about the concept of positive insecurity and what is made possible inside of us when we are willing to sit with uncomfortable emotions. In mainstream culture, is common for people to flake or what is called “ghosting” instead of having a difficult conversation or dealing with what is real. And when we look beyond the personal to the global scale, we can see the consequences of our failures, our inabilities to sit with discomfort and difference on the path to communal healing. We generally seek to avoid being unsettled or uncomfortable even when it is shortsighted.

Chodron writes, “In order to change our habits and burn up seeds of aggression, we have to develop an appetite for what I like to call positive groundlessness, or positive insecurity…we want to get away from that uncomfortable feeling…We’ve been trying the same ways of getting comfortable for as long as we can remember and yet our aggression, our anxiety, our resentfulness don’t seem to be getting any less…we need to develop an appetite for groundlessness…”

We need an appetite for positive insecurity and groundlessness.

I think that means being willing to keep in relationship with one another even when there is tension. And think with our activism, it means being willing to keep going even when the ground below us has moved.

And I think with our spiritual journeys it means being willing to avoid being drawn into the anger and pain that all of us hold and instead to let ourselves acknowledge what is real and sit with it. How do we handle groundlessness and discomfort?

It is clear that much of what is unfolding right now from fires to firings is the result of choices long ago made, of clinging to old ways and seeking comfort over truth.

As people who aim to live with a particular purpose, we have a chance, right now to practice something different, which is being intentional about what happens with our pain- Instead of avoiding our discomfort, instead of numbing it or denying its existence, what if we could sit with it? What if we could see it and release our hold on those emotions so they do not take a hold of us? What if nations could stop avoiding histories soaked in injustice, instead of numbing, or denying, what if we could see it and sit with it? What new ground might we break? What new realities could we construct among us, right here and beyond?

One of the main themes of the Christian season of Advent is preparing the way for God to break through, prepare the way of the Lord. And as we heard in the oldest Gospel, the Gospel of Mark, preparing the way for God to break through involves confession and repentance. The text says that “John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

And I wonder if this is no accident. Maybe there is a relationship between our healing and our history? Maybe trying to deny what was or what is, holds us back. Maybe our individual and collective wholeness can never be found in avoiding, or numbing, or denying. Because when we see it for real, we can decide its power, instead of giving our anger and fears the reigns by default. New ground is broken, as if new life is spoken and blessed into being.

Unlike the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, this story in the Gospel of Mark does not start the Christmas narrative by letting us spend time with the baby Jesus, instead we get this rugged preacher dressed in leather and eating locusts telling the world that One who is Powerful is coming and then he extends an invitation to get real. As one commentator put it, “Repentance and confession entail facing the truth about ourselves and changing the direction in our lives. And who wants to do either of those things? So the good news can often sound like bad news at first.”[1]

But maybe facing the truth is only bad news if we let it be. Preparing the way for more peace and more justice invites us not be afraid of being insecure by what is real. In order to change our habits and burn up seeds of aggression, we have to develop an appetite for positive groundlessness or positive insecurity with the truth of what is. We must not fear feeling groundless by the truth of our emotions, of our circumstances, of our history.

Let us prepare the way, let us face our aggression, our anxiety, our resentfulness, our separations from our Greater Love, let us be open in this time of guided meditation to the possibility of a holy groundlessness…

Take a few breathes, breathing in deeply, breathing out your mouth, if you are comfortable, put your feet flat on the ground.

As we open our hearts and minds, we notice our breath, our heartbeat. When a thought comes, we notice it and let it go like a feather in the wind, that feeling is not the whole of you. When we cling to a thought, we become that thought.[2]

If something comes that makes you feel uneasy, turn to curiosity, notice it and let it go. In these two minutes of silence, let us be open.

[1] Martin B. Copenhaver in Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 1 Advent through Transfiguration

[2] http://www.innerfrontier.org/Practices/NonClinging.htm