The Untethered Soul

As most people know, Christianity in America has been on the decline for some time now. As the number of unchurched Americans increases we are moving into a time when the majority of Americans will have no real connection to a faith community. This lack of community is likely to have a number of serious consequences. One of these consequences that has been on my mind lately is the lack of community support available to people who do not go to a church. In today’s digital world it is often difficult for people who are new to a community to find and develop genuine friendships.

In fact, I was just having a conversation with a young couple two days ago who mentioned how after they moved to town they couldn’t seem to meet people and make friends. They tried to meet people at the library, the gym, and even signed up for a hiking club that treated them like outsiders. Finally, they decided to come to church and were delighted to find a community of people who were happy to invite them over to dinner and even to join our Wednesday Walkers small group.

While this seems like a small thing, humans are not designed to be isolated. We are built to live together and work with one another for our common benefit and happiness. Community, it seems, is a necessary thing for people. This is particularly important when people are facing real hardship in their lives. Left with no support system, people dealing with real difficulty often turn to drugs, violence, and other unsavory methods to redirect their longing for the care and support they are really looking for. Ultimately, they end up finding for a cheap replacement for the love, care, and validation they really need.

It is important for us in the church to remember that all people have this need for love, and that the richest source of love is God’s love; a love found in the heart of the Christian community. It is up to us then to reach out to those people in our lives and in our communities who need us. It is up to us to see the people on the margins and invite them in to a place of love and grace. Perhaps when the church decides to do this with all its energy the world will become a safer, healthier, and more loving place to be.

The Profile for our Next Bishop is Complete!

I have taken some time away from blogging over the last few months to concentrate on my duties as the Profile Committee Chair for our new bishop search here in Colorado. This was an very challenging process involving every region of our diocese. To come up with this profile we held regional gatherings, put together an online survey constructed by a team of people from a mix of different types of ministries, and finally culminated this process by writing the profile with two different teams with some final editing by the standing committee. I certainly felt stretched thin at times but I have come to appreciate the true diversity of our diocese and the strength those differences offer. I hope you will take some time to look over what we have put together. Now, hopefully someone will feel up to the call. CLICK HERE to see the profile.

Anxiety in the System

Over the last decade many clergy in the Episcopal Church have received training in conflict management and family systems theory. Conflict management is easy enough to understand but family systems theory is a bit more complex. In family systems theory one tries to understand the complex social interactions that happen in communities. For clergy, the hope is that by understanding these complex relationships one can manage conflict, help people relate better to one another, create positive change, and focus the group’s attention on the mission and work of the church.

However, knowing a good bit about conflict management and family systems theory has also given me a very interesting lens through which to see all of the conflict we have in the very large system of our country.  I know so many of us were once again devastated to hear about another act of mass violence, this time in the city of Las Vegas. It seems some horrible natural disaster or violent act is happening just about every week.

For those of us who know family systems theory, we know that all of this constant concern over the dangers of our world creates a great deal of anxiety. This anxiety then becomes present, not only in the system of the United States, but even within our own families and also in the system we know as St. Michael’s. The net result of all this tension in our world can have many different effects. This anxiety can cause people to be irritable, to withdraw, to become defensive, argumentative, and a whole host of other negative things. We then tend to project these attitudes (sometimes unknowingly) into our various relationships causing damage and thus increasing our anxiety.

One of the antidotes we have to all this stress in our lives is to be intentional about taking time for prayer, meditation, and worship. All three of those activities have been proven by many studies to lower anxiety and help us to become healthier people. Unfortunately, instead of doing those things, we often choose the flight or fight response by trying to fight or run from the cause of our stress instead of going quietly to God in prayer and seeking his love, peace, and guidance.

If this sounds all too familiar then I would invite you, in these turbulent times, to shuffle priorities around in your life and make time for regular worship, prayer, and simply being still with God in whatever way feeds your soul. As you experience the difference this makes in your life, I would also invite you to share this with the people around you so they can also experience an increased sense of God’s love and peace. For it is only by engaging and then spreading the source of light and love that we can truly lower the anxiety of our all our systems. In doing so, we help our world to be a safer, healthier, and more loving place to live.

Hurricanes and Theodicy

The images of the devastation Hurricane Harvey has had on the people of Texas have been truly difficult to see. People have been killed, their property destroyed, and their lives ruined. Now, as the flood waters are beginning to recede another hurricane is on the horizon and close friends in Florida are fleeing their homes. Many people have asked where God is in all this. Lately I have read more than one article from a prominent Christian leader asserting that God is doing this to punish America for one thing or another. However, this type of thinking is not only poor theology, it is also damaging to the spread of the Gospel, and a crime against common sense.

When we try to understand these types of mega disasters or even the smaller scale disasters that just impact our own lives and families, we need to remember two things. The first is that we live in a fallen world and are subject to its forces; and the second is the theological construct of Theodicy.

The first one is a bit easier to understand. Simply put, the world we live in is not what God created. As the story goes, God created a beautiful garden where there was no death and loss. However, because of our free will and sin, the world was cursed and now there are things like floods and hurricanes and sickness and death. Through all this however, God is seeking to put the world right. God is doing this all the time. One of the main actions God has taken was sending Jesus to live, die, and rise to new life for us. But nevertheless, we still live in that fallen world and are subject to its fallen reality. Jesus even says that God, “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:45)

This brings us to the concept of Theodicy. The thinking here is that God does not purpose or intend evil. “For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.” (Lamentations 3:33) Rather, all of us act and live within the permissive will of God. That is, God does permit evil and terrible things but he does allow them to happen. However, allowing something to happen is very different that causing or purposing it.

What this means is that God loves us so much that he gives us the free will to love him in return. However, that free will comes with the same price it did way back in the Garden of Eden. That price is the consequence of our actions when we exercise our free will in ways that are harmful to us. After all if we are to be truly free to love and show kindness and humility, we have to be truly free to hate and to do evil. It is the price of our freedom and it means that sometimes people will exercise their free will in ways that we loath. It is why sometimes bad things happen to good people.

The people whose lives have been devastated by Hurricane Harvey and the people whose lives will be devastated by Hurricane Irma, are therefore no more good or bad than anyone else. God loves them as much as he loves any of us. God is also not seeking to punish America for anything; rather God is always working to bring good out of evil. God is always working out his will for us gently and lovingly, respecting our free will and always giving us the chance to love him in return. 

May God’s love and grace therefore be poured out on the people in the path of these storms. When the rain stops and the sky clears may they know they are loved and not despair. May they feel the loving presence of God and know “that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

God the Eclipse

“Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
Does his successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.”

These are the first verses of a hymn written by Sir Isaac Watts. The hymn is a paraphrase of Psalm 72, a psalm which considers the majesty of God and his creation. 

For many people, the eclipse was one of those indescribable moments where we looked to the heavens and realized that in fact the earth does not revolve around us. We understood that we are all part of something much larger than ourselves. In that moment many people began catch a glimpse of God’s majesty. 

For me, this moment was also a time of continuity. I was able to share the moment with my family by joining our children at their school. It reminded me of the eclipse I experienced in elementary school looking through my grandfather’s old welding mask. I wonder if one day my children will stand with their children and experience the same wonder and awe. 

May God’s power and glory always be felt through such magnificence.

Connecting to God in His Creation

“I don’t think it is enough appreciated how much an outdoor book the Bible is. It is a “hypaethral book,” such as Thoreau talked about—a book open to the sky. It is best read and understood outdoors, and the farther outdoors the better. Or that has been my experience of it. Passages that within walls seem improbably or incredible, outdoors seem merely natural. This is because outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread.”  Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry and many other modern authors, poets, philosophers, and theologians have noted how important nature is to our spiritual well-being. I have written about that importance before. CLICK HERE to read it. But today I find myself wanting to reflect on my recent trip to Kanuga in NC. The picture is of my five-year-old daughter taking time to herself in that beautiful place.  The picture is meaningful because it shows that even a small child can understand the benefit of being quiet and still before God in the beauty of His creation. Even a child can feel God’s loving presence and, having separated themselves from the rush of the world, can better understand their place in God’s kingdom.  

It makes me wonder then why we don’t do as Wendell Berry suggests and find more time in our lives to be quiet in nature with scripture and in prayer. Surely this would be edifying for our souls in many ways. Or better yet, how amazing would it be to find ways to come together as small communities in the natural world to be with God, to feel His presence, and to study His word. Perhaps one day we will all realize the need we have to be with God and make these times more of a regular habit than an occasional occurrence. 

Thin Places

It seems that no one knows for certain where the phrase “thin places” comes from but most agree that it is of Celtic origin and most likely from Ireland. The phrase is used to describe those places where the boundary between heaven and earth seems to be thinner than in other places. Therefore when we encounter these thin places we get a powerful sense of inner peace with very little effort on our part.

In my life I have encountered a number of thin places. Near my childhood home there is a lovely waterfall which flows over a cliff to a creek below. Climbing down the rugged cliff face you can feel the humidity increase and the temperature lower. Once you are down next to the water you are in another world. It is a world full of life and stillness and peace. For me, this is a thin place where God seems truly present.

Other thin places I have visited seem to center around holy sites. Some of the great cathedrals of England, or monasteries, or seminary chapels have been thin places to me. In many of these places it has been as though I entered a different world and can truly feel the prayers of those who have sought the presence of God in that place.

Scripture is also ripe with descriptions of thin places. Mount Saini, the Temple in Jerusalem, Peniel, where God wrestled with Jacob are all examples of physical places where God chose to be present more than in other places.

Now don’t get me wrong, I know that God can be present anywhere, and can fill out hearts at any time and in any place. However, I think that for those of us who have felt God’s presence every time we go to a certain place we have a slight glimpse into what it must be like to be in the world beyond ours where our Lord waits with his loving embrace. It is that place where there is no barrier we all long for. Thanks be to God for giving us a glimpse into it in from these places where God’s spirit seems to dwell.