Connecting seemingly disparate ideas

One of the things I most liked about being an undergraduate student was having moments when I was able to make connections among the various classes I was taking.  I remember one semester when I was taking philosophy of art, science and society, Russian history, and Shakespeare--and I had one of those moments.  It seemed like all the courses were pointing me in the same direction and toward a single underlying thought that had to do with metaphor as something much bigger than just a rhetorical device.

I've had a similar experience since I've started divinity school.  I saw multiple connections between my first two classes--most of them had to do with the role of ritual in perceptual shifts and in a spiritual "opening up."  Since I've started making those connections, I tend to see them everywhere.

Yesterday, I attended a work retreat and got to hear a couple of very good speakers.  Barbara Fredrickson, in particular, really had my mind buzzing when she was talking about meditation techniques (especially lovingkindness meditation) that result in a more "positive" outlook and lives that are flourishing.  Meditation, for me, is a ritual--sometimes shared and sometimes not--that clearly leads to perceptual shifts and a general opening up.

Fredrickson mentioned that one of the worst things to do is to tell yourself to just "be positive."  Instead, it's much more effective to strive to be "open, appreciative, curious, kind and real."  That's where it's at, and that's where I hope to keep going.  People who are working on being all those things are much better able to work on problems of all sorts, from personal to global in scale.  And Fredrickson, because she's a research psychologist, has the hard scientific data to prove it.

Paper complete (sort of)

I finished the writing of my final paper for my Contemporary Paganism class and now just need to add footnotes and references.  Everything that I've been writing lately (from my Meadville admissions essay and Sanders Scholarship essay, to class papers and sermons) is about the same thing: engaging with some "other" (whether it is a person, a tree, a rock or a summer breeze) in such a way as to recognize the profound connection between ourselves and that other.

I haven't set out to write the same thing over and over again, but, when the smoke has cleared and the computer keyboard has started to cool off, there it is--some variation of the exact same thing that I've already written about--albeit in a slightly different form.

People say that every minister has just one sermon, and maybe I've already found mine.  We'll see . . .

Arts & Aesthetics Journal excerpt

The Arch that Spans Thought and Expression

Throughout my recent stay in Chicago, I was drawn to the arches (Gothic and otherwise) that I saw around campus and around town.  I see arches as representing one of the class themes that emerged during the week: the role of creative tensions in art and in life.

An arch spans space, connecting one side to the other, while supporting weight that keeps the structure from collapsing.  The tension between opposing sides is a necessary part of any structure, and the arch bridges these seeming opposites while providing space through which light and air and people can pass.


Creative tensions that are bridged by art and art appreciation include:

• Wildness and Purpose
• Stillness and Motion
• Divine and Human
• Intent and Outcome
• Birth and Death
• Mystery and Certainty
• Hunger and Satisfaction
• Known and Unknown
• Love and Fear
• Sin and Faith

Making progress

I finished my journal/scrapbook for my Arts and Aesthetics class and will mail it tomorrow--the last remaining requirement for that class.  I also made some good progress on my final paper for the Contemporary Paganism class--I just need to write a conclusion and then do a bit of editing.  The topic I came up with is "Practical Enchantment: Concepts of Magic in 'Dark Green Religion.'"  Some of it is re-worked from posts on this blog--Yay!

I'll write more about the "Dark Green Religion" book later.

Ever onward . . .

Shared Experience

It's been a bit of a rough landing here in the real world after breathing the rarefied air of divinity school.  So, what was it about my experience at Meadville that made it feel so alive to me?  And what can I do now to make every moment holy?

Here's what I brought (or tried to bring) to the experience in Chicago: an open heart and an open mind, a willingness to do pretty much whatever was asked of me, the expectation that something special might happen, and an immense sense of gratitude for the opportunity.

My classmates, I think, brought pretty much the same thing.

And therein lies the magic.

I wish I could get everyone at work to join hands and do a spiral dance with me.  I wish I could look each person that I encounter each day straight in the eyes and tell them that they have my love and respect (and that they could do the same for me).  I wish that I could trust everyone (and the world) enough to drop my fear of making a fool of myself.  I wish that I could say, "Look at this!" and everyone would look and see what I see.

I wish I could open up like a flower in a field of flowers, full of life and light, but still aware of my own smallness, grounded in the moist, rich darkness of the earth.

Here's how I'll work on getting there: keeping my eyes (and heart and mind) open while prying at every crack that seems to let the light in.

May it be so!

Bricolage

I've run into this word--bricolage--a couple of times in the last few weeks: first in Bron Taylor's "Dark Green Religion," which I read for the Contemporary Paganism class, and then again in a "Sightings" post from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.


Taylor uses the term to describe what he sees as some common themes shared by a number of contemporary earth-centered groups, drawn from various traditions and ideologies.  In his words: "In a bricolage these various ideas and practices are fused together, like a bricklayer or mason piecing together a wall or building with mortar or stone."


In the Sightings post, contributor Benjamin E. Zeller writes about "The Bricolage Religion of LOST and American Religious Culture."  He points out that the television series LOST (which I admit I have not seen) put together various elements from a number of religious traditions to create a unique "mythos" on the island.  Zeller goes on to note that such bricolage is not at all new in American culture.  He describes this tendency as " a continuing proclivity for combinativeness in American religious culture."

It occurs to me that we UUs are bricoleurs par excellence.  We reuse and recycle various elements of different religious traditions to come up with something new and personally relevant.  And I don't think there's any need to apologize or feel bad about that.  If there ever was any such thing as a "pure" religion, untainted by other influences, it has long since turned into something else.


I believe that any contemporary religious movement needs to recognize that there is a multiplicity of religious and ideological notions floating about in the cultural ether and that people will tend to combine those elements that best correspond with their interests and experiences. We do need to be respectful when we engage with other religious traditions, but engagement itself is the key, I think.


Vive le bricolage!


(So, somewhere in there, I hope, is a paper topic.  Hmm . . .)

Magfantabulanimous!

One of my classmates in Arts and Aesthetics gave us a creative writing exercise that involved making up a new word and then using it in a poem (along with two words we chose from two lists we were given).  Here's mine:

This juicy fruit picked from my tree is far more than fantastic,
Plucked from the foliage in my yard, it's really quite majestic.
But, if you think, as I do too, that language should be generous,
It's not just great, or merely good, it's magfantabulanimous!

Collage

These are some of the photos I took in Chicago for my class journal.

Arts and Aesthetics, Day 5: Class Presentations

We each made class presentations today.  They were supposed to involve "the creation of a visual statement, dramatic production or liturgical dance element in worship."  We did a lot of artwork.  The banner I made (at right) is a celebration of the great cycle of life and creation.

For my presentation, I told the story of "Elsie Piddock" who skipped rope in her sleep, and then had everyone create a picture of some place that is sacred to them, as well as something that might guard that place.

Again, I was impressed with everything that my classmates did--what a great bunch.  And again, I was sad to part company with them.  But we shall be together again soon.

All in all, my experience so far at Meadville has been marvelous.  Glory be!

Arts and Aesthetics, Day 4: Visual Art

Today we watched a slide show that featured various depictions of Jesus through the ages and from multiple cultural perspectives.  It was interesting to see how many variations there are, and how many of those depend on the artist's culture and circumstances.

Then we drew, sketched, painted, etc. and shared our creations with the rest of the class.  Everyone did a good job, I think.  I'll try to post my piece on the blog this weekend.

After our art projects, we took a field trip to the Art Institute and did a great exercise that John calls "double-parked at the Louvre."  We scattered for one hour, each looking for one piece of art that really hooked us.  Then we re-grouped and went from piece to piece, with each person explaining why the particular work they chose appealed to them.

It's hard to believe tomorrow's the last day of my stay in Chicago.  We'll do final presentations in class all day, and then I'll be flying back to North Carolina.  It'll be great to be home, but it will be hard to be away from all the wonderful people I've met and experiences that I've had over the past eight days.

Religious Drama

When we talked about religious drama, we were not talking about board members storming out of a heated meeting and renouncing the church.

Rather, we were discussing theater and what makes a drama religious rather than secular.  We discussed Alfred Edyvean's "This Dramatic World: Using Contemporary Drama in the Church."  Edyvean offers an interesting and succinct history of the relationship between the church and theater, and then goes on to name a number of characteristics of religious drama and Christian drama.  John summarized Edyvean's primary points as saying that religious drama explores: Human relationship to the divine, human relationship to the self, and human relationship to society/culture.

In the end, almost any drama can be thought of as a religious drama when viewed through the proper lens. But offering a dramatic presentation in a religious setting certainly does shift the focus and leads the audience to consider the material in a different (and one hopes deeper) way.

We read aloud from T.S. Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral," Neil Simon's "God's Favorite" and Michael Christofer's "The Shadow Box"--three very different plays, but each thought-provoking and beautiful in its own way.  OK, so maybe the Neil Simon play wasn't so beautiful, but it was certainly a very funny re-telling of the Book of Job.

John also offered some helpful pointers about how to present drama in a church setting.

This afternoon we started working on our class presentations, which we'll be giving on Friday.  I'm telling a story I learned from Margot Adler and still have a fair amount of work to do to get it into shape.

I'm very much looking forward to our class field trip to the Chicago Art Insitute tomorrow evening.  Should be fun!

Arts and Aesthetics, Day 2: "Let's ratchet it up!"

We started the day with a lecture from John (the only formal lecture he has planned for this week) on the topic of  Theology and the Arts.  He suggested that religious art has three primary aims: to teach social morality, to engage us in the creative event, and to help us transcend isolation.

I haven't been in divinity school even a whole week yet, but I'm already detecting a pattern.  The three things you're likely to hear about as being "the" three things in any given class can be broken down to the three P's:
1. The prophetic (cf. teaching morality above)
2. The priestly (cf. engaging in the creative event)
3. The pastoral (cf. transcend isolation)

Of course, these three are not just the domain of ordained ministers, but rather are the responsibility of all members of a church community.

I got a triple-shot of the priestly (and priestessly?) aspects over the weekend, but with strong tinges of the other two.  This week, our class is pretty well balanced between the three.

After the lecture and an interesting discussion of Rollo May's "The Courage to Create," today was dramatic improvisation exercise day.  We started with relatively simple exercises (a very nice mirroring excercise, for example) and by the end of the day we were improvising whole scenes with props and character/situation suggestions.  It became a little joke among the students that after each exercise, John would say, "We're going to ratchet it up a little now."

Some of us were wondering how much more ratcheting we could stand, but, in the end, everything was fine.  I was really impressed with the creativity and good nature of every one of my classmates.  And John is a first-rate instructor who really knows his material and does a great job making the exercises relevant to things that we're likely to face in ministry.

Another very good day at Meadville.

Prodigal Son

The final scene in the "Prodigal Son" ballet is the embrace between the father and son.  It's rendered beautifully and very dramatically in Baryshnikov's production.  The father stands stock still as the son crawls up his body.  And then, at the very last moment the father's arms close around the son as he holds him as he would an infant.

As I was watching this scene, I was reminded of Mirolav Volf's "Exclusion and Embrace."  One lengthy section of the book is devoted entirely to a very close reading of the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32).  Volf writes:

"The secret of the son's transformation is the same as the secret of his unconditional acceptance: the father would not let his son--the 'lost' and 'dead' son--out of his heart's embrace . . . Relationship is prior to moral rules; moral performance may do something to the relationship, but relationship is not grounded in moral performance. Hence the will to embrace is independent of the quality of behavior . . ."

Class photo

Thanks to classmate Tisha Moore, here's a group shot of a number of us from the class with Margot Adler:

Poem Inspired by Andy Goldsworthy

Winding Turning Liquefying Resolidifying
(Nothing winds like a river)
A vision that stops and starts
And picks up again where it left off.

Testing limits
And failing
And trying again.

Connecting what's natural to what's
Natural within
Finding the visual pulse
That centers
Finding the shape that connects.

Winding and unwinding
Like a river
Like the mind
Like nothing you've ever seen before
Unless you've looked the right way
Unless you've gone to the right place
Unless you've done the work
And then left it alone
And then come back to it.

Is it a vision of impermanence
Or a statement about the permanent within the transient?

Motion and stillness together
In one place.
In many places.
In every place.

Arts and Aesthetics in Ministry: Day One

Excellent first day in John Tolley's Arts and Aesthetics class.  He reminded us that people can be divided into those who primarily learn visually, kinesthetically and auditorily.  In most of our churches, we give the the people a lot of talk, but not much else.  So, the point of this course, is to learn ways to keep the attention of those who are more inclined to take in information through sight and motion.

We saw a great film, "Rivers and Tides" about the work of Andy Goldsworthy.  He's an amazing and absolutely unique artist.  A clip of the film can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5qrE_rBrJQ.

Also, John and two members of the class did a reading of a scene from Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Aria da Capo," and we watched a dance version of "Prodigal Son" performed by Mikhail Baryshnikov and his company.

The idea was to expose us to three different artistic modes and notice which ways we leaned in terms of our own learning style.  It was an interesting and effective exercise.  John Tolley himself leans toward the visual and is an avid and very involved theater person.  I like his teaching style and the ideas he's trying to convey in the class.

I'll write more about Goldsworthy and the "Prodigal Son" later.

Finding a Place Where You Belong

I am so thrilled finally to have found a place where I really and truly feel like I belong.  Intellectually, I knew that I belonged here, but now I am really feeling it.  I was worried that the Contemporary Paganism class might be a weird introduction to divinity school, but it was wonderful.  I love and respect everyone that was in this class, and, as I have noted elsewhere, Margot Adler is fabulous.  I always thought she would be an interesting person, based on her NPR reporting, but she's more than I expected in very many ways.

One of our most interesting discussions today centered on the differences between "historic truth" and "narrative truth."  Several historians have noted (quite justifiably) that some of the contemporary Pagans play a bit fast and loose with the facts, especially about how the movement came into being and whether or not it can really trace its roots back to the dawn of time, as some claim.  On the other hand, literal truth has less importance in the realm of myth and ritual.  There's a tension between the two, but it is possible to have one foot in each world--or maybe to hop back and forth with both feet from one world to the other.

Anyway, I am happy and looking forward to my Arts and Aesthetics in Ministry class, which starts tomorrow.  I'll close with one of the (many) chants we did in class.  This one's dedicated to my classmates.

Listen, listen, listen to my heart's song.
Listen, listen, listen to my heart's song.

I will never forget you, I will never forsake you.
I will never forget you, I will never forsake you . .

My new room and suite

I've moved to McCormick House, which is a much newer, more modern dorm with air conditioning (!) and a number of other creature comforts.  Pictures below:

Re-Enchantment and Recovering Ritual

A very large part of what happens in the world and in our lives defies explanation. From a scientific point of view, this dearth of explanations probably just means that there are more discoveries to be made (and more science that needs to be done to undergird these discoveries and point to new explanations).

Another view (not necessarily in conflict with the scientific view) is that, in fact, there will always be some things that are not fully explained--the source and exact nature of consciousness, for example. So what do we do with the unexplained phenomena?

My vote is to learn to live with them. Getting curious about them, exploring them, trying to make generalizations about them are all fine, but there's some point at which I must acknowledge that I have to let the mystery be. Acknowledge that some problems are currently insoluble, but know that there are things we can do and ways that we can effect change.

I'm suggesting that which some call magic is mostly a result of a certain attitude toward the unknown, including what will happen next in our lives. We can shape the direction of our lives, but we have little control over the outcome. So, why not re-enchant the universe?

Whatever I can do to manifest change in the world really is magic to me. What can one "human merely being" do to make a difference about anything? But there are ways of working that often lead to better results.

When I was re-doing our kitchen floor, I came to a point where I was stuck and just not getting anything done. I was trying to remove two layers of linoleum and plywood that had been nailed to the underlying hardwood floor (who would do such a thing?). I was trying all the tools on hand, working around the edges doggedly but without many results.

So I asked my friend Ed, who is an expert in getting things done, if there was any trick that I should try. He answered me simply: "Sometimes you just can't take 'no' for an answer."

At first, I thought he was just referring the use of brute force, which, I found, did get some results but at the cost of a certain amount of needless destruction. But then I gradually learned, over the course of an hour or so, that there are ways of not taking "no" for an answer that involve a certain amount of coaxing and a certain amount of finesse, combined with a positive vision of the outcome, that resulted in my being able to complete the job in fairly short order.

In effect, I learned not to take my own "no" that I was giving to myself, and really work with what was before me, rather than against it.

Among other things, ritual connects us with mystery and the unknown on the one hand, and with our own ability to perform practical magic on the other hand. There are a million such small acts of magic accomplished each day when our eyes are opened to it. May we all awaken with the "eyes of our eyes" opened!

Margot Adler is a Pagan Rock Star

After day two of Margot Adler's course on Contemporary Paganism, I can make a couple of observations:

1. Paganism, in its contemporary form, is about as intellectually/spiritually diverse a religion as can be found. A multiplicity of ideas, ideals and deities permeates the movement. The large umbrella groups that have become dominant in the Pagan world serve as a means for these diverse groups (and solitary individuals) to gather together (at festivals or online) and feel that they are part of a larger community. The future of the movement will depend on the success of its leaders in maintaining some sense of cohesiveness without employing the strong hand of authoritarianism that is anathema to all Pagans.

2. Margot Adler must know 5,000 chants, and, with even the slightest bit of encouragement, will energetically, enthusiastically and soulfully (!) sing them for you. She's a great teacher, too. Her energy is amazing. And, like all the best people in the world she is as compassionate as she is intelligent. She's discouraged about the future of the country and the world, but her energy defies discouragement. Let the spiral dance continue!

Photos of my room at the Disciples Divinity House.