Lenten Journey 6: ‘Look into it.’ And, ‘Wonder.’

March 17, 2013 by

This entry is part 5 of 8 in the series Lenten Journeys

FOR LENT 2013, ReadTheSpirit has two offerings for you:

1.) DAVID CRUMM’S ‘Our Lent’ Thousands of readers have enjoyed the day-by-day book of inspiring stories, Our Lent: Things We Carry.

2.) LENTEN JOURNEY The Rev. Dr. Benjamin Pratt, author of Ian Fleming’s Seven Deadlier Sins & Guide for Caregivers is publishing a new Lenten series:
Part 1: Introduction and ‘Deep Calls to Deep’
Part 2: ‘Rituals & Practices (and Flowing Water)’
Part 3: Surprised? Or, is this an invitation to a blessing?
Part 4: Legacy of imperfection and grace.
Part 5: In death … is life.

6: Intimate Departures—
‘Look into it.’ And, ‘Wonder.’

“When Pilate learned from the centurion that Jesus was dead, he granted the body to Joseph (of Arimathea). Then Joseph brought a linen cloth, and taking down the body, wrapped it in the cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock.”
Mark 15: 45-6

By the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Pratt

Photograph by David Crumm.I HELPED TO DRESS my father and mother—and place them in their caskets. It was an intimate and sacred way to express my gratitude to them for their gift of life and their care of me. It was also an aide in my grief journey with each parent.

My mother died at age 63 in 1980 from a stroke following hip surgery. My last act while she was conscious was feeding her. The funeral director was more resistant to my request to participate in the burial preparation than my brother. When we arrived to assist in the process, her body was in a private viewing parlor resting on a gurney. She was respectfully clad in undergarments and a full-length slip. Our task was to assist in dressing her in a skirt, blouse and jewelry. It was a tender and emotional time for me as I thought about how she had nurtured me into life, fed, clothed and bathed me; laughed with and cried with me. Numerous memories, painful and joyful, filtered through my mind and heart. My brother and I worked quietly, sharing brief images, and then lifted her gently into her casket.

A similar process was repeated five years later with my father. Again, one of my last memories was feeding him before he slipped away. At the funeral home it was different. The director said that he had honored many requests to assist in the preparation of a body for a funeral, especially among parents who had lost children and infants. They knew how important the intimacy of departure can be when saying goodbye.

For my father, the deed was not done in the fancy parlor. We were escorted directly to the staff’s preparation workroom. Our father, wearing only boxer shorts, was laid out on a stainless steel worktable. As we dressed him my mind flashed through a kaleidoscope of scenes from life with him. Again, my brother and I worked quietly and carefully we placed him in his casket.

What led me to risk this behavior was observing some Roman Catholic brothers prepare the body of one of their own to bury him. It felt so right, so respectful, and so sacred. I wanted to extend the same to my beloved. Dying and death are part of our lives. To extend our caregiving to our deceased by participating more intimately in their departure is a sacred gift that walks with our beloved on their journey to eternity.

Most of us have moved away from the intimacy of our grief and turned the process of care and burial over to professionals. Perhaps we need to reconsider the emotional and spiritual price we pay for that exchange. Robert Frost exposes the painful aloneness of parents who bury a child in “Home Burial.” The father who had dug his child’s grave pleads with his wife: “Let me into your grief.”

Once again, some people are initiating home funerals as a way of assisting their grief process and making the life/death experience more intimate. Conversations are beginning to take place in Death Cafés, perhaps an off-putting name but certainly an idea that has enticed many to engage in conversations about end of life issues across our nation. These venues date to 2004, when sociologist Bernard Crettaz began hosting such cafés in Switzerland. Generally coordinated by hospice workers, these cafés have been spawned from California to Maine.

Not long ago, I was deeply moved when I attended a showing of the tender, respectful Japanese film, Departures, which tells the story of a cellist who loses his job when an orchestra disbands. He retreats to his hometown and winds up taking a job as an undertaker, performing the elaborate preparations of bodies after death. At first, his family is horrified. Later—well, watch the film unfold and you will appreciate the stirring conclusion.

Many cultures around the world follow such intimate traditions to this day. In American Muslim communities, among the men and women who attend prayers at each mosque there often are a handful trained in the sacred preparation of the dead for the simplicity of Muslim burial. This places an extra reminder in the gathering of a Muslim community: Someone praying next to you, shoulder to shoulder, may be the person who one day will bathe and wrap your lifeless body.

These are wonderments—profound, ancient stirrings of our faith—that we have tried so hard to hermetically seal away. America’s most famous undertaker, poet and essayist Thomas Lynch, won the American Book Award for The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade. He argues that our desire for up-beat memorial services, often with the loved one invisibly reduced to an attractive little container of ashes, rob us of one of life’s deepest spiritual truths.

In the final pages of his book, Lynch writes: “You should see it till the very end. Avoid the temptation of tidy leavetaking in a room, a cemetery chapel, at the foot of the altar. None of that. Don’t dodge it because of the weather. We’ve fished and watched football in worse conditions. It won’t take long. Go to the hole in the ground. Stand over it. Look into it. Wonder. And be cold. But stay until it’s over. Until it is done.”

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Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

This column also has been published at the website for the Day1 radio network.

Why read Peter Rollins? He preaches a survivor’s faith.

March 10, 2013 by

CLICK THE COVER to visit the book’s Amazon page.THIS IS AN INTRODUCTION to Peter Rollins’ work, reported by ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm.
You’ll also want to read: David Crumm’s new interview with Peter Rollins.

PETER ROLLINS isn’t preaching your Mom’s Christianity. Nor is he preaching a version of the faith that you’re likely to find in most American congregations. It’s not that he denies the sacred core of Jesus’s teachings—on the contrary, he vigorously defends what he sees as the core of the Christian faith. Rather, Peter Rollins is attacking Christianity as expressed in organized religion, typical church structures and even in the creeds and liturgies used by 2 billion Christians today. He brings many of his central ideas together in his newest book: The Idolatry of God: Breaking Our Addiction to Certainty and Satisfaction.

USING THE “I” WORD: Like an Old Testament prophet railing against the prevailing powers, Rollins calls the existing structures of Christianity: idols. He argues these idols have been set up to fulfill the wishes of needy churchgoers. Peter compares the goals of most contemporary Christian preachers to parents telling their children stories about Santa Claus. In some cases, Peter uses even nastier metaphors to describe the selling of Christianity as wish fulfillment—see our interview with Peter for more on that.

REACHING FOR THE CLOROX: Among the many prophetic teachers trying to scrub down Christianity today—including Brian McLaren,  Anne Lamott, Marcus Borg, Barbara Brown Taylor and Richard Rohr—Peter Rollins is the equivalent of reaching for a jug of Clorox bleach. Others hope to cleanse and polish. Rollins wants to start by wiping away the whole structure of what passes for organized religion.

4 Reasons to Read Peter Rollins

Why would anyone read a book by such a radical prophet? (Peter proudly calls himself a “radical” and fully recognizes the extreme nature of his message.)

Peter Rollins Prepares Us for Times When All Else Crumbles

Peter takes what other reformers are preaching in a softer form, then pushes those ideas to their logical conclusion. Want to see how Christianity might survive and thrive even in a post-apocalyptic world in which our major social and political institutions crumble? Peter is writing that theology today. He is not inviting global catastrophe, but he is writing about how people of faith can keep living and working and finding satisfaction—no matter what tragedies and doubts assail us. One of his models is Mother Teresa, who confessed her own sense of God’s silence—even as she continued her work among the poor.

From Peter Rollins’ 2011 Insurrection, in a passage about Mother Teresa: Her strength is not staggering because she was able to banish all her doubts, but rather because she was able to acknowledge them without entering into some nihilistic prison. In her utter devotion to bringing life, protecting life, and enriching life, she utterly lost herself. And in losing herself she found joy, peace, happiness and life.

Peter Rollins Calls the Truly Alienated Home

Peter speaks to many who are completely alienated from faith. For example, ReadTheSpirit has long recommended the work of Jay Bakker, the radical American preacher who is the son of disgraced televangelists. When you read about—or watch TV documentaries about—small groups of Christians gathering in a Jay Bakker style of congregation, then you’re glimpsing what Peter Rollins is teaching. Peter isn’t preaching a church-growth message about luring seekers into worship. Peter is writing about embracing truly wounded men and women who are offended by church.

From Peter Rollins’ new The Idolatry of God: My primary inspiration for writing the book came as a direct result of sharing the ideas with some people who would not describe themselves as theistic or religious. They had not known that there was such a thing as a faith that genuinely embraced unknowing, celebrated difference and encouraged a direct embrace of life.

Peter Rollins Welcomes Downsizing

Rollins is not alone in preaching the spiritual wisdom of downsizing. Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove coordinate a nationwide network of small Christian communities that see their grassroots communities as the future of the faith in troubled times. Rollins is writing about how to begin connecting circles of spiritually seeking men and women even before these full-fledged communities form.

From Peter Rollins’ new The Idolatry of God: I am arguing for collectives … where the liturgical structure does not treat God as a product that would make us whole but as the mystery that enables us to live abundantly in the midst of life’s difficulties.

Peter Rollins Preaches a Survivor’s Faith

CLICK THE COVER to visit the Amazon page.Contemporary Christianity works well for millions of Americans because America is a successful nation. One reason that Buddhism meshes well with impoverished Asian cultures is that Buddhism’s central teachings urge people to quit striving after human desires and focus, instead, on right living that compassionately helps others and awakens a deeper appreciation of the world as we find it. Buddhism begins by taking into account that life will involve a great deal of suffering—something most American preachers are hesitant to proclaim. Rollins starts with that deep spiritual truth and preaches a Christian hope that, even in the midst of suffering, we can appreciate each other, we can express our compassion and we can appreciate the sacred wonders of the world around us. This survivor’s faith welcomes doubt. This survivor’s faith frees us from striving after typical symbols of success. This is a Christian message that finds hope and a way forward, even as tragedies befall us.

From Peter Rollins’ 2011 Insurrection: To Believe Is Human To Doubt, Divine: Traditional Western fairy tales, as mythological expressions of our values, are often concerned with poor people becoming wealthy, powerless people becoming powerful, or single people finding a suitable marriage partner. This is very different from cultures that have stories of the rich renouncing their wealth, the powerful becoming weak, and lovers letting their beloved go. … Just as this is true of a society’s fairy tales, so it is true of our personal ideals, political dreams and religious imaginings. Our ideas of what a fulfilled life would look like, how a just society would operate, or how an authentic faith could be expressed are all too often uncritically reflective of the dominant underlying political and theological ideas that we imbibed as infants. The truly revolutionary move, then, does not lie in attempting to fulfill our dreams but in putting ourselves into a situation in which we are able to dream new ones.

PRAISE FOR PETER ROLLINS

Depending on who you already are following for edgy writing about the future of Christianity, most of those authors also read Peter Rollins’ books …

Brian McLaren on How (Not) to Speak of God (2006): “Reading this book did good for my mind and for my soul. … In fact, I would say this is one of the two or three most rewarding books on theology I have read in ten years.”

Rob Bell on Insurrection: To Believe Is Human To Doubt, Divine (2011): “Pete takes you to the edge of a cliff. And just when most writers would pull you back, he pushes you off. But after your initial panic, you realize that your fall is a form of flying. And it’s thrilling.”

Tony Jones on the newest, The Idolatry of God: Breaking Our Addiction to Certainty and Satisfaction: “Let the reader, the Christian, the skeptic beware, for with The Idolatry of God, Peter Rollins has taken his theological programme of turning everything we believe upside down to the next level. Not content to simply subvert how we believe, Rollins now turns his attention to what we believe.”

You’ll also want to read: David Crumm’s new interview with Peter Rollins this week.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Lenton Journey 4: Legacy of Imperfection and Grace

March 3, 2013 by

This entry is part 3 of 8 in the series Lenten Journeys

FOR LENT 2013, ReadTheSpirit has two offerings for you:

1.) DAVID CRUMM’S ‘Our Lent’ Thousands of readers have enjoyed the day-by-day book of inspiring stories, Our Lent: Things We Carry.

2.) LENTEN JOURNEY The Rev. Dr. Benjamin Pratt, author of Ian Fleming’s Seven Deadlier Sins & Guide for Caregivers is publishing a new Lenten series:
Part 1: Introduction and ‘Deep Calls to Deep’
Part 2: ‘Rituals & Practices (and Flowing Water)’
Part 3: Surprised? Or, is this an invitation to a blessing?

4: You can sense it in the wood—
Imperfection and Grace

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 5:48

By the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Pratt

MY FATHER DIED IN MAY 1985. Within a month of his death I announced to my wife that I wanted to learn fine woodworking. My father had worked with his hands as an auto mechanic, but he had never worked in wood. I was puzzled. Death often confronts us with the anxious tension of despair and creativity. A month later, I met a surrogate father. Howard, an artist with wood, spent every morning in his woodshop and every afternoon reading Scientific American. He also was a jokester: The first thing he said as I entered his shop was that we needed to get a bucket of water—for my fingers when I cut them off.

Howard had served as a squadron commander in the South Pacific during WWII; he was a head of research in the U.S. Navy after the war. He built, flew—and crashed—his own plane; he survived with a broken leg. He built his house; crafted ninety classic period pieces of walnut and cherry over decades. The last years of his life he went twice a day to be with his wife whom he had lost to Alzheimer’s. Among his many life legacies were ones that blessed me—his presence as a caregiver and an artist with wood.

I still have all my fingers, and I always chuckle with gratitude as I turn on the saw. I’m more cautious around power tools than computers. They both scare me. When I enter my small shop I always think of my friend—I miss the ornery ol’ curmudgeon. I see and feel his skill, his talent, his life in my own hands as I choose planks of wood to “glue up” for the sides, bottom or lid of a chest. The perfume of each plank is unique to my nose: walnut is sweet; cedar is spicy. I caress the planks and align the grains of the wood, seeking to put their best face forward. It is a slow, intimate fondling of the wood, arranging and realigning, to achieve the best possible assembly. Then Howard’s words remind me, “You are not building a watch.”

I can’t make it perfect, but I still measure twice and cut once. Ah, the joinery—dovetails, foxtails, mortise and tenon—numerous hours of patience with routers and chisels—fitting and refitting. My grandchildren ask, “How many hours did it take you to build this, PopPop?”

“Oh, it only took all the hours necessary to make it beautiful enough for you.”

When is it ever finished? When it is good enough! There are always blemishes, slight seam gaps, chips and imperfections that remain—much like the imperfections of this woodworker. And yet, these boxes are not only storage. They are warm, solid, visually inviting gifts of hope, crafted with patience from flawed wood by a flawed man.

When finished, they call out for a hand to skim across the smooth surface that was once rough-cut lumber. Perhaps, one day, in a pensive mood, my grandchildren will let their hands glide slowly across the surface and, for a moment, their hands and hearts will pick up the flawed spirits that came before and shaped their lives.

Now, like my mentor in wood, I have become a caregiver as well. I have cared for my wife, sometimes more or less intensively, over the past nine years. I now understand more about my caregiver’s lessons—how he held the anxious, daily tension between despair and creativity. Almost every day in my life, creativity wins the struggle. Usually, my projects involve a promise of legacy for our grandchildren.

When my two older granddaughters turned ‘sweet sixteen’, I gave them each hand-crafted jewelry chests. When they graduated from high school I presented them with walnut and cedar hope chests, their monograms inlaid. My hands are not as steady now, my eyes not as discerning, so I have already begun crafting gifts for the younger grandchildren who will graduate five and seven years hence.

I am facing my mortality. But, God willing, I shall pass on gifts to them, as well.

And here is the greatest lesson I have learned: These gifts cannot be perfect. They are gifts of love, patience, persistence, devotion, practical beauty and intimate creativity. Fine woodworking always has imperfections if we look closely enough. And such is life.

Perfect is beyond my imagination, at least in this life. So, I practice a spirituality of imperfection, working to be as creative as possible under a blanket of loving grace.

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Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

This column also has been posted via the website for the Day1 radio network.

Richard Rohr: Anam Cara, soul friend, to thousands

January 27, 2013 by

In this photo, Richard talks with a group in person. However, he speaks to far larger crowds via daily digital messages.RICHARD ROHR greets thousands of friends via his Daily Meditations. Visit his Center for Action and Contemplation website and you can join those friends via the Daily Meditations sign-up box—on the right-hand side of the webpage. To convey the importance of this aspect of his ministry, ReadTheSpirit invited the Rev. John Emmert, a semi-retired Episcopal priest from Pennsylvania to describe what these short messages from Richard represent in his life. John follows his own discipline of prayer, meets regularly with friends and colleagues to talk about faith and occasionally serves in local parishes. Richard’s notes have made a difference in all of those phases of John’s life. Here’s how …

Small Differences:
Thanking Richard Rohr

BY THE REV. JOHN EMMERT

ALTHOUGH RICHARD ROHR is a prolific writer, I must admit I have never read one of his books. I know him only through his daily messages from his Center for Contemplation and Action. I no longer remember exactly who brought these daily gems of inspiration to my attention, but they have become anticipated touchstones of theology and thoughtfulness that I would miss more than my morning coffee.

They are short—never more than a paragraph or two: an idea, a reminder of a Christian season or celebration, a reflection on a sentence or two of scripture, development of a weekly theme. A few words that set a tone or raise an issue—personal, ecclesiastical, vocational, life-style—that more often than not lead to small changes of thinking and living. The impact of his wisdom accumulates quite significantly. I cannot count the number of times these inspirational pieces “coincidentally” touch a theme I am pondering with a friend or colleague, and influence our discussion, a decision and an action.

They are pithy, but practical. I’ve tried to think of a general descriptor, but none is quite adequate: “Where-the-rubber-meets-the-road” theology? A coincidence of exegesis and praxis? Where heart-mind-body-and spirit/Spirit touch? Where presence and Presence animate one another?

They are Catholic, in the very best sense of that word (as we use it in the creeds). They are also beyond Catholic. They reach for the Mystery that all religious language and experience aspires to touch, yet never quite adequately does—except that not to have tried would be so much the worse.

They are “old”—vintage, richly aged and time-tested truths. But “new” and fresh and re-born, with a twist or side-ways glance, that either opens my eyes (or narrows them), as I try to see more clearly, more deeply yet again.

CLICK THE IMAGE to visit the website for Richard’s Center.Sometimes they are visual, as the picture of a “Young Madonna” to illustrate “Mary, the Prepared One.” The Daily Meditations used that striking photo of a young Mexican girl each day for a week in Advent. I pulled it up on my I-pad, and passed it around the congregation as we contemplated the image of a teen-age Mary, offering herself as Theotokos.

I have tried to find a niche for Richard—a person I’ve never met, who yet now occupies a place of Anam Cara, soul friend, in my life. I think he reminds me of Merton, even more Nouwen. I recall another Advent piece on “Learning to Receive” in which Richard remarked on Mary’s “fertility and fruitfulness” in contrast to our culture’s productiveness, a theme I first heard many years ago from Nouwen. So, Gordon Cosby, Madeline L’Engle, Elizabeth O’Connor, Eugene Peterson, Jim Wallis, Steven Charleston—name your own roster of speakers and livers of Truth and Wisdom. So, thanks be for such Grace-bearers and sharers; Richard is now included in my list.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Peacemakers’ Prayer: Angel in the Dump

January 13, 2013 by

PROFILES OF PEACEMAKERS around the world are featured in one of our most popular ReadTheSpirit Books: Blessed Are the Peacemakers, by the Rev. Daniel Buttry. This theme is so important that it inspires all of our authors, including the Rev. Benjamin Pratt, the author of our Guide for Caregivers who right now is helping caregivers coast to coast in redrawing their stressed-out calendars. (Here is this week’s Part 2 in his Caregivers Calendar series.) Changing seasons—that may be why Benjamin sent us this additional prayerful meditation—sparked by a spiritual convergence of seasons in this recent warm snap.
If you’re moved by the following, you’re free to share it with others …

Angel in the Dump

By the Rev. Benjamin Pratt

Any home gardener knows that an unseasonable warm snap in January will wreak havoc on perennials and spring bulbs. So, I put “Mulch the Beds” on my To Do list and drove to the dump, the best source of fresh mulch in our area. It’s also, in mid January, a green-and-brown monument to the Christmas just past. I am not Catholic, nor was my grandmother, although she always insisted that she once saw the Virgin Mary appear at the foot of her bed. So, I must have a special spiritual eye for glimpses of …
Well, here is a poem I wrote when I returned home after a remarkable, grace-filled moment in that vast dump site.

Like children,
Snowdrops, daffodils and crocuses
Need protection from
January warmth that betrays
A bitter cold to come.
Day after warm day, the sun seduces their
Green tendrils to grow taller.

A trip to the dump for mulch to blanket
These naïve thrivers reaps a surprise.
Christmas trees that recently displayed the
Joyous lights celebrating the Nativity
Now are piled like matchsticks awaiting the grinder.
They have no memory of the joy they pretended
Nor the innocence they invoked.

A bright color imbedded in crushed branches lured me to one tree.
Tucked amidst still-fragrant boughs—
Green paper cone scotch-taped for body,
Red rough-cut wings,
White circle for a face—
A handcrafted angel.

And deeper I peered, the crayon words:
Angle Mary protekt us from guns.

A child’s prayer discarded with this tree.
Maybe by mistake?
Snagged in the branches as they went.
Now, an Angel in the Dump,
A plea for all the innocents
Whom we discard from our memories,
From our prayers
So quickly.

I replaced the boughs around her.
Tucked her in.

Echoed the prayer:
Protekt us all from guns.

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If these ideas resonate in your life, we invite you to share it with others. Simply credit:
By Dr. Benjamin Pratt and …
Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

This article also has been posted into Dr. Pratt’s column at the website for the Day1 radio network.

A Prayer for Light in Dark Times of Accidie

December 30, 2012 by

CLICK THE BOOK COVER to learn more about Fleming’s spiritual themes in the James Bond novels, including much more about the challenge of accidie.AS THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE passes through the darkest season, pastoral counselor and author Dr. Benjamin Pratt shares a prayer that helps us take a first tentative step from accidie. That may sound like a strange new term, but it is a classic part of Christian teaching on the so-called 7 Deady Sins.

In addition to his current work helping caregivers nationwide—Dr. Pratt is a scholar of Ian Fleming’s literary works. Most of the Hollywood 007 blockbusters skip over the theme of accidie. But, Fleming wrote the original Bond novels to explore what he argued were the deadliest sins of our modern age. If this is news to you, then you will enjoy Dr. Pratt’s Ian Fleming’s Seven Deadlier Sins & 007’s Moral Compass.

Dr. Pratt explains:

This prayer reflects the nature of one of the original 7 Deadly Sins, accidie, which was translated in the Middle Ages as sloth or torpor. This is a spiritual condition and is distinctly different from depression. In accidie, we loose all energy for engaging the world. The needs, the goals and even the good and the evil around us do not matter enough to inspire any action.

In the Ian Fleming novels, James Bond often struggles with this sin. It was the word accidie that first drew me to serious study of these novels and the life of their creator. The word accidie appears in eleven of the fourteen Bond tales and is central to understanding James Bond—as well as the dangerous powers of the most evil demons 007 pursues. When I first encountered accidie in the Bond tales, I did not know it was one of the original 7 Deadly Sins. I had not yet discovered Ian Fleming’s long-time fascination with these themes as both a journalist and a novelist. I do know that accidie has been the most insidious sin in my own life and I agree with Fleming: Accidie is one of the most insidious sins in our world today.

If these ideas resonate in your life, we invite you to use this prayer. You are free to share it with others, as well. Simply credit Dr. Benjamin Pratt and readthespirit.com as the source.

Prayer for Light
in Dark Times
of Accidie

By Dr. Benjamin Pratt

Create in me a clean heart, O God;
And renew a right spirit within me.
I lament;
I resent;
I feel powerless now;
I can’t see a point, a direction, a purpose in my life.
I’ve lost my passionate spirit.
I‘ve lost my energy to struggle forward.
I’m living each day, but my heart is dry, tepid—
like a saucer of milk in the noonday sun.

Create in me a clean heart, O God;
And renew a right spirit within me.
I know what my life should feel like.
I’ve lived hard, worked hard, loved hard,
And I once believed hard, too. My faith was a rock.
I’ve thrown myself into my work, my relationships, my community.
Once, I knew I was making a difference in the world.
But, now I’m adrift without a compass.

Create in me a clean heart, O God;
And renew a right spirit within me.
I know there are countless issues crying for my energies.
I am surrounded by pressing needs, by loving people
But I’ve lost my heart for any of it.
I crawl out of bed each day and meet the day,
But my spirit, O God—my spirit feels broken.
I’m empty.

Create in me a clean heart, O God;
And renew a right spirit within me.
I’m yearning for the light of a new day.
I long for the old courage, the old calling.
Now, I’m taking this step in prayer;
I’m calling out humbly for just a taste of purpose and passion—
a ray of light in these dark times.
Fill me, O Lord, with the hope of joy—the joy of hope.

Create in me a clean heart, O God;
And renew a right spirit within me.

Amen

By Dr. Benjamin Pratt and …
Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

This article also has been posted into Dr. Pratt’s column at the website for the Day1 radio network.

Welcoming churches: Greeting Nones and Jedi knights

December 16, 2012 by

Costumed Star Wars fans in a public park. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.AMERICANS HAVE ALWAYS LOOKED TO GREAT BRITAIN for religious inspiration. Sure, millions of us also look to Rome, Jerusalem, Mecca and regions of Asia. But Britain shaped American culture from early pilgrims through the era of John Wesley, whose Methodist forces built the nation’s largest religious group prior to the Civil War. Later, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and the Inklings took America by storm. In fact, Tolkien’s The Hobbit is predicted, now, to set a new world’s record for opening-weekend boxoffice receipts. Even “our” American Shakers, beloved for their furniture and music, were founded by Manchester-native Ann Lee. And that’s not even mentioning the huge influence of Anglicans like N.T. Wright and Desmond Tutu.

There’s so much to this British spiritual invasion! New Year’s Day marks the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation—which Steven Spielberg’s new movie rests proudly on the 16th president’s shoulders. But it was Bitish abolitionists in the 1700s, such as the visionary political activist Thomas Clarkson, who pioneered the course for eliminating slavery. (For more, read our story on the Lincoln-150 milestones about to sweep across the country in 2013.)

NEXT, from the sublime to the ridiculous … here is fresh news from Britain …

BRITISH SPIRITUAL INVASION:
JEDI KNIGHTS ARE COMING! (OR ARE THEY?)

A Star Wars fan in Brazil appears as Obi-Wan Kenobi.As silly as this next news item may sound, there is vital news here for anyone who cares about a congregation. In Part 1 of our coverage of Henry Brinton’s new book, The Welcoming Congregation, we reported on the need for congregations to seriously embrace biblical mandates for welcoming strangers. Henry talked more about this in Part 2 of our series. Still, most readers leap to the conclusion that welcoming strangers is a matter of good manners, handshakes and big smiles.

But there’s more: The “strangers” who walk into houses of worship these days may be stranger than ever: like the Jedi knights, inspired by the Star Wars saga. News this week out of Great Britain is that—in a newly released census of religious affiliations—Jedi once again rank as one of the UK’s largest minority religions. Ten years ago, the Jedi shocked British Christians—who still make up two thirds of the island nation’s population—by suddenly appearing in the census totals with 400,000 Jedi adherents. The knights claimed a higher ranking on the list of UK religions than Jewish, Sikh or Buddhist Brits.

Ten years have passed. Now, eager to see how the Jedi would fare in the latest report on religious affiliation, British newspapers were poised to file stories about this Star Wars-inspired spiritual movement. This time, far fewer Brits entered “Jedi” as their faith. The new census of Jedi adherents is down to just under 180,000. That still ranks Jedis among the largest religious minorities in the UK, but safely moves Jews, Sikhs and Buddhists higher on the list.

Are the Jedi seriously a religious group? If you Google British newspaper reports, some of the leading papers on Fleet Street are reporting typically dead-pan stories on the current state of the Jedi faith—but clearly a good number of these reporters are writing with tongues in their cheeks. To American eyes, a few of these stories might suggest there actually are Jedi congregations holding services. In fact, the whole Jedi campaign was started by British humanist groups a decade ago to protest the fact that an official government census question was continuing to ask about citizens’ religious preferences. A nationwide campaign was launched to take an amusing swipe at the census by entering “Jedi.” British census-takers say the trend caught on especially among young adults.

Is there actually a Jedi faith? Like almost everything in the religious realm—yes, inded, there are people around the world who claim to follow a Jedi creed. One group uses this prayer-like affirmation: “Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force.” Other Jedi adherents use other creeds. Mostly, however, occasional news stories about people who claim to follow the Jedi faith involve brushes with civil authorities. Every couple of years, a fully costumed Jedi gets into a scuffle in some UK business when the Jedi refuses to remove a hood or mask. A search of several journalism databases, this week, shows no recent coverage of actual Jedi ceremonies in any actual Jedi temples around the world.

If it’s so silly, then why does it matter? It matters because the Jedi protest—and the ongoing debate surrounding it in the UK—is a sign of just how outspoken religious skeptics have become in defending their right to be skeptics. Now across the UK, humanist, agnostic and atheist organizations are arguing that it was a mistake to encourage the Jedi protest ten years ago. These days, the consensus of UK skeptics seems to be: Instead of poking fun, they should urge people to freely stand up and identify themselves with whatever response to organized religion they may have.

On this side of the Atlantic, we may not have Jedi … but we have the rise of the Nones …

AMERICAN RELIGIOUS TRENDS:
RISE OF THE NONES AND THE QUEST FOR SPIRITUAL FREEDOM

CLICK this Pew chart to visit Pew’s website and find our more about this report.ReadTheSpirit has published interviews with dozens of leading experts on American religious life, including Harvey Cox and Kenda Creasy Dean and Diana Butler Bass, all arguing that religious leaders need to adapt to dramatic changes in the American mindset about religion. Since the beginning of human history, religion always has involved both a call to accept revealed traditions—and a desire to to engage in spiritual quests. These two strands (revelation and quest) form the DNA of what we call “religion.” In the current era of American culture, however, that passion for individual spiritual quests is dominant. Americans have strong opinions and questions. Religious leaders no longer have the authority to teach without interruption. Certainly, millions of us still accept revealed religious traditions—but the excitement of the individual spiritual quest is rising nationwide. From the realm of pop culture, many observers point out that the huge popularity of super-hero movies and even the new Hobbit holiday debut are signs of the ascendancy of the spiritual quest in American culture.

Want to be a welcoming congregation in America? Brace yourself. No, you won’t have to fend off costumed Jedi. But you will have to contend with opinionated “Nones” who may walk through your doors. “None” is the term widely used to identify the millions of Americans who answer polling questions about religious affiliation with the word: None. The Pew Forum’s latest tracking research on this phenomenon concludes, in part:

The number of Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid pace. One-fifth of the U.S. public—and a third of adults under 30—are religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew Research Center polling. In the last five years alone, the unaffiliated have increased from just over 15% to just under 20% of all U.S. adults. Their ranks now include more than 13 million self-described atheists and agnostics (nearly 6% of the U.S. public), as well as nearly 33 million people who say they have no particular religious affiliation (14%).

A new website to watch for insights into Nones: Journalists watching this historic transformation of the American religious landscape conclude that—like Britain and Europe before us—America is becoming more secular. However, even with that trend, American culture remains distinctively religious. We continue to rank with countries like Iran, Mexico and Pakistan in our religious intensity, compared with other nations surveyed around the world. New American spiritual trends are arising especially among the Nones. This month, longtime religion expert Martin Davis has opened a new website just to explore None phenomena. He calls his site NEW NONES: Tracking the Birth of New Faith in America.

Consider what the Pew data, Martin Davis and writers like Cox, Dean and Bass are arguing: This is not a time for people of faith to hang their heads and assume that the tide is shifting away from us. On the contrary! This is a time of vigorous spiritual seeking coast to coast. No, the strangers walking through our doorways are not arriving to humbly bend their knees and automatically accept whatever we are preaching. These new strangers may not come with light sabers flashing—but their questions and opinions and criticisms will, indeed, flash brightly in our congregations.

And that leads us back to Henry Brinton …

BECOMING A WELCOMING CONGREGATION:
FINAL ADVICE FROM HENRY BRINTON

Click the book cover to visit its Amazon page.In closing his book—and in closing our three-part series with Henry Brinton (see Part 1 and Part 2)—we are reminded of the ancient patriarch and matriarch Abraham and Sarah. Brinton writes: We should always begin by looking for the presence of the holy in the guests who come to our door, much as Abraham and Sarah welcomed three strangers and discovered that they were the Lord, in Genesis 18. These guests “can be both gift and challenge,” says Ana Maria Pineda, “human and divine.”

Then, a page later, Brinton writes: We have learned that practicing God’s welcome includes ongoing efforts to make worship accessible to guests. In the Iona Abbey, barriers to participation in services are broken down by the teaching of songs as the service begins; at Saddleback, guests are told that they can expect to enjoy the service and that no one will do anything to embarrass tehm. In all services, orders of worship should be projected clearly on screens or included in comprehensive printed bulletins that minimize the amount of juggling that a worshipper needs to do, especially in churches that use both hymnals and prayer books. The focus on the service should be on “creatiing comunity for that hour,” says Sam Lloyd, dean of the Washingotn National Catehdral.

That’s the kind of solid advice you can find throughout Brinton’s 133-page book. Right now, start talking about the ideas we have shared in this three-part series with Henry Brinton. Get a copy of his book and ask church leaders to discuss it over a series of weekends.

And: From all of of us at ReadTheSpirit—
have a Merry Christmas and a very Hopeful New Year!

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By ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm and …
Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.