Thinking about Communion

October 14, 2013 at 2:45 pm

It’s been a week since World Communion Sunday, and yet questions about the meaning of communion are still buzzing around my head. I was raised in a particularly secular humanist Unitarian Universalist Congregation. Ours was the church where the word “god” was never said, and people got really uncomfortable with phrases like “divine spirit” or “universal power”. Needless to say, communion, in the bread and wine sense, had never been apart of our religious practice. UUs have alternative rituals like water and flower communion, but I’ve never been to bread and wine communion at a UU congregation.

I walked into Marsh on World Communion Sunday not really knowing what to expect. I guess I had assumed that since it was “world communion” it might have been a little more theologically broad, but the message was very clear. The bread offered was supposed to be a reminder of Christ’s body and the wine was supposed to be a reminder of Christ’s blood; both of these also served as reminders for Christ’s love and sacrifice. In my tradition we tend to treat Jesus as a good man and teacher, but not the divine Son of God. In light of this belief, which I hold pretty central to my own faith, I felt really uncomfortable getting up for communion. I sat in the pew, wrestling with my own faith and basically freaking out. I felt kind of isolated because everyone else seemed happy to take communion, but I was really scared to. I left Marsh with a ton of questions about my faith and communion.

Later that week I had a really good conversation with Soren, which kind helped me work through my communion questions. I realized that my confusion stemmed from the concern that I was obligated to take communion since I work at Marsh. Even though, I feel really uncomfortable taking it as a Unitarian Universalist. I feared that if I took communion I would be breaking ties with my UU faith. After the conversation though, I realized that A. there was no obligation to ever take communion because of my work at Marsh, and more importantly B. that taking communion wouldn’t necessarily go against my UU faith. Soren helped me understand that as a UU I can find divinity and truth in the beliefs and rituals of many traditions. Therefore, I could participate in another traditions ritual, like communion, without feeling disingenuous to my own faith.

This discussion, and the continued thinking I have been doing about communion, has really helped put communion into prospective. I still don’t think I am ready to do it, I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready to do it, but talking about it has made me feel so much more comfortable with it as a practice. Since my conversation, I have had another situation where I was offered communion. This time, I felt comfortable asking for a blessing instead (which apparently is a valid alternative for those of us not as comfortable with communion). Slowly but surely I am navigating my way through being a UU in a setting where communion is an important part of worship.

 

By jdingus | Posted in Jaimie | Comments (0)

The beautifully absurd

October 10, 2013 at 1:12 am

My morning commute from Newton to Boston provides the context.

There is something so peaceful atop the hill at the Andover-Newton Theological Seminary where I currently reside. I not only hear the birds chirping but I see them fluttering about in the tree right outside my window. As I drink my morning coffee meditating on the words of Thurman, I enter the world on my own terms. My favorite part of this routine is when I step out of the front door in the morning, that first deep inhale of the crisp  New England alerts my spirit to the start of the day. In front of me I can see for miles the green (and now in the fall the changing colors) of hills posing as mountains. Even on a gray New England morning, there is something vibrant about the color of the world atop that hill.

As I descend down the steep hill I past a stone bench marked for a recently deceased student it proclaims to the world that he, "Walked these grounds seeking truth and peace." I often wonder what those who walk the grounds below this hill are seeking.  Aside from this I am moved by the beauty of the magnificent trees which seem to claim the landscape for themselves reminding me that I am just a visitor to this place. And along side the tress I see those beautiful New England homes; large, but not obnoxious, luxurious, but not gaudy. In one home a beautiful library is visible through the third floor bay window. In another home a beautiful painting reminiscent of Thomas Cole hangs on the wall in an ornately decorated dining room, the scene is a perfect picture framed by a large window with drawn back curtains. The lawns are perfectly mowed the flowers in the gardens perfectly placed. In the ample driveways the cars complete the picture of success. In my morning commute I have come to fall in love with this scene. It is peace, it is success, it is good.

As I descend from the hill to catch the T and enter into the world of the "living," I am never alone. I often have the companionship of voices in my ear. Usually, I am listening to either a Spanish on-the-go lesson or a meditation by Howard Thurman, but sometimes I listen to NPR.  On one such morning as I was admiring the stylishly placed solar panels on top of a house that I hadn't noticed before a story came on NPR about the growing inequality in America. I turned my attention to the news. A pain in my stomach emerged as the story progressed from a cold economic analysis to a human interest piece focused on a struggling family from a neighborhood I grew up in Atlanta, Ga. The story first remarked on the increase in crime and unemployment in the neighborhood before cutting to a women who's weary voice cried out, "We are struggling to survive and I don't know if we will make it." This women's voice sounded like my mother's voice. That cadence was all too familiar, the combination of anger, shame, and hopelessness which with dutiful effort I've tried to exorcise from my own utterances.

In this moment my present environment felt like a sick illusion. How could it be that this world of peace and beauty, of order and plenty exist along side a world of chaos and struggle? How could I exist in both of them? Now, of course I am not the first who has struggled with such dissonance. Cornel West remarks upon this as the pure absurdity of the black experience in America. Du Bois refers to this as the accented Double Consciousness experienced by the educated negro.  So my concern here is not to lament about this or to pretend that I am pointing out something new. My question is more of a theological nature. How do we live in this world and not be of it?

To push deeper. I know that my current circumstance, being a student at Boston University, being a Christian soon to enter a seminary, places me as part of the system of ideas that have created the absurdity which I experience. Put in a different way, the same ideas that I am being exposed to in my current circumstance whether explicitly in the classroom or implicitly by virtue of my participation in various institutions are the same ideas which can be seen as responsible for a great deal of human suffering. The ideas of of which I speak include but are not limited to prominence, achievement, hierarchy, recognition, acquisition,  individualism, striving, education, work, labeling, definition, and a myriad of others which our systems stand upon that go far deeper then just those things like capitalism, dominance, patriarchy, hegemony, and racism which are easily identified and argued over by academics. Further, ideas within Christianity like sin, salvation, discipleship, denominationalism, or even the very idea of a church itself can add to as opposed to alleviate the ills of the world.

To push home the theological point, if I am of flesh and it is this decaying flesh which is the source of my brokenness then how can I ever rely upon it for my salvation. Many would say that I can't and resort to ideas like grace or God's general benevolence as the answer. However, in a world of action where God seems to be neutral in many of the affairs of men, this answer becomes hard to swallow. The simple question I rise is this: How does one use the tools of a corrupted system  (whether a system of ideas, institutions, or our existence itself) to fix the ills created by that system? This is the bone I shall be doggedly chasing while I remain a stranger in this foreign land but I have to admit my wrestling with it here, now, in this place, is beautifully absurd.

By djwalker | Posted in Demarius | Comments (0)

World Communion Sunday

October 7, 2013 at 1:21 am

Happy World Communion Sunday! Any occasion that has a larger, worldwide ecumenical focus is an event that gets my attention. There are many reasons for this, among them my pension for dramatic, worldwide things. But on a more serious note, the Eucharist is, for me, the most potent mystery and challenge of being a Christian. There are so many layers to comprehending the Eucharist that I don’t think I am even close to a cursory knowledge of what it all means, be it metaphorically or theologically. However, I have encountered a deepening of this mystery in some of the most unexpected ways.

 

I have always been interested by the old-time Catholic rule about not eating for an hour before receiving the Body and Blood of Christ. I had never really understood it, and never followed the rule on purpose. What would happen, however, was I would often go to mass having skipped breakfast, so indeed, Jesus was my first meal of the day. On one such day, I had gotten up early and had not had the chance to eat breakfast, and then went to mass three hours after awakening. I was absolutely starving and genuinely looking forward to communion because it would be my first morsel of food that day. When it came time for the Liturgy of the Eucharist, I could barely stop myself from drooling when the priest held the bread in front of everybody, as if he was taunting me. I got in line and when I finally received the Eucharist, my hunger was quenched and I felt fulfilled and satisfied (at least until coffee hour). What was unique about the situation was that in that moment when I received the host, I was struck by the awesome power of the hunger metaphor for receiving the Body and Blood of Christ. My literal hunger somehow deepened my sense of the metaphorical hunger for Christ that I experience.

 

It has been interesting clocking different aspects of my spiritual development since I started this internship a year ago. One of the various markers that I have been following has been my relationship with the sacraments. It has been easy in the past for me to accept the idea of sacramental mysteries on a surface level and be content about it just staying a mystery, and I am now coming into a phase where I that simple acceptance of a mystery is not good enough; for it to be a mystery, I need to understand why it is a mystery. I’m curious to keep tracking this onwards.

 

By lucchesi | Posted in Robby | Comments (1)

Nearly Six Months

October 6, 2013 at 4:15 pm

October 15th will be the six month anniversary of the Marathon bombing.

No, that can't be right--it can't have been six months already, my mind protests. But it's true.

I've especially felt it as I've been involved in my other church community of Arlington Street Unitarian Universalist Church with planning the decommissioning of our prayer ribbons. If you haven't walked down Boylston Street to the Public Gardens in the past six months, you might have missed our long fence filled with prayer ribbons for Boston.

They've become somewhat of a landmark for Bostonians, with people still continuing to tie prayer-scribbled ribbons, plastic baggies, and even socks to the iron fence. And we have had to decide what to do with the ribbons, not wanting them to waste away in the grips of a Boston winter of rain, snow, and sleet.

So on Sunday, October 20th, at 10 am, we will gather to take down the ribbons one-by-one. We will bless them during the service, and then our reverend will ritually burn them, bringing the ashes back the next Sunday for remembrance at our Day of the Dead service. In the spring, on the one-year anniversary of the bombing, we will turn over the ashes with the soil in our church garden, to bring in a new year of growing and rebirth.

In planning this process, I've been at Arlington Street Church a lot, and have walked a lot in the Public Gardens, which are right across the street. Not too long ago, I wrote this poem on a park bench there:

This Fall

A city in healing
shows scars, the ribbons
tied full of prayers to
church gates black iron--
people stop to picture.

The park not drunk
with summer in September,
missing sunlight but
the leaves still green--
sky grim like the seasons
have been diluted,
no yellow during mourning.

Soon, through
the trees will spill fire
stem and vein on the wind
like streamers
of a party
or a prayer
or at a finish line.

Well. There you have it. Funny how poetry can bring out things you didn't even know you were thinking, just like an ink blot test.

I'm still in mourning for the marathon. I can still feel the traces of the bombing in the city. I don't know what to do when I walk past Forum restaurant or Marathon Sports--whether to cry or feel uplifted that people are moving on.

I pray for the city of Boston. For my city, for people who had their day of safety shattered. I know worse things are happening in Syria and Kenya and around the world, and I pray for those people too. Because they have lost what we lost in Boston that day--the feeling of security, of being safe where you live.

I pray for peace, for compassion, and for strength--for all of us--to move on. To send up prayers, to run the race (as Isaiah says). Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," and I think that one could also say, "Suffering anywhere is a threat to well-being everywhere." We are all connected. We all suffer together. We can all thrive together, too.

Perhaps it's too much to ask that the entire world do that now. But maybe we can start with our city--as Isaiah says, renew the city. Boston has pulled together in mourning. Now, as color returns and life spins on, let us live together--continue together, in peace and love.

By aclauhs | Posted in Abigail | Comments (0)

Boredom or Apathy?

October 3, 2013 at 9:12 am

In the 2009 Canadian comedy, The Trotsky, Leon Bronstein, a high school student who thinks he is the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky, organizes a demonstration in front of his father's non-unionized business.  As a punishment for this action Leon's father takes him out of his private boarding school and sends him to public school (that deserves an entirely different post).  On the first day of classes at his new school Leon looks around to see that non of his classmates are interested or paying attention, he then sees a girl near the front of the class hold a sign up sign to her friend near the back of the class that reads "Boredom or Apathy?" to which Leon smirks. However, Leon's smirk  turns quickly into a frown when the classmate holds a sign up in response that reads, "Apathy."

This exchange foreshadows a much later scene in the movie when Leon decides to stage a walk out to protest the school's harsh disciplinary policies. Leon is proud to see that his fellow students decide to join him in his endeavor, but as he beckons them to cross the street to "keep the momentum" he is disappointed to see that all the students stop to sit down on the front lawn. Here he realizes that the students are more interested in engaging in frivolous shenanigans than in a self-actualizing political protest. Out a window at the top of the school he sees his principal hold up a sign that reads, "Apathy."

This movie challenges the purported activist, world changer, or future minister to ask the question about the people within a system before asking questions about the system itself. For my purposes I feel the need to ask this question in terms of the church.

Much has been said about the decline in church membership, the fledgling  belief in the authority of "the Church", or belief in God altogether. There is of course much conjecture as to why that is, but I feel it necessary to go on a personal journey to answer the question, "Is the church simply boring God's people?"  or "Are God's people no longer interested in what the Church has to offer?" And whilst in the mode of inquiry I may as well ask, "What is it that God's church offers its people, anyway?" Answering these question in the long-term will help me shape my ministry and better understand my calling, but in the short-term they I hope, will help point me towards home. (To be continued)

By djwalker | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Where am I?

September 30, 2013 at 1:19 am

Where Am I?

 

One of the challenges that I’m approaching as part of this internship is finding a solid faith community. At any given time in my faith journey I have split myself up between no less than two, and up to five different worship groups. Sometimes there are a few in the same tradition; for example, I find myself switching among attending the student Catholic mass at BC and the student Catholic mass at BU and the regular Catholic mass at Shrine of St. Anthony’s downtown. And of course, we can’t forget our Protestants: Marsh Chapel, and occasionally an Episcopal parish. These are all communities that at one point in time I have considered myself connected to, and of course, there is the plethora of churches in San Francisco (my hometown) within which I also have roots.

 

This approach to faith communities has advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are that I get explore many different styles of worship and practice, and all of them influence my personal, spiritual life. My own spiritual practices are an intricate tapestry of influences from many different Catholic settings and a mix of a number of Protestant ones as well. I also get to satiate my interest in ecclesiastical architecture and examine how different spaces affect worship. I also get to meet so many interesting people, and the flipside is also true: I am not pressured into staying in one community if I feel a pull somewhere else.

 

There are also distinct disadvantages, though, the main one being a lack of a solid footing in one community. Much of my spiritual energy in college has been spent trying to figure out where I belong, and it wasn’t until junior year that I found some semblance of that, and it was only when I was splitting my time between two communities. I have settled down a little bit, but then I find myself dealing with major time issues on Sunday when I am attending two different services. And through all this, I am plagued by the fact that in less than nine months, I will be starting this whole search over again.

 

I think the reason why there was a shift junior year was because I was working at the chapel. This affected my “church hopping” for two reasons. One was that I now had actual work during the time when most protestant parishes worship (late morning) so I physically could not be two places at once. The second was that I now had people to actually reflect with and process my experience at any other faith communities I tried out. Freshman and sophomore year, I focused too much energy on finding a faith community that I lost the pleasure in the journey. And even in my current, odd worship situation, there is a certain joy about being able to call my entire Sunday my “church day”. Of course that means I am taking the Sabbath on Monday.

 

By lucchesi | Posted in Robby | Comments (0)

Making Gratitude My Spiritual Practice

September 29, 2013 at 3:09 pm

As this semester has progressed, I’ve started to notice myself running on autopilot. I wake up, go to class, try to eat a couple of meals, and finish as much of the ever-increasing homework pile as I can manage before I fall back asleep. Even though I promised myself that when I got to college I would start a spiritual practice, the possibility of having enough time to sit, pray, and be grateful for the blessings of my life and this new experience is increasingly out of reach amid the stress of daily existence.

This weekend, though, has given me the perspective to hopefully rearrange my priorities. On Saturday morning, I got a flustered call from my mom. She had been in a pretty serious car accident while taking my Grandpa to my Great Uncle’s funeral. Both of them are safe, not counting a few bruises and stitches, but the car is nearly totaled. As I’ve reflected on this, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude that they were able to walk away from the accident. I know it sounds a little cliché, but sometimes it takes this sort of ordeal to remind me what is really important in my life.

In the midst of the worry, fear and gratitude that stemmed from this incident, I have decided to make more time for prayer and thankfulness in my life. I have an alarm saved in my phone so that I will take a few minutes every day, to stop and put away whatever work I’m doing. To read something inspirational, or say a prayer thanking god for the health of my family and all the other blessings in my life. It is my hope that this daily practice will help me remember to live my life more in the present and with a deeper sense of gratitude.

 

By jdingus | Posted in Jaimie, Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Almighty?

September 25, 2013 at 5:19 pm

In my conversations with Soren, I've been having to think a lot about the way God operates in the world (because when you're applying to divinity school, they ask you those kinds of questions in your admissions essays...). And it's a tough question.

I was raised in a world where you prayed personal favors from God and he snatched you from death in near-fatal accidents or sent guardian angels that you could always read about in Reader's Digest stories. A personal, anthropomorphic God you could chat with and who acted in the world somewhat like the Greek gods of myth (except perhaps less capricious), moving humans around like the pawns on a chessboard to effect events big and small.

And while I think that having a personal relationship with the divine (feeling able to speak comfortably when you pray) is important, I'm just not sure if the chess-player God orchestrating each detail of our lives is convincing to me.

In one of my religion classes last year, my professor said, "I think you can either have a loving God or an all-powerful God, but not both." Because an all-powerful and loving God wouldn't let terrible things happen in this world.

This statement struck me.

The word "Almighty" rolls off our tongues often in our prayers. But when we think about that, what does that mean?

I've been pondering this question. And, given the choice, I want to believe that we have a loving God.

Maybe not in an anthropomorphic kind of way. I see God as the force that created this universe, that causes every living thing to have that spark of life. A great, interconnected light that runs through us and through the world.

I think that the will of God runs in currents and nudges, not like sudden moves of chess pieces on a playing board. The divine wells up inside us and gives us strength, or inspires us to a cause.

But it is up to us to move on that.

God doesn't force our legs to walk, he only sparks that urge within us.

When I pray, I don't say things like, "God, please fix this." I say, "God, give each of us the strength to realize our mistakes and reconcile with love." Asking for help, not for it to be done for me.

When I was younger, I used to always wish the same thing on shooting stars: "Let me always be happy with what I have." Maybe it was just my pragmatic kid self not wanting to wish for anything too big, in case I got disappointed. But I think it's a good metaphor for talking to God.

Maybe it's better not to ask God for a pony or a car or to fix a problem. Maybe it's better to ask God to be there for us, for us to never forget God's presence, for us to feel the strength and the comfort of that.

Because I believe in a loving God--a force too great and vast for us to ever imagine, a force we put our human label of "love" on even though the reality far transcends the greatest love we can conceive of. A God that ties the universe together and just wants us--deeply, deeply--to understand that we are all connected, that we are all part of the divine, that we must all love and be loved.

Perhaps this is not a God that enters into scenes for a deus ex machina. It is not a God who determines who wins wars or who finds a spouse. But it is a God who aches deeply for a universe where love is recognized and celebrated. That is the end game, and that is where God's currents move us.

By aclauhs | Posted in Abigail | Comments (0)

Spiritual Practices

September 23, 2013 at 1:20 am

We Associates have been talking about “Spiritual Practices” a lot in our weekly vocation meetings with our advisers, and it has really forced me to think about my spiritual practices as an artist. Over the years, I have employed a variety of tactics to bring myself closer to the divine in my daily life, among them praying the rosary, meditating, and mindfully cleaning the dishes. All of them have been lovely additions to my daily routines, but I have not delved deep enough into any of them, thus they fall by the wayside when my schedule gets hectic (which it inevitably will). One of my (many) goals this semester is to create for myself a “sustainable” spiritual practice, which does not (just) mean good for the environment. I need a practice that I can do every day, a repeatable physical action, that I can do when I am tired, when I don’t have time, and most importantly, when my mind is in another place.

 

This brings me to the theatre (doesn’t everything?). My classes are the most regular and repeatable things in my life, and one of those classes relies heavily on mental presence and an openness and willingness to take a journey (much like theological reflection). Through that class, I have been able to delve deeper into my theological life, and it is where I got the concept of a “repeatable physical action” that I mentioned above. The more specific a physical action is, the clearer the story will be to the audience. In terms of my spiritual practices, that means that even if I don’t “get something out of” a spiritual practice, as long as I am specific about doing it, my body will start to process the results even if my mind is lagging behind. And the regularity will soon make it a part of my schedule, which is my biggest downfall; I always put my spiritual, mental, and physical health a step lower on my priority list than whatever work I have to do for class.

 

One spiritual practice that has arisen out of my theatre training that is repeatable and sustaining for me is the idea of a “warm-up”. A warm-up in the theatre is much more than stretching my muscles and relaxing my singing voice; a warm-up does all those things by bringing me more fully into the space. In one of my classes, we ritualistically clean the floor together, and in addition to serving a practical purpose, it allows my mind to slow down and focus on one activity. There are many other warm-ups that we do, and all of them are more than just stretching and arpeggios.

 

I think there is mileage in looking at a “spiritual practice” as either a warm-up or cool-down to my day. If it is something easily repeatable, that I do not have to put a lot of preparation into it, I think I will be inclined to keep it up more regularly. And with that being said, I think I am going to try to go back to meditation, which is funny because for a while I was actually very consciously rejecting it. I do not like how it has come into prominence in a very pop-fad, new-age theology-but-not-really sort of way, but I would like to reclaim it back for myself. And the only way to make something repeatable is to do it a first time, so just give me ten minutes and I’ll be back.

 

By lucchesi | Posted in Robby | Comments (0)

“And Then We Did The Dishes”

September 22, 2013 at 9:42 pm

This week marks that three weeks have past since my parents dropped me off at BU. And though, my clothes are unpacked, and I’ve learned how to use the laundry rooms, the dining halls and even the T, I didn’t really settle in here until I found myself worshipping again in my faith community.

Last Thursday I went to a service with The Sanctuary Boston, a vibrant and musical Unitarian Universalist worship community. It had been far too long since I had been able to sing and share and experience faith with other UUs. When I walked in to the beautiful and historic church building I was greeted by the hugs and smiles of friends, new and old who had come together to worship.

The theme of the service, which ended up being exactly what I needed to hear, was “In Holy Transition”. We talked and thought about the transitions and changes in our lives. And we took time to be grateful for God, and community, and family and everything else that helps us stay strong during times of transition, both good and bad. I was so incredibly happy to worship with these people.

I feel like what had been missing over the past three weeks was the sense of belonging and connection to the holy that comes from worshipping with my faith community. That sense of belonging starts in the worship space, but quickly moves out into the rest of the gathering. After the worship and the following dinner, one of the leaders asked me if I would mind helping with the dishes. Some people would argue that asking a first time guest at a service to help with clean up is bad form, but I think it is really important to give people a chance to give back to a community. Two of us ended up downstairs chatting and washing dishes, and through that service I felt like I was contributing. I think I learned what I had been missing in my absence from UU community. I missed the social aspects, the friends and conversations, I missed the worship and the feeling of divine love that accompanies it, but most of all I missed being able to give back to a UU community. I feel blessed from worshipping with The Sanctuary, and even more blessed from giving back to them.

 

By jdingus | Posted in Jaimie | Comments (0)