Alpha, end

This was the last night of Alpha. I'd like to write a lot about it, but I am weary, and also physically tired. I'm going to check my to-do list, put off till tomorrow whatever I can, and crawl into bed with a book. I'm reading DaVinci Code, along with also reading Love and Will, and reading the New Testament. But tonight is brain candy night I think. No treadmill, no situps, no more thinking. DaVinci code with all it's dramatics. I've only just started and he's already met a beautiful confident detective with wonderful physical descriptors. This explains why the author went to pains to explain that the hero is no longer in contact with the beautiful confident woman from book one. Sigh. The codes are cool.
This evening was about the church. I had lots of insights, learned lots... don't feel like posting about it right now.
Although I'll say one thing I didn't get to say at the small group portion. I remember at U of T there being a quote from a president past who wished to tear down all the buildings on the campus, plant a big tree and meet with students underneath it and THIS would truly be a University.
There is a final chapter to the Alpha course and we didn't see it and aren't scheduled to see it. And it discusses exactly some of the questions that are pestering me now. We got a 'the Alpha Course Manual" and it has notes and references for each evening. Each evening has a DVD. The notes for the final evening's DVD included such things as "What impact will becoming a Christian make on my life" "as an act of your will, offer your bodies... (this includes sexuality, is this the reason for the exclusion?) "it might involve suffering"... and other things that I want to KNOW about.
I'm being impatient. We asked Jim Kitson and he said we'd have a screening or allow the DVD to be borrowed. I am too impatient, I know. I'm working on it.
OK, exhaustion and emotional fatigue are taking over. Gut nacht.

ch-ch-ch-changes

Change is in the air. To be honest, I always feel change in the air in Spring. I love the way air moves in the Spring. Everything is so alive and exciting and promising. I write more poetry in Spring than the other seasons. Autumn is the runner up in evocative sensation. I enjoy the twilight, and the dawn.
Pastor Kitson said quite frankly that change occurs when you turn to God. Your life changes. You change. When we decided to take Alpha, I was afraid change might happen. I love change, but deep personal change that affects my household.... that makes me nervous. People grow differently. What will be the impact?
A local friend of mine used to try to bring me to God. I've said before, it's a recurring theme in my life. I told her that I couldn't possibly because I am so wholeheartedly enthusiastic in life. The change would make me unbearable to those around me.
I actually really wanted to believe, but was afraid to cheat my awareness. "Opiate of the masses..."
My daughter REALLY wanted to be a Christian when she was about six. She kept on about it. This same friend took my kids and I to a puppet show at her church which seemed "religious" but reasonably safe. I had to leave with my son and then return, and when I came back, my daughter was in a room alone with a stranger "accepting Jesus as her personal Saviour." I was quite angry that my friend would leave my child behind a closed door with a strange adult, and still believe it was not the right way to do things. But, my daughter was well contented to have "become a Christian" and she didn't bother us about it again.
Yesterday, I called someone "Dudley" behind their back and my daughter told me that we can't call names just because someone makes us mad, or is rude. We have to forgive, and show them how to be nice. And I said "I'm sorry, you're right." and she said, "two wrongs can't make a right. But I can!" What a kid. Will this change that's happening require me to give up my scarcastic edge? What else?
I often think in metaphor: a situation I'm in will look to me like being on a frozen pond and hearing a loud crack, or like standing on a dark street looking into lit windows. Another common one is the feeling of being on a roller coaster with the bar down and being drawn up the first hill. That's the one I'm at now. There's no getting off or changing direction or pausing. I've got off politely and quietly many times in the past, well before the bar is locked shut and the wheels are in motion.
The rest of my thoughts on the theme of change must, due to the public level of this forum, be summarized as it was initiated: change is in the air.

so tired but: today's thought

Today was about miracles and healing. It was really interesting: I had been looking forward to it. I'm fading, so I don't know how clearly I can get these thoughts out.
Jesus told his disciples, and others, to go and spread the word and to heal. I read that in the New Testament and it took me by surprise. It made sense that Jesus was going around healing. He healed left right and centre; he felt compassion and healed - it was a regular hobby. Disciples, well, okay, they've been hanging around a while, they probably picked up a bunch of this stuff. And they really believed. But other folk? A gathering of just plain folk? Off they went to spread the word and to heal. No preamble, just a simple direciton: go spread the word and heal.
So in our small group, I said people don't do that now. People don't go heal. We'd need a six week training, and videos and a few demonstrations and then a case study or two.
Go heal. And they did.
Can you imagine what that would be like? To be a conduit of a wonderful healing power? To lay on hands and feel the Spirit of God move through you and heal another? We said doctors and nurses and psychiatrists must feel something like it.
My theory was we don't heal because we don't believe. I said if it is true that God heals today and he heals through us, then chances are we've had and missed this fantastic opportunity. That the times we felt compelled to touch another, to lay on hands as it were, to hug, to reach out in some means, but didn't act on the feeling, these are times when our touch could have brought some healing into the other person, but we failed them. It must take a lot of faith to say "I will pray for you" and to come near to a person in need of healing and pray for them in a true attempt to bring healing to them.
When my brother was dying, I believed that miracles could happen and that we could will a higher power to enter into another and heal them, or change them for the better. I believed this to be God, generic. I knew about Jesus as God, and brought all the stories I had heard about "God" into one higher spiritual power. But I was young and didn't really understand my brother was sick until he was quite ill, and near the end. Then, I didn't "pray" for his recovery, but rather for a painless death that didn't destroy our separate parents. I felt quite certain he was meant to die and be relieved of the suffering of this life. I'm not sure what better life I thought was next, maybe a new chance at this life. Something painfree anyway. And I "prayed" that if he was coming back, that he have a chance to rest in "heaven" first. The quotes are words I didn't use as a child.
We hear of miraculous healings all the time. Doctors shake their heads and say"It was a miracle." So often, we're not even especially moved. One man in the group said maybe we're not moved because it's all internal: we don't see the lame walk or the blind see. Not instantly anyway. Doctors make these things happen. Miracles make aggressive tumours vanish.
Maybe we should have prayer journals like Nicky Gumble. Keep track. What quantity would be required to establish faith?
I have more thoughts but now I am far too tired.

Yesterday's thought

This Alpha journey has changed my way of thinking about Jesus. Radically, I suppose. I started at the usual point of : Jesus was a very gifted teacher and spiritual leader of men who existed and was wrongly exalted.

And I've gone along a continuum of belief since then. Jesus is "A Way", Jesus is the Word made flesh and thus "The Way." But it was yesterday that I understood more of Jesus' role today. I thought it was sort of insulting that God thought we NEEDED Jesus in order to comprehend God. I thought, that was true in Jesus' day, but we are so much more enlightened now. And we truly are. One possible explanation of this enlightenment is the state of existing in two ages concurrently. But we are still fully human, and thus prone to human failings. We can experience the love of God and return the love of God, but we cannot well sustain that love, because we CAN'T comprehend God. We need Jesus to have the relationship with because He was flesh and he walked and talked and related to humans who told of it. He is something we can conceive of, if we try. I know that's what has been said all along, it only just made sense yesterday. I am not sure to what degree I believe it.

I was thinking of the role of the Pastor as well. I love the title "the Pastor", I think I mentioned that on LJ. People must often experience transference once they feel the love of God and the forgiveness of Jesus. Because if it is easier to have a relationship with Jesus than with God, how much easier with the Pastor who points to God for you. They must receive training around that, like counsellors and doctors. I think it was redsaucer's belt loop observation that made me think of that. It must be hard work but true joy to be ordained and in service.

Blogging

My two blog identities are drifting apart.
Some people blog, some don't. Some lurk - that is read and not comment. On LJ, that is the height of rudeness. On Blogger, it is more expected. I think the ability to easily blog articles for discussion sets a different mood.
Blogging is often a bone of contention here. I blog. Kev doesn't really. I think blogging is annoying and threatening to non-bloggers. For bloggers, it's a wonderful outlet / communication.
I know some people through blogs who I have never met, or rarely see. Others are a part of my daily life, like acernum and red saucer. The RL (real life) relationship is different from but overlapping with the blog relationship. You have to be sensitive to locked entries, and not expose them in RL to excluded parties. (No locked entries on this blog btw). There is a certain duality to conversations, as you can have a RL conversation that dovetails with an online one, which means you say things like "Oh yes, you blogged that: I replied." Also, you can avoid in RL a topic you are blogging so as not to taint the blog conversation (convo) flow. Sometimes you can come to know a RL person so well online that you're not sure what to say face to face: do you jump to the level of relationship developed in the blog (or email) or do you take the required RL steps of social interaction? This is a reality that has destoyed marriages.
And of course, blogging is a part of RL for some of us!
So at Alpha, someone said: "I've been following your blog...." and I'm not really sure what I said. Because, I didn't know she'd read my blog. So the words sort of echoed in my head, and I thought: Why? What have I said? Am I smiling? And other inane, internal thoughts. So if you're still reading the blog - sorry for my glazed response!
Finally, commenting is good! Life is busy; sometimes virtual communication is as good as it gets for a while. If anyone reading this also reads Pastor Kitson's blog - it'd be interesting to see what others think about when reading by commenting on his blog.

in the deep blue sea

The nice thing about prayers in public is if you don't feel like praying, you can't really offend those who do - because they all have their heads bowed.

I prefer quiet, personal, solitary prayer. And I still wish on stars; I always will.

Lately I've only wanted to speak in metaphor. It makes life as a banker hard.

The stainglass of Jesus knocking at the door looks awfully stern on less sunny days. On cloudy days you can't really see it. It has the effect some paintings have of looking right at you. One Alpha Nicky was talking about knocking, and opening and inviting Jesus in, and I thought about it in a variety of ways over the next few days. During Alpha and during the Sunday service I sometimes look around. I'm still listening, it's just easier sometimes to look around instead of staring forward. So after the Jesus knocking Alpha, I was at Sunday worship standing beside Kelly and we were singing and I had the words down so I was glancing around and over my left shoulder I saw for the first time the stained glass window of Jesus knocking and it was positively glowing. I almost fell over, I lost my breath and felt woozy.

I'm getting used to it now.

In my step mother's basement is a picture my Dad painted at OCA entitled "Self-Portrait". It can't be hung because he painted it years before his death and it resembles too much his visage after cancer and chemo took their turns with him. Art transcends the mundane.

We didn't have a Bible anywhere to refer to after Alpha nights so I dug out my Dad's bible, it's monogrammed. My Dad found his peace with God just before learning he had cancer. I was surprised to see the gold symbol embossed on the spine: the Celtic trinity symbol. My kids and I each wear this symbol. I should have realised, I suppose, it was Christian.

This Sunday's worship service meant a lot to me and I appreciated it's lessons; I've pondered and discussed it. I'm sort of lost in water metaphors that started with an invitation to go swimming and a willful drowning and I'm envisioning ripples once the pebble has been thrown. And pebbles can't come back, just like blessings and curses, and once it's thrown it can't be unthrown but the fear of ripples can't stay your hand lest no pebbles ever be thrown.


"Keine Zerreißen seelen" and I think I ought to focus a little and make my thoughts a bit more cohesive. There was a joy and it was inspirational.

this hopefully will link the article now

homosexuals in the Church

http://www.presbyterian.ca/documents/sexualorientation.pdf

I did ask Pastor Kitson about gays and lesbians being welcomed in the church. They are welcomed and can take on ministry roles, but cannot be ordained. As yet, the Presbyterian church does not bless same sex unions.
This article is the report on homosexuality for the Presyterian Church in Canada. It's nicely written and clearly outlines the logical arguments and research. Part way through I realised that divorced and remarried persons should not be ordained, which incudes myself and most people I know. I actually am worse I suppose as Kev and I are not married and he is in fact not yet divorced. But a sinner is a sinner, and who am I or anyone to judge our sins? And what about the greedy, and liars, and those guilty of envy, or gossip, or theft? The article touches on remarried divorced persons and says that despite their being sinners equal to homosexuals, they DO become ordained. And it queries whether the changing in times and perspective and understanding might not move the Church to also allow homosexuals to be ordained, and thus it conclueds that truly it should not conclued and that the jury is best left out.

last nights post

Posted this last night but it failed. Wow, was I tired - and I slept like a log. Lucky darn logs.

Happy St. Patricks Day. I welcome any thoughts on the following poorly writ post. I can be so enthusiastic and impassioned by ideas, but I still think this is more than that. It's slower moving, and more persistant, and persists even with my changing moods and challenges.


http://www.knoxmidland.ca/Knox%20Midland/Open%20Journal/Open%20Journal.html
If you're interested. Don't know if anyone reads my blog at all much but there you go. I've pretty much decided to make Knox my church home, which sounds like I had a church home but am moving. But I've never felt this comfortable in a church or with a church leader as I do with Knox and Pastor Kitson. I do want to ask where he and Knox stand on gays and lesbians. Couldn't hang out where there is prejudice. I like going there. I'm enjoying ALpha, I like the Sundays, I look forward to it and and am drawn to become more involved. I'd like to get deeper, I love the mystery and there's something else. It's like falling in love, but with no anxiety over sexuality. Deeper, more clear. It resembles some past obsessions but without the compulsive quality. It's the closest thing to what I've been looking for. Very tired, must needs sleep.

pastpost

drat, made a post last night and it did not post.

No time, no time said the white hare...... this is one that will wait until after work, and after Cellarmens at which point I'll have shared a Guniess with my entire audience with a likely ommission of the Pastor (i like the title The Pastor).

Times they are a changing. Currents, winds, memes, shifts, this passage of change is not even at it's midpoint.

Pastor's Blog

http://www.knoxmidland.ca/Knox%20Midland/Open%20Journal/Open%20Journal.html

If you're interested. Don't know if anyone reads this at all much but there you go.

I've pretty much decided to make Knox my church home, which sounds like I had a church home but am moving. But I've never felt this comfortable in a church or with a church leader as I do with Knox and Pastor Kitson. I do want to ask where he and Knox stand on gays and lesbians. Couldn't hang out where there is prejudice.

I like going there. I'm enjoying ALpha, I like the Sundays, I look forward to it and and am drawn to become more involved. I'd like to get deeper, I love the mystery and there's something else. It's like falling in love, but with no anxiety over sexuality. Deeper, more clear. It resembles some past obsessions but without the compulsive quality. It's the closest thing to what I've been looking for.

Very tired, must needs sleep.

EAWC Essay: Reflections on the Tao Te Ching

EAWC Essay: Reflections on the Tao Te Ching

Having mentioned the Tao, I felt I should link to it. The Tao has held strong enough meaning for me to have had it tatooed to my ankle as a teenager and to never have regretted that choice. This is the content of my every focussed breath, and is what is missing in my anxious, shallow breaths.

Like my redsaucer friend I cannot take in as large a thing as God lightly. To believe is to recodify my whole being. What a scary endeavour - who will I be at the end. If not a more true me, then there is no point. I think I (and he) differ in this regard from many who look for a path of truth. We're both quite childlike in many ways and painfully deep and serious in others. And questing for authenticity, meaning, Oneness.

"there is no final retreat from responsibility or the pain of living in a crooked world. " ~ then, alas, no hiding in a cottage in the woods and reading and eating vegetables. We must suffer through it and struggle through it. But all the more reason to have some meaning! And balance, East and West, heart and soul....acceptance, balance, truth, divinity, simplicityand love.

I feel like I'm defragging.....

"then I replied"

I am still zenning with Yahweh and Logos (Logos is hard to google). It's all so infinite, and also so immediate. I want to fall headlong, but am also afraid. I want to be strictly logical but am thwarted by poetry and passion.
I don't want to be wrong.
This soulful, heart/mind struggle is the only way I could "come to faith." Everytime I veer in this direction, the external force is either heart or mind. That always leaves an "out," and has, for years. This is a cyclical theme in my life.
For each of these sentences I have thought a chapter.
My missive intent is this: At Knox, I feel comfortable taking one more step toward the deep end. But I'm still afraid of drowning.

"and the Pastor said"

Thanks very much for your message, and for linking to your blog. I guess I would say I am indeed one of those pastors who believes in Jesus as "the way, the truth and the lIfe" (John 14:6). Jesus even then goes on to say that no one comes to the Father except through him. The discussion for many, then, revolves around whether the "me" in that needs to refer to Jesus who walked this earth, or, in a more general way, the eternal Word of Creation, Logos, (a force/spirit that could be understood as manifested in different ways according to various world views). I feel called to follow in the steps of John the Baptist who pointed away from himself to Jesus as the one who has saving compassion on the whole world (John 1:29).
Having said that, I would also say that I rejoice in your experience of God, however that comes. In his call to Moses, God identified himself as simply "yahweh", meaning "I will be who will be" or "you will know me as you experience me." Even John Calvin, the staid father of Presbyterianism, took up the first part of his massive "Institutes of the Christian Religion" pointing out that God is everywhere and in all things and humans should therefore be able to know him on that basis. But he goes on to point out that our human nature is such that we have trouble perceiving that and so we have Jesus to relate to on our level and the Holy Spirit to empower believing and living with a strength beyond our own. Nevertheless, I would add, in agreement with you, that God is there to be discovered wherever and however He (God as true Spirit can be neither male nor female)/The Divine/Yahweh/Lord/Logos) chooses to reveal himself (I will persist with male pronouns in spite of what I've just said before).
My own experience of the Divine is to be called to point to "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" as my life's mission.

"I said"

I have been thinking about religion due to the ALpha course. In the small groups I have brought up the question "why Jesus" in a different meaning. If one has experienced God, felt forgiveness, felt a communication with God and felt at peace with the world and one's role within it (though not necessarily understanding that role), and has done this without directly approaching through Jesus, then why seek Jesus now? What if a person has a faith other than Christianity and yet has approached the divine and felt its blessing through this differing faith? Can the one God not be the same God for all, regardless of names and traditions and paths taken to approach the divine?

Some people in our group are struggling with the concept of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but this is something I've never struggled much with. I struggle more with a big picture of God and the role of the church. I don't want to be a hypocrite. I believe when taoism says the Tao that can be named is not the true Tao, this is God with a different name. I can believe that Jesus is an incarnation of God and is God, but if I feel in communication with God and haven't approched "through Jesus", would you say I am not really "experiencing God"? A lot of people live good, faith-based lives who believe in paths to God other than Jesus. Not that they would all say Jesus is false or not the Son of God, but that he is not their chosen path.