spaciousness in the wilderness

.

I wrote the following piece for the church newsletter. As mentioned before, this church is focusing on Spiritual Practices while the pastor is on sabbatical. Read on to hear about my spiritual practice of spaciousness....
__________________________________________________

And so it has begun… our journey, alongside Jesus, that leads to Jerusalem; our journey into the wilderness. I wonder what we will find in the wilderness? Who or what awaits us? What struggles will we encounter? What revelations will we have? What practices will bring us through? Perhaps you have already started to discover the answers to these questions. Or, perhaps you just have more questions.

It is in this place of wilderness that we begin to think about those things that separate us from God. Process theologian Marjorie Suchoki defines sin as “an extended event in an interdependent world… sin [against God] manifests in our violence toward the creation.”¹ This includes harm done toward ourselves, others, and the earth. Sin doesn’t just occur between us and God but between us and everything God created in God’s own image. What we do, how we act, and the words we say all have power and we are not always aware of how much power we exude.

Lately, I have been incredibly mindful of how quickly I move from one thing to the next without allowing space. It used to be that typing teachers taught students to include two spaces between each sentence, but that is no longer the case. In this world of efficiency and bureaucracy we now leave just one space between sentences because who has the time for an extra keystroke.

Likewise, I know I am generally inclined toward busy-ness. I am always running from one thing to the next. Everything I have to accomplish feels so important and it seems like if I don’t do it now, at the same time as three other things, none of them will ever get done. No matter how much meditation or prayer I do in the morning, thinking that it will calm my spirit for the day, I still move at roadrunner pace.

For me, this year, Lent is about discerning the ways in which I do harm to myself and others by keeping up this pace of busy-ness. I don’t actually need to speed to get to church and I don’t need to go from one meeting to the next without stopping. Jesus took time to go to the desert and pray by himself. We too are called to follow his lead. Even if it’s just taking one minute to stretch between staring at the computer and walking into a meeting. Even if it’s just pausing to give thanks for my lunch. Even if it’s ten seconds of deep breaths. I am committing myself  to creating more room for spaciousness, and therefore God, to abide. 

Movement. G-d. Rhythm.

So I have to bear witness/testimony to this not only for the sake of sharing it with you, or because it's a spiritual practice to share how G-d is transforming me, but because I want to remember this.

As many of you know, I have recently started as the Sabbatical Guest Pastor at Community United Church of Christ in Champaign, Illinois. Their pastor, my mentor, Rev. Leah Robberts-Mosser, is on Renewal Leave for the next three months. The church went through a hiring process and of the candidates they had, they hired me. And I accepted the opportunity with gratitude. As part of the renewal plan for the church, they built in a sermon series of sorts around the theme of "Spiritual Practices." We will be having three guest preachers, who will also lead a workshop, that will preach on a different spiritual practice each: honoring the body, building community, and engaging the creative spirit. Honoring the body is getting the least amount of airtime-- I don't know that it was a conscious decision-- which is unfortunate because we live in the midwest and honoring one's body, much less paying attention to one's body, is not the norm.

So let me start there.

I have been working really hard lately (many thanks to my former therapist, former field education supervisor, former CPE supervisor, and my spiritual director) to feel my emotions, to pinpoint what it  that I feel and to validate that feeling. That also means paying attention to where I feel emotions in my body. So last night I had a terrible stress dream about work that left me feeling angry when I woke up. There was a point in time when I thought I never got angry. That's no longer true. (It probably wasn't true then either.) When I woke up I wanted to throw something against the wall. It was that bad. This doesn't happen very frequently, so it is becoming easier to recognize when I have strong emotions. I'm going to come back to this feeling in a second.

One of the things I preached about on Sunday was the difference in people's needs when it comes to how they do spiritual practices. Some folks need rigidity-- meditation, every morning, for 30 minutes, at the exact same time. Other folks-- read, me-- need a whole variety of practices. I used to think I needed a rigid schedule, but I could never make it work. [And if the shoe doesn't fit, don't freakin' force it.] I have also been working really hard to figure out how I can do all my favored spiritual practices-- exercising, collaging, meditating, praying, writing, drawing illuminated manuscripts-- and have enough time for life.

jellyfish at the monterrey bay aquarium. movement. 

So, when I was preaching on Sunday, I remembered a sermon my friend/colleague/former parishioner, Rev. Donene Blair, preached in Tiburon about the difference between balance and rhythm. She preached about the way in which creation was six days on, one day off; how Jesus didn't pray on a schedule, but rather when he felt the need to do so. And the second to last paragraph was this: "When we strive for balance it is like standing on one foot. When we find our own rhythm in work, play, rest, prayer and silence, we care for ourselves. We open up space, and let God in." Standing on one foot is not sustainable. Balance is not sustainable. But rhythm. Rhythm opens us up to movement.

Movement is fluidity.
Rhythm is not rigidity.
G-d is movement. fluidity. 

Just let me say a quick word about the paradoxical nature of G-d and how it gets me every time. We know G-d in the stillness, the still small voice, the quiet-ness of prayer, the calm of meditation. I think we try to convince ourselves that G-d can only be found there and then convince ourselves that we can't find G-d because we're only paying attention to stillness. 

Guess what: G-d is both/and. Don't ever for a second believe that G-d cannot be in both of those things and more than those two things. Christian spirituality and theology calls us to be paying attention to all the places we find G-d, naming them, claiming them, and telling others about them. We are being transformed by G-d all.the.time. The question is, are you paying attention?

So this morning, when I woke up angry, I discerned the spiritual practice that would help me best work through the anger, the thing that would help me let go of it before moving on to a full day of work at church. And who's surprised that that practice would be running? 

Movement. 

Fluidity. 

Rhythm of steps and breath. 

I turned on my Pandora Dance Cardio radio station and busted up that treadmill. And even though it's been a year since I last ran four miles, and last week I could hardly run one mile, today I was able to run two and a half with ease.  And sort through my anger enough to get on with my day without letting it consume me. 

Holy Spirit for the win.