Musings

Fall Equinox in Ojai

Fall Equinox in Ojai

The sun slips a bright note under my door:
Its announcement of the season's arrival.
I stare at it reverently.
A quietude falls over the valley:
All is caught in a hush, a pause,
Languid in autumnal bliss,
Receiving the blessing of the bowing sun.
The sandstone boulders in the canyons
Are bathed in the quality of light
That they richly deserve.
All in shadow basks in backlit reflection.
The fine powder on the mountain trail
Transmutes to precious dust of gold.
Sweet sadness, a nostalgia for the ineffable,
Hangs like an old hat on a sunlit rack.
Hurry is cancelled, worry evaporates;
Shadows stretch time
For pedestrians under the portales
Of the plaza downtown.
The season turns, and we with it,
Into slanting sunshine.

Faith and Friendship

(art by Bardia Soltani)

 

 

 

There is a crisis of loneliness in America and much of the rest of the Western world.  I have seen its effects first-hand on a university campus.  It's an epidemic in higher education generally, contributing mightily to the mental health crisis among students.  There's no worse loneliness than the loneliness of a student surrounded day and night by thousands of peers.

Religion ought to be part of a positive response to this serious problem.  But alas, on campus and beyond, it's often part of the problem.

Progressive Christians don't believe that anyone who fails to "accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior" is going to hell. Nor anyone else, for that matter. We understand that other religions - or even no religion at all - might be as good for others as our religion is good for us.

 

Our religion boils down to divine agape - unconditional compassion for others, whether or not they go with our religious program. For us, friendship is an end in itself. Friendship is deep connection between equals who accept each other "as-is", honoring and respecting their differences. Friendship has no agenda except friendship!  And as community-builders, we're devoted to creating contexts in which real friendships can form and thrive.

But the implicit assumption of many evangelical Christians is that it is more important to save people from eternal hellfire than it is to engage in honest, open, equal friendship with them.  Evangelical Christian campus ministries train their students to commodify their relationships with non-Christians into full-court-press efforts to convert them. These non-Christian students think they have been befriended, but then they realize that the primary reason they are being treated so warmly and kindly is for the purpose of evangelizing them. If they don't join the fundamentalist club, they're often ghosted. It's a bait-and-switch that is often deeply disappointing to the "evangel-ee".

 

Of course, evangelical Christians aren't the only ones guilty of fake-friending other people. It's a cultural problem everywhere. In order to rise in status on campus, students make nice with others whom they think can help them get more social media followers or get them admitted to sororities or fraternities. It's no wonder that loneliness is endemic.

One would think that Christianity ought to be a cure for this pernicious pattern, rather than a perpetrator of it.

 

And that's where progressive Christians can make a difference. It may seem strange to suggest it, but in our churches and campus ministries, we need to teach people, particularly young people, how to make and keep friends. Because of the anti-social consequences of "social" media, because of the transactional nature of so many relationships, because of the alienating nature of our culture, people are losing people-skills.  Our churches and ministries need to inspire our people to think deeply about what true friendship is all about - and what it isn't about, too!  It starts with asking open-ended questions - and knowing how to really listen to the answers they inspire. 

 

Intentionally, we can create and maintain community that makes friendships more likely to form. We can structure our communities so that people engage with each other one-on-one.  One way to do that is to hold "campfires". A campfire encourages people to circle up and go into a contemplative state and open up with each other in deeply personal ways. It gives the eyes a focus while letting what others say sink into the soul. Hold "virtual campfire" conversations, using a video of a campfire on participants' smart phones, placed on a table in the middle of a circle, as the focus. (If your community needs in-depth help in community-building and encouraging friendship, contact my friend and colleague, Cat Moore, for consulting.)

Progressive Christians are well-situated to help move the wider culture in the direction of true friendliness.  Let's make the most of our position, and go further in doing our part to end the scourge of loneliness!

 

Savoring the Silence

 
“Take heed, dear Friends, to the promptings of love and truth in your hearts. Trust them as the leadings of God whose Light shows us our darkness and brings us to new life.”  From “Advices and queries” of the Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in Britain

Tucked back on a narrow plot, on the winding high street of a lovely tree-lined neighborhood in London, sits the Hampstead Quaker Meeting House.  Two Sundays ago, I entered and took one of the chairs in the circle inside the simple 1907 Edwardian building.  And sat for an hour, with people of diverse shapes, sizes, ages, and ethnicities. 
 
At first, I practiced mindful contemplation: closing my eyes and observing lovingly my thoughts and emotions and sensations until I began to recognize that the divine Knower was the one doing the observing.  Then, to put it in Quaker terms, I was prompted by the Holy Spirit to open my eyes and look at the people around me.   Each was doing silent worship in their own way.  Yet I had a powerful sense that the silence of each permeated and supported the silence of all.  After looking at the people for a while, I found myself settling into a state of simple presence.  No urge to be anywhere else.  No urge to make plans or devise schemes or even to gain new insights.  Not much sense of the passage of time.  Just being there with the others, in the now.  Unperturbed by the cell phone that rang loudly in the pocket of the old man with the scraggly beard near the door.  Unperturbed by someone’s cough, or by the sight of a woman checking her text messages. 
 
Some Quaker communities are self-deprecatingly called “popcorn meetings”, where, moved (hopefully) by the Spirit, many people stand up, one after the other, with silent pauses between, and share aloud what the Light has revealed to them.  Such utterances have always been part of Friends worship.  In all other Quaker meetings I’ve attended over the years, at least one or two people have stood up to speak.  But this meeting was quiet for the full hour, which I found to be positively delicious.  I was at a loss to imagine what anyone could have said that would have been more profound than our shared silence.
 
It reminded me of a passage from the Wisdom of the Desert Fathers, a collection of aphorisms from the earliest Christian monastics in the 3^rd and 4th century.  One particularly revered hermit, Abbot Pambo, was visited by a notable bishop who sought wisdom from him.  Likely as not, the bishop also sought a measure of “cred” that would come from having associated with the famous hermit:  “…the brethren coming together said to Abbot Pambo: “Say a word or two to the Bishop, that his soul may be edified in this place.”  The elder replied:  “If he is not edified by my silence, there is no hope that he will be edified by my words.””   
 
At the hour, the clerk shook hands with the people on either side of him, and we all did the same.  And then proceeded to coffee and tea time, where I really enjoyed meeting some of the members.
 
“When you are preoccupied and distracted in meeting let wayward and disturbing thoughts give way quietly to your awareness of God’s presence among us and in the world. Receive the vocal ministry of others in a tender and creative spirit. Reach for the meaning deep within it, recognizing that even if it is not God’s word for you, it may be so for others. Remember that we all share responsibility for the meeting for worship whether our ministry is in silence or through the spoken word.”  (“Advices and queries”)

Silence is a great leveler.  Keeping it, together, reminds us that we’re all in the same boat on the sea of life. 
 

(I highly recommend reading the “Advices and queries” as a profound and useful guide to worship and congregational life for any progressive faith community.)