Felicity Wright

Travels

To Scale a Mountain, You’ll Need R.O.P.E.S

By

Chatting with friends at the San Francisco Writers’ Conference, I was happily ruminating on the benefits of endo- and exoskeletons in the context of spirituality and religion, explaining that there are times in our lives when, like bugs, we need external structures to keep us safe and functional. Though we delight in the strength and mobility offered by our internal skeletons, we often need external buttresses as well. Most notable examples are when we are growing and our bones are not yet strong enough to support us adequately, or when we are experiencing personal or social stress during times of trauma and transformation. A protective parent, a crib, armor, and a cane are all examples of external physical structures that we need in order to flourish. But there are also non-physical supports that we need in order to be fully alive and effective. These include such things as a therapist, a twelve-step program, a personal trainer, a deadline, or a religious community.

Most people have a yearning for connection with the natural world, with other humans, and with God. Whether there is a “God gene,” or just social conditioning, I do not know. But while we may yearn for a personal relationship with a loving God, many of us have turned away from religious institutions as being more about hate than love. Those of us who have abandoned the institution often describe ourselves as “spiritual but not religious,” meaning that we see ourselves as principled, loving, and connected to a higher authority without the constraints of an overly rigid religious institution.

So far so good, but …

I think of religion as the exoskeleton and spirituality as the endoskeleton of faith. Most of us manage very nicely with a strong spine of spirituality and a direct connection with the divine. And certainly the exoskeleton of religious systems and dogma can keep us fettered and unable to develop as we ought. Like the crib that the child outgrows or the shell that a hermit crab molts out of before it can grow, many of the creeds and dictates of the institutional church (or synagogue or temple or mosque) may be useful in our infancy but can impede true growth as we mature.

But there are times when our inner spines are not enough and we need more. Parents who know how to protect and push, friends that know how to comfort and challenge, and religious organizations that use external structures to empower without enfettering are life-long gifts. Though we prefer the mobility and strength of spirituality (our internal skeletons), we should also acknowledge the benefits of the religious institutions (our external skeletons) for helping us manage life’s challenges.

“Okay,” said one friend. “How do you answer someone who asks what to look for in a faith community? How can one identify a church that provides an external structure that is empowering rather than limiting?”

“Well, friends and neighbors can tell you a great deal about the strengths of a particular church or faith community. And a robust and updated website is an important tool,” I answered.

He pressed. “But what if someone doesn’t know what to look for or what questions to ask? What advice would you give then?”

It took me a couple of days, but here goes:

First of all, a yearning to be part of a faith community is all about connection. We want a connection with God and our fellow creatures on the journey. And to the extent that searching for God is like scaling a mountain, we need ropes.

So here are the clues (presented in the Biblical chiastic structure) that I would look for in finding a religious community that offers me a rope to climb rather than chains that will keep me in enslaved:

  • Respect – I look for genuine respect between all of the people of the community. This includes appreciation for but not adoration of clergy. Disagreements are healthy as long as they’re out in the open. The Golden Rule of treating others as we wish to be treated is critical. Respect is also evident in how we treat people of different ages, races, socioeconomic backgrounds, sexual orientations, and lifestyles. I worry when I go into a religious community where everyone looks like each other. I delight in seeing different ages, clothing styles, accents, and opinions (both theological and political).  It’s a good sign if there are people with obvious physical and mental challenges, as this means that they feel valued. As a visitor, I like it when people come up and show interest in me, rather than trying to get me interested in them. Respect is a key part of being welcoming. Respect
  • Openness and Opportunity – A community that is willing to try to new things is healthier than one that insists that doing it the same way it’s been done in the past. Equally important is the practice of openness and transparency in decision-making. Further, it should provide many and diverse opportunities for celebrating, learning, and serving. Thus, a wide variety of educational and arts programs, mission trips, service opportunities in the local community, book studies, prayer groups – to say nothing of different styles of worship – are signs of an empowering church. Always look for a community where the large majority of people are involved in providing services and making decisions.
  • Play and Pray and Passion – Joy is a really good sign; laughter and playfulness are green lights. But so also is the acknowledgement of sorrow. A faith community needs to provide opportunities for sharing pain and providing support for those in need. Organizations where lay people engage in visits to hospitals and shut-ins and are active in providing spiritual care are healthier than those where clergy do it all. (Churches where the pastor does most of the work – whether it be in worship or in pastoral care responsibilities – are often communities that are being cared for, not empowered.)  A religious community should have passion, i.e., a delight in witnessing and sharing the love of God and a yearning for justice among all people.
  • Experience and Encouragement – Several commentators have noted that those religious institutions that emphasize belief about God are in decline whereas those that emphasize experience in the Holy are growing. This makes sense to me, because one person’s belief can be another’s anathema. Some people use the Bible as a bludgeon – which is not helpful to them, their opponents, or God. What faith communities must do instead is to provide opportunities for people to experience God. There are as many different ways to experience the divine as there are individuals on this earth. Thus I look for diverse ways to connect through worship, study, service, e.g., choral classics, African drums, lessons for Scripture, modern poetry and stories, art, drama, dance, meditation, training in spiritual disciplines, book studies, volunteering at the local homeless shelter and elementary school. Perhaps most importantly, I look for churches where I can experience the divine through the genuine kindness and care of each other. Also, since encouragement means, literally, “to give heart to,” a religious community should be one of encouraging each other to be the best that we can be and to share our gifts and skills with those in need.
  • Spirit – Is this a faith community or a Fortune 500 company? Is the focus on numbers or on spirit? Are people more focused on budgets and people in the pews or on celebrating God and serving God’s people? While good stewardship means a healthy respect for budgets and numbers, the time we spend in fellowship with a religious community should be markedly different from the time we spend at work.

I welcome your comments on this. Do you have a better explanation or list of things to look for? I would love to hear your stories.

Spirit Strikes Again

By

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and we celebrate the reality of love – or, better, of joys of connection.  Most of us yearn not just for love – which is rare and fairly private – but equally for connection. We need to know that we are living lives of synchronicity and right relationship with the world. We want to connect – to live in harmony – with both spirit and substance.

Surely it is suggestive that we share the same air – the same molecules of nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen that swirl through time and history from the earliest life forms through the great people of history to those we love and us.  It is the same air that connects us with the people of Asia and Africa, with saints and sinners, with apes and zebras.  We are all unified and blessed by the gift of air.

It is no wonder, then, that God breathed over the cosmos on the first day of creation and brought it to life.  It is no wonder that breath/air/wind is the same in Hebrew (ruach), Greek (pneuma), and Latin (spiritus).  It is no wonder that when we breathe this air, we are inspired.  All life and all creation begins with breath.

…including grand dreams and silly songs.

Yesterday, I was privileged to give the invocation of the San Francisco Writers’ Conference. Until last year, it was The Very Reverend Alan Jones, the retired dean of Grace Cathedral, who had the honor.  But, beginning last year, he was traveling or otherwise unavailable. So Michael Larsen and Elizabeth Pomada, organizers of the conference, asked me. With the help of the Holy Spirit, I “discovered” a long-lost version of Psalm 23 and the Lord’s Prayer composed especially for writers.  (See http://felicitywright.com/blog/2009/02/16/a-prayer-for-writers-the-invocation-at-the-sf-writers-conference.) It was well received – which only added to the pressure when I was expected to ferret out another long-lost gem.

But, with prayer and supplication, Spirit came once again to my aid. So here is the invocation, for your amusement:

Good afternoon. We have come together in this, the seventh convening of the San Francisco Writers’ Conference, to learn, create, and connect.  And whatever our religious beliefs, we are woven together in a sacred web of art and creativity as we pray for “Spirit,” holy or otherwise.  So let’s pause and breathe deeply of the same air that inspired writers from Aeschylus to Zola. As we exhale, we share Spirit’s blessings with one another.

And then we sing:

O beautiful for spacious sighs

That soar o’er the mundane,

For purple patches’ majesties

Above the phrases plain.

O poetry and prose sublime! Muse shed her charms on thee

And crown our arts with happy hearts

From A through M to Z.

O beautiful for writers’ dreams

That see beyond the shame

Of impoverished oblivion

To works of great acclaim

O poetry and prose sublime! God shed His charms on thee

And crown Thy good with authorhood

From A through You to Z.

As we give thanks for the sun, rain, and earth that grew this food, the hands that planted and prepared this feast, and the friends who brought us together, we also honor the Holy Inspiration that lies at the core of the cosmos.  And we say:

I pledge allegiance to the Word

Of the creative force of the cosmos

And to the connection for which we strive

One yearning with the Spirit

Indivisible,

With inspiration and success for all.

The Beloved Community of Avatar, Invictus, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

By

Last week was a great one for going to movies – I managed to get to Avatar and Invictus. Watching them, I considered the differences: one is fiction, the other fact; one set in the future, the other in history; one swimming with color and art, the other mired in darkness and racism. Yet they share the same message – that of connectedness with the world and each other. And since we are also honoring Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. this week, I like to think that Dr. King’s courageous life and non-violent message was a common thread in the minds of Mandela, James Cameron, and Clint Eastwood.

Pondering the connection, I remembered one of Dr. King’s most powerful (but too infrequently quoted) speeches. Delivered in December 1956, the message of “The Challenge of a New Age” is as important today as it was back then. In it, he sets before us three challenges:

“First, we are challenged to rise above the narrow confines of our individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. The new world is a world of geographical togetherness. This means that no individual or nation can live alone. We must all learn to live together, or we will be forced to die together….

A second challenge that the new age brings to each of us is that of achieving excellency in our various fields of endeavor. In the new age doors will be opening to us that were not opened in the past, and the great challenge which we confront is to be prepared to enter these doors as they open….

A third challenge that stands before us is that of entering the new age with understanding good will. This simply means that the Christian virtues of love, mercy and forgiveness should stand at the center of our lives…. This love might well be the salvation of our civilization…[for] the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends….It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men.”

Is that not also the message of Invictus and Avatar? Is not the “beloved community” what we all yearn for?

It was the philosopher Josiah Royce*, founder of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, who popularized the term “beloved community” in the early twentieth century, but it was Dr. King who made it a byword for hope, self-restraint, justice, and love. And while Dr. King certainly knew the writings of Dr. Royce, most of us believe that he got his vision, his courage, and his words from the Bible. The “beloved community” is an idea often associated with Jesus, especially in the Gospel of John.

But what is the “beloved community”? Is it something that might happen in heaven after we die? Is it the same as the “kingdom of God”? Can we learn the message of tolerance and care from Avatar before we try to bomb our way to conquest, or is the “beloved community” just a placebo for hope without action, for feeling good without doing anything? In short, is it for real?

I truly hope so and certainly believe so! And I have been blessed to witness it on at least three different occasions in the last decade.

The most recent were the weeks in the two different orphanages in Nepal, where I was privileged to witness courage and kindness woven together to create a beautiful tapestry of new possibility. Since I have already written about that trip in this blog, I will leave that image to go back to 9/11. I was one of a team of trainers who spent the previous summer working for New York Port Authority in the World Trade Center, but I was fortuitously called away to help another client during the first two weeks of September. Thus, I was just west of Newark Airport on the morning of 9/11, when six of my colleagues and thirty of my Port Authority friends lived through the horror that has changed our world forever.

But what does 9/11 have to do with the “beloved community”?

– Statistics tell the story: of almost 25,000 people working in the World Trade Center that day, only 3,000 were killed. Seven out of every eight managed to get out safely. Seven out of every eight people walked down forty, sixty, almost eighty flights of stairs, and made it out. Seven out of every eight people groped their way down crowded stairwells that, for the last twenty or so minutes before the tower fell, were pitch black and filling with smoke.

How did they do it? Some of my friends made it down by holding hands and singing (until the smoke got too bad) and then by sharing handkerchiefs and words of encouragement. Three men worked together to carry down a young woman and her special motorized wheelchair from the 69th floor. Another nine took turns carrying down a quadriplegic from the 75th floor. There was very little screaming, except when a tremendous explosion – and the sudden loss of the emergency lights – sent many people tumbling. (This was the crash of the other building, although no one knew it at the time.) Throughout the ninety minute ordeal from the time the plane hit until the building fell, yells of “fireman coming up” and “make way, victim coming down,” meant that everyone squeezed to the sides to let others through. Of all of the dozens of people I spoke with and the hundreds of pages of newspaper stories that I read, there was not one report of anyone bullying his or her way through. People walked deliberately, but orderly, quick to make way for those in greater need.

The person I most remember was a woman named Victoria. She never made the news media, but she told me that she fell to her knees and began praying when the plane first hit. After seeing God directing the angels to protect her, she heard the words, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” She got up and proceeded to lead a group of about 25 people down from the 62nd floor by singing praise music and gospel songs.

I went back to Port Authority shortly after the bombing to help them regroup. The difference between working conditions in August and October was marked. We were in makeshift offices in a hastily remodeled warehouse, with ongoing threats of anthrax, concerns about more attacks, and the reminders of ongoing memorial services – as many as five a day. But the affection between the Port Authority employees was palpable. For one month, I worked with people who were not ashamed to show their unabashed love for each other. For one month, I lived in a beloved community.

The other time was January 2001, during a trip to South Africa with the Wesley Seminary choir. We were sponsored by two churches in adjoining suburbs of Cape Town. One was a black township called Langa, and the other a white village called Pinelands. On our last night, a half dozen of the white families from Pinelands came with us to worship at Langa. It was the first time that any of them had set foot in a black church, and they were unprepared for what they found. No pipe organ. No Books of Worship. Just spontaneity, fellowship, and joy! After the service and the goodbye reception, some of us were milling around in the parking lot. One of the older black women came up to me, gave me a powerful hug, and said, “When we and you and them (meaning the folks from Pinelands) are here in church, singing and dancing, and praising God together, I think that maybe, just maybe, that heaven has come down to earth.”

As tears welled up in my eyes, I could only agree and hug her more deeply. We were in community and we were all beloved. If it can happen even in the “decade of fear,” then surely we can take the message of Jesus, Dr. King, Nelson Mandela, Invictus and Avatar and spend the next decade working on creating a beloved community, learning to live together before we die together.

* Dr. Josiah Royce is one of the most important American philosophers, an idealist in the tradition of Hegel. He was professor of English at University of California Berkeley and of philosophy at Harvard. He emphasized will over intellect and believed that religion was the basis of human loyalty, which is the cohesive principle of ethical behavior and social norms. He argued that the highest good is achieved by “the willing and practical and thoroughgoing devotion of a person to a cause.” A diverse thinker, he also made contributions to psychology, social ethics, literary criticism, history, and metaphysics.

Following the Freedom Star: Prayer for a New Decade

By

Dear readers: I’m taking a little break from writing about the spirituality of animals to reflect on Epiphany, the day when the wise men brought gifts to the baby Jesus. The following is excerpted from a sermon I gave many years ago. The last year — to say nothing of the last decade — has been challenging for many of us and I (for one) would like to start the new year with more faith than fear. So I share this message in hopes that it will feed you with courage on the remarkable journey we call life.

Follow the drinking gourd

For the old man is a-waitin’

For to carry you to freedom

Follow the drinking gourd.


Do you see it?  There, up in the sky?  Okay, you see the constellation that some folks call the Big Dipper, and is also called the Drinking Gourd?  Yes, the one that looks like a great big water ladle.  Well, look at the two sides of the cup that are opposite the handle.  Figure out the distance between the two stars and multiply it by seven.  Move your eyes that far distant, and you will see the North Star.  It’s also called Polaris.  But I call it the Freedom Star, because if you follow that star long enough – months or years, not weeks – then you’ll find your way north, and you’ll be free.

During the darkest days in the history of our country, when whites bought and sold blacks whom they could then treat worst than the vilest of farm animals, there were a few courageous souls who developed an elaborate system of secret hiding places and coded messages to help runaway slaves find their way north to freedom. The system including such things as markers in trees, special lights hung out at certain hours, and quilts of particular colors hung out to dry. People walked hundreds, even thousands of miles, hiding in swamps, caves, and barns by day, and following the North Star – the freedom star of the Drinking Gourd – by night. Called the Underground Railroad, this secret network helped somewhere between 60,000 – 100,000 slaves find their way to freedom. The verses of the drinking gourd song were elaborate codes devised by an itinerant white carpenter – this is the “old man” referred to in the song – who went from plantation to plantation, teaching the song to slaves from Alabama and Mississippi. It led them up along the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers to the northern states and Canada. Hounded by dogs and slave owners, the runaways and their accomplices faced torture and certain death if they were caught. But, as the prophet Isaiah wrote 2500 years earlier, “The people who lived in darkness have seen a great light.” Think stars, think freedom. Follow the drinking gourd.

The black slaves and their white supporters were not the first to follow a star to freedom. January 6 is the celebration of Epiphany, when the wise men from the Orient followed a star to Bethlehem. It comes to us as a nice, romantic little story, but it was much, much more than that. First, it was a time of terrible oppression. The period of Roman occupation in Palestine was different – but fully as gruesome – as the days of slavery before the Civil War. Taxes were upwards of 60-70%, and people lost their land to pay tribute to the Roman empire and the Jewish authorities who supported Caesar. Some people sold themselves and their children into slavery, because it was that or starvation. Five percent of the people owned 95% of the wealth, and the rest suffered, cruelly and unmercifully.

Second, “kings” is a misnomer. The three men who came to Bethlehem were probably astrologers from Persia or further east. Astrologers were the first astronomers, who were, in turn, the scholars and scientists of the ancient world. The term “magi” meant someone of exceptional wisdom and knowledge, someone who could envision a world of goodness, kindness, justice, and freedom. In presenting Jesus with gold, frankincense, and myrrh, the Magi were acknowledging Jesus’ kingship, his priesthood, and his humanity, that is, honoring the fact that the powerful king and priest is also human and vulnerable – just like us. In recognizing the love of God embodied in this tiny child, these wisest of all wise men could see a way out of the oppression and injustice of the Roman empire. Think stars, think freedom.

Epiphany is a Greek word that means to “shine upon” or to “give light.” It is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew term that Isaiah uses when he writes, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” Epiphany means a dramatic uncovering or sudden awareness that changes one’s sense of reality. Suddenly you see what is happening and what is possible in a whole new light. It’s an “ah ha” moment, in which you blurt out, “Eureka – now I see it. Now I understand.” St. Paul’s vision on the road to Damascus was an epiphany. The slaves’ vision of freedom was an epiphany. The Magi’s recognition that a tiny infant could change the world was an epiphany.

I had a dramatic epiphany about fifteen years ago. My life had fallen apart – or so it seemed at the time – and I felt emotionally, financially, and spiritually destitute. One autumn weekend, I was camping with friends and we went walking late at night to watch shooting starts. Suddenly, some of the stars gently feathered their way to earth, making everything twinkle. The shrubs and trees and my friends and I had all been gently dabbed with fairy dust. I experienced a unity that I had never known before, in which there were no boundaries of time or place. Past, present, and future were one; here and there were one. The stars were friends and relatives who cared for me. The sparkles said, “You’re okay. You can do it. We’re here with you.” I felt hugged by God.

I told few people about it in fear that I would be labeled a religious nut case. Yet that autumn evening was the beginning of a transformation that eventually led me to seminary and ministry. The stars that came to earth and surrounded my friends and me were the most powerful gift I have ever received. I thought my vision was fairly rare me until I read a wonderful new book – Fingerprints of God by Barbara Bradley Haggerty, the NPR religion correspondent – and discovered that fully 50% of Americans have had a life-changing religious experience similar to mine. Think stars, think freedom. The people who lived in darkness have seen a great light. Follow the drinking gourd.

So what about you? What is your sudden new revelation on this Epiphany? Take a moment to consider those attachments that keep you from being fully free. Consider those fears that keep you bound in fetters. Is it anger? Is it jealousy? Is it loneliness? Is it an addiction that you would like to liberate yourself from? Is it a feeling of inadequacy – physical, psychological, financial, or other? – We are so attached to our emotions and material supports that they cloud our vision. We live in darkness, blind to the stars and to the Christ in our midst.

In your mind’s eye, feel the magi’s gifts coming to you. There is myrrh to recognize your humanity, incense to affirm you as an agent of God’s love, and gold to acknowledge your power. Feel also the stars that come and dance around you, kissing you with God’s comfort and affection. The gifts of courage, clarity, and vision are God’s gift to you. They are gifts of liberation from false attachments and false fears. Think stars, think freedom, follow the Drinking Gourd. On Epiphany, the twelfth day of Christmas, this is God’s most incredible gift to us.

Consider also the drinking gourds in your life. Certainly the communion cup is a reenactment of God’s greatest gift: to see ourselves, others, and the world in a new way – the way of liberation and of love. So also is a glass of water if we acknowledge it as the primary life force and also a means of baptism into a world ruled by hope instead of fear. Like the stars that point the way, these drinking gourds represent freedom from bondage, freedom from false attachments, freedom from fear. This is what the followers and supporters of the Underground Railroad saw. This is the Epiphany that the Magi saw – in the baby Jesus, we can find our freedom. Follow the freedom star. Follow the drinking gourd.

Follow the drinking gourd

Follow the drinking gourd

For the BABY is a-waitin’

For to carry you to freedom

Follow the drinking gourd.