“Nothing fills the body more quickly or completely with divine power and joy…than spontaneously expressing gratitude in dance.”
-Andrew Harvey
In July, I was blessed and honored to attend the 50th anniversary festival, “Moving Mysteries”, of the Sacred Dance Guild. Over 200 women, and a few brave men, gathered to share their love of dance as part of their faith.
Although I went without knowing anyone, I left with a wealth of friendships and experiences of dance as prayer in forms as vast and different as we are. From the woman who danced her grief for her friend and mentor whom she recently lost to cancer, to the legends and pioneers of liturgical dance who graciously shared their knowledge, experience and history with us. Just to be in their presence felt holy.
Each day our morning began in a large grassy field where we moved our bodies to awaken and greet one another. Looking into the eyes of each person was a joyful and peaceful way to begin our day. In our world sometimes greetings are lost in the swift tide of the moment. It meant something to be still with another, look into their eyes and acknowledge their presence in the universe.
One teacher, the beautiful and graceful Stella Matsuda, led us through set movement to the music “Come Drink Deep.” The movement was graceful and interpretive of the words. We struggled in areas to get the motions “right” until we were released from this burden when Stella invited us to connect with the words and the movement as it held meaning for us, not worrying about getting it “right”. Having worked on that for a bit, she split us into small groups to allow us more space to move in. I watched as my fellow classmates became prayers themselves. I witnessed women lost in the movement, some expressing joy, some sadness, others redemption. Tears escaped my eyes as I was held captive by them. It was intensely moving to see young girls as well as women doing "the same” movement yet with their emotions and experiences added, they each told their own story. I felt incredibly honored to share in their prayer.
When we add movement to our own prayer, we find wells deep within us that have been longing to escape. When we find that in ourselves and express it with our bodies, others join in our journey… they become part of our prayer.
Dance has been a part our human story for as long as we have existed. So much of our own life’s story is told without words. Responding to rhythms in our environment, in our interactions with others, in our internal self…is instinct. My hope is that if you are ever in the presence of dance in worship, though it may seem foreign, and even a bit uncomfortable at first, you will be open to experiencing it. Sometimes it takes something old and ancient, to teach us something new and timeless.
I believe in the power of all forms of prayer--spoken, danced, sung, played on a musical instrument, painted on a canvas. It is truly a prayer to use the gifts God has given us to reflect them back to our brothers and sisters, sharing our essence with the universe. The Spirit is always moving through us...
Karen Rossignol
Friday, October 17, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
The Year of St. Paul
When I told a friend that I had named my son after St. Paul, she had an arch reaction. "Why would you name your son after that misogynist?" she said. I was prepared for that. Whether invoking Paul's imprecation that "wives must be submissive to their husbands," (Ephesians 5: 22-23) or that Jews "killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets," (Thess 2: 15), Paul of Tarsus has been the fall guy for every iniquity from misogyny to anti-Semitism.
And yet this year, the 2,000th anniversary of his birth, the Vatican is celebrating "the year of St. Paul," by encouraging Catholics to re-examine Paul, the most influential shaper of Christianity outside of Jesus. How far this will go in reshaping the conventional wisdom about Paul will depend on how far the church is willing to go to bring new, more nuanced scholarship about this exhilarating [Dash] and exasperating [Dash] man into the pews.
From Andre Gide, to Thomas Jefferson, to George Bernard Shaw, the devout and the doubtful have taken aim at Paul, dismissing him as the wet blanket of the New Testament, a rigid, chauvinistic scold who took all the Good out of the Good News and replaced in with a dour, censorious bleakness. Jefferson called Paul the "first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus." Nietzsche said that the evangelist had "a genius for hatred."
Paul, the first and most vigorous of theologians, has been the most maligned, misunderstood and misrepresented saint in Christian history. And yet I chose to name my son after him because I believe Paul best articulates the electrifying possibilities of humankind and the ecstatic contradictions that make it so difficult to achieve them. I love the very qualities that have vexed so many: Paul's volatility, his gusto, his self-lacerating disappointment in himself and his fiery invectives against those who he believes diminish Jesus' message. If Paul is vicious in his condemnation of the wicked, he can at least be credited for lumping himself in that group.
As historian Henry Bamford Parkes wrote, "Emotional and excitable, alternating between states of ecstasy and depression, utterly convinced of his guidance by the Spirit and given to boasting of his own achievements, utterly convinced of his guidance by the Spirit...Paul revealed his whole personality with an astonishing candor and sincerity. His letters were the earliest example of that full acceptance of naked humanity not as it ought to be, but as it was...."
Part of the problem for Paul is that his letters are a response to first-century crisis about which we know next to nothing. As Gary Wills writes in "What Paul Meant," "We hear his raised voice without knowing what the other side was shouting." The second problem, as Georgetown University Professor Anthony Tambasco told me, is that "some of the text that Paul gets blamed for, he probably didn't write."
Of the 13 letters attributed by Paul, only seven are now accepted as certainly his. Letters like those to Timothy and Titus, for instance, were clearly not written by Paul. They were written at a time when the church had become more systematized [Dash] and patriarchal. Hence: "Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or have authority over a man, she is to keep silent" (Timothy 2:11-13) was almost certainly not written by Paul."Paul had people who he called fellow apostles and they were women," said Tambasco, author of "In The Days of Paul."
The problem is while Paul writes memorably that "in Christ there is neither male nor female" (Galatians 3:28), he nevertheless believes, as Harold W. Attridge, Dean of Yale Divinity School, told me, "There's also the natural order of things that needs to be respected." And that was a first-century social order."There were some people in Paul's school and tradition who took that impulse in Paul rather strictly," Attridge said. "So the passage that talks about women not to take leadership roles or to teach in the church are probably not by Paul."
Paul's alleged anti-Semitism is a bit more subtle. As a bridge between Judaism and Christianity, Paul wrestles deeply with the necessity to keep all of Jewish ritual, including circumcision, or whether the risen Jesus is "the saving reality" and that the law, as Tambasco says "is God's second best gift." It's fine to keep it, Paul says, but don't impose it on non-Jews. Later Christians, of course, used this and other scriptural readings to bolster a raging anti-Semitism the vestiges of which are tenacious.
But the Paul I love best is the Paul who wrestles with his own failings and finds healing in God's grace. "I do not understand my own actions," he laments in Romans. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate....For I do not the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. (Rom: 7-15-16; 18-20). This is a man who admits he is clumsy at devotion "we do not know how to pray as we out, but that very Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words."
Is Paul harsh? Sure he is. But he is also gloriously poetic, recognizing that despite humanity's failings, it is trussed irrevocably to God. "For I am convinced," he writes in Roman, "that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Tracey O'Shaughnessy
And yet this year, the 2,000th anniversary of his birth, the Vatican is celebrating "the year of St. Paul," by encouraging Catholics to re-examine Paul, the most influential shaper of Christianity outside of Jesus. How far this will go in reshaping the conventional wisdom about Paul will depend on how far the church is willing to go to bring new, more nuanced scholarship about this exhilarating [Dash] and exasperating [Dash] man into the pews.
From Andre Gide, to Thomas Jefferson, to George Bernard Shaw, the devout and the doubtful have taken aim at Paul, dismissing him as the wet blanket of the New Testament, a rigid, chauvinistic scold who took all the Good out of the Good News and replaced in with a dour, censorious bleakness. Jefferson called Paul the "first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus." Nietzsche said that the evangelist had "a genius for hatred."
Paul, the first and most vigorous of theologians, has been the most maligned, misunderstood and misrepresented saint in Christian history. And yet I chose to name my son after him because I believe Paul best articulates the electrifying possibilities of humankind and the ecstatic contradictions that make it so difficult to achieve them. I love the very qualities that have vexed so many: Paul's volatility, his gusto, his self-lacerating disappointment in himself and his fiery invectives against those who he believes diminish Jesus' message. If Paul is vicious in his condemnation of the wicked, he can at least be credited for lumping himself in that group.
As historian Henry Bamford Parkes wrote, "Emotional and excitable, alternating between states of ecstasy and depression, utterly convinced of his guidance by the Spirit and given to boasting of his own achievements, utterly convinced of his guidance by the Spirit...Paul revealed his whole personality with an astonishing candor and sincerity. His letters were the earliest example of that full acceptance of naked humanity not as it ought to be, but as it was...."
Part of the problem for Paul is that his letters are a response to first-century crisis about which we know next to nothing. As Gary Wills writes in "What Paul Meant," "We hear his raised voice without knowing what the other side was shouting." The second problem, as Georgetown University Professor Anthony Tambasco told me, is that "some of the text that Paul gets blamed for, he probably didn't write."
Of the 13 letters attributed by Paul, only seven are now accepted as certainly his. Letters like those to Timothy and Titus, for instance, were clearly not written by Paul. They were written at a time when the church had become more systematized [Dash] and patriarchal. Hence: "Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or have authority over a man, she is to keep silent" (Timothy 2:11-13) was almost certainly not written by Paul."Paul had people who he called fellow apostles and they were women," said Tambasco, author of "In The Days of Paul."
The problem is while Paul writes memorably that "in Christ there is neither male nor female" (Galatians 3:28), he nevertheless believes, as Harold W. Attridge, Dean of Yale Divinity School, told me, "There's also the natural order of things that needs to be respected." And that was a first-century social order."There were some people in Paul's school and tradition who took that impulse in Paul rather strictly," Attridge said. "So the passage that talks about women not to take leadership roles or to teach in the church are probably not by Paul."
Paul's alleged anti-Semitism is a bit more subtle. As a bridge between Judaism and Christianity, Paul wrestles deeply with the necessity to keep all of Jewish ritual, including circumcision, or whether the risen Jesus is "the saving reality" and that the law, as Tambasco says "is God's second best gift." It's fine to keep it, Paul says, but don't impose it on non-Jews. Later Christians, of course, used this and other scriptural readings to bolster a raging anti-Semitism the vestiges of which are tenacious.
But the Paul I love best is the Paul who wrestles with his own failings and finds healing in God's grace. "I do not understand my own actions," he laments in Romans. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate....For I do not the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. (Rom: 7-15-16; 18-20). This is a man who admits he is clumsy at devotion "we do not know how to pray as we out, but that very Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words."
Is Paul harsh? Sure he is. But he is also gloriously poetic, recognizing that despite humanity's failings, it is trussed irrevocably to God. "For I am convinced," he writes in Roman, "that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Tracey O'Shaughnessy
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Breathing through difficult times.
When I was pregnant with our first child, I learned mindful breathing techniques to help with the labor and delivery. Knowing how to breathe through the pain became more important with the birth of our second baby, simply because my labor with her was significantly longer than with the first.
Six months after our second child was born, I was diagnosed with cancer and those breathing skills immediately kicked back in. When the doctor says, “Change of plans, let’s do a biopsy,” there is nothing you can do but take a deep breath. When the doctor calls and, before explaining the test results, asks “Is your husband home with you?” all you can do is breathe. Knowing how to breathe through the pain helped me get through the nasty barium drinks, the physical pain of recovering from surgery, the post-surgical prohibition on picking up my daughters, and the unexpected news that I needed to have radiation and chemotherapy after all.
After a while, I realized that mindful breathing was not just a coping mechanism but it was also a gift. Normal life is very busy and offers few opportunities for quiet reflection. When you are lying on a cold metal table trying not to move during radiation treatment, however, you have the time to be still, and to breathe, and to reach out for God’s presence.
Being hooked up to an IV for 6 or 7 long hours on the chemo days forces you to slow down. I couldn’t go anywhere, but I could sit quietly, breathe deeply, and take the time to recognize and appreciate God’s grace, which was manifested in the love and kindness shown by my family and friends and by the nurses and volunteers.
It has been almost three months since I completed my treatment. My first post-treatment test came back clean and my life is mostly back to normal. Now, my challenge is to create space in my normal life where I can capture some of the stillness that was imposed on me while I was undergoing treatment in order to, again, focus on my breathing and, in those breaths, feel the enduring presence and strength of God.
Erin Choquette
Six months after our second child was born, I was diagnosed with cancer and those breathing skills immediately kicked back in. When the doctor says, “Change of plans, let’s do a biopsy,” there is nothing you can do but take a deep breath. When the doctor calls and, before explaining the test results, asks “Is your husband home with you?” all you can do is breathe. Knowing how to breathe through the pain helped me get through the nasty barium drinks, the physical pain of recovering from surgery, the post-surgical prohibition on picking up my daughters, and the unexpected news that I needed to have radiation and chemotherapy after all.
After a while, I realized that mindful breathing was not just a coping mechanism but it was also a gift. Normal life is very busy and offers few opportunities for quiet reflection. When you are lying on a cold metal table trying not to move during radiation treatment, however, you have the time to be still, and to breathe, and to reach out for God’s presence.
Being hooked up to an IV for 6 or 7 long hours on the chemo days forces you to slow down. I couldn’t go anywhere, but I could sit quietly, breathe deeply, and take the time to recognize and appreciate God’s grace, which was manifested in the love and kindness shown by my family and friends and by the nurses and volunteers.
It has been almost three months since I completed my treatment. My first post-treatment test came back clean and my life is mostly back to normal. Now, my challenge is to create space in my normal life where I can capture some of the stillness that was imposed on me while I was undergoing treatment in order to, again, focus on my breathing and, in those breaths, feel the enduring presence and strength of God.
Erin Choquette
Monday, June 9, 2008
The Place Called "I Know"
Patty A. shares her spiritual journey of recovery.
There is a place beyond “I Believe.” It is a place called “I Know.”
You can get to “I Believe” through the experience of others. You go to meetings, for coffee, to church basements. You listen to stories, you identify, you trust and so you believe.
But that place beyond “I Believe”, that place called “I Know”, can only come from within. It is a result of your own experience, of living on the edge, on the threshold. It is a place where you can taste your own death.
“I Know” is the “inside job” that I kept hearing about. “I know” is beyond sobriety. It is a place where you are finally attached, at the hip, at the head, at the heart, to God. It is a place of quiet, a place of peace, a place of comfort, a place of safety. But now, instead of having the covers over your head, you feel all of this in the light of day with everything whirling around you.
I know –
•That there is NOTHING that I cannot handle today, as long as I stay connected with God. I have faced my greatest fear; I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death and I am here to say that you can survive it.
•I know that there is nothing worth drinking over.
•I know that there is nothing that a drink cannot make worse.
•I know that if you hold onto this program and to your Higher Power, you can pass over the threshold into the place of peace.
•I know that what doesn’t kill you WILL make you stronger.
•I know that my priorities are, in this order: my connection with God, my sobriety, and my relationships with those around me.
•I know that people are not gods, or even demigods. They are human and they will fail you.
•I know that God will never fail you. Even in the times of greatest pain, He is holding you and loving you. What you feel is Him carefully chiseling down the walls that are keeping you from Him.
•I know that God will not “render you white as snow unless you fully cooperate with Him.”
•I know that it is unhealthy for me to judge myself by what I perceive others think of me.
•I know that if I lay my head on my pillow tonight without alcohol in my body, it’s been a pretty good day.
•I know that I know longer “need to know.” Knowledge will not save me, trust in God will.
I wonder if there is a place beyond “I Know”? Is it the place called “I Am”?
There is a place beyond “I Believe.” It is a place called “I Know.”
You can get to “I Believe” through the experience of others. You go to meetings, for coffee, to church basements. You listen to stories, you identify, you trust and so you believe.
But that place beyond “I Believe”, that place called “I Know”, can only come from within. It is a result of your own experience, of living on the edge, on the threshold. It is a place where you can taste your own death.
“I Know” is the “inside job” that I kept hearing about. “I know” is beyond sobriety. It is a place where you are finally attached, at the hip, at the head, at the heart, to God. It is a place of quiet, a place of peace, a place of comfort, a place of safety. But now, instead of having the covers over your head, you feel all of this in the light of day with everything whirling around you.
I know –
•That there is NOTHING that I cannot handle today, as long as I stay connected with God. I have faced my greatest fear; I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death and I am here to say that you can survive it.
•I know that there is nothing worth drinking over.
•I know that there is nothing that a drink cannot make worse.
•I know that if you hold onto this program and to your Higher Power, you can pass over the threshold into the place of peace.
•I know that what doesn’t kill you WILL make you stronger.
•I know that my priorities are, in this order: my connection with God, my sobriety, and my relationships with those around me.
•I know that people are not gods, or even demigods. They are human and they will fail you.
•I know that God will never fail you. Even in the times of greatest pain, He is holding you and loving you. What you feel is Him carefully chiseling down the walls that are keeping you from Him.
•I know that God will not “render you white as snow unless you fully cooperate with Him.”
•I know that it is unhealthy for me to judge myself by what I perceive others think of me.
•I know that if I lay my head on my pillow tonight without alcohol in my body, it’s been a pretty good day.
•I know that I know longer “need to know.” Knowledge will not save me, trust in God will.
I wonder if there is a place beyond “I Know”? Is it the place called “I Am”?
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
The Challenge of Pentecost
by Bill Walsh
From John’s gospel on Pentecost Sunday we read that Jesus did three things when he greeted his fearful disciples in that locked room. He offered them peace. He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And then he said, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and who’s sins you retain are retained.”
Jesus could have said, “Peace be with you” and “Receive the Holy Spirit” to the crowd of disciples all at once, but scripture also says that he breathed on them. It would be comical if he tried breathing on all of them at once, like blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. Instead, he must have slowly and deliberately moved through the gathering, talking with each person so intimately that his breath touched the person receiving his words. How comforting that moment must have been for each disciple. I can only imagine that Jesus confidently and gently extinguished the fear in that room person by person.
That moment in the locked room defined Pentecost for us. Jesus offered his disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit and God’s peace, and he wanted them to bring that peace to a world overwhelmed by the power of fear, a fear that leads to the evil of this world. We are all broken, we are all flawed, and we all need to be forgiven. Sometimes, though, we don’t think that we deserve to be forgiven. We think that our actions have been too hurtful for forgiveness. And sometimes, in our arrogance, we don’t think that we need to be forgiven, and we refuse to admit how we have failed.
Everyone needs to feel forgiven. Everyone needs to know the healing power of forgiveness that frees us from our fear. Everyone needs to be freed from the evil that we do when we don’t feel forgiven. What if Jesus wasn’t giving his disciples the authority to choose whose sins should be forgiven and whose sins should be retained? What if he was commanding them to forgive everyone, because anyone who did not feel forgiven would remain trapped in his fear? And it is fear that generates the evil in this world.
Does forgiveness have healing power? Do we trust in that power? If we do, then our evangelical calling should be to bring God’s healing power of forgiveness to everyone, because it is through forgiveness that we will come to know God’s peace. We are called to go out into the world confidently and gently offering God‘s peace to each person we meet. Maybe we are called to extinguish the fear and evil in this world by teaching forgiveness to one person at a time?
Friday, March 28, 2008
Only for Today
Judy George
Little did I know that the day following the January 25-27 “Only for Today” women’s retreat that I would be sitting at my mother’s bedside escorting her into eternity. I want very much to communicate to you how incredibly important the retreat experience became for me during this time.
I kept a journal of sorts during those days relating the retreat to the experiences of January 28 when my mother was rushed unresponsive with virtually no pulse to the hospital to February 2 when she passed away. I’d like to share some thoughts from that time with you.
January 29 – One has to go alone (die) clearly but they do not have to be alone as they go, that’s why I’m here knitting, talking once in awhile but working really hard on being just here just now. I and we will continue this vigil throughout whatever this experience turns out to be. “Only for today, I will adapt to circumstances, without requiring all circumstances to be adapted to my own wishes.”
I’m trying to do now well whatever that means to me in this moment.
People do the best that they can. I am an optimist and know no other way to believe. So I will think about the good things. “I want to be kind, today and always, to everyone.”
My mother taught me to knit. For me knitting has become so much more than a hobby. It foundates my beliefs about spirit and life. The weaving, the texture, the color, the simplicity of two stitches with endless possibilities astounds me continually with life lessons as I work.
January 30 – “It’s not the what of now, it’s the how of now” that keeps me soft, aware of the feelings of others and working hard at inclusion of family members as we make difficult and irreversible decisions.
Consensus as to what next is still forming but in the midst of this very real time of life I am here, now. “The way through it is the way through it.”
January 31 – I wrote my mother’s obituary today. It seems so morbid to be doing this while she’s still alive but this is, no doubt, a one way street and I want to do this well. Almost an afterthought turns out to be what I really wanted to say. “Throughout her life Edna was a voracious reader and until the last few years produced a seemingly endless stream of mittens, sweaters, afghans, oil paintings, watercolors and ceramic pieces.” The meaning for me is that although Mom was unable to engage in words or actions of love and affirmation perhaps her way was to share the products of her creativity.
February 1 – A very hard day. The hospital cannot keep Mom. I broke down and sobbed. The thought of her taking an ambulance ride, the discomfort, the lurching, the cold of the day is just more than I can handle. One of us can go with her and it will be me. I will be present. “Only for today, I will firmly believe, despite appearances, that the good providence of God cares for me as no one else who exists in this world.”
February 2 – My mother died today. My brother, his wife and a priest were with her. As my brother tells it, as the priest’s prayer ended decades of age fell from my mother’s face, her skin glowed and she smiled as if seeing the very one she had waited her entire life to see and then with the final amen, she was gone.
Clearly the story does not end here but suffice it to say that when I registered for the retreat I did so simply because it sounded intriguing, when I attended the retreat I enjoyed it greatly but experienced no great movement or revelation but thanks to the retreat “all things worked together” and I was able to come from a deeply peaceful place to share my mother’s last days. Thank you and may God continue to bless the work of your ministry.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Momentum
Theresa Wiss
Everyone enjoys a good roll- the times in our life when everything seems to fall into place. When the pieces of our lives fit together nicely and neatly creating a pleasant picture. When we seem to catch all the “lucky” breaks and we’re riding high on a wave. Ah, yes, life is sweet from that vantage point – full of optimism, feel-good moments and great expectations for the future.
If only these days, weeks, months, even years could last forever. Much to our dismay these “good times” are interrupted, diminished, overshadowed, disfigured or sometimes smashed. Instead, we face cancer, the death of a child, a foreclosure, a divorce, or a job loss. Suddenly, our wondrous wave comes crashing to the shore. Our perfect picture is shattered into pieces.
We find ourselves overwhelmed with grief during these times, experiencing a deep sense of loss and questioning the meaning of life. Where did all our “good times” go?
As we move through the circumstances of our loss- whatever the particulars may be – we make an effort to pick ourselves up, tend to our wounds, and look for ways to return to the “good times”. But things aren’t the way they were before – life is not unchanging.
Life is made up of good times and difficult times and lots of experiences in between. Change, loss, and death are all part of life. To imagine a life without these parts is to imagine a world other than the world we live in. To live in the fantasy of a world where only “good times” happen to get away from my immediate experience of pain, I have to question what reality I’m really living in.
Finding our way during difficult times is prickly and painstakingly slow. Lately, it has occurred to me that the hardest part is recapturing momentum – re-establishing a rhythm in my daily life. It’s a wonderful feeling to face the day with energy, clarity and purpose. Without the thrust of momentum, it feels impossible to sustain feelings of peace and a sense of hope. This would be impossible if we were truly alone. The truth is, of course, is that we are not alone. We don’t have to rely on our own petty strength. God is with us and will sustain us. God is the wind under our wings and the One who puts the spring back in our step.
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