Trinity Cathedral

Blogged Out

2011-11-24T05:23:00.000-08:00

I have notified my congregation that for now, and until further notice is given, I'm ceasing to write in my blog. Why? I don't know. A combination of things that include being devoted to not missing a minute of time with my last two children who as teenagers need me. I missed out on some things with the first two prior to their departure from home and I'll not repeat missing what is unrepeatable. Also, and this may sound weird, I'm enjoying again, rediscovering again, my joy of being a priest. So, writing about it takes a back seat to living it.

I promised Trinity I would write again when the situation warrants it. Till then, "Shalom" and "Thanks to everyone who followed, read, and responded." Gregory

Our Worship on Television?

2011-10-03T06:46:00.000-07:00

Recently a parishioner wrote me asking if I'd thought about televising our Sunday worship so homebound parishioners could participate and feel more connected to Trinity. I thanked the person for their interest but replied, “No, and let me explain why.”

Last spring I was in Florida visiting my parents. I over slept and missed the 8AM worship service at my home parish—St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. Instead, I turned on the television and watched the worship service of a local Methodist church. The experience was jolting.

The television camera was mounted in the rear of the worship space above the congregation. From a downward viewing angle I saw a large number of empty pews. I couldn’t help but notice many in the pews had no hair or gray hair. Any student of organized religion, even through the lens of the television, could see this was likely once a vibrant and full congregation now aged and half-empty.

In a word the worship was very amateurish. I suspect local worship, as opposed to the professional multi-million dollar affairs put out by arena sized congregations, is one of those things best engaged in the flesh and doesn’t as easily yield its fruit to mere spectators from a distance.

Liturgy, the “work of the people” offered to God by mere mortals in local settings for personal edification, is in many ways an amateur hour. There is no hiding all the deficiencies visible on any given Sunday morning. Preachers ramble without purpose, choirs sing off key, lectors mispronounce words, processions meander aimlessly in curved lines, and these are simply the most visible inadequacies.

Yet, something of great dignity is being played out in this local drama: the human heart—unseen by any camera—is being drawn out of hiding to interact with the divine. No camera could ever project the true contrition that often precedes such an encounter or the true joy and gratitude that comes after such an encounter. This is partly because that same camera lens entertains us with actors and actresses portraying just such feelings in movies. We are rather jaded and can easily see the tears of the preacher as manipulative when in fact they may be genuine—or maybe even both!

My experience is that something happens on Sunday mornings that can't be projected through a television lens and is akin to what happens Monday through Friday in the workplace. The longer we work side-by-side with people the less we see the outer person (size, weight, hair color, clothing) and the more we see the inner person. Consequently, the person “changes” in our sight so that someone you thought you’d not care for (because of outward appearance) turns out in fact to be someone whose inner qualities attract and delight you.

The deficiencies in worship become less visible as we become more attached to the people in worship. It is the relationships between the people of God in a worship space that gives meaning to the liturgy. In fact, sometimes the deficiencies take on new meaning when I know and love the people. For example, mispronounced words mean little to me when I know the lector has overcome the fear of standing in front of people or has overcome stuttering.

In some ways I'm more connected to my parishioners than ever before through weekly email, phone, and website. Yet, I feel in my bones a separateness or loss of inner connection. The passing of information from one source to another does not make for community. Knowing the times of services, the speakers, the agendas, the outlines, and meeting times does not necessarily lead to community.

How connected are you to the people with whom you share worship? Do you know the names of the people seated around you? Do you know anything about their story--the personal details through which hearts are often knit? We all want a richer worship experience? One way is to tighten up the interactions of those who lead worship. However, a better way is to become more connected with those with whom you worship. Invite a parishioner to lunch. Sit with someone at coffee hour. Take a step and I bet you'll find two steps moving toward you.

What Is A Good Church?

2011-09-12T05:34:00.001-07:00

My definition of a healthy small unit (parish) of the Body of Christ is, "A people whose life is poured out in service to others." The language of sacrifice ("poured out") is a bit dramatic. Perhaps it might be better to say of good church, "A group of people who see themselves as blessed and who believe it is better to give than to receive and who therefore give regularly of themselves to the betterment of others." A little wordy.

More succinctly put, "A collection of stewards (people who see everything as a gracious gift requiring an appropriate and generous response). However, this has no Christ centeredness to it. It might be better to say, "People transformed by Love." I like this definition because generous giving is inherent to Love.

What is your definition of a "good church?"

Shalom, Greg

Deception: A Means of Grace?

2011-08-17T12:13:00.000-07:00

Most of us associate honesty with God and deception, dishonesty, craftiness, and slight of hand with the Devil. Yet, I assure you that a reading of the 50 chapters of Genesis, and the 40 chapters of Exodus, will cure you of this illusory association. The lives of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) were filled with stories in which God blessed them through less than honest means. Abraham fooled people into believing Sarah was his sister and not his wife; Jacob, with the help of his mother Rebekah, fooled Isaac into believing he was his father's favorite son Esau and so falsely received the birthright; Jacob worked seven years for the right to marry Rachel only to find out that Laban, the father, slipped Leah into the marriage bed leading Jacob to work another seven years; and toward the end of those seven years Jacob began to switch out the sheep so that Laban's sheep slowly grew weak while Jacob's grew strong.

This pattern of deception is not confined only to the Hebrew scriptures. One of Jesus' more provocative stories is called the Parable of the Dishonest Manager. I retell it in modern language. A man is told on Friday at 10AM he will be terminated at the end of the day. At lunch the man sneaks out with a list of debtors and makes some house calls. At each business he represented himself as from the company and altered the amounts owed so that 800 bushels of wheat became 600, 300 gallons of oil became 200, and so forth. He effectively indebted others to himself at no personal expense. AND, Jesus commended the dishonest manager to his disciples as an example of how shrewd and crafty they should be for good, for the kingdom, for God.

The pattern is also throughout creation. We like to point to creation as the handiwork of God. Well, that creation is filled with creatures who practice deceit to better enable themselves to hunt and avoid being eaten. In other words, deception is often employed to survive and especially if you face a stronger opponent.

Rabbi Nilton Bonder, in Our Immoral Soul, states that Hasidic tradition taught there were times in which the goodness of a law could be better fulfilled by disobedience than obedience (see page 18). For example, it is feasible that a believer in God could walk by the poor and say, "God bless you" believing God will take care of the poor. However, the atheist who believes in no such deity, may indeed stop and help the poor because they assume "If I don't no one will." Thus, the unbeliever fulfills the commandment. Such is an example of when right is wrong and wrong is right.

This doesn't easily compute to us moderns and especially to those brought up on heavy doses of the Protestant work ethic. Yet, it is prevalent in the bible and nature and I think it speaks a word we dont want to hear--spiritual people can be lazy. I believe spiritual people can too heavily rely on God as a crutch or fall back person who will always compensate for our half-hearted efforts or fill in all the empty spots left by our laziness. And, because God forgiving we believe we will never experience the ramifications.

Jesus said we should be "wise as serpents and innocent as doves." I believe he is telling us that sometimes less than honest means can produce not only good results but even bring about God's blessing. I believe he wishes us to be a bit crafty and wily but with good intentions. I think this involves knowing what makes people tick, understanding human need, real need and not the cravings generated by Madison Avenue, and then using that knowledge to help meet that need.

Lastly, don't forget that Jeremiah the 7th century prophet accused God of trickery by calling God, "A deceitful brook." That is, Jeremiah felt he was lured into ministry under false pretenses--that wouldn't be the first time it has happened! In the end, much good has come to many people who entered Church because of a man, a woman, loneliness, food, or the promise of better connections for business only to later find God and realize that was the true drawing card.

Shalom, Greg

Be Ye Doers of the Word

2011-07-18T07:57:00.001-07:00

In yesterday's sermon, in which Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to a sower sowing seeds, I drew attention to Jesus' penchant for concluding parables with the saying, "Let those who have ears hear." The phrase points to the reality that among Jesus' hearers some "got it" and some failed to understand the meaning of his words. In the time allotted yesterday I couldn't fit it the question, "What does it mean to understand the words or teachings of Jesus?'

In James 1:22 the bible says, "...but be doers of the word and not just hearers..." This indicates that action in response to the teachings of Jesus is one indicator that a person understands the message. In John 13:35 Jesus is reported to have said, "By this will all people know that you are my disciples, that you love one another as I have loved you." Here love is the action that marks the disciple or student of Jesus.

So, to hear with understanding is to appropriately respond to Jesus' message. The appropriate action will be rooted in Love, as God is love, and could take many forms. In my own life the appropriate response to a message about the kingdom of God has led me to seek forgiveness and reconciliation with someone (often begun by acknowledging my fault), give more generously of myself, time, or talent, opening my heart and mind to a new understanding or insight or direction from others, and humbling myself and turning from pride.

As one member of the Vision Team I believe our hope is that in the coming months, at the appointed time, our congregation will respond in three ways. First, that every member of Trinity will gather at one of the designated meetings for a holy conversation around the questions "Who are we? What is God calling us to be and do? Who is our neighbor?

Second, that people will come with a sense of togetherness rooted in the reality we are all linked together and so collectively we can avoid the all too common practice of blaming and scapegoating. Third, each person will speak honestly from his or her unique perspective. In my experience this will require several important dynamics to be at work: (1) the assurance that it is safe to speak honestly (2) that persons choose not to defend the Dean or tradition or the majority position by attacking minority viewpoints.

A conversation rooted in honesty that leads to understanding, be it in the form of two people (marriage), 10 people (family gathering), 75 people (church gathering), or 541 (total members of Congress), is a rare thing. The safest place to begin such a practice is in your everyday conversations with Self and God. People who practice such honest conversations daily will surely increase the odds that Trinity can have such a conversation.

Shalom, Gregory

In Honor Of My Mentor: Bruce McNab

2011-06-29T14:52:00.000-07:00

On June 19, 2011, my friend, mentor, and spiritual father retired from active ministry in the Episcopal Church after 30 plus years. The Rev. Bruce McNab first entered my life in service to my parents who in 1977 were struggling with my reckless and dangerous lifestyle. So it was that Bruce knew of me by reputation, through their stories, until in 1979 he first met me in the parish hall after worship services at St. Andrew's in Panama City, Florida. I remember his first words being something like, "O you are Greg Powell." The face conveyed, "Hey, you don't look as scary as I pictured you."

Bruce said, "Come see me this Friday afternoon." I did so and continued to do so for two years. At that time I was lost and didn't fully know it. I was full of hurt and pain--this I knew--but was clueless as to what to do with it. Today, I offer my heartfelt gratitude to God for his servant Bruce McNab and the way he gave of himself to one who had nothing to offer in return. On February 26, 1992 I named my first born son Michael Charles Bruce Powell in recognition that I understood the gift given by God in my relationship to Bruce.

I learned many valuable lessons from Bruce. Yet, one stands out as being especially precious. Bruce once told me, "In ministering to families there will come times when they will close the door to the world (i.e., death, divorce, imprisonment) but leave a crack in the door through which you are to enter. What you do when you enter will be the most important work of your priesthood."

That wisdom has borne much good fruit in my life and in the lives of those I've served. There have been times I was afraid to enter the crack for fear of what lay on the other side. There were times when I didn't feel worthy or equipped to enter. Early in my ministry I entered the door laden with words--helping words, rescuing words, feel good words, and pithy platitudes offered in anxiety. It was years before I learned to properly respect and honor the events behind the door with presence and silence and touch. Early in my ministry I entered thinking I carried God with me. It was years before I came to understand that Jesus was always waiting for me inside the narrow door. Early in my ministry people had to leave quite a big crack in the door as I hadn't yet learned to see. Today, I'm more attuned to the very subtle ways by which people invite me into their lives. I credit Bruce with introducing me to the door and to sacred life inside it.

This door is the doorway to the heart. It is not left open for priests only but for all whose hearts have been touched by Jesus who is both the Door and the one who knocks. This door is described by Sam Shoemaker in his poem I Stand By The Door (see here). I first opened the door of my heart, a heart full of sorrow, anger, confusion, and pain, on a Friday afternoon in 1979. I thank God that Bruce knew what to do upon entering it.

Bruce, you have given 30 plus years to working in this part of God's kingdom we call the Episcopal Church. Well done thou good and faithful servant. I join with many others who rise up to bless you.

Shalom, Greg Powell

Love

2011-06-07T13:27:00.000-07:00

In 1965 Bert Bacharach composed a song about love entitled What The World Needs Now. Hal David wrote the lyrics whose first refrain was;

What the world needs now is love, sweet love

It's the only thing that there's just too little of

What the world needs now is love, sweet love,

No not just for some but for everyone.

Love has been extensively studied, from many different angles, and most recently has included neurological and chemical studies. An article in National Geographic reported the brain chemistry of a person in the stage of passionate love most resembles the brain of persons suffering from various forms of madness!

Psychologist Robert Sternberg identifies three primary components of love---passion, intimacy, and commitment. Passion involves sexual arousal and an intense desire to be with another person expressed through hugging, kissing, and sexual intimacy. Intimacy is a feeling of closeness and connectedness expressed through communication and doing things that support the other person. Commitment is a decision to love the other person by maintaining that love over time.

The kind of love you feel depends, says Sternberg, on a mixture of these three components. One partner may feel a type of love not shared by the other and the potential for misunderstanding is great. One may be committed to a partner but lack passion. A partner may be passionately in love but be unable to communicate the deep feelings. A partner may feel there is commitment only to find out that is not the case.

Here are some interesting observations from Sternberg's research.

During the stage of passionate love partners idealize each other by accentuating the good features and omitting the not so nice features. Passionate love by definition involves a certain blindness (madness). Familiarity over time brings to light the previously unseen character traits that shatter illusion. Passionate love cannot last.
Love persists beyond passion through romantic love defined as "passionate love with the added component of intimacy." However, psychologists have found romantic love a poor basis for marriage.
Marriage is best rooted in love characterized by intimacy and commitment termed "companionate love" by Elaine Walster and Ellen Berscheid. Companionate love involves deep attachment based on extensive familiarity that results in tolerance for a partner's shortcomings. Walter and Berscheid note, "The romantic passion that brings a couple together is not the force that keeps them together."

I wonder, "How does this information shed light on the bonds of affection and love that hold parishioners together in relationship with God and one another?" Certainly "the honeymoon" period between a Rector and congregation mirrors the idealizing done by partners in the passionate stage of love. When the illusions fall between a Rector and congregation it is not uncommon for people to leave as do some couples thus denying the possibility of companionate love. What are your thoughts?

Shalom,

The Dean

Osama Bin Laden

2011-05-18T18:56:00.000-07:00

I was driving to BWI on a Monday morning at 6AM when I heard on National Public Radio that Bin Laden had been killed. NPR played clips in which people were shouting joyfully about the killing or "murder" or "assassination" as some have called it. I found that I couldn't muster anything resembling joy. I simply don't take joy in anyone's death.

It does no good to imagine how I might feel differently if my parent or sibling had died in the 9/11 attacks on the towers. Such theoretical thinking is wishful thinking. Instead, I can say that no death will bring back the loved ones lost in the attack on the twin towers.

People will say, "Justice is done." Retributive justice is about proportional response. It is hard to see how the death of one, even if the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, is proportional to the loss of over 3000.

The killing of Bin Laden was a military action. The United States is engaged in military and political actions around the war. What I hate is that I believe if you "live by the sword you will die by the sword." Each drone missile that kills simultaneously makes more enemies who swear vengeance upon us. At some point someone has to model some form of "turn the other cheek" if the cycle of violence is to stop.

Reflections on Holy Week

2011-04-26T05:19:00.000-07:00

These are my feelings and thoughts about Holy Week 2011 at Trinity Cathedral. I offer them with gratitude to God for what was for me a truly Holy Week.

First, the reading of the Passion Narrative has over the past years become for me less and less a means of connection to the God-Human love story. I found Matthew's anti-Semetism ("His blood be on us and on our children") an annoyance at best and disturbing at a deeper level. Bill Chilton and I have reached out to Rabbi Peter Hyman to explore a joint 2012 Lenten offering aimed at presenting a more historical account of the last days of Jesus' life in next year's Palm Sunday-Good Friday readings.

Second, I was very drawn to worship at night with diminished light and sound against a backdrop of candles. In the space I remembered Karen Armstrong's observation that worship was first rooted to art in the caves of France some 15,000 years ago. I intend to explore further nightly worship opportunities at Trinity as I think our space really lends itself to this type of service.

Third, my post-modern sensibilities were shocked by the role of "evil" and "suffering" as described in the services of The Way of the Cross and Tenebrae. I struggle walking the fine line between alleviating human suffering while accepting that suffering has been a means by which I have become more truly human. These services confronted me with my impoverished understanding of evil. I left these services with a sense that if my walk with Jesus is to deepen it will take me into the mystery of suffering and evil.

Fourth, the Maundy Thursday overnight vigil was very meaningful to me. Others communicated a similar experience. They confirmed my own feeling that 30 minutes was too short a period of time. We who entered the space were drawn to remain in it soaking up something not easily put into words.

Fifth, like many priests and lay people who "put on" Holy Week services I was again amazed at the poor attendance when compared with the average Sunday attendance. There is nothing new here to report. I expect it. Who wants to endure 3-4 services around the suffering of an innocent man when it seems so like the everyday news? Yet, there is something shallow about an Easter celebration that bypasses the suffering. The Collect for Monday in Holy Week contains much needed wisdom for our consumer driven culture, "Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace..." The Church should not separate Easter Day from Good Friday.

Shalom, Greg

A tribute to Linda Monson

2011-04-11T07:33:00.000-07:00

I lost a very good friend on April 2, 2011. She was 49 years old and mother to three kids. She lived with cancer for some 8 years. During that time her mother and sister were diagnosed with cancer.

Laura and I met Linda in 1987 at Christ Episcopal Church in Denver, Colorado. Phylis Longfellow, a parishioner and mother to many youth at CC, said to Laura and I, "I have a couple you just have to meet." We had just moved from Massachusetts and knew no one. That day we met Paul and Linda and their friends, Bill and Laura, and we became inseparable friends.

A television tribute to Linda can be seen here http://www.9news.com/dontmiss/192397/630/Linda-Monson-never-asked-Why-me

Laura and I couldn't attend the funeral. This is my small way of saying, "Linda, we will miss you."

Shalom, Gregory

Obedience

2011-04-04T18:08:00.000-07:00

If you've never read Richard Foster's book the Celebration of Discipline it is worthy of your time. It lists the classic time honored spiritual disciplines by which millions of people have found spiritual growth and vitality. It helps if you are ready to be disciplined. Who wants to be disciplined? Someone who has found the religious shortcuts unsatisfactory and is hungry for new life.

I am currently practicing the spiritual discipline of OBEDIENCE. Long ago I knew marriage offered two people a wonderful opportunity to practice love in the classroom of real life. Yet, it has taken me some 25 years to truly be ready to be a partner. Currently, I'm practicing obedience. What is obedience to me? It is saying, "Yes" with my actions even if my heart says, "No" or "Why?" I'm saying, "Yes" to my wife in belief that over time my heart will catch up and learn to say "yes" as well. In the past I viewed most requests as an infringement on my freedom. Today, I'm saying, "Yes" because I know she loves me and I trust her.

I encourage you to see how obedience to your spouse, your boss, your parents, or some authority can radically alter your life. Pick someone, pick a day, and simply say "yes" to everything asked of you. I acknowledge there are evil or demented or sick persons to whom obedience would be unhealthy. So, practice obedience with someone whom you know and trust.

Christian Basics 101: Commitment

2011-03-14T17:43:00.000-07:00

America is a Capitalist society. Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and operated for profit. Profit is largely generated by meeting the needs of the consumer. Creation of need is sometimes necessary. The internet has globalized the capitalist system and brought the power of global markets into the living room of the consumer.

C. S. Lewis said, "The good news of the gospel is at first bad news." He meant that at the heart of Christianity lies the belief that the human heart is in need of repentance. Repentance involves making a sea change, a reversal, a turning from one direction to another. The turning involves the creation of a new worldview centered on God as revealed in the person of Jesus. This in turn changes one's perspective and attitude and behavior toward one's neighbor.

No one easily makes a change of direction. Such changes are often in response to a frustration, or dissatisfaction, a breakdown in life, or some external message that "something is missing" or "something is amiss." The good news of Jesus is presented as an alternative, a better way that carries both a cost and a reward. The cost is the laying aside of one's Ego and the reward is a much richer and more meaningful relationship with self and neighbor.

The pastor of a congregation whose members are largely consumers more committed to the meeting of their needs than to God, accountability in community, or new life, is in a conflicted situation should the Pastor wish to speak anything but the affirming word. The reason? In a volunteer association marked by easy entrance and easy exit the consumer always carries the "Opt-Out" card. Disciples of Jesus, in contrast to the consumer, are known for commitment. Commitment allows us a measure of space in which to be held accountable, acknowledge our faults, repent, and receive forgiveness and restored relationship. Consumerism destroys such a process.

I respect people who are committed to God and to a people. I respect that such persons can give and receive honest feedback. I respect that such persons are almost always the ones who will be present to catch you should you fall and who put you back on the road to life.

Shalom, Greg

Love

2011-02-14T17:23:00.000-08:00

"O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into ourhearts your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen."

The above prayer is the Collect for the 7th Sunday after the Epiphany and is found on page 216 of the Book of Common Prayer. I love this prayer because it highlights love. What can we say of love?

Any words on Love must begin with God. The scriptures declare, "This is love, not that we love God, but that God first loved us" (I John 4:10). Love begins and ends with God. In the Hebrew scriptures "hesed" or "loving kindness" is a central virture. Rabbi Simlai in the Talmud claims that “The Torah begins with hesed and ends with hesed.”

Christians look to Jesus (Yeshua) as the embodiment of love. I would note one simple and obvious aspect of Jesus' love--he touched people and allowed people to touch him. In 1992 I was driving from my apartment at Wycliffe College in Toronto to St. Timothy's Anglican Church where I spent 10 hours each week as part of my seminary training. I came to a stop sign and saw there had just been a fender bender. The two drivers were arguing outside their cars. Suddenly, one man struck the other in the face with his fist. I've spent enough time in bars, both as a bartender and as a consumer, to have seen my share of fights. However, seeing this man strike the other at the stop sign woke me up to the brutality of such an action. The way we touch people matters. Love involves touching.

When I think of the times I've been most loved I remember I was touched in tender ways. In 1966 Edward T. Hall, building on the work of Heini Hediger's 1955 study of zoo animals, built the diagram listed below. Personal space varies but is thought to be 1.5 to 4 feet. Intrusion into that space without invitation activates the amygdala, that portion of our brain that processes the perceived intention of the intruder. Bill Hybel, the founder of megachurch Willow Creek, said, "Everyone who changed my life did so from three feet away." Love is intimate and happens within our personal space. Think about the most loving moments in your life and I bet most, if not all, happened within your personal space. Remember, any exceptions will rest upon relatively recent technological discoveries.

Jesus is the one who enters our personal space with only life giving intention, never to betray our trust, and whose touch is hesed, wholeness, loving, and transforming.

Shalom, Greg

Breaking the Rules

2011-02-07T06:30:00.000-08:00

"Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever." ~ Clarence Darrow

This past Sunday I spoke about Jesus' willingness to break social customs and norms thought by the Scribes and Pharisees to be Jewish Law. I want to say a bit more about his actions.

The 10 Commandments are the essence of all Jewish Law. The Scribal Law at the time of Jesus' birth contained some 603 additional laws aimed at enhancing or clarifying that original essence. Some scholars refer to the additional laws as the Fence around the Law. When Jesus healed on the Sabbath he broke certain laws in the Fence. His same action in the eyes of others seemed in alignment with the essence of the 10 Commandments. This is how Jesus could, on the one hand heal on the Sabbath (breaking the oral Law), and on the other hand say, "I have come to fulfill the Law and not abolish it."

Jesus' primary and repetitive point of conflict with the Scribes and Pharisees was their strict adherence to the Fence resulted in additional demands upon the people. In Luke 11:46 Jesus said, "And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.

Jesus dedicated his life to alleviating the suffering of the poor and to bringing justice to the oppressed. As his followers we will be wise to expect times when serving in the name of Jesus will put us in conflict with the guardians and custodians of social norms thought to be laws.

Shalom, Greg

A Good Priest

2011-02-01T05:14:00.001-08:00

I entered bed one evening last week and said, "Greg, you were a good priest today." I believe everyone, regardless of job or profession or career can feel the satisfaction of a job well done. Let me tell you about my own discovery of being a good priest.

My feeling of satisfaction nothing to do with bulletins, blogs, websites, cleaning my office or my cluttered desk. It had nothing to do with my creativity or preaching. My joy and satisfaction derived from my interaction with people in which I exercised courage and spiritual insight. I'll share one of the three encounters I had that day.

During the Men's Bagel and Bible study on Wednesday morning I posed a question to be answered from the heart. It was intended to elicit a personal response. A person answered in a way that seemed to me to avoid the task. So, I stopped the person and said, "But what about you?" A second attempt was made to answer and again I stopped the person and said, "Can you answer it from your heart." This little back-and-forth played out 3-4 times. There came an awkward moment of silence and tension. As often happens in such a situation, someone attempted to rescue the individual and group from the silence and tension. I turned my attention and said to this person, "I'm sure we would all feel better talking about something else. Let's just sit with this one right now."

I turned my attention back to the person and said again, "Would you like to answer the question in a way that speaks from your heart?" The person leaned a bit forward, keeping steady eye contact with me, and said, "To answer that I'd probably shed tears." I said, "I know I'm okay with tears and the rest of us have shed them in this place."

Then, and only then, after a lot of social interaction aimed at gauging the safety in the room, did the person reply, "To answer I would have to accept I am my father's son." I cannot do justice to what happened next. A sacredness came over the room. It was as if the floor opened up and spirit rushed in. Someone had dared to speak the most timeless and courageous word anyone can utter, "I am my parent's child--the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." We had arrived at our work for that morning.

I could have sat silently and let the gentleman regale us with a great story. The group is polite enough to have listened along. However, as a priest I knew that was not why we gathered that morning. As a priest I knew what brought these men out was a desire to encounter the living God and God's spirit in each of us. As a priest I've come to know that such encounters require a gentle and deft hand in easing the nervous and easily frightened human being (me) to such an encounter.

I don't know what you, Trinity Cathedral, want in a priest. I know that in me you have someone with clear weaknesses and liabilities. If you are wise you will surround me and shore me up in such areas. However, what you do have is what I believe you most need--a person whose life bears witness to encounters with the living God and who is willing to help you and lead you and point to your own encounters.

Shalom, Greg

Form & Essence

2011-01-24T05:51:00.000-08:00

Let me say more about last Sunday's sermon that identified suffering with attachment to form at the expense of essence. Let's begin with definitions of each.

Emotional attachment is a human trait common to all with conscience. There appears to be almost nothing to which such humans cannot become attached. Attachment is an emotional connection to anything that when taken causes grief. Form includes the visible and the invisible. Your body is a form. Democracy is a form of government. A book is a form containing thoughts. Family is a form. "My spouse should make me happy" and "Trust no one" are thought forms. Essence is formless. God is the ultimate formless essence. Good and Evil, and their offspring are essences that penetrate and show through form.

It is in the nature of form that no form lasts for very long. To become attached to a form is to suffer when the form changes. A person attached to the thought form, "The world should make me happy" will suffer greatly. Author and spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle says, "The world is meant to be frustrating. Frustration is built into the world to drive you deeper, to drive you away from attachment and toward essence."

Yet, most people believe they can arrange the forms of life in such a way as to achieve happiness. We can momentarily achieve happiness when the form of our finances, love life, health, job, family, house, church, automobiles, and other forms are all in alignment and functioning properly. But, it is in the nature of form that pretty soon something changes and when it does many people feel frustration and some even take it personally. This always causes suffering.

In my work of leading people to deeper connection with the Formless One, which in turn always leads people to deeper and richer connection to neighbor, I want to say, "Church cannot make you happy and is bound to frustrate anyone thinking otherwise. The worship will change, the people will move away or die or simply start acting differently, the priests will come and go, the roof will leak or the basement will flood, staff will come and go, and to think the church can make you happy is to suffer."

But, when we drop our demands that life, spouse, church, government, or children should make us happy we experience a great FREEDOM. Suddenly, that which had formerly been very heavy becomes light and very pleasant. This wisdom seems especially needful as the pace of change has itself changed.

Shalom, Greg

The Sabbath

2011-01-13T04:46:00.000-08:00

"What are you doing sitting around? Get up and MOVE IT," shouted my coach. Some days I feel I've been moving it ever since. Moving through the day, moving through the month, the year, ticking off the decades moving from state to state.

God is said to have "moved it" for six days and then rested on the seventh day. If you read and understand Abraham Joshua Heschel's Sabbath in the first reading you are a genuine mystic and genius. It is a dense read. I even heard the rabbi speak of it in such terms.

The Jewish roots of Christianity tell us God sanctified time. Every encounter of God is a timeless one. The timeless One made holy the time we inhabit and told us that there is a time for REST.

Two quick stories. First, I'm so steeped in the American capitalist machinery of production that I often feel guilty for resting--much like the kid in me that remembers being yelled at by my coaches for taking a breather. So, I make myself earn the rest. I make sure I work hard often telling myself along the way, "Boy, the couch will feel good after I do all this work." Problem is, I often just keep working and rarely sit and REST.

Second, I'm teaching on the Sabbath and a woman in TN stopped me, "Hey, you mean to tell me I need to take a whole day each week to rest by not doing all the other things I do during the six?" "Yes," I replied. She retorted, "Can't be done, I'd have to reorient my entire week!" Yes, to honor the Sabbath all time has to be reoriented toward God.

In the end, all too often, I feel rest is for the weaklings. This is a take on the saying, "I'll sleep when I die." The question posed by the bible is not one of production but one of meaning and that meaning isn't found in the accumulation of things but in a life oriented in meaningful relationships that start and end with God. And, God rested and invites you into his rest.

Shalom, Greg

Thirst For God

2011-01-06T03:14:00.000-08:00

I have spoken before about Karen Armstrong's notation that humanity's relationship with the divine runs between the extremes of Transcendence and Immanence. When I consider my encounters with God, the Numinous, Life, The Alpha & Omega, the Ineffable, I certainly have felt both the "otherlyness" of God (the Reformers used the term "alien" to refer to the quality that separates the Creator from the created) and the intimacy of God's touch.

The Psalmist said, "I thirst and hunger for the living God." Some days I resonate with that and other days I'm not so sure. Truth be told, my encounters with God have not always been in response to my hunger, thirst, or seeking. Sometimes I simply don't know what is good for me. Sometimes it is pure gift on God's part probably driven by mercy for the lost who don't even know it--the ignorant ignorant of their ignorance.

I know this: encounter with God, whether the result of one's seeking or an event in spite of such absence, is by its nature a life altering event. Biblical writers spoke of "scales falling from the eyes" to denote the new perspective that accompanies the divine encounter.

For all the variations of encounter one thing remains almost universally true--encounter with God is to be loved. Encounter is about connection with God who in the Shema is said to be one (Hear O' Israel, the Lord our God is One...) and whose Oneness brings such oneness or connection to the disparate parts of me that befuddle me and resist my best efforts at control and somehow is suddenly in the encounter replaced by clarity of vision and harmony. So, why wouldn't we all thirst and seek such encounter?

The reason is for me rather simple--encounter brings change and the reminder I'm not in control. Surrendering control, surrendering to LIFE as it is and not as I wish it, surrendering to the "isness" of others as they are and not as I wish them to be, is somehow not a naturally occurring event in my heart. Encounter and surrender are inexplicably intertwined and we see it most clearly in the life of Yeshua (Jesus).

Welcoming

2010-12-28T12:49:00.000-08:00

Last week I wrote about "Safe Space", my response to the Bishop's Warden's request for values I most wanted Trinity to embrace in a vision for our future. This week I want to share about my second response: Welcoming

Last week I noted that if a culture is poisonous it will do little good to excel at welcoming people into it. We are aided in our welcoming when we know the culture of our congregation is positive and life giving. Assuming that is the case, what does it mean to welcome others to Trinity?

The most welcoming cultures I've encountered were those whose members took seriously my feelings and needs as a newcomer. For example, it is not helpful to a new person to know someone has been "coming to Trinity for 22 years" or "since I was a child." Such disclosures only serve to highlight the inequality between the "insider" and the newcomer. This kind of information is often cited as a type of credential that validates a person's entrenched role as an "insider" but in no way serves the newcomer. In fact, few things make a newcomer more at ease than to hear someone say, "O' I too am new here."

My memory of truly welcoming organizations is that they had great signage that accurately conveyed all the information I would need to participate and feel "at home." Having to approach someone and share your ignorance of even a small item like, "Where is the bathroom" is a big deal to a newcomer.

Lastly, welcoming is intensely personal. The single most welcoming person I've ever met was the Senior Warden at Christ Church in Denver, Colorado. Today, twenty-two years later, I can still see him naturally and casually walking whole families upstairs, downstairs, in and out of rooms giving them the "lay of the land" so that upon leaving they felt comfortable returning next week. I saw him do this so often I took it for granted. However, it is anything but common in most churches. He was not satisfied with a hand-shake but extended himself in a way that built trust and brought comfort to the newcomer. What does it mean to you to welcome someone to Trinity?

The Dean

Safe Space

2010-12-22T18:06:00.000-08:00

This past week Trinity Chapter members were asked by the Bishop's Warden to list 3-5 essential values by which we currently live and on which Trinity could build an inspiring and exciting vision for the future. I named "safe space" as my first value.

My name, Gregory, means "watchful" or "watchman." I've lived into my name by my watchfulness over everything from childhood backyard sporting games to the vigil I keep each night in my home. The act of watchfulness begins with my own heart and only then can I be qualified to be a watcher of the community. I believe every community needs such watchers willing to sound the alarm at the first sign of danger. Signs of danger to a community include gossip, hypocrisy, cowardice, complacency, unfaithfulness, deceit, moral lapse, resentment, contempt, coercion, disdain and other poisons of the heart and spirit. Watchers are required if a space is to remain safe. Hospitality, my second value, is meaningless if the space into which we invite people is not safe and watched over by healthy persons.

Here are a few ills I've witnessed in Christian community causing me to sound the alarm. When a person offers a gift of time, talent, or treasure and is met with a nuanced "thank you but can't you give more" I'm going to sound the alarm. The persons most likely to dish out such ingratitude are the faithful 20% on whose backs 80% of the work is being done. Here the member of the 20% club must guard his or her heart from being infected with ingratitude born of resentment that others, "Are not doing as much as me." The resentment also cleverly feeds the ego with thoughts that others,"are not as faithful, or loving, or generous as me." In three occasions in I Kings 18 & 19 Elijah speaks for all the 20%er's when he declared to God, "I alone am left." Elijah thought he was the only righteous person left to work for God. God responded by telling Elijah there were 7000 others like him. If a space is to be safe it must be made so beginning with the faithful 20% of an organization.

Second, cowardice is especially harmful to the welfare of community members. Adam and Eve were cowards who hid from God and personal responsibility and we their ancestors are no different. In my experience cowardice comes in both hard and soft forms. The hard form is when a community fails to speak out against a known injustice because of perceived negative consequences. For example, remaining silent in a group when a member is spreading gossip is an act of cowardice. The soft form is far more common and insidious. Choosing to remain ignorant and uninformed at the expense of others who must wade into the difficult waters of community life is a cowardice act. Knowledge brings with it responsibility and choosing to avoid responsibility is an act of cowardice.

If Trinity is to be a safe space into which we invite others we will need every member to view him or her self as a watcher or guardian of their own heart. Thoughts?

God: Deism & Pantheism & Atheism

2010-12-13T05:07:00.000-08:00

In Karen Armstrong's book, A History of God, she notes that throughout time God's immanence (nearness) has been followed and balanced by focus on God's transcendence (far away). But, what about God disappearing altogether? Atheism, a belief that God doesn't exist, is a relatively modern term having first been used in 1571. The term really came to public attention in 1886 with Nietzsche's The Gay Science in which the main character enters a public market and declares, "We have killed God."

During the Enlightenment, Nietzsche's time period, Deism and Pantheism were the two most popular belief systems in Science and Philosophy. Deism is the belief that a God exists, created the world, but no longer interacts with the world leaving it to run by fixed and governed laws. Deism's God is best known as the "Watchmaker God" who wound the world up and now lets it run. Yet, Deism carries a latent tendency toward Atheism because a God absent from human history is in practical terms no God at all.

Pantheism, a term first used in 1710, espouses God and Nature (universe) as one. The Pantheist presents an immanent God but one that is not larger than the universe or creation. Pantheism also carries the seeds of Atheism but in a way opposite that of Deism; the Pantheist so incorporates God into nature that God loses all sense of "otherness" that would distinguish God from us. Such an immanent God is lost not by distance but by nearness or absorption into history.

Pantheism and Deism each served to empower the Natural Sciences of the Enlightenment by diminishing the role of God and elevating the role of humanity. The height of such belief is best summarized by the French scientist Laplace, who when asked by Napoleon about God's place in his science, responded, "Sire, I no longer have need of that hypothesis because everything can be explained with him (God)." Today, such a claim seems the height of hubris. Walter Kasper in The God of Jesus Christ notes that today's scientific community runs into God, "when in inquires into its own ultimate presuppositions, which themselves are no longer of a scientific kind, and when it inquires into the ethical responsibility...with the consequences of research, especially in the nuclear and genetic areas."

Wikipedia cites the following statistics:

2.3% of the world's population describes itself as Atheist.
64% of those living in Japan describe themselves as Atheist or Agnostic.
In Europe, the estimated percentage of atheists, agnostics and other nonbelievers in a personal god ranges as low as single digits in Poland, Romania, Cyprus, and some other countries, and up to 85% in Sweden (where 17% identify themselves as atheists), 80% in Denmark, 72% in Norway, and 60% in Finland.

Strengths and Assets

2010-12-07T10:30:00.000-08:00

The Chapter at Trinity Cathedral is in the very early stages of building a strategic plan by which we hope to become a more healthy functioning part of the Body of Christ. Such an exercise must include an honest assessment of our strengths and weaknesses or assets and liabilities. I want to name a few of the strengths and assets on which I believe Trinity can build a bright future.

First, if 20% of the people do 80% of the work then we have one amazing talented 20%. Trinity is home to some very talented and gifted human beings whose amazingness is partly derived from a very dedicated, disciplined, and healthy spiritual life. I can name 8-10 people of whom I can truly say, "I hope I grow up to be like that person." This is a place where people can find role models.

Second, we have a corporate culture that is, well, the words are hard to find but the image is of a person who can plow a field with a tractor in the morning and wear a tux to a Capital Hill party that same evening and fits easily into both worlds. Corporately, we have inherited and nurtured a culture in which we have enough sophistication to pull off any project with jaw dropping aptitude while simultaneously possessing a humble down-to-earth quality that allows us to find excellence in the most simple of things and creatures.

Third, Trinity is sitting on a tremendous untapped potential for both financial and artistic growth. I believe intentionally sustained efforts at building a more secure financial base and home or fellowship for Christian Artists would yield a treasure trove of dividends. We are sitting on an untapped field of creativity waiting to be awakened and harnessed.

What do you view to be Trinity's strengths and assets?

Judgment

2010-11-29T06:27:00.000-08:00

Sunday's scriptures pointed to the return of Jesus to be "judge" of the living and the dead. I mentioned early childhood events at ages 5 and 10 that contributed to my viewing the loving being of God through a lens of great fear associated with God's judgment. I named that we might benefit from speaking of judgment without fear. But, a better question might be, "Why the judgment at all?"

The Psalmist says, "Love good, hate evil." Can you love good without hating evil. In elevating certain acts such as sharing do we not naturally bring judgment to the person who chooses not to share? Even if we understand the reason for not sharing we nevertheless choose not to emulate or elevate the action and in doing so we judge it. In declaring an act of behavior "good" it would seem we naturally label other acts as "bad" or "evil."

I first learned about judgment when, in an effort to earn some money as a teenager, I umpired Little League baseball games. The umpire behind the plate earned more than the umpire on the bases because calling "balls and strikes" was a more difficult task. Later, as a first time parent I learned that judging baseball was easy compared to judging my own behavior and that of my children.

In the end, judging the behavior of anyone is problematic. First, we humans have huge "blind spots" known by our excessive leniency towards self and those we like and excessive criticism toward those we dislike. Second, a person's visible action may appear "good" when in fact the inner motivation is "evil." True judgment involves both the visible action and the invisible inner motive and no human is capable of such judgment without periodic error. We should probably pray for all Justices of the Court on a regular basis. That said, we cannot abdicate our roles as judges that naturally come to us in our various roles.

Shalom, Greg

Hospitality

2010-11-16T17:37:00.000-08:00

The Latin words that make up the term "hospitality" denote a relationship between two parties of unequal power. Hospitality takes place when a host uses his or her power, derived from ownership of property, knowledge, or relationships, to "hostire" or equalize the gap that always exists between host and "hostis." Wikipedia notes, "The Greek concept of sacred hospitality is illustrated in the story of Telemachus and Nestor. When Telemachus arrived to visit Nestor, Nestor was unaware that his guest was the son of his old comrade Odysseus. Nonetheless, Nestor welcomes Telemachus and his party lavishly, thus demonstrating the relationship between hostis, "stranger," and hostire, "equalize," and how the two combine in the concept of hospitality.

We show hospitality at Trinity when we extend to "strangers" or "newcomers" a status equal to our own people. When as Dean I tell people, "This is the table of the Lord, it is the Lord who blesses and the Lord who invites you to receive Holy Communion," I am inviting guests on behalf of the owner. In the process I also remind you and I, supposed "insiders," that we are all guests at the table of the Lord.

Information represents one of the biggest gaps between insiders and outsiders. When I stand and try to explain our Trinity practice of receiving Holy Communion ("we come forward to receive communion, in a circle, and with extended hands we receive the bread") I am using my power, derived from inside knowledge, to show hospitality by lessening the gap between host and guest. Conversely, whenever we fail to share such inside information we enhance the gap, fail to show hospitality, and strengthen our insider status often at the expense of the newcomer.

Shalom, Gregory Powell

Prayer

2010-07-24T06:57:00.000-07:00

Prayer

Human life consists of ritual--a solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order. Ritual exists at every level of human society (family, tribe, village, the political realm, and even in La Cosa Nostra). Ritual is always present in transitions or passages from one state to another (birth, marriage, graduation, promotion, and death). The meaning, values, and skills of the past are passed on through ritual. Ritual binds the past with the present and future.

The power of ritual can be experienced even if participants are not aware of the origin or meaning of the ceremony. I have heard of people being deeply moved by participation in the Naval Change of Command ceremony. I personally experienced deeper connection with my friend and country by participation in the Navy retirement ceremony—of which I knew nothing. I have seen stiff lipped grooms get emotional at first sight of their bride coming down the aisle or when they said their vows. Ritual has the capacity to lift us and carry in important ways.

However, if ritual is not paired with education it can quickly devolve into empty ritual that no longer captures the human heart but instead is carried out for habit sake or for the appeasement of authority. Such dead ritual can actually become harmful as we can pass on parts of the past that are harmful or wasteful. Take for example the ritual of changing motor oil. If you look carefully all throughout America you can still see fathers bonding with their sons in sacred garage rituals. In a more agrarian time in America the act involved changing the oil in tractors and farm equipment while today it mostly involves automobiles and lawnmowers. In the past automobile oil was changed every 3000 miles and to this day many still use this mileage as a standard. However, synthetic motor oils and modern engines have greatly altered the ritual of oil changing. Many merchants profit from extra oil changes because people have remained loyal to a past ritual, when in fact, 7500 to 12,000 miles is the new synthetic oil standard.

The kitchen was equally sacred to our female ancestors. As you might expect, examples can be given in that realm where post-modern women are obedient to rituals of the past that no longer apply to modern food preparation. My favorite is about the child who asks, "Mommy, why do you cut the wings off the turkey before you put it in the pan?" Mother replies, "Because that is how my mother did it." The story goes on to point out that somewhere back in time a female descendant had a small oven and one day cut off the wings to fit the bird into the oven. My point is that ritual must be paired with education. Technology and changing gender roles are just a few of the forces that have rendered many past rituals obsolete.

Prayer is a part of our religious life that involves ritual and so requires ongoing education. Our Book of Common Prayer has a prayer for rain even though most post-modern religious folk no longer believe God manipulates or is directly responsible for the abundance or scarcity of rain. Prayers for "our" side to win some competition or war (blessing to us) or for defeat of our competitors (curses upon them) are also types of prayers that resonate with fewer and fewer post-modern religious persons. Empty prayer is that which is said without thoughtful reflection, without faith, or to appease God or other authorities.

In my role as priest I have heard many prayers offered by sincere and devout people. Only one example of the many that could be given is needed to reveal erroneous mental constructs of God carried by genuine believers that need re-examination.

1. Numbers: God is moved to grant a prayer based on some mathematical tipping point.

a. Volume: Churches routinely activate “prayer chains” in response to human tragedy. The distribution of human need is often motivated by the belief that “more is better.” I’ve heard people proclaim that people in other states or countries were praying for a person or family. The assumption is that this heightens the likelihood of a positive outcome. The thinking is, “if one person praying is good then 500 is much better.” A thinking person might wonder if prayer with God is akin to our political system so that prayers from California (55 votes), Texas (34 votes), New York (31 votes), and Florida (27 votes) carry more weight with God than prayer from persons in Alaska, Delaware, Washington D.C., and Montana (3 votes each).

b. Purity: Here the thinking is that we need many people praying for a particular need because it heightens the likelihood that one of those prayers will reach the level of purity needed to move God.

c. Authority: Here numerals correspond to one's authority or rank in society. Getting Pope Benedict XVI or Archbishop Rowan Williams in your prayer chain is thought by most to increase the likelihood of a positive outcome.

You may feel I'm making fun of prayer and prayer chains. This is not my intent. I personally think prayer chains serve a useful purpose by enabling a hurting person to feel connection with other human beings and so assuage the deadening feeling of isolation. My intent in the above absurdities is not to anger or demean but to name silly mental prayer games that both trivialize God and impede our desire to prayer. Such mental constructs of God and prayer are hazardous to our health. I've witnessed with great sadness people who have punished themselves for some past "sin" believing God sent tragedy or withheld cure because of their past moral infraction.

Some of you may no doubt think that I’ve reduced prayer to its least common denominator—our neediness—when in fact, prayer is much more multi-faceted. I have focused on Petitionary prayer (seeking something from God) to the exclusion of Adoration (acknowledgment of God), Expiation (acknowledgment of contrition), and Thanksgiving (acknowledgment of gratitude). However, the fact that most people associate prayer solely with petitions is itself a sign of our need for education.

In my life I've spent an inordinate amount of time focused on "how" prayer works. There is no end to such a rabbit trail and has been a hindrance to my prayer life. In the past year I've reframed my approach to prayer by asking, “What can I affirm in prayer? What type of prayer can I give my heart to?” I close with my answer.

I affirm prayer itself because prayer assumes the existence of God. Prayer inherently assumes the existence of God. I respect noted atheist author Christopher Hitchens who in battling late stage esophageal cancer will not pray because he knows prayer to assume the existence of God. The person who will not pray is one who denies the existence of God or one who has put him or her self in that role.

I affirm prayer to be an act by which I claim my paradoxical human state—a creature capable of soaring to great heights while also capable of unspeakable depravity. Prayer offers a means of "letting go" or "emptying"which often highlights the deception of the False Self or Ego.

I affirm prayer to be an act by which I praise that which lies beyond my comprehension and control. C. S. Lewis said that healthy persons praised most while malcontents perpetually found much about which to complain. Praise is an extension of joy and joy is not complete without sharing the joy (praise) with others. When I praise in prayer I move towards health.

I affirm prayer as a means of hearing my own deepest longings. Prayers said for my children or in tragic circumstances or in other times of need often embody my deepest longings and seem not so much to be said as much as they simply rise from within me. Freed from the need to figure out "how" prayer works I feel less inclined to judge such longings and so allow them to flow freely and be heard.

I affirm prayer to be an act that lifts me beyond self-absorption. Prayer, an act assuming the existence of God, naturally draws me outward toward God and to my Neighbor. Prayer is the safe place I can let go of toxic feelings harbored toward my "enemies" thus purifying my own soul and preparing me for future interaction with others who challenge me.

Adapting to Change

2010-05-31T14:29:00.000-07:00

A man named Jack from my previous church told me this story. He was in charge of Buildings and Grounds and one Saturday morning was going about his duties in solitude. A parishioner pulled up and motioned Jack to the car door saying, "Jack, let me go home grab my chain saw and we can take down that big bush in a hurry. It will take you forever going about it that way." Jack was said to reply, "Ole boy, I've been taking this bush down for months, just a little at a time. If you come in with a chain saw you'll have all the ladies in the church up in arms. My way, few will even notice it is missing."

If you can overlook the deception and gender nuances of the story you can hear Jack's wisdom: slow incremental change is preferred over jagged change and most people have their own issues to deal with and might not even notice change if managed with a deft hand.

The parable of The Boiled Frog is an old and popular way of putting a slightly different spin on change. The parable or story states that if you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water it will immediately jump out of the pot. However, if you put a frog in comfortable water and gradually raise the temperature the frog will boil. This parable is often used to illustrate how humans have to be careful to watch slowly changing trends in the environment, not just the sudden changes. It warns us to pay attention not just to obvious threats but to more slowly developing ones.

Dr. Spencer Johnson wrote the famed book Who Moved My Cheese? that depicts two mice named Sniff and Scurry and two little people named Hem and Haw. The main points of the book can be reduced to: Cheese makes you happy; "It's not fair" is how mice/people respond to anyone moving the cheese; the quicker you let go of "old" cheese the quicker you can find "new" cheese; old beliefs do not lead you to new cheese; and movement in a new direction helps you find new cheese.

As this is a church blog, and as I'm a parish priest, and as you are likely a church parishioner, let us consider the collective wisdom of these three stories or parables as we individually and collectively adapt to change. In my short lifetime of 50 years the affairs of God and humanity played out in the North American Church have changed dramatically. Almost all mainline congregations have experienced some combination of the following:

1. Declining membership

2. Average age of remaining membership is markedly older

3. Loss of young people who are "pack" creatures and so congregate in large numbers in a dominant or popular church as opposed to being evenly distributed

4. Increased complexity in the life of the average family (the nucleus of society) due to increased divorce rates leading to blended families, increased work opportunities for women, increased costs of education and healthcare leading to dual income families, increased care of aging parents leading to a "crunch" generation asked both to raise children AND care for aging parents and on and on it goes

5. Fewer and fewer mainline congregations can afford a full-time resident credentialed priest

6. Denomination loyalty has greatly eroded to the point of being almost non-existent

7. Consumerism has infiltrated the local church so that people are for the most part "consumers" whose loyalties are tied to their needs being met and who can easily find another church when those needs are not met

8. The rise in affordable transportation is such that people routinely travel 20 minutes to have basic needs met and do not think twice about driving such a distance for a church that meets their needs--thus eroding the notion of local churches drawing local citizens. Points 7 & 8 effectively make Sunday morning church attendance a competitive enterprise

9. The rise of the internet and virtual communities and tele-evangelists and mega-churches whose resources create fantastic music ministries, and visually stimulating messages has made the offerings of the local priest and congregation seem at times very "second rate" further eroding consumer loyalty

10. Buildings owned by mainline congregations require increasing upkeep and drain the human and financial resources of a dwindling number of supporters

11. Seminaries are "hidden" or often overlooked places of religious decay and decline

12. Attitudes toward gay persons as full human beings entitled to full inclusion in all aspects of society including the Church, the military, as adoptive parents, and other aspects of society previously marked as "off limits."

The list is far from exhaustive but these twelve items alone are enough to solidify in the minds of most intelligent people that the church is up against forces that threaten its existence (closure) and/or vitality and vibrancy. No human organization is immune to change. Some people in the pews have enough in their family and business lives to keep them busy and so cannot allocate sufficient time and thought to the challenges of the local church. Some people in the pews are riding out this round of change as they have before and so they hold to the notion that in due time things will return to their previous norm. Others in the pews look to the church to be that one place where they can rest from the changes in society and not finding it leave the church.

The "narrow door" of salvation to which Jesus referred may be opened for those whose identities are rooted in the sacred that lies beyond all forms. That is, the people most equipped to lead the Church in this tumultuous time are those who understand that no form lasts for very long but the Life or Essence or Ground of All Being or Spirit that shines through the forms is that to which we are drawn.

I repeat: No form lasts for very long but the eternal shines through the forms. By "form" I mean first and foremost your body. The form of your current existence is a body that is constantly changing and in the process is wearing out. But, you are more than your body. Your true "being" is what shines through the form of your body. Consider for a moment a form (human being) covered in tattoos and piercings. Persons attached to forms will have the hardest time relating to the essence of the person. Church people who fail to differentiate between essence and form often become over-attached to the form of Sunday morning worship, the arrangement of pews or the fact we have pews and not chairs, or to a bulletin, or to a particular ministry, or to wax candles, an offering plate, or a minister. Such attachments can blind a person to the essence that seeks to shine through the forms.

If you have the concept down try this--the Nicene Creed is a form, the Eucharist is a form, and even Jesus is a form. Like all other forms each began at a particular time coming from a particular culture. Imagine a time in the future when we have so polluted and populated planet Earth that the privileged among us will seek to escape it. If you can't imagine that surely you can imagine a day when food is manufactured and not grown in soil. The loss of safe soil, or the loss of clean waters in which fish may grow, or the loss of other precious earthly resources would all greatly endanger or threaten our ability to find meaning in phrases such as "The Good Shepherd" or "The Bread of Life" or "lead you through green pastures" or "fishers of people" or "Garden of Eden." E. O. Wilson, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and Harvard professor, in his book The Creation, notes that all our religious forms (rituals and customs and texts) are rooted in the earth so that the loss of nature would be the loss of spirituality and religion as we know it.

If Jesus is to be a form/person whose life and teachings have meaning in the year 3535 then I believe our interpretation of Jesus and the forms that accompany his message of Love must adapt and evolve over time. Hear the voice of our Episcopal ancestors who in Philadelphia in 1789 began the Preface to our Book of Common Prayer by saying, "It is a most invaluable part of that blessed liberty...that in his worship different forms and usages may without offense be allowed, provided the substance of the Faith be kept entire..." It is imperative we heed the wisdom of their voice.

Already much of our American society is removed from the agricultural setting of our ancestors in which animals were routinely slaughtered or killed. For us, images of killing animals is disturbing. Yet, our primary understanding of Jesus is that of a Sacrificial Lamb whose blood must be spilled for sins to be removed. Today, many people can no longer identify with Jesus in this form. Is there another form through which we can understand Jesus and keep the essence of our faith? If not, I suspect we will see further erosion or disconnect taking place between intelligent post-modern persons and the person and message of Jesus. If we who follow Jesus are so attached to such temporal forms as candles, flowers, and pews, how will we ever take up the far more important work of envisioning new theological and liturgical forms that will ensure the Name of Jesus and the Love of Jesus remain relevant to future generations?

A Look Back in Time: Part 2

2010-04-26T05:53:00.000-07:00

Ecclesiastical Inventory

This article was written in 2007 and is part of a series in which I'm sharing some "old" material

Whether you work for a “mom and pop” business or an international giant like Walmart, the word inventory is associated with hard work. Why? Taking an inventory requires people to laboriously look through, handle, catalog, and examine every piece of a business—it is tedious work. Yet, it is an essential part of a sound business plan. Religious organizations can also benefit from a periodic inventory of intangible goods such as moral and theological beliefs.

I think it is essential for the business of religion, and Christian religion in particular; that we admit we no longer can afford to carry forward the anti-intellectual bias of the past. Charles Malik, the former Lebanese ambassador to the United States, in his address at the inauguration of the Billy Graham center at Wheaton College, warned American Christians of the danger of anti-intellectualism. He said, "For the sake of greater effectiveness in witnessing to Jesus Christ, as well as for their own sakes, evangelicals cannot afford to keep on living on the periphery of responsible intellectual existence."

Personally speaking, my Aunt Burma was a biblical literalist and staunch Pentecostal who was comfortable with week long revivals back in the woods of Northern Florida that came replete with all manner of emotional ecstatic expressions—the stuff that would scare the hell out of the kids. When I told her I was going to go to college, in Massachusetts, she begged me not to go. Why? Because of the very thing that happened to me—I became educated and was encouraged to think for myself—something that churches, like military organizations, promote at one level but cannot tolerate at another level—such behavior usually gets deemed “dangerous” and hazardous to the good of the corporate group. A term heretic means “one who is able to choose” and whose chosen beliefs are in conflict with the established and prevailing beliefs of the day. Galileo's forced denial of his belief that planet Earth was not the center of the universe is the most famous example of what the institutional Church has done to people with heretical views.

The latest battleground between science and religion is over evolution and it seems to me to be yet another losing battle in which religion will end up looking rather silly—much like the Pope and Cardinals of the Vatican who in 2007 appear at last to be ready to repudiate the notion of purgatory which three Church Councils affirmed (Trent, Vatican I, Vatican II) and which reasonable thinking persons have long ceased to believe in. Most of our elite universities teach evolution as a cornerstone and bedrock of scientific endeavors. A basic understanding of evolution has helped me to make sense of life, explaining cogently heretofore seemingly incoherent human social behaviors, and has brought me peace of mind in areas of my life where religion had only guilt to offer.

Few would disagree that science and religion are the two most powerful forces on the planet capable of shaping life both positively and negatively. I like the fact that our current Presiding Bishop was first a biologist as I believe it affords her a unique platform from which to guide our denomination. Scientific endeavors like the Humane Genome Project hold great potential for expanding the envelope of human knowledge and altering life as we know it. Subsequent alterations to our species are not likely to negate our need for meaning and purpose in life—the very questions religion seeks to answer. If our answers are to be heard we must step out of the caves and into the brave new world. A great way to do that is to read The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology by award winning writer Robert Wright. It is a great book—a must read book. If Wright is correct, if half of what he says is true, then there is much loss and grieving for the Church in the coming decades. Personally, this loss has more to do with our attachment to the forms of our ecclesiastical structures (management models, physical structures, belief systems) than with the essence that such structures supposedly point to or serve—The Spirit. Taking an inventory of your life and letting go of attachments—a grudge, a resentment, a perceived injustice, a part of the past, a material object, a belief—is to answer the call of the Spirit. Those who do so within the institutional Church give to it a great gift.

The Rector

A Look Back in Time

2010-03-18T19:06:00.000-07:00

This piece was written in 2008 and was the first in a three part series on

An Inside View of the Priesthood.

The time I served as Chaplain at Peninsula Regional Medical Center cured me of illusions I had about doctors and the desire to be one. We all carry illusions about the work done by doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, engineers, teachers, and others. Time spent in their company would inform our views and yield a renewed appreciation for their work. Clergy serving in ecclesiastical, educational, and healthcare settings are equally misunderstood as to the nature of their work. I hope to add some clarity to your perspective on the work of clergy.

I start with an obvious but often overlooked aspect of the ordained life: it is work. Identifying it as a vocation doesn’t make it less work. Describing it as a “calling” doesn’t lessen the work. Signing a “covenant” instead of a “contract” doesn’t diminish the nature of the work. Thinking of God as boss doesn’t lighten the work. The ordained life is work. How might this alter your perception of priestly work?

For starters, like all work it wouldn’t be done without payment. Please don’t misunderstand me. There are parts of my job that I’d do for free— literally. I would work Saturdays for free if it were to help people earnestly seeking a new direction in life. I would gladly preach on Sunday without payment. I’d get up at 2:00 AM and drive thirty miles to meet with someone considering suicide. I’d risk my own health to help one person in pain who was truly open to a new and better way of life and I’d do it with a smile. Take a minute to name those parts of your work that you’d gladly do without payment. These parts of our work fill us with passion and joy that is its own payment. These are the reasons we initially went into our work.

However, you and I can also name those parts of our work that we would only do for payment and some days we wonder if all the money in the world is enough payment. You have to pay clergy to listen to people whose hearts are completely closed to any idea except their own and who have no intention of opening their mind or heart to others. Payment is required to endure people in the church whose pride bars them from altering their life and most certainly not in a way that would bring them in contact with someone beneath them on the socio-economic ladder. Listening to the person whose interior life is so empty they must fill it and their surrounding space with a blur of non-stop words is something for which you have to pay clergy if you expect them to do it regularly and with a smile. So, the ordained life is work just like your work—parts of it enliven and parts of it are a drain. This is the nature of all work. Successful people find ways of maximizing the time spent in those parts that enliven.

You may wonder why I’ve stated the obvious—that people love parts of their work even as they must endure other parts. This would not be worth noting except that many people think clergy are somehow immune from this because our work involves God or because we only “work one day of the week” or because we are thought to be so nice that we will gladly bear the unbearable. Aren’t clergy supposed to be nice people? This raises a significant question regarding my job as a parish priest: “On whom does the local parish pattern the ideal life of a parish priest?

Contrary to what you might think I believe Jesus is not the answer to the above question. I invite you to read the gospels and tell me you want your Rector to minister among you as Jesus lived. In the gospels Jesus confronted those in power, often publicly humiliating them, and seemed to operate on the principle of “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable”. Even his miraculous healings and deep compassion offered those in need carried with it an altering of accepted customs leaving most people perplexed and uneasy. Believe me when I say, “Such a model would lead to priestly turnover rates that would create revolving door ministry in a local parish.” Or would it?

If you ask seminary deans (and they have been asked) to name one consistent characteristic of first-year seminarians they will tell you it is the compliant nature of those sent to them by dioceses. Now, read the gospels and look for a compliant Jesus. Such a Jesus isn’t there to be found. In many ways parishes benefit by having their clergy declawed prior to arrival at the parish. A "nice" priest looks the part but lacks the power—is strong on ceremony and symbolism but weak to alter the status quo in ways that don’t benefit those already in power. But, Jesus was and clergy are supposed to be change agents. God is a change agent and those sent by God take up the work of change because the work of God is a transforming work.

The heart of the priestly work is repentance--the turning of the heart toward God. Clergy work to promote repentance that leads to trust in God and love of neighbor. Clergy work aims to enable people to joyfully “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. Clergy work to help people identify their particular kairos work. Kairos is the Greek word meaning “appointed time”. For example, following a divorce the kairos work is likely to include grief recovery, the letting go of anger and the thirst for revenge so that any future relationship will not be infected. Everyone has a kairos work and clergy work to help people identify and carry out that work of the heart. All interior work of the heart requires courage, trust, faith, humility, a servant's heart, and being a nice compliant person is rarely helpful in this work—the work of clergy.

Why do you do what you do?

2010-02-10T05:23:00.001-08:00

On Sunday, January 31, 2010, I drove to Trinity to lead worship services. I passed by several churches being dug out from yet another snowstorm by what appeared to be middle aged to elderly parishioners. I thought, “What motivated these people to get out of their warm beds and shovel snow in the pre-dawn cold?” I made my way to Trinity and the question became more personal as all the sidewalks, parking lots, and entrances were cleared of snow. Again, I asked, “Why did Skip Wrightson, Walt Johnson, Joe Sykes, and Rick Wagenblatt leave the comfort and safety of home to shovel snow for two hours?” I could only surmise, “It must be something pretty powerful.”

I share with you my interior thought process as a way of asking you a very important and deeply personal question, “Do you know why you do what you do?” Because this is a Trinity Cathedral blog I ask the question in a slightly different way, “Do you know why you share your precious resources of time, energy, creativity, and money with other people at Trinity Cathedral?”

This question deserves your attention. This question is worthy of a genuine and heartfelt intentional response on your part. So, I will ask and answer the question, “What motivated me to get out of my warm bed and drive Sunday morning to a building on Goldsborough Street? What motivated me to spend eight to ten hours in the prior days preparing spoken words to be delivered that morning in what is called a sermon? What motivated me to stay connected to the Wardens, the staff, and the parishioners in the days leading up to Sunday? Why do I do what I do at Trinity?

I get up on Monday morning and put on a collar and drive to 314 North Street and prepare all week for Sunday chiefly because I once had no life and now I have a life. Somewhere in the Pentateuch God said, and I paraphrase, “You (Israel) were once no people but now you are MY people.” God called Israel from wandering in the desert to a mountain where they were offered a covenant and in accepting they became God’s people. At 19 years of age I had no life worth living. My life was in the toilet. God got my attention and offered me life and in accepting I became God’s person. Today I bear God’s mark in my life and part of that mark is a collar that reminds me I’m a priest because it is my own unique way of saying, “Thank you” to God for a life that at 19 I could not have imagined. I have to believe that among the many people who got out of warm beds on that cold Sunday morning to shovel snow, some did so because they were consciously or unconsciously offering thanks to God for life that was given them in the past. Some of us were doing it because we know ourselves to be God’s people, because we bear some mark from a past encounter with God, and because we hope and dream and wish and work and pray for another such encounter and it seems often to happen on Sundays when gathered in that building on Goldsborough Street.

It might interest you to know that about 6 years ago I told God, “You and I are even. You gave me life and in return I have served you and now I consider the debt paid—I’m free. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful, but I am done serving you out of a sense of indebtedness.” Looking back I now see that the priestly life I was living, the one where I thought I was serving God as a way of saying “Thank you,” was in reality motivated by a desire to pay off a debt and be on even terms with God. I had felt obligated to God to be a priest and had turned the relationship into nothing more than a reciprocal arrangement. Yet, that was a very important moment for me because in being honest with God I was redefining my relationship, not as the teenager who had no life but as an adult who had a life. It was the point in the relationship in which I chose God--to be God's person. Today, I’m very clear I could be doing lots of other things with my life. I choose in a conscious adult manner to serve God as a priest from an interior place of gratitude for having a life filled with a wife, children, free from major addictions, with people who love me, and with some sense of purpose and meaning. I am also motivated to serve God in this way because I want others whose lives may be in the toilet to have such an encounter with such a God.

So, I would have to say, “Gratitude was for some the powerful motivator that moved them out of bed on a snowy Sunday morning to shovel snow.” Beneath that motivation likely lived a deep desire for another encounter with God and what we call Sunday morning worship is our best shot at that encounter so shoveling snow seems a small price for such a hope. It is also likely that many people thought it was gratitude motivating them when in fact it was some form of guilt or indebtedness—that usually turns relationships into a mathematical equation.

Training our senses to see that guilt or indebtedness is not mistaken for genuine gratitude requires us to live intentional, reflective, and communal lives. Maybe, just maybe, that is itself another reason we left our homes that snowy morning—we know how easily we can be fooled and so we have found life not only by living in covenant with God but with other pilgrims who themselves are looking for the next encounter with God and who hope it for others.

"You are My Beloved, in you I am well pleased."

2010-01-08T16:23:00.000-08:00

Biodiversity, a contraction of Biological Diversity, refers to the variations among all living organisms on the planet. An estimate of the number of species varies between 5 and 30 million. The variation is because 97% are invertebrates (organisms lacking a backbone) such as mollusks, arthropods, and insects. The insects are far and away the most numerous. Scientists have yet to identify most of the insect species much less name them. Vertebrates make up 3% of all species and are the most familiar to us: amphibians, reptiles, birds, fishes, and mammals.

There are 9-10K bird species. 23.5K fish species. 1-30 MILLION insect species. In Genesis God is said to have handed over the job of naming the animals to Adam. Any literal reading of the bible collapses on the magnitude of such a task. Imagine how long it would take to name all the living creatures. How in God’s name (pun intended) would you ever keep producing names?

Gladly most of us are spared having to produce more than a few names in our lives. This past week I spent several hours filling out paperwork for my three children to attend school in Talbot County. Over and over again I wrote down: Michael Charles Bruce Powell, Jonathan Gregory Powell, Anna Tracy Powell. Social security numbers followed—a computers way of naming us. Addresses followed, Neavitt, Easton, and a Pocomoke address. Addresses serve as our human way of naming land.

People cannot not name. We are incessant namers of everything. On a 60 Minutes segment last week they interviewed a professor at Cornell University who has lived for 20 years with Elephants, in the woods, returning to civilization for very short periods of time. She has named all the elephants. We name boats, bridges, buildings and even nature (Mt. Rushmore). I have a friend who has a shed designed to store tools and outdoor equipment. Above the doorway it reads, “Raven’s Central.” He uses it almost exclusively for watching Raven’s football so he doesn’t have to be encumbered by the family inside the house.

We also name to isolate and protect. The name stranger, rooted in the word danger, was first associated with people outside the clan or tribe. Today we have more sophisticated names for those outside our global villages and tribes. Recently we named Nigerians as persons requiring more scrutiny before being allowed on planes entering or exiting this country. Our government has named certain individuals “enemy combatant” or worst of all “terrorist.” Terrorist is right up there with “pedophile” or “sex offender”. These names are meant to isolate, to cause anyone pause before drawing near, to alert us of danger.

We also have names that convey positive sentiment. Friend is a name often over used; sadly so, for I think most of us have few friends—true friends. Acquaintance is a word I heard a smart person use this week, speaking of someone he said, “Not a friend, but an acquaintance.” Christians are fond of naming people, “Brother or sister” to convey a special relationship of closeness and fondness and solidarity created not by blood of parents but by religious affiliation.

Biblically speaking, naming is associated with authority. In Genesis we see that God is the first to name, “the darkness God called Night and the light God called Day.” The first human is named Adam. 'Adama' means earth, 'adom' means red and Adam literally means man. They're all spelled the same way in Hebrew but have different pronunciations.

Created in God’s image humanity is endowed with creative powers and with the power and authority to name. Parents symbolize their authority over their children by naming them. We don’t give that privilege or authority away. When a child grows up and renames them self (Cassius Clay—Muhammad Ali) they are asserting authority for their own life. In biblical times a monumental event that changes your life forever carries with it the power to rename (Saul—Paul).

In today’s gospel God names Jesus “The Beloved”—the object of God’s great affection. Of Jesus we sing, “There’s just something about that name.” And there is! We pray, “Hallowed by thy name.” At the name of Jesus every knee shall bend and every tongue confess. The disciples returned from a mission and said, “Lord, even the demons depart at your name.” On the night before he died, Jesus prayed in the garden saying, “Father, protect them in your name that you have given me.”

I recently, in a rather bold move, wrote someone and said, “Like it or not I choose you to be my mentor.” Mentor is a wonderful name. I named this person as that person whom I want to be like, the person I look up to, the person who has qualities I aspire to have. I named him. The other person could not name himself as such. Only I could do that. The other person really can’t do anything about it. Even if they refuse the name, I will still see them in that light. Even if they fall, even if they fail in some miserable way, an embarrassing way, he will still be my mentor for I too need to learn how to fail and how to move on from it. Only I have the power to remove the name I have given him.

Now, I trust the full import of that analogy hasn’t escaped you. Jesus says, “I call you friend. No longer do I call you slave. A master doesn’t tell his slave the things I tell you. You are my friend.” God has named us, all of us, BELOVED and FRIEND. God’s affection for you, favor for you, knows no bounds. It is bestowed even before you live into it. It is not earned so that you could then perhaps lose it. It doesn’t rest on your actions. It is simply given. And, while you may not feel like the Beloved or FRIEND of God any more than my newly chose mentor may feel like a fine example of humanity, you are and he is.

On Monday I went to the county jail to see the man, Richard, whom Kathleen and I had been helping and who broke into our offices. He has names: jailbird, convict, prisoner, parolee, and so forth. He too is BELOVED and FRIEND of God.

In this naming God has exercised God’s authority over our lives. In baptism we are marked and named as Christ’s own forever. I was told by my mentor that naming is like this: You bear a name given you by your parents. Even if you change it as did Cassius Clay, you will always be known by your parents by the name given you. You may never live in the house designed for you, you may refuse the rights accorded you by that name, you may choose not to enter the doors that would open with that name, you may even choose to shun the parents who named you by running to the furthermost part of the earth to live in a hut where no one knows you by that name. Nevertheless, you will always be known by that name to someone—your parents. And if you die far away in a foreign land as a pauper when you could have lived like a king, even then, the parent or king will come to claim you and say of you, “My BELOVED, My FRIEND.”

Why Are The Holidays Trying Times For Many People?

2009-12-05T06:01:00.002-08:00

There is no one answer to this question. The death of a loved one is especially hard at this time of year. The loss of a job is very difficult at any time but especially around the holidays.

However, for most of us the answer lies not in such extreme events but in the complex web of inter-personal relationships with parents, siblings, ex-spouses, ex-partners, or children. Let me offer one possible insight into improving these relationships using the teaching of Eckhart Tolle.

The hardest thing to understand about this teaching is grasping the concept that "you are not your ego." Who are you? You are the observer of your ego. It is equally challenging to grasp that you are not your thoughts. Who are you? You are the observer of your thoughts. Not sure you buy it. At first, neither did I. Give me a few minutes and follow along if for no other reason than it sounds interesting and you are an open minded person.

The Ego manifests itself in three primary ways that are easily remembered using MRR as a memory device. M stands for "more" which the Ego uses to satisfy its insufficient and incomplete self. This incomplete or insufficient feeling and the belief that it can be satisfied with more knowledge, more possessions, more fitness, more money, power, fame, children, travel, or friends is a deception of the ego. Underlying this hunger for more is the incomplete and insufficient self that believes it will achieve completeness with the next acquisition. Can you identify with this pattern in which you think that your real happiness lies in the future when you get that next job, partner, car, toy, or house? If so, you know something of the ego at work in you.

The first R stands for "right" which the ego loves to be and for others to be wrong. The ego enhances its insufficient self and feels inflated when it is right and others are wrong. This is a variation of "more" because to be right is to feel you know more than those who are wrong. Here the ego also loves to feel superior and for others to be inferior. Groups have corporate egos so that we Americans often feel we belong to a superior nation. Men or women may feel they belong to a superior gender. A member or church in one denomination may feel itself superior to another denomination and always to enhance the insufficient and incomplete self. Now, these comparisons are tricky because sometimes we find ourselves on the inferior side of the equation. This is not a problem for the ego because it supplies a victim mentality so that suffering "more" than others or overcoming "more" than others can serve to enhance itself quite nicely. As Eckhart says, "The ego can win even when it loses." Again, if you identify with this then you have some understanding of the ego at work in you.

The final R stands for "reactive." Have you ever heard someone say, "Don't push his button today." This metaphorical language refers to a topic that if named will cause a person to blast into an unconscious state in which they react verbally or physically without any real awareness within themselves or as to how they are perceived by others. So, we avoid certain topics that might "set off " the person. In the extreme form a person IS a button and people avoid the person altogether because their anger, or bitterness, or arrogance, or pomposity, or complaining, or critical spirit, or know-it-all attitude or belief in politics or sports pervades everything they do and say AND they are unaware of how it impacts others. If you can identify with your button and how it sets you off then you know something of the ego at work in you.

Now, if you are still with me you are ready for the good news that comes to those who can do this next part. The key to dealing with the ego is NOT to try and fix the More, Right, or Reactive manifestations of the ego but to simply bring awareness to it. Any attempt at fixing MRR would only be done in a way that would enhance the insufficient and incomplete self and so strengthen the ego. Instead, it is enough to simply become aware of being in the grip of MRR. You are not your ego but the observer of your ego.

At first the observing of your ego is likely to happen after the fact. Yet, if you practice awareness you will slowly over time awaken in the middle of the process and eventually if you achieve real awareness you will see the process before it grips you. Remember, the key is not to do anything more than be aware of the ego by putting just a little space between you (the observer) and the ego. After five years of practicing awareness of the ego I am but a beginner. However, even my baby steps have produced a much richer life and better relationships with myself, family, friends, and church. The space I put between me and the ego allows me to give others space.

This holiday be aware of the ego and its manifestations (MRR) in YOU. Be careful because my experience is that you will quickly see MRR in others and in a way that makes you feel superior. This will be the ego enhancing itself. Instead, simply focus on the egoic manifestations (MRR) in you. Let me know how it goes for you and enjoy your holidays.

Greg Powell

Why We Don't Get What We Want?

2009-10-16T07:55:00.000-07:00

Studies done in North America indicate Americans want three things at the time of their death: to be at home, surrounded by loved ones, and without pain. Yet, as Hospice personnel can tell you, most Americans don't get what they want and so die in hospitals with complexities that challenge their other wants. Why don't we get what we want when it seems reasonable and realistic?

On the eve of the 1930 Lambeth Conference writer and pacifist Evelyn Underhill wrote to then Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Reverend and Right Honourable Cosmo Gordon Lang, “We look to the Church to give us an experience of God, mystery, holiness and prayer which….shall lift us to contact with the supernatural world and minister eternal life. We look to the clergy to help and direct our spiritual growth. We are seldom satisfied because with a few noble exceptions they are so lacking in spiritual realism, so ignorant of the laws and experiences of the life of prayer. Their Christianity as a whole is humanitarian rather than theocentric…Those needing spiritual help may find much kindliness, but seldom that firm touch of firsthand knowledge of interior ways which comes only from a disciplined life of prayer. In public worship they often fail to evoke the spirit of adoration because they do not possess it themselves. Hense, the dreary character of many church services and the result in the increasing alienation of the laity from institutional forms. God is the interesting thing about religion, and people are hungry for God.” (from EU’s personal papers, part of a letter to the Archbishop of Centebury.)

Why is it that those who look for God in the Church and with help from clergy are "seldom satisfied"? Before answering the question it will help to acknowledge that not everyone who goes to Church is consciously looking for intimacy with God. Motivations for going to Church that don't directly involve God include the need for a quiet place to think, the need to be surrounded by beautiful architecture or music, or the need to be socially engaged with other people in a presumably safe setting. These and many other needs can be met without any conscious desire for intimacy with God. Of course, such needs can be met through other means. I choose to believe that people who come to Church are, whether they are aware of it or not, seeking contact with the divine. Augustine of Hippo (November 13, 354 – August 28, 430) wrote, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee."

So, it seems reasonable to me that everyone who comes to Church is consciously or unconsciously seeking intimacy with God. So why is that need so often thwarted? This is a complex question whose answer will be equally complex. Here are a few observations that might move us along toward an answer.

First, the needs of the institution are in conflict with the nature of God (Spirit). The Church as it exists today is a highly structured human institution and like all such organizations it seeks order for the sake of continuity and future viability. Clergy live and serve in the tension between Spirit and Structure. The Spirit is like wind that cannot be contained, controlled, or expected to act in predictable and orderly ways. Some of us believe we will experience more spirit only as we embrace a less structured and more primitive model of Church. Much of what thwarts the spiritual connection of people with God at church is the servitude demanded by the institution that circumvents serving the spiritual needs of the people and their deepest longings because our energies are instead directed to organization, buildings, and bureaucracy.

Second, our deepest longings for intimacy with God are also thwarted because we have failed to honor our spiritual nature and take personal responsibility for its nurture. Lack of personal responsibility is rampant throughout our culture. Many churchgoers do not practice any spiritual discipline and then hope or expect that in a 1-3 hour Sunday morning they will be filled with something divine until next week's feeding. In my opinion this is infantile behavior that delays growing up by seeking to hand off personal responsibility to the institution or to the priests. You can see this by looking at the lack of spiritual depth in people who have been going to Church for 20 plus years. Yes, some among that number are deeply grounded in spiritual practices but most are woefully unable to articulate spiritual insight, spiritual practices, or step forward to teach others in spiritual methods. This spiritual immaturity is corporately lived out in the annual ritual by which only a few experience the liturgical mystery of God's suffering (Maundy Thursday and Good Friday) but gladly attend the Easter Sunday celebration of resurrection as if the two events were unrelated!

Third, those seeking God are seldom satisfied because of the leadership of the Church. Personal responsibility must begin with the ordained leadership of the Church. The prophets in biblical times often cast judgment on Israel's government and religious leaders. Such persons were often charged with failure to act courageously and faithfully. They were most often accused of forgetting God. Clergy also act immaturely and so avoid the depth and mystery of the spirit-filled life. One need only look at clergy with 20 plus years of service and you will see the cynical, the depleted, if, in fact, the clergy have not left earlier for other fields of work.

I offer the following as a way forward. First, your spiritual well being is your responsibility regardless of your function in the Church. You get out of it what you put into it. There is no magical short-cut to being a deeply grounded, insightful, loving, and discerning person. The teacher will appear when you are ready. When you are ready to be a spirit filled person you will be a spirit-filled person.

Second, you and I, clergy and laity, cannot serve God and Mammon. That is, we can't be spirit-filled people and be filled by the prevailing materialistic and consuming secular spirit. Eckhart Tolle says this is where we must first be frustrated by the world. The consuming materialistic worldview is meant to frustrate us and drive us to the spirit and essence of life and so away from identification of self with the forms of the world.

Lastly, the spirit-filled way will always be in tension with organization. Spirit and Structure are held in dynamic tension by healthy people. Spirit without structure leads to chaos. Structure without spirit leads to slavery. The way to our deepest wants is not to eschew all buildings, organization, and bureaucracy, as has been tried by many of our ancestors who moved out to the desert, woods, or who secreted away behind walls as if such walls could keep out the secular spirit. Rather, we need to see the buildings, organization and bureaucracy as forms through which the spirit may shine. They serve us--we do not serve them. We commit the great sin of idolatry when we turn passing forms and things into the objects of our deepest desire and devotion.

I welcome your thoughts and insights into why you are often unsatisfied by the Church. I welcome hearing what spiritual practices you employ in seeking God.

Marriage & Divorce: The Unfinished Sermon

2009-10-05T05:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's sermon on such an expansive topic as "Marriage & Divorce" necessitates some additional space for thought.

In the biblical account animal life (conscious and unconscious) was created by a solitary act of God. Thereafter, all animal life was formed through a reproductive process of pairing. It is noteworthy that the creation of woman comes after the pronouncement that, "it is not good for man to be alone." This suggests that partnering for the conscious animal is both a means of reproduction as well as a means of companionship or mutual help.

I don't know the history and origin of marriage but I feel it safe to say there was a long stretch of human history in which partnering as a reproductive means was done apart from formal public covenants or commitments. Social Evolutionists have produced many theories on the origin of binding and exclusive agreements between a men and a women. I think most people can see that our current legally binding partnering contract (marriage) provides an important stabilizing and cohesive texture to the social fabric. While we know that we cannot legislate the heart we also know that the external law does help to modify human behavior and keep it within acceptable parameters. In essence, marriage as we know it today is a legally binding agreement that promotes and enforces commitment and devotion between partners and their devotion and commitment to their offspring.

In yesterday's sermon I tried to do as Jesus by moving the discussion of marriage away from the legal dimension to the essence of marriage or its intended aim: oneness. In yesterday's gospel Jesus said that God's original intention in marriage was that it produce oneness between man and woman. The pronouncement by the priest in Holy Matrimony, "those whom God has joined together let no one put asunder,"points to both a completed act and the commencement of a process.

Jesus took the discussion of marriage and divorce to the level of heart by noting it was "for hardness of heart that Moses gave you permission to divorce." To go with Jesus to this deeper level I told two stories. Both involved human activity viewed from both a surface level and a heart level. The first story involved a person speaking in a small group. The person was engaged in a monologue of unconscious non-sensical words that I believed to be anxiety driven. I interrupted and asked, "What are you saying?" The person responded, "I don't know." I then said, "Can you talk about that?" At that moment the person and group met at a deep level of intimacy and the conversation began to convey a depth of heart.

The other story involved a husband and wife fighting in my presence during a counseling session. As the emotional intensity ratcheted up one of them stopped and asked, "What do you want?" The energy in them and in the room was greatly altered as the heart of the matter was identified. The spouse responded, "I want a divorce that doesn't make us hateful toward one another. I want the kind of divorce that doesn't diminish all our past good times. I want the kind of divorce that allows us to share and celebrate with one another all the future events in our children's lives."

The common thread between the stories was one of a surface activity underneath which lay the real issue of the heart. As I was an integral part of each story I can say that my part lay in being a non-anxious presence. That is, to be an instrument of peace and unity I had to find that peace and unity within me so that my action in those settings was not generated by anxiety or fear.

I believe a oneness exists between all things and all persons. I believe the peace and unity that exists within myself, as well as the peace and unity that exists between separate human beings, is but a part of the peace and unity that resides in God or Life. That is, at the deepest level of the individual human, and at the deepest level of all human-to-human interactions, and at the deepest level of all of life itself is a oneness and unity and peace. What keeps us from seeing and experiencing this depth of life? The Ego.

The bible speaks of a death to self or way of losing life that leads to finding life. I believe such passages can be viewed as pointing to the death of the Ego and the Fictitious Self created by the Ego. What is the Ego and the Fictitious Self? That will be the subject of a future blog post.

Outreach

2009-09-28T09:29:00.000-07:00

My experience is that church members across the board have lots of emotional investment in the topic of Outreach. Each person carries his or her own slightly unique perspective on what constitutes “real” outreach drawn from his or her unique history. The use of “real” speaks to the different opinions that exist amongst us. For example, let us theorize that a local teenager from a prosperous school is among a handful of musicians from all over the country to be selected to march in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. He/she must raise money for the trip. Would you think that a wise place for some of our outreach monies? In this area that is rich in African-American history I can imagine a small one-room schoolhouse with artifacts from the dreaded slave trade. Would the restoration of the school constitute a worthy investment of outreach monies? Would it influence your decision if you knew that the investment would improve, restore, or build relations between Anglo and African-American members of the town? Is that outreach?

Or is “real” outreach only that which helps the truly down and out or homeless or sick or desperate on the doorstep? My point is that it is not easy to define the term outreach. I personally find the whole topic of outreach to be a hole into which is poured countless hours of rather fruitless discussion. So, I want to consolidate my experience of outreach in a few paragraphs with the hope it will help Trinity in its outreach program.

First, loving our neighbor is not an option. The story of the Good Samaritan was told by Jesus in response to the question, “And who is my neighbor?” In essence, everyone is your neighbor. The stories of Jesus indicate our love should have few if any limits. In contrast, the Pauline epistles place greater emphasis on the love shown between followers of Jesus. Taken together Christians have an obligation to love members of the Body of Christ and members of the human race outside it.

Second, this love should begin at one’s home. The local Body of Christ (congregation) is not a substitute for charity done through the home. It strikes me as disingenuous if a person who is not generous at home should expect just that from his or her church but without that person's participation.

Third, my experience in all but one parish tells me that the majority of people will not give of themselves personally, regularly, consistently, or generously to a problem that cannot be fixed. Time and time again I have seen monies raised for a particular project (build a kitchen, help fire victims, flood victims, etc) precisely because it is a one time or unique need. However, ongoing issues that cannot be fixed, persistent problems like hunger and poverty offer very few “feel good” rewards for a person’s investment. The only exception takes place when members of a congregation begin to know the poor and hungry by name—personal connection empowers people to take on unsolvable societal issues.

Lastly, outreach is not one of my personal priorities. I will be part of discussions on outreach. I will gladly help frame the issue. Indeed, as Dean I have an obligation to see that outreach is not lost in our goal of refining our ministries at Trinity. However, I have devoted too many fruitless hours talking about the topic and so I choose to allocate my best energies and hours to other areas of ministry.

I welcome anyone for whom outreach is his or her passion. I welcome and will honor and support anyone called to serve the poor for Jesus said such persons would be blessed to personally meet Him in the process. I will help direct such persons to the multitude of resources available to them. The “how” question has been answered—creating a food pantry, clothing ministry, shelter, and other such offers of help to the poor is easy. Let me say that again. Creating an outreach ministry is EASY. What is difficult is finding enough people truly committed to DOING outreach as opposed to TALKING about outreach.

So, what are your thoughts on outreach?

Community Stage 4: Arrival at Community

2009-09-08T13:57:00.000-07:00

Having detailed the three stages leading to community you may be surprised at the vague and nebulous description of genuine community. Perhaps it is because genuine community is like a wolverine—a rare sighting.

Periods and moments of genuine community are transforming and memorable. People and groups who have known fake community (stage 1) and shunned it; who have lived through the fright of chaos (stage 2); and the pain of emptiness (stage 3) rightfully revel in what comes next—genuine community.

Genuine community is both serious and light-hearted. It is a place of acceptance. It is a safe place. It is a place of self-revelation. It is a place of intense periods of creativity and insight. It is a place of healing. It is a place of belonging but without any sense of superior and inferior positions. It is a place where all voices are valued. It is a place of tears--both of joy and sorrow. It is a place of great storytelling. It is a place of mystery in which silence is both beautiful and often the only appropriate response to an experience. It is a place where being heard by others is more important and very different from their agreeing with you. It is a place where differences are acknowledged, even cherished, but disarmed from destructive use. It is a place where you come to believe what you always wanted to believe but dared not--that you are a better person than you could believe. It is a place of paradox as you find your true self only in letting go of self (in reality the false self of ego.) It is a place of love. Genuine community is all this and much more.

Such a description sounds ethereal. It is. Genuine community is heaven on earth and therefore something that once experienced becomes the hope for all future groups. It is an obtainable goal. Genuine community can be experienced today by any who earnestly seek it and are willing to pay its price.

The price and bedrock of genuine community is commitment. Commitment to the process previously described in stages 1-3, commitment to the goal described above, and commitment to the persons in a group. Commitment is the lynchpin that enables genuine community to form.

Commitments made in our transitory post-modern world are very different from those made in our ancestral past. The marriage commitment made by a man and woman in a sedentary agrarian village was seriously supported by a commitment from the villagers (“Will you support these two persons in their marriage?”) Today, the people standing behind that couple responding, “We will” will themselves the next day be hundreds or thousands of miles away in another village. How will they support the married persons? That agrarian village provided a living and on-going social fabric of interaction that supported the couple through “sickness and health, rich and poor, till death do us part.” Today, the social fabric is hardly recognizable and seems increasingly to be less ongoing in nature or duration.

There can be no transition and passage through the stages of community without commitment for each stage calls for sacrifice. Having lived in some wonderful moments, and even extended periods of community, I can wholeheartedly say that the joy of community makes the price seem insignificant.

Community Stage 3: Emptiness

2009-08-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

If you have followed this series on Scott Peck’s version of community you know it develops in stages. The path toward genuine community begins with pseudo-community or the avoidance of conflict by the suppression of individual differences. Peck calls this “fake community” in which everyone is “nice” to one another. Eventually individual differences arise that result in people trying to convert, heal, and fix those deemed different from them. This well-intentioned, but misguided way of relating heralds the arrival of Peck’s second stage of community: chaos. Chaos is the painful and unproductive process by which people attempt to change others instead of embracing, cherishing, honoring, and celebrating the differences in others.

Before looking at the third stage of community it may be helpful to see the dynamics of these earlier two stages as they play out in a marriage or intimate partnership. It is well documented that the early stages of courtship involve illusion, projection, and an overall “rose tinted” view of the relationship. Persons bring aspects of previous relationships to bear on how they see their new partner that imposes a form of blindness. Unseemly traits are often minimized as unique one-time behavior quirks related to everything but the character of the other person. The latest brain studies, as revealed in the cover article of National Geographic, indicate early romantic love stimulates chemical processes in the brain that resemble the neuro-chemical process of persons suffering from madness—a chemical form of blindness.

The early stages of relating give way to the inevitable discovery that the other person is vastly different from “me” and different from the person “I” thought them to be earlier in the relationship. This "surprise"most often leads to subtle or overt attempts to make the other person into someone more personally pleasing (i.e., more like "me".) This fixing, healing, or converting of the other will end in failure and suffering. A person can hope for and work towards the changing of others for decades before they realize it is fruitless. The surrendering of attempts to fix, heal, and convert differences in another is to arrive at Peck’s third stage on the way to genuine community: emptiness.

By "emptiness" Peck means the surrender, yielding, and letting go of anything that hinders communication with others. The Famous Five (my term) hindrances for most people are; (1) the need to be in control, (2) the need to be right, (3) the need to be understood, (4) the need to be accepted or included, and (5) the need to feel powerful. The stage of emptiness will occur as individuals and groups seek genuine community with God, self, spouse, partner, children, institutions, neighbors, etc. The stage of emptiness is to arrive at the place in the relationship where the person/group values the relationship with the other more than they value their own needs and so surrender or let go of or lay aside personal/corporate need to be in communication or communion with the other.

I believe the stage of emptiness is so challenging to persons and groups because it reveals the painful reality we are not as powerful we would like to admit. This is not to negate the many forms of power we possess. Rather, it is to highlight that we often “rose tint” reality so as to avoid the feeling and reality of powerlessness. The rose tinted view is periodically shattered by personal or national calamity, crisis, and natural disaster that reveals we are not the self-sufficient and ruggedly powerful individuals/groups we thought ourselves to be. Learning the lesson of emptiness is exactly what our Western culture, with its emphasis on rugged individualism, needs but also greatly fears.

Some people have noted they don’t like Peck’s choice of “emptiness” as the term for the third stage of community. The term "kenosis" (Greek word for emptiness) is an important term in Christology and is used in Philippians 2:7-9 that states, “Jesus emptied himself taking the form of a slave…therefore God highly exalted him.” Part of Jesus’ greatness was his ability to lay aside or surrender whatever was needed to do the work asked of him by God. Consistently God responds by honoring and glorifying Jesus’ choice of the humble and seemingly less powerful way.

The humble and seemingly less powerful path conflicts with much of our capitalist society, with its drive to rise above others by the acquisition of "more," but is the way committed to by Christians. Perhaps this is what Jesus had in mind when he said, “Narrow is the way that leads to life and few find it.” The wider path is obvious—militants attempt to change pacifists; the public school teacher attempts to convert or fix or heal the homeschooler; the pro-life activist presses the abortion rights activist to change positions; and the religious seek to convert agnostics and atheists all in the attempt to support the famous five and so feel powerful.

I encourage you to find the joy and freedom that is the rightful reward give those who can lay aside whatever hinders you in relating to those you love and value. I encourage you to find the freedom and lightness that exists in letting go of trying to change others. If you will take this narrow path I believe you will place yourself in a position to see God work in ways previously unknown to you. As you practice surrender in your life you will find your communication with others to be more honest and rewarding. I believe this is so because letting go involves emptying the inner self of ego thereby making new space for others. The emptying or letting go of the famous five, along with prejudice, pride, and power, is the very doorway to genuine community with God, self, and neighbor.

The true power of religion resides in its ability to empower people to imagine a better more loving world. To live through emptiness and to learn well its lesson you need to imagine life on the other side--in community. Imagine the richness of marriage if one, or even both partners, were to cultivate the ability to regularly lay aside personal needs for the other. Imagine a parish whose priest and people mutually surrendered the Famous Five to more properly relate to one another. Imagine a parish who so valued its neighbors that it laid aside everything to be in honest dialogue with them. Imagine the honor we would accord to Republicans and Democrats in Congress if they would meet in the center aisle and lay aside the acrimonious past and take up the important work of our nation. To imagine such things is to have entered Peck's fourth stage: community.

Community Stage 2: Chaos

2009-08-13T06:18:00.000-07:00

There are countless examples indicating people can present themselves in favorable ways for short periods of time. However, the true character and nature of a person cannot be masked or hidden indefinitely. When one person lays aside the mask of persona a group will begin to exit pseud0-community. When a majority of persons choose not to hide their true feelings the group will likely head into "chaos."

In Scott Peck’s view "chaos" is an essential element of the process leading to genuine community. Chaos is the period in group development when all personal differences are laid on the table. Chaos is the likely outcome of Conservative Evangelicals interacting honestly with Anglo-Catholic liberals. Chaos is the likely experience if pro-abortion and anti-abortion persons were to speak freely in a group. Chaos is likely if La Leche League members and bottle-feeding moms were to freely interact. Chaos is likely to happen to a congregation in Norfolk, Virginia, (or any other military town) if the priest regularly preaches against an armed nation in favor of passivity and non-violence. Chaos was what happened in most Episcopal parishes in 2003 when an openly gay priest living in a partnered relationship was consecrated bishop. Because most Episcopal congregations embody the Anglican "via media" most have persons on both sides of any controversial issue. Clergy who prior to 2003 steered their congregations away from controversial topics suddenly couldn't avoid talking about one in particular. Chaos ensued, as most congregations were ill equipped for the task.

I write "likely" and "most" to describe the above-mentioned groups because chaos does not always arise where people freely voice opinions, insights, and beliefs but rather chaos happens when people attempt to convert, heal, and fix those deemed different from them. Groups and churches that avoid attempts to fix, heal, convert, or change one another avoid the stage of chaos. The stage of chaos is a time of fighting and struggle. Healthy groups also fight and struggle. However, healthy groups fight and struggle effectively and productively. Fighting and struggle in chaos is unproductive and unconstructive. The feeling in chaos is often one of despair. Groups will remain in chaos so long as the people in it seek to change, convert, heal, or fix those deemed different.

In the BCP the Collect for Monday in Holy Week reads, "Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace..."As Christians we have a worldview through which we understand suffering and pain and struggle to be integral parts of our humanity and so also true community. The struggle we Christians live is not an armed aggression but rather an inner struggle and fight to bring our wills to that place where we, like Jesus, daily surrender our life to God.

Richard Rohr is a Franciscan priest and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In Hope Against Darkness he writes, “In mythology the would be-hero is always wounded…if an individual can trust the pain, not get rid of it until s/he has learned its lessons—the suffering can be seen as part of the Great Pattern, how God is transforming all things.”

Chaos is a painful stage of group development but a necessary one preferable to the Adam & Eve like hiding of pseudo-community. Like others, we Christians can be tempted in the stage of chaos to run from the pain before learning the valuable lesson that it is fruitless to try and fix, change, and convert others. Wise leadership does not steer a community away from chaos, but rather, allows it to take place (within safe parameters) so that at just the right moment individuals will choose to lay aside the need to fix or convert and so move to the third stage of development: Emptiness.

The Four Stages of Community: Stage 1

2009-07-24T15:28:00.000-07:00

In 1987 Scott Peck wrote The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace and in it described four stages of community. His work built on the pioneering group work of Wilfred Bion and the famous Tavistock Group. Community is a much used term as in "retirement community" or the "community playground." This is not the way Peck uses the word and he describes his view of community in detail in stage 4. I'll begin with stage 1: Pseudo-community.

Pseudo-community is an attempt to fake genuine communication and interaction between persons by avoiding conflict. Most of us have encountered this stage and know it as "being nice" or "keeping it shallow" perhaps through mom and dad's advise, "Avoid talk of sex, religion, and politics." The defining characteristic of pseudo-community is conflict avoidance while true community is conflict resolving. In pseudo-community the group avoids conflict by primarily inhibiting or downplaying individual differences. Pseudo-communities allow blanket statements made about groups or persons to go unchallenged. "All liberals are opposed to guns" or "Divorce is always a terrible thing" are easy examples of such statements.

When a person speaks from their unique and individual perspective saying, "My divorce was the best thing that ever happened to me," the group faces the decision to move toward more genuine dialogue or take the safe course of avoiding conflicting views. Most groups choose the latter and it usually begins with an Aunt Bee type of person.

Aunt Bee was a character on The Andy Griffith Show played by Francis Bavier. Bee was a loving and kind character with whom few found reason to have conflict. I use her character as an example of the kind of person who often keeps a group in pseudo-community by moving the group away from conflict with a smile and in a manner that makes it difficult for others to challenge. The power and means by which a group stays in pseudo-community cannot be underestimated.

In local church circles this avoidance routine is played out like a symphony performed by the Boston Pops. A favorite tune is "We Are a Friendly Church." Anyone who challenges the cherished belief will likely be ostracized or quieted with multiple stories of friendliness. Almost every group has one member in it who cannot, for whatever reason, embrace conflict. Good leaders are those who steer the group back to the dissenting voice or who make space for conflicting voices.

So, let me lay out something for Trinity Cathedral that could move us into more genuine communication. Do you really want children at this cathedral--in worship, in Miller Hall, in our offices, and in our classrooms? Every church I've belonged to, or been employed by, has said, "We want children." However, when the children arrive their behavior is childlike and irritating. Honestly speaking, how many adults are able to embrace the chaos, noise, unpredictability, mess, temper tantrums, needs, and demands of children? The truth is that most church people are in love with the IDEA of children which is a thousand miles from the REALITY of children. So, do you want children at Trinity Cathedral?

Be on the lookout for pseudo-community. You will know it by:

1. Avoidance of conflict.

2. Suppression of individual differences among group members.

3. Allowing blanket statements to go unchecked or go unquestioned.

The Unfinished Sermon

2009-07-13T05:56:00.001-07:00

Scripture Passage: “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the Lord took me from following the flock, and theLord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ Amos 7: 7-17

After delivering yesterday's sermon I realized the point I wanted to make but failed to speak. So, here it is.

Around the year 930 b.c.e. (before the common era) King Solomon of Israel died. His son Rehoboam was in line to be king of a united and wealthy kingdom. Unfortunately, tribes to the north would not obey him. Instead, they united around a rebel named Jeroboam who had the support of Egypt's Pharaoh Sheshonk I (reigned 945-924). Ten tribes united around Jeroboam and took the name "Israel" leaving two tribes to the south, Judah and Benjamin, to fend for themselves. The two tribes took the name "Judah". Israel lived autonomously for 200 years and Judah for 400 years.

Jerobaom built a national temple in Bethel, just northwest of Ai, and there set up Amaziah as the High Priest. One day a dresser of fig trees walked in and declared that King Jeroboam would die by the sword and the people of Israel would be carted off in exile. Imagine, a rural farmer of sorts walking into the halls of power and saying such a thing. It was a suicidal mission, a treasonous act, and yet Amos lived to tell about it. He had stood against authority and spoken against it.

Fast forward to 1961 where in New Haven, Connecticut, at Yale University, Dr. Stanley Milgram conducted one of the most famous sociological experiments of all time designed to examine individual conscience and obedience to authority. A confederate of Dr. Milgram, an actor, was strapped to a chair and hooked to electrodes wired to a battery. It is a scam. No electricity will pass through to the person in the chair. However, the subject of the experiment, a volunteer being paid $4.50, is not aware of this. The subject mistakenly thinks the person with the electrodes is the subject of a memory experiment. With the actor in place Dr. Milgram seats the true subject of the conscience and authority experiment in a chair in an adjacent room. Before the subject is a rather large instrument panel called a Shock Generator. It consists of 30 switches starting at 15 volts and running in 15 volt increments to 450 volts. Beside each number is word descriptor of the pain that would likely be felt by the person in the adjoining room.

Dr. Milgram informs the person seated before the panel that the "subject" in the other room has memorized word pairs (blue-box, wild-geese). The person at the panel is to read a word into the microphone. All wrong responses result in a shock beginning at 15 volts and moving all the way to 450 volts. The actor in the other room has been informed to grunt at 75 volts, demand release at 150 volts, and give an agonizing scream at 285 volts. Dr. Milgram was dressed in a white lab coat, stood beside the seated person at the panel, and encouraged the subject with phrases such as, "Please continue", "The experiment demands that you continue", "The volunteer is being paid--please continue".

The results of the forty men who were part of this first experiment were astounding. 34 of the 40 men shocked up to and beyond the demand for release. 25 of the 40, or 62.5%, never stopped administering painful shocks to an innocent person. This percentage remained true when 40 women participated in the follow-up experiment. Altogether some 1000 persons sat before the Shock Generator and the 65% figure remained true no matter the gender or education level of the subjects.

I have paired this experiment with the passage from Amos to show that if God is to speak a word of correction to persons in authority, who biblically speaking receive their authority from God, then God will have to do so through the minority. Said in another way, "Truth tellers, people of conscience, and whistle blowers are a rare breed."

Mr. Harry Markopolos was the accountant who first discovered Mr. Bernie Madoff's shocking 50 billion dollar ponzi scheme. Mr. Markopolos sent documents to the Securities Exchange Commission in May 2000, October 2001, December 2005, and again in June 2007. If at any point his words had been acted on untold suffering would have been averted. Sadly, the majority were deaf to his life giving word.

Now, here is the point I failed to make in yesterday's sermon. When people with developed and informed consciences silence their inner voice in the face of authority suffering is the result. When people fail to listen to inconvenient messages suffering is sometimes the result. Said another way, when we see corruption, falsehood, deception, or error and fail to speak up we fail not only ourselves but bring about suffering and failure in society. Society needs truth tellers such as Mr. Markopolos.

Now, you too need truth tellers. Trinity Cathedral needs truth tellers. Let us individually, and corporately, aim to do three things. First, to inform our conscience through education. Second, to lovingly and humbly speak the truth where we see error. Lastly, to be humble recipients, not "killing the messenger"when confronted with information that may not be to our liking. Some of this information will be discerned to be more "ego" than truth and so we will not act on all information given us by others. But, we should be open and receptive to correction for in such ways God speaks to us a life giving word as he did so through Amos some 2900 years ago.

Where Lies Your True Strength?

2009-06-20T10:06:00.000-07:00

In many ways and with many words the bible points out that humanity's true strength is to be found in God. In Exodus chapter 13 Moses reminded the people that it was by "God's strength" that Israel was freed from the bondage of Pharaoh. Psalm 28:7 declares, "The Lord is my strength and my shield; in God my heart trusts." The scriptures which undergird the truth, that our true strength is to be found in God, are numerous and the message an overarching biblical theme.

Israel's temptation, like our temptation, was to root strength in external forms of power. In Israel's day that meant political alliances, wishing to be like other nations who had horses and chariots and other "technological" weapons of the time period. The prophets again and again warned the people to not lose sight that their true strength lay in God.

It must be acknowledged that external forms of power do matter and have a place in the world. A uniform or badge is a symbol of authority and power that helps a society maintain law and order. Forming alliances, of whatever kind, is the underpinning of modern business. Amassing savings is a power just as surely as amassing debt is a weakness. External forms of power have their place. However, it also has limits.

External power can often disappear and amassing power is always followed by fear of losing it and energy spent to preserve and secure it. Fortunes won can be lost. For proof we need look no further than the recent ponzi scheme manufactured by Mr. Bernie Madoff. Sadness is experienced when humans make externals such as beauty, money, fame, education background, status in society, titles and roles the source of our identity. The sadness lies in the reality that all these things will be taken from us. Time grinds down all forms. For those who find their identity in such things the loss brings about a diminishment of self.

External power can also lull us into thinking it can solve all our problems. The reality is that some battles can only be fought by a form of internal power exhibited through resolve, attitude, tenacity, forgiveness, hopefulness and other such character traits whose source is that of heart and spirit. Fighting to emotionally survive the death of child, coping with the betrayal of a spouse or business partner, trusting people again after being randomly attacked and beaten are just a few examples of which there are many that point out the limits of external power to help us through the storms of life.

I love the scene in Star Wars when young Luke is learning to be a Jedi Master. One day Luke looks down into a dark cave and inquires about it. His instructor, the old and wise Yoda, answers that his passage through the cave is one of the final events in his training--one for which Luke is not yet ready. Luke declares himself ready and begins to advance into the cave. Yoda quietly says, of the light saber Luke carries, "It will be of no use to you."

Can you identify the test that lies before you? Perhaps you are firmly in the middle of such a trial or storm of life. It would not be unusual if you have expended great energy throwing all manner of strengths at the obstacle. Are you using your true strength? How is faith, hope, and love coming to bear on your troubles? Are you like Luke in believing that some external form can help you, when in fact, it may be of no use in your battle?

I invite response in the form of stories about inner strength that has enabled you to endure and even thrive through the difficulties of life.

This I Believe: Love

2009-05-10T14:39:00.001-07:00

I believe in Love. Evolutionary psychology and sociology, along with the newest neural mapping, is forcing our species to re-think what we mean when we use the term love.

For example, a 2008 National Geographic cover story highlighted how the neural chemistry of persons in the early stages of love most closely resembles the neural chemistry of persons suffering from madness. This may substantiate the wisdom which encouraged people to avoid making important decisions when "in love". Zero-sum game theory is altering the landscape of love in shedding new light on human altruism--why do humans love persons outside their own genetic families?

Jesus said, and I paraphrase, "When you throw a party you should invite all kinds people who can't afford to reciprocate". Jesus' disciple Paul said, "Love doesn't keep a count or records of things". Combined the two quotes speak to the reality that humans are equipped with an uncanny ability to know at all times those who "owe me" and those to whom "I'm indebted". In our marriages, at work, at play, at all times we keep a conscious and unconscious accounting of relational balances that seeks parity.

Jesus said, "Greater love has no person than to lay down one's life for another". Laying down your life for your genetic offspring is a sign of love. Dying for a person outside your genetic family is a sign of great love that defies common relational accounting practices.

This is the backdrop against which I hear Jesus' words defining "great love". A love that would die for you is a love for which you can't play the reciprocity game. It is likely that the greatest love you have ever experienced was so precisely because it threw your internal accounting system out of balance. Love that will die for you is like an equation that our internal accounting system cannot compute. In his letter to the Romans, Paul quoted Proverbs 25:22, "if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing so you will heap burning coals on their heads." It is not enough to love the lovable for such a common practice does not embody the great love of Jesus. No, to imitate the life of Jesus we must love even our enemies or adversaries.

So, the next time you are emotionally, physically, or verbally struck, take a deep breathe and let go of the instinctual animal response to strike back. Instead, show mercy and love. In doing so you will cause your neighbor's internal accounting system to metaphorically malfunction and they will ask, "What is this?" It is Love. This I believe.

This I Believe: Taboo

2009-04-11T07:11:00.002-07:00

I believe that words have power to create reality. I believe some realities are so scary that words associated with it become taboo (a strong social prohibition). However, at times society is best served by the transgressor who breaks taboo and so creates new but uncomfortable realities.

"I think I'm losing my mind" is a mild taboo as it references potential mental issues. In my part of the country everyone knew the Florida state mental hospital was in Chattahoochee. I remember people saying "watch out or they will send you to Chattahoochee." It was a threat veiled in humor but the message was clear--your words can get you locked up in a mental hospital. Or, was the message, "Life can drive you crazy?"

Suicide is taboo in society and naming it often marks the speaker while making others nervous. For the healthy person the fleeting once in a lifetime thought of suicide is like a strange voice that advertises how some current suffering could be alleviated. Even the seemingly benign thought, "I'm worth more money dead than alive" is a type of suicidal thought that envisions the life of others to be improved by our absence.

Some time ago I witnessed a reality known by many but one rarely ever spoken. Witnessing it was like the sighting of a rare species of bird. A spouse died and the remaining spouse blossomed as a person. The norm is that a surviving spouse or partner deteriorates upon the death of such a loved one. Yet, this person came alive. People recognized it but could only allude to it in whispers, glances, and gestures. The unspoken reality is that living with some people will suck the life out of you.

As a pastor I know there are religious unspoken realities. Each Ash Wednesday and Good Friday Episcopalians pray for "those who have lost their faith". Yet, in 15 years I've never ever heard anyone say, "I used to believe in God but no longer do I believe". I would love to hear someone in the Church say, "I lost my faith". Of course, it would be a bit taboo. However, Jesus told of a woman who turned her house inside-out looking for a lost coin. I wonder what the coin represented and why Jesus thought it important enough to tell others of it? If life can drive you to lose your mind, maybe Jesus was saying, "Temple can drive you to lose your faith!"

I have learned that whatever societal role is served by taboos they exist at the expense of the individuals living in the unspoken reality. To name such a reality can be the first step to freedom. I have lived through unspoken realities and feel called to name realities for in doing so it frees people: frees those imprisoned in the unspoken reality while also freeing others who live in denial. This I believe.

This I Believe: Deception is an Inescapable Part of Life

2009-04-10T05:03:00.000-07:00

This I believe: Deception is an inescapable part of the human condition. Unconscious animals use camouflage to hide from and confuse predators and prey. Unconscious animals often use their natural appearance to mimic, match, or fade into their surroundings. Others actively shift shape, texture or color to blend in. The amazing ability to hide in plain sight has evolved in parallel across thousands of species, and each animal's cloaking technique is unique. "They all need to look invisible," says zoologist Martin Stevens of the University of Cambridge, "but the mechanisms can be quite varied." I believe conscious human animals also use camouflage but with one very unique quality.

I believe the skill to deceive developed in sync with, and gave rise to, a growing ability to detect deception. For example, the typical male in his early 20's will at some point camouflage his true aim toward a woman by feigning long-term commitment. However, such commitment often fades after the male has met his true goal of having sex with the female. Over time females developed skills to detect such deception that in turn called for increasing skill at deception and so forth. Somewhere in this cycle conscious human animals, consciously or unconsciously, realized better deception required first a self-deception so as not to give away any subtle sign of true intention. I believe self-deception is the aspect of camouflage that distinguishes us from unconscious animals.

Dr. Eugene Peterson, Professor Emeritus of Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Seattle, Washington, and founding pastor of Christ the King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland, wrote, "Those who deceive others are first themselves deceived, for not many, I think, begin with evil intent. The religious leader is the most untrustworthy of leaders: in no other station do we have so many opportunities for pride, for covetousness, for lust, or so many excellent disguises at hand to keep such ignobility from being found out and called to account."(Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness. p14).

In Hamlet Polonius says to his son, "This above all: To thine own self be true, for it must follow as dost the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." If so, then such a goal will lead us head long into a pitched battle with the Ego---the most cunning and deceptive of all foes. This I Believe.

This I Believe: Life Consists of Finding and Losing

2009-03-29T17:53:00.000-07:00

Last week I named my belief that humans are conscious animals differing in critical ways, both positively and negatively, from unconscious animals like my dog Fred and cat Pirate. This week I share with you my belief that the conscious human life involves a repeating cycle of finding and losing or remembering and forgetting.

I enjoy playing golf. In the course of playing a game I will "find" the secret of putting that enables me to be more proficient that day. I will say to myself, "Remember this". Yet, I will inevitably forget or "lose" this secret. What is maddening is that when I find it again I'm certain that this time I have really found IT. I believe as if for the first time that this time I won't lose it. Yet, I lose it again.

I conduct a funeral and find the preciousness of life by experiencing the fragility and short-term nature of life. I leave the funeral with a renewed zest for life. I hug my wife and kids on that day with a renewed love. I go to work and hug my boss. Okay, I don't hug my boss but you know what I mean. I go to work with a renewed sense of purpose and a determination not to lose this newly re-found sense of LIFE. Yet, inevitably the boredom or predictability or mundane nature of life seem to catch up to me and I lose the precious feeling and get caught again in the rip tides of forgetfulness.

Many people find worship in our Episcopal church to be maddeningly repetitive. It is so by nature because we so easily forget or "lose" the true gems of life and so need constant reminders. We need to find again the truth that "it is more blessed to give than to receive" or find again that God loves us and can be trusted.

I believe this process keeps us ever searching for that time when we at last find the deepest and truest and most lovely of all findings--God. I believe then, and only then, will our hearts finally rest from this process of finding and losing and losing and finding. In God we will find and be found without losing again ourselves or LIFE. We will be home.

So, what have you lost and found lately? This I believe.

Weekly "I Believe" Series

2009-03-23T12:45:00.000-07:00

Most of you are familiar with the words "This I Believe" that began with a 1950's radio show in which average Americans spoke about things in which they deeply believed. National Public Radio still carries such responses on a weekly basis.

So, I am hoping to carry on the tradition through my Trinity Cathedral blog. This will be the first in a series of "This I Believe" in which you can respond and so create a forum for the sharing of ideas.

THIS I BELIEVE: Humans are animals. The rock group Three Days Grace and Nickleback each sing about humans as animals. The songs refer to aggressive and somewhat wanton male human sexual tendencies that align perfectly with almost every other male species on the planet. I believe there are many other similarities about which one could sing. I believe we conscious human animals evolved from "lower" unconscious animal life forms. I believe the conscious human life carries with it positive and negative features. I have at times envied unconscious animals, like my dog Fred and my cat Pirate, who I believe are free from anxiety about their certain and impending death. I believe Fred and Pirate are spared agonizing over the insufferable conditions of cats and dogs in North Korea. I believe Fred and Pirate do not wrestle with an Ego, Superego, and Id as do conscious human animals. I believe Fred and Pirate gladly don't have to learn after the fact that some pattern of behavior, or unexpected slip of the tongue, was the result of some cavernous unconscious field that they themselves have unknowingly kept from themselves (self-deception can serve some very useful functions).

I believe that if humans are around for the extinction of the sun, estimated at five billion years from now, that those humans will be as different from us as we are from single cell amoeba. This I believe.
Gregory Powell