Dear Pneuma,
When I started writing to you, I intended to be honest. I intended to share without withholding. I intended to trust you. Well, here goes:
God visited me this week. I'd forgotten the warmth and laughter in God's "voice;" the way in which God's presence gently warms and lifts. I sensed the wisdom and ancient surety of God, and, thinking back this morning, I feel like crying at its loss. I was reminded that God's strength flows from the assurance that God experiences the worst of our human fears and "knows" them. She has absorbed/faced/engulfed/embraced every single loss of her children since the beginning/end of time. There is no joy she has not known. There is no horror she has not forgiven. God is that wide.
What does it mean that God visited me this week? It means that I was close enough to the reality of life that I could hear. It means that the scariest of my fears is inadequate to the truth of God. It means that we are not alone, and that all of our efforts to live life fully in love with being are important. It means that the worst news can be heard/embraced/engulfed and overcome. It means that our God is with us. Our God loves us, and our God speaks when we stop focussing obsessively on our own wantings, fears, worries, goads and spurs.
I've heard God before. I'd forgotten the absoluteness. I'd forgotten the simplicity. I'd forgotten the care. I thank God, and I wish the experience for everyone: knowing God is the greatest gift I have ever received.
Love Always,
Cobalt Dreams
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Dear Pneuma,
I need to vent about worship. I am pissed this morning. I am feeling extremely agitated about the fact that my church is failing in worship. I am agitated that worship can be seen as a throw together business, with the idea that we should just "get it done."
I am pissed because I attend seminars, read books, and work with musicians, clergy, lay speakers, altar guild members, and ushers that circle continually around a vision of a declining membership and a church that has become irrelevant to the life of the world, yet, when it comes to confronting the reality of dead worship in our own home church, we look somewhere else for the answers.
I am pissed. I see, again and again, opportunities to change ignored in order to keep the boat from tipping, to cost less, to fit into a daily schedule, or to avoid making mistakes. Do we even believe in God? Do we believe, in any part of our beings, that God is present in worship? What if God is there, but we are not? What if we are bringing our world's fears, expectations and prejudices into the ways we "plan" worship? To quote Tex Sample, "We put God' story into the world's story, when what we should be doing is putting the world's story into God's story."
I think, our goal as worship leaders should be to invite the Holy to be with us. It should be time of passionate devotion, of vulnerable asking, of angry questions, of joyous exaltation, of aching loss, and blushing fulfillment as we come together in a body of believers, knowing our God yearns to be there with us. We, as worship leaders, as midwives of the birthing process (Jorge Lockwood), can create an atmosphere of comfort, care and demand that brings those exchanges to life.
Worship is corporate practice of discerning the Divine, different than prayer because of the power and scope of need, offering, and devotion within a body of believers. Worship is a time to become a one made of many instead of a place where the many are reduced to the preferences of any one. It is a sacrifice of time, made to be together with God.
Our God needs that time with us. We need that time with our God. It seems to me that when we create worship with this intent, we will hear our God, and our God will hear us. It seems to me, that when the Holy touches our time, we will seek time to touch the Holy. It seems to me that worship will become something we need, not something we plan, organize, direct, or DO.
When worship becomes business, when worship becomes a repeated template of activity leading to an offering of money, when worship becomes something, as a body, that we just attend, our God is better served outside the house of worship.
So, here is my rant:
If worship is dead: bury it.
If worship is dying: love it, and let it go.
If worship is being born: midwife it free.
If worship is becoming: embrace its being, whatever form it takes.
Worship is not "the first thing people see when the come in and that last thing they see as they leave." It is not the "first impression" we make on our prospective customers. Worship has nothing to do with the business of the church. The church's business comes from the practices of worship. Worship is Holy Time. Worship is conversation with God across the kitchen table. Worship is an opportunity to bring our fingerpaintings to God and see them hung with care on the refrigerator.
So what are we doing with our organs and pianos? What are we doing with our choirs, our gold offering plates, and our Eucharist liturgies? What are we doing with drums, guitars, and clapping hands? What are we doing when we read a prayer? What are we doing when we offer a bulletin? What are we doing when we sing a song? If we don't know, maybe we should find out, and if we don't mean it, we had better not do it.
So, New Pact with myself: I will not support conversations that reduce worship to a series of actions devoid of power. I will not engage in worship practices that are dead. I will challenge any concept that God is bound by the shape of a space, the number of people worshipping, or the stylistic expressions of an art form.
Last, Pneuma, let me express this: maybe, when we American Christians decide to take worship seriously enough to laugh at it, to laugh at ourselves, and to put business aside so that worship can happen, we will find that worship is where God happens, and where God happens, people will come.
Thank you SO much for being there.
Love Always, Cobalt Dreams
I need to vent about worship. I am pissed this morning. I am feeling extremely agitated about the fact that my church is failing in worship. I am agitated that worship can be seen as a throw together business, with the idea that we should just "get it done."
I am pissed because I attend seminars, read books, and work with musicians, clergy, lay speakers, altar guild members, and ushers that circle continually around a vision of a declining membership and a church that has become irrelevant to the life of the world, yet, when it comes to confronting the reality of dead worship in our own home church, we look somewhere else for the answers.
I am pissed. I see, again and again, opportunities to change ignored in order to keep the boat from tipping, to cost less, to fit into a daily schedule, or to avoid making mistakes. Do we even believe in God? Do we believe, in any part of our beings, that God is present in worship? What if God is there, but we are not? What if we are bringing our world's fears, expectations and prejudices into the ways we "plan" worship? To quote Tex Sample, "We put God' story into the world's story, when what we should be doing is putting the world's story into God's story."
I think, our goal as worship leaders should be to invite the Holy to be with us. It should be time of passionate devotion, of vulnerable asking, of angry questions, of joyous exaltation, of aching loss, and blushing fulfillment as we come together in a body of believers, knowing our God yearns to be there with us. We, as worship leaders, as midwives of the birthing process (Jorge Lockwood), can create an atmosphere of comfort, care and demand that brings those exchanges to life.
Worship is corporate practice of discerning the Divine, different than prayer because of the power and scope of need, offering, and devotion within a body of believers. Worship is a time to become a one made of many instead of a place where the many are reduced to the preferences of any one. It is a sacrifice of time, made to be together with God.
Our God needs that time with us. We need that time with our God. It seems to me that when we create worship with this intent, we will hear our God, and our God will hear us. It seems to me, that when the Holy touches our time, we will seek time to touch the Holy. It seems to me that worship will become something we need, not something we plan, organize, direct, or DO.
When worship becomes business, when worship becomes a repeated template of activity leading to an offering of money, when worship becomes something, as a body, that we just attend, our God is better served outside the house of worship.
So, here is my rant:
If worship is dead: bury it.
If worship is dying: love it, and let it go.
If worship is being born: midwife it free.
If worship is becoming: embrace its being, whatever form it takes.
Worship is not "the first thing people see when the come in and that last thing they see as they leave." It is not the "first impression" we make on our prospective customers. Worship has nothing to do with the business of the church. The church's business comes from the practices of worship. Worship is Holy Time. Worship is conversation with God across the kitchen table. Worship is an opportunity to bring our fingerpaintings to God and see them hung with care on the refrigerator.
So what are we doing with our organs and pianos? What are we doing with our choirs, our gold offering plates, and our Eucharist liturgies? What are we doing with drums, guitars, and clapping hands? What are we doing when we read a prayer? What are we doing when we offer a bulletin? What are we doing when we sing a song? If we don't know, maybe we should find out, and if we don't mean it, we had better not do it.
So, New Pact with myself: I will not support conversations that reduce worship to a series of actions devoid of power. I will not engage in worship practices that are dead. I will challenge any concept that God is bound by the shape of a space, the number of people worshipping, or the stylistic expressions of an art form.
Last, Pneuma, let me express this: maybe, when we American Christians decide to take worship seriously enough to laugh at it, to laugh at ourselves, and to put business aside so that worship can happen, we will find that worship is where God happens, and where God happens, people will come.
Thank you SO much for being there.
Love Always, Cobalt Dreams
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Dear Pneuma,
It does not seem to be enough to feel. Feeling creates energy. Energy leads to action. Action leads to release of energy. Hence, the outcome of feeling is action and catharsis. Yet, here I am this morning, feeling . . . with no action to follow. I spoke to someone I do not know very well. I believe we communicated some important things. I feel nervous, worried, and concerned that maybe I said some things I should not have said. I feel happy and hopeful that I understand that person a little bit better. I feel guilty and ashamed at the ways in which we keep ourselves from speaking truth to one another. I feel like I have betrayed loyalties. I feel freed from hurt silence. I feel as though I colluded with an outsider to gossip about a loved one. I feel as though I finally included a new person into the circle of loved ones.
Yet, what action to follow? Last night, I saw a glimpse of a thing. I saw an expression on a human face that was simply feeling. There was feeling as action; as a physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental activity that engaged the entire being. I thirsted for that ability.
This morning, I fear the cost. I fear the time lost for formulating plans. I itch to do damage control-to talk with another and move the social dynamic even farther. I want the conversation to continue. I want the conversation to end. All of these activities as a way to avoid feeling feelings as action.
Today is Sunday. Today is Sabbath. Feeling is a relationship with time. Sabbath is time in relationship with God. I shall relate with this time through feeling and share these moments with God.
Love Always,
Cobalt Dreams
It does not seem to be enough to feel. Feeling creates energy. Energy leads to action. Action leads to release of energy. Hence, the outcome of feeling is action and catharsis. Yet, here I am this morning, feeling . . . with no action to follow. I spoke to someone I do not know very well. I believe we communicated some important things. I feel nervous, worried, and concerned that maybe I said some things I should not have said. I feel happy and hopeful that I understand that person a little bit better. I feel guilty and ashamed at the ways in which we keep ourselves from speaking truth to one another. I feel like I have betrayed loyalties. I feel freed from hurt silence. I feel as though I colluded with an outsider to gossip about a loved one. I feel as though I finally included a new person into the circle of loved ones.
Yet, what action to follow? Last night, I saw a glimpse of a thing. I saw an expression on a human face that was simply feeling. There was feeling as action; as a physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental activity that engaged the entire being. I thirsted for that ability.
This morning, I fear the cost. I fear the time lost for formulating plans. I itch to do damage control-to talk with another and move the social dynamic even farther. I want the conversation to continue. I want the conversation to end. All of these activities as a way to avoid feeling feelings as action.
Today is Sunday. Today is Sabbath. Feeling is a relationship with time. Sabbath is time in relationship with God. I shall relate with this time through feeling and share these moments with God.
Love Always,
Cobalt Dreams
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Dear Pneuma,
Last week I went to a conference and heard a woman named Roberta Bondi speak on prayer. Somehow, her lectures inspired me to reengage my prayer life. I had been on auto-pilot, assuming that God knows what I need, when I need it and will provide whether or not I ask. Silly of me. I know that relationship with God is active and dynamic and necessarily requires attention from me.
So, I started a small prayer discipline. It is hard to describe what has happened. I have become more aware of my feelings, and I have found significant clarity in the question that has been plaguing me for months now. Below, I will share the conversation that I had with myself, but I want to reiterate one of my personality traits: I believe that choosing is the definition of faithful response to Life.
" . . . maybe this is necessary for me to be able to relate to new people and forge new meaning for this life I am living.
I need to start building new relationships
-i'm not safe. i have attachment disorders, i'm incapable . . .
[Wow! Who knew you believed this of yourself. You used to believe you were poison in love relationships. Where is this coming from?]
-past jobs
[In what ways?]
-well, i had a strong vision, selfish, of a program at my last job, and i forced that vision over (listening to the needs of those i was working with)
[I think, possibly, you may have done that to some extent. I do not believe 1. that you did that all of the time, or 2. that the program ultimately suffered under your leadership]
-well, teaching, then. i . . .was looking for validation from students. i told stories to myself about their lives and imagined i was the one person that understood how the world was putting them down; that i was called to discern their inner potential and bring it forth through education. being good by being a crusader. how naive and stupid.
[Wow! How old are you?]
-almost . . .
[How old were you then]
-ten years younger
[Hm]
-i am a hard-shelled, cold person
[What evidence of that do you see?]
-i don't want to give my life over to volunteering to visit or care for people
[Hm.] [That statement bothers you?]
-i do not want to be unfaithful. i fear the consequences of believing faithfulness requires more from me in terms of giving of my being to others. i fear the loss of MY energy, MY time, MY life, and i dislike {hate} being selfish and self-oriented to such an extent.
[Wow! You seem to be holding on to your self, clinging tightly to control-You know, controlled environment, controlled choices, controlled outcomes. Deciding in advance the consequences of attempting to give more of yourself, and not doing anything. If you don't try, you can't fail. How safe.]
-whooo.
[You love throwing yourself over barriers. What barriers does your control create?]
-inhibitions in joining groups and committing time; confusion in regards to "job" choices; anxiety about "being" (specifically, feeling unheard, ineffectual, unimportant, etc.) OH !@#$%%!!! TOO MUCH @#$% ANALYSIS!!! JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO
. . . . .
Still choosing,
Cobalt Dreams
Last week I went to a conference and heard a woman named Roberta Bondi speak on prayer. Somehow, her lectures inspired me to reengage my prayer life. I had been on auto-pilot, assuming that God knows what I need, when I need it and will provide whether or not I ask. Silly of me. I know that relationship with God is active and dynamic and necessarily requires attention from me.
So, I started a small prayer discipline. It is hard to describe what has happened. I have become more aware of my feelings, and I have found significant clarity in the question that has been plaguing me for months now. Below, I will share the conversation that I had with myself, but I want to reiterate one of my personality traits: I believe that choosing is the definition of faithful response to Life.
" . . . maybe this is necessary for me to be able to relate to new people and forge new meaning for this life I am living.
I need to start building new relationships
-i'm not safe. i have attachment disorders, i'm incapable . . .
[Wow! Who knew you believed this of yourself. You used to believe you were poison in love relationships. Where is this coming from?]
-past jobs
[In what ways?]
-well, i had a strong vision, selfish, of a program at my last job, and i forced that vision over (listening to the needs of those i was working with)
[I think, possibly, you may have done that to some extent. I do not believe 1. that you did that all of the time, or 2. that the program ultimately suffered under your leadership]
-well, teaching, then. i . . .was looking for validation from students. i told stories to myself about their lives and imagined i was the one person that understood how the world was putting them down; that i was called to discern their inner potential and bring it forth through education. being good by being a crusader. how naive and stupid.
[Wow! How old are you?]
-almost . . .
[How old were you then]
-ten years younger
[Hm]
-i am a hard-shelled, cold person
[What evidence of that do you see?]
-i don't want to give my life over to volunteering to visit or care for people
[Hm.] [That statement bothers you?]
-i do not want to be unfaithful. i fear the consequences of believing faithfulness requires more from me in terms of giving of my being to others. i fear the loss of MY energy, MY time, MY life, and i dislike {hate} being selfish and self-oriented to such an extent.
[Wow! You seem to be holding on to your self, clinging tightly to control-You know, controlled environment, controlled choices, controlled outcomes. Deciding in advance the consequences of attempting to give more of yourself, and not doing anything. If you don't try, you can't fail. How safe.]
-whooo.
[You love throwing yourself over barriers. What barriers does your control create?]
-inhibitions in joining groups and committing time; confusion in regards to "job" choices; anxiety about "being" (specifically, feeling unheard, ineffectual, unimportant, etc.) OH !@#$%%!!! TOO MUCH @#$% ANALYSIS!!! JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO
. . . . .
Still choosing,
Cobalt Dreams
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