Today's Meandering Thoughts: 3/1/11

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Why Does It Take A Disaster ...

Why Does It Take a Disaster Before We Can See Our Neighbors as Neighbors???

A letter from a friend of a friend of a friend, which is now even being passed on to others in our internet connected world, as a beautiful show of what it means to love one's neighbors.

"Which commandment is the first of all?" 29 Jesus answered, "The first is, "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' 31 The second is this, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

Mark 12:27b-31

From: Anne
Date: March 13, 2011 3:55:14 AM EDT
Subject: Blessings

Hello My Lovely Family and Friends,

First I want to thank you so very much for your concern for me. I am very touched. I also wish to apologize for a generic message to you all. But it seems the best way at the moment to get my message to you.

Things here in Sendai have been rather surreal. But I am very blessed to have wonderful friends who are helping me a lot. Since my shack is even more worthy of that name, I am now staying at a friend's home. We share supplies like water, food and a kerosene heater. We sleep lined up in one room, eat by candlelight, share stories. It is warm, friendly, and beautiful.

During the day we help each other clean up the mess in our homes. People sit in their cars, looking at news on their navigation screens, or line up to get drinking water when a source is open. If someone has water running in their home, they put out sign so people can come to fill up their jugs and buckets.

Utterly amazingly where I am there has been no looting, no pushing in lines. People leave their front door open, as it is safer when an earthquake strikes. People keep saying, "Oh, this is how it used to be in the old days when everyone helped one another."

Quakes keep coming. Last night they struck about every 15 minutes. Sirens are constant and helicopters pass overhead often.

We got water for a few hours in our homes last night, and now it is for half a day. Electricity came on this afternoon. Gas has not yet come on. But all of this is by area. Some people have these things, others do not. No one has washed for several days. We feel grubby, but there are so much more important concerns than that for us now. I love this peeling away of non-essentials. Living fully on the level of instinct, of intuition, of caring, of what is needed for survival, not just of me, but of the entire group.

There are strange parallel universes happening. Houses a mess in some places, yet then a house with futons or laundry out drying in the sun. People lining up for water and food, and yet a few people out walking their dogs. All happening at the same time.

Other unexpected touches of beauty are first, the silence at night. No cars. No one out on the streets. And the heavens at night are scattered with stars. I usually can see about two, but now the whole sky is filled. The mountains around Sendai are solid and with the crisp air we can see them silhouetted against the sky magnificently.

And the Japanese themselves are so wonderful. I come back to my shack to check on it each day, now to send this e-mail since the electricity is on, and I find food and water left in my entranceway. I have no idea from whom, but it is there. Old men in green hats go from door to door checking to see if everyone is OK. People talk to complete strangers asking if they need help. I see no signs of fear. Resignation, yes, but fear or panic, no.

They tell us we can expect aftershocks, and even other major quakes, for another month or more. And we are getting constant tremors, rolls, shaking, rumbling. I am blessed in that I live in a part of Sendai that is a bit elevated, a bit more solid than other parts. So, so far this area is better off than others. Last night my friend's husband came in from the country, bringing food and water. Blessed again.

Somehow at this time I realize from direct experience that there is indeed an enormous Cosmic evolutionary step that is occurring all over the world right at this moment. And somehow as I experience the events happening now in Japan, I can feel my heart opening very wide. My brother asked me if I felt so small because of all that is happening. I don't. Rather, I feel as part of something happening that much larger than myself. This wave of birthing (worldwide) is hard, and yet magnificent.

Thank you again for your care and Love of me,

With Love in return, to you all,
Anne

Denominations [cross-post]

Denominations

Mar 25, 2011 by David Lewicki

Maybe you consider yourself a "branded" Christian--Presbyterian, Baptist, Catholic. Maybe you don't hold your brand loyalty close.

Either way, you've wondered about denominations. Do they matter for religious life today?

It's a question Presbyterians are asking right now--is our denomination dying... and if it is, is it worth saving? I've spent most of my life as a member of Presbyterian Church (USA) congregations and am ordained (and I get a paycheck) in that tradition. I've attended two non-denominational seminaries (Union NYC and Fuller) and have worked in a church for six years that is functionally non-denominational (Marble Collegiate in NYC). My own experience with denominations is that they are small-minded, culturally-limited, and completely necessary.

Denominations are the vehicles by which people experience Christianity. There is no Christian life that stands outside of the Christian family tree--and the branches are all denominations; even non-denominational churches are responding (in their structure and substance) to denominationalism. Denominational identity 1) shapes the structure and style of worship, 2) denominations validate certain ways of thinking and talking about the experience of God (and invalidate others), 3) they communicate in their organizational structures how the tradition understands power, authority, and proper modes of decision-making within the community of the church, and 4) they do the work of translating a transcendent concept ("church") into a particular cultural setting in which it can be lived by flesh-and-blood bodies.

If you say that denominations don't matter, you're not giving credit to how much denominational "vessels" shape our experience of the faith. If you were to attend worship at Marble Collegiate Church in New York, a member of the Reformed Church in America, you would receive the sacrament of Communion four times a year (a vestige in some Reformed churches). How central would the sacrament be to the Christian life if you attend Marble, as opposed to the Church of the Transfiguration (Episcopal) around the corner, where they share the Eucharist every day? Juxtapose the centrality of the sermon at Marble against your local Catholic parish--or measure the sense of the Spirit's movement in human bodies in an Episcopal Church against the movement in bodies in a Pentecostal Church. The things churches emphasize in their common life, the things they leave alone, the things they do well, the things they couldn't do if you paid them--these differences are embedded in the particuar histories of the respective denominations. In many cases, denominational uniquenesses were chosen and upheld by the originators of the denomination out of a sense that God needed them to be that particular way. It's not an exaggeration to say that the founders of many church movements that became denominations bled and died for their uniqueness. Theologically, Christians may talk about being "one body" and having "one Lord, one faith, one baptism," but every denomination does something unique that distinguishes itself from the others and makes the experience of the faith within that tradition substantively different for those who inhabit it.

Denominations are what shapes your experience of Christianity. The best analogy for denominations I can come up with is that of a family's role in an individual's development. It is the air you breath, the water you swim in. It's dysfunctions are yours. Its modes of being seep into your unconscious mind, even if you can't name them until you end up on a therapist's couch decades later. Denominations are family--love it or leave it, you will always have one.

But as important as denominations are in principle and in practice, particular denominations still teeter precariously on the verge of irrelevancy for the Christian life, as Presbyterians are finding out.

Denominations are cultural constructs. They take their shapes and forms and ways of "doing Church" within particular socio-historical moments. Presbyterianism grows out of 16th century Western Europe; it is impossible to tease apart the influences of those origins from the shape of Presbyterian life. Denominations don't "unlearn" the customs and habits of their genesis moments, because those customs and habits get woven into the core statements defining who and what that tradition is and believes. Presbyterianism, deeply embedded in 16th century Western Europe (and arguably even more deeply embedded in mid-20th century American culture as the central pillar of mainline Protestantism), struggles to adapt itself to the cultural patterns, aesthetics, and philosophical modes of 21st century America. Is anyone surprised?

Denominations feel permanent because they last; they last because they work. The ones that survive manage to capture a way of being Christian that makes sense to people. Ironically, "making sense" to a critical mass of people in a given cultural context may be exactly what ends up infecting a denomination with the disease that eventually kills them. Denominations "divinize" their longevity and success, and forget how contextually-rooted and therefore transient their corporate life really is.

The Presbyterian Church USA may have a "sickness unto death." It may have been infected by last century's "success"; it may be playing out Reformed Protestantism's seemingly endless process of one-upsmanship and schism; it may be one denomination among many that is being overwhelmed and transformed by seismic sociological changes that are shifting American living patterns, ways of thinking, and cultural connections. This may be death--or just a change that feels like a death.

I hope the PCUSA doesn't die--not soon. I think that the way it makes decisions is pretty amazing--trying to grant power to the people in the pews. Our polity system tries to protect minority perspectives while granting majority rule. Presbyterians have an ordination process that emphasizes good theological education and psychological health among clergy. Our theological tradition has valued theological depth, and because of that depth, it has valued theological diversity. It's a good denomination. It actually works pretty well.

But even if it dies in my lifetime, I won't weep. It will die because its inherent limitations made it unsuitable for modern life. Some other denominational identity will have grown up to replace it.

Christianity does not--it cannot--exist apart from the structural vessels that hold it. Denominations are flawed human creations... but without them and without the ways they allow us to be people of faith together, we have no access to a God any larger than the God of our self.

Originally posted at A Minister's Life.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

WHO IS PACKING YOUR PARACHUTE? [cross-post]

WHO IS PACKING YOUR PARACHUTE?

A stone-age hunter tracked a set of paw prints through the grass lands. He eventually came upon the largest and most ferocious looking saber-toothed tiger he had ever seen. The animal was recently killed and a small man stood beside it.

Amazed, he asked: "Did you kill that?"

"Yes."

"How could a little guy like you put down a huge beast like that?"

"I killed it with my club," the man replied.

"Wow!" the astonished hunter exclaimed. "How big is your club?"

The man thought for a moment. "I guess there are about 30 of us."

We may not be hunting saber-toothed tiger, but we all need some help to get through this life. We need people who are ready to assist. People who will encourage, teach, challenge, support and watch out for us. One of the best metaphors I know for such people comes from Charlie Plumb, a public speaker and retired naval officer.

After Plumb graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, he flew jets in Vietnam. He was shot down by a surface-to-air missile after 75 combat missions. He ejected and parachuted into the jungle. The Vietcong captured him and held him prisoner for six years in North Vietnam. Today, Plumb lectures on lessons learned from that experience.

He likes to tell the story of a day when he and his wife were sitting in a restaurant and a man at another table approached them. "You're Plumb!" the man said. "You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!"

"How in the world did you know that?" asked the former pilot.

"I packed your parachute!" he said. Plumb gasped in surprise. The man pumped his hand and continued, "I guess it worked!"

Plumb assured him it did. "If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today."

The pilot couldn't sleep that night, thinking about the stranger. He wondered how many times he might have seen him on the ship and not spoken because he was a fighter pilot and the man who packed his chute was "just a sailor." He thought of the many hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the carrier, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn't know.

When Plumb lectures, he often asks his audience, "Who's packing your parachute?" He is asking: who is watching out for you? Can you identify the people who have packed your parachute over the years and those who are packing it today?

I think of a music teacher who taught me that it was not enough for me to learn the instrument. I must also have fun with it. Ever since, music has been a source of supreme joy for me.

I think of a school teacher who, after listening to a reading of a short story I performed before the class, described the impact of that story on him. That day I fell in love with story-telling and understood the important role stories can play in a person's life.

I think of a young woman who believed in me and instilled within me a life-long belief in myself.

I can think of many people who have packed my parachute. In their own way, each helped me land a little more safely. Some have been true teachers for me, some have been compassionate healers, and some have put me in touch with deep, spiritual values. They influenced me more than they ever knew.

Who is packing your parachute? And just as important, whose parachutes are you packing? Who looks up to you? Who may depend on you for courage or encouragement? For understanding or guidance?

To those who have packed my parachute over the years, I am indebted.

For those who are packing it yet today, I give thanks.

And to those whose parachutes I am packing, I promise to do my best.

-- Steve Goodier

This is YOUR LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM, a free newsletter sharing life,
love and laughter, published by Steve Goodier.
http://www.lifesupportsystem.com

Saturday, March 26, 2011

EARTH HOUR 2011

Earth Hour

TONIGHT

Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million individuals and more than 2,000 businesses turned their lights off for one hour to take a stand against climate change. Only a year later and Earth Hour had become a global sustainability movement with more than 50 million people across 35 countries participating. Global landmarks such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, CN Tower in Toronto, Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and Rome’s Colosseum, all stood in darkness, as symbols of hope for a cause that grows more urgent by the hour.

In March 2009, hundreds of millions of people took part in the third Earth Hour. Over 4000 cities in 88 countries officially switched off to pledge their support for the planet, making Earth Hour 2009 the world’s largest global climate change initiative.

On Saturday 27 March, Earth Hour 2010 became the biggest Earth Hour ever. A record 128 countries and territories joined the global display of climate action. Iconic buildings and landmarks from Asia Pacific to Europe and Africa to the Americas switched off. People across the world from all walks of life turned off their lights and came together in celebration and contemplation of the one thing we all have in common – our planet.

Earth Hour 2011 will take place on Saturday 26 March at 8.30PM (local time). This Earth Hour we want you to go beyond the hour, so after the lights go back on think about what else you can do to make a difference. Together our actions add up.

So save the date and sign up now.

Earth Hour by WWF

Earth Hour is organized by WWF. With almost 5 million supporters and a global network in over 100 countries, it’s one of the world's largest and most respected independent conservation organizations. WWF’s mission is to stop the degradation of the Earth's natural environment and build a future where people live in harmony with nature.

It’s Your Hour

Whether you are an individual, a business, a school or a city, Earth Hour 2011 is your Earth Hour. And you can show your support for the planet in the following ways:

Turning off your lights at 8.30PM on March 26 2011 wherever you are in the world and sign up to let us know you will be taking part.
Run your own Earth Hour event, street or house party with friends and family.
Take Earth Hour beyond the Hour by taking action for the planet and telling us all about it.
Tell the world through social media, or add our tools and downloads to your blogs and websites.
Encourage your local government or community groups to run earth Hour in your region.
Rally your office or business to get involved.
Make a Lantern and send it your friends

For more information about what you or your organization can do to support Earth Hour, check out our How to Guides.

Why get involved?

Put simply,

because our future depends on it!

Earth Hour has done a lot to raise awareness of sustainability issues. But there’s more to it than switching off lights for one hour once a year. It’s all about giving people a voice and working together to create a better future for our planet.

Friday, March 25, 2011