Wednesday afternoon: Sugar under the carnitas

Pastor Samm and Vicar Sa7ah were already on the other side of the metal detector when I got to the women’s prison yesterday. I signed in and joined them as quickly as I could, grabbing a couple bags of sopapillas to help lighten their load.

We are allowed, just a couple times a year, to bring a special meal in to be shared with New Beginnings church council, and as is our tradition, we like to share a Mother’s Day dinner together.

So the three of us made our way through the clanking security gates and sally ports crowned with billowing razor wire, before crossing the prison yard and into the gym.

We forgot paper plates, but these women know nothing if not how to be creative with limited resources, so they separated the two halves of the clamshell to-go containers and no one seemed to mind the dusting of sugar at the bottom of their makeshift dinner plates.

Before us, a feast of street tacos: crispy birria (with consume), cilantro dusted carnitas, pulled pork, abundant elote, and so many sopapillas (now piled in a shopping bag after the repurposing of their containers).

For an hour and a half we got to feast and fellowship. It felt joyous. Liberatory. And at the same time, normal. 

I worked my way around the table eager for updates from everyone. N. spoke of having her first child when she herself was just 15 years old. Another gal (a woman whose determination to heal from and still be accountable for her addiction inspires me every time I speak to her) teared up saying her own teenage son was just charged with a class A felony and will likely be inside for most of his life now. Then S. described how, now that she’s clear headed and off of meth, the conversations she is having with her own children are more honest and tender than ever. Motherhood from inside a prison is complicated, and has its own beauty to it. 

Not everyone is inside here for drug charges or crimes committed while the throes of their own addictions, or as a result of fetal alcohol syndrome, or as a result of a childhood surrounded by addicted adults, but it sure feels like most are.

There was far more than just heartbreaking updates from their loved ones shared that night. We also spoke of things we were grateful for in each other, and there was some good-hearted teasing for everyone (me included), one gal got to celebrate getting paroled early than expected, and then D. somehow showed off her handstand pushups after eating tacos, which felt very risky.

God set a table before us in the presence of prison guards, and the savory goodness of the carnitas was un-dampened by the accidental sugar in the bottom of our makeshift dinner plates.

Wednesday night: A Wild God

I drove home and quickly changed before friends picked us up for dinner and a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds show. Walking into the Butcher Block Café, my heart lifted when I saw a booth filled with people I love from House For All Sinners and Saints days. When our dinner came, I tried to hide the fact that, like a child, I was obsessively trying to keep my eggs and bacon away from my French toast and syrup. WHY are they served on the same plate?

The Wild God show, at moments, felt like a trance of exultation. Thousands of people, arms in the air, singing bring your spirit down. Cave, our unlikely liturgist: former heroin addict. Goth-chaos post-punk rock monster. Grieving father. A dark evangelist for joy.

So many times that night I turned to Eric and say “wow”. He responded by just gently nodding his head as if to say, “exactly”.

During a quieter song I slipped away to the women’s room. Washing my hands, I hear a familiar voice behind me.

“Stella?” (name changed) I asked.

“Girl. What the HELL?” she said as she hugged me.

She and I spent years together as sober sisters, going to meetings, swapping stories, laughing too loudly over mugs of translucent diner coffee.

When I looked in her eyes I could see she was high as a kite. In that unmistakable clattering speech pattern she tells me she left the respectable job she had studied hard for and was eventually certified in, and has instead returned to . . . sex work.

Fucking addiction. 

The gift that keeps on taking.

I returned to Eric and our friends and soaked up the rest of a magnificent performance which felt like being taken to church…like being held in the telling of a magnificent story by a reliable narrator with back-up Gospel singers. It was soaring.

A ghost in giant sneakers

In 2015 Cave’s 15 year-old son Arthur fell off a cliff and died. The coroner’s report showed he’d ingested LSD. Anyone who has followed his career knows that this unspeakable tragedy stripped him down into a man who writes from the point of view “that something can happen to your life that is absolutely shattering that can also be redemptive and beautiful.”

So when I returned to my seat to the song Joy, I felt it.

I woke up this morning with the blues all around my head

I woke up this morning with the blues all around my head

I felt like someone in my family was dead

I jumped up like a rabbit and fell down to my knees

I jumped up like a rabbit and fell down to my knees

I called out all around me, said have mercy on me please

And over by the window, a voice came low and hollow

And over by the window, a voice came low and hollow

Spoke into my pain, into my yearning sorrow

Who is it, I cried, what wild ghost has come in agitation? Who is it, I cried, what wild ghost has come in agitation?

It’s half past midnight! Why disturb me so late!

And then I saw a movement around my narrow bed

And then I saw a movement around my narrow bed

A ghost in giant sneakers, laughing stars around his head

Who sat down on the narrow bed, this flaming boy

Who sat down on the narrow bed, this flaming boy

Said, we’ve all had too much sorrow, now is the time for joy

And all across the world they shout bad words, they shout angry words

And all across the world they shout out their angry words

About the end of love, yet the stars stand above the earth

Bright, triumphant metaphors of love

Bright, triumphant metaphors of love

Blinding us all who care to stand and look beyond and care to stand and look beyond above

And I jumped up like a rabbit and fell down to my knees

And I jumped up like a rabbit and fell down to my knees

I called all around me, have mercy on me please

Joy. Joy. Joy. Joy

-Nick Cave

I’m not sure what I’m trying to get at here. Maybe that I cannot manage through my own sobriety to keep the wrenching reality of addiction from infecting my life. 

Or maybe that some days are an unbelievable mind-fuck of crushing sadness and liberating effervescence.

Or maybe just that pain and sorrow are always served on the same plate as joy and despite my best efforts, I cannot keep them from touching.

Whatever it is, know I am in it with you, 

Love, Nadia

The Highs and Lows of a Single Wednesday

NADIA BOLZ-WEBERMAY 12

READ IN APP.

Wednesday afternoon: Sugar under the carnitas

Pastor Samm and Vicar Sa7ah were already on the other side of the metal detector when I got to the women’s prison yesterday. I signed in and joined them as quickly as I could, grabbing a couple bags of sopapillas to help lighten their load.

We are allowed, just a couple times a year, to bring a special meal in to be shared with New Beginnings church council, and as is our tradition, we like to share a Mother’s Day dinner together.

So the three of us made our way through the clanking security gates and sally ports crowned with billowing razor wire, before crossing the prison yard and into the gym.

We forgot paper plates, but these women know nothing if not how to be creative with limited resources, so they separated the two halves of the clamshell to-go containers and no one seemed to mind the dusting of sugar at the bottom of their makeshift dinner plates.

Before us, a feast of street tacos: crispy birria (with consume), cilantro dusted carnitas, pulled pork, abundant elote, and so many sopapillas (now piled in a shopping bag after the repurposing of their containers).

For an hour and a half we got to feast and fellowship. It felt joyous. Liberatory. And at the same time, normal. 

I worked my way around the table eager for updates from everyone. N. spoke of having her first child when she herself was just 15 years old. Another gal (a woman whose determination to heal from and still be accountable for her addiction inspires me every time I speak to her) teared up saying her own teenage son was just charged with a class A felony and will likely be inside for most of his life now. Then S. described how, now that she’s clear headed and off of meth, the conversations she is having with her own children are more honest and tender than ever. Motherhood from inside a prison is complicated, and has its own beauty to it. 

Not everyone is inside here for drug charges or crimes committed while the throes of their own addictions, or as a result of fetal alcohol syndrome, or as a result of a childhood surrounded by addicted adults, but it sure feels like most are.

There was far more than just heartbreaking updates from their loved ones shared that night. We also spoke of things we were grateful for in each other, and there was some good-hearted teasing for everyone (me included), one gal got to celebrate getting paroled early than expected, and then D. somehow showed off her handstand pushups after eating tacos, which felt very risky.

God set a table before us in the presence of prison guards, and the savory goodness of the carnitas was un-dampened by the accidental sugar in the bottom of our makeshift dinner plates.

Wednesday night: A Wild God

I drove home and quickly changed before friends picked us up for dinner and a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds show. Walking into the Butcher Block Café, my heart lifted when I saw a booth filled with people I love from House For All Sinners and Saints days. When our dinner came, I tried to hide the fact that, like a child, I was obsessively trying to keep my eggs and bacon away from my French toast and syrup. WHY are they served on the same plate?

The Wild God show, at moments, felt like a trance of exultation. Thousands of people, arms in the air, singing bring your spirit down. Cave, our unlikely liturgist: former heroin addict. Goth-chaos post-punk rock monster. Grieving father. A dark evangelist for joy.

So many times that night I turned to Eric and say “wow”. He responded by just gently nodding his head as if to say, “exactly”.

During a quieter song I slipped away to the women’s room. Washing my hands, I hear a familiar voice behind me.

“Stella?” (name changed) I asked.

“Girl. What the HELL?” she said as she hugged me.

She and I spent years together as sober sisters, going to meetings, swapping stories, laughing too loudly over mugs of translucent diner coffee.

When I looked in her eyes I could see she was high as a kite. In that unmistakable clattering speech pattern she tells me she left the respectable job she had studied hard for and was eventually certified in, and has instead returned to . . . sex work.

Fucking addiction. 

The gift that keeps on taking.

I returned to Eric and our friends and soaked up the rest of a magnificent performance which felt like being taken to church…like being held in the telling of a magnificent story by a reliable narrator with back-up Gospel singers. It was soaring.

A ghost in giant sneakers

In 2015 Cave’s 15 year-old son Arthur fell off a cliff and died. The coroner’s report showed he’d ingested LSD. Anyone who has followed his career knows that this unspeakable tragedy stripped him down into a man who writes from the point of view “that something can happen to your life that is absolutely shattering that can also be redemptive and beautiful.”

So when I returned to my seat to the song Joy, I felt it.

I woke up this morning with the blues all around my head

I woke up this morning with the blues all around my head

I felt like someone in my family was dead

I jumped up like a rabbit and fell down to my knees

I jumped up like a rabbit and fell down to my knees

I called out all around me, said have mercy on me please

And over by the window, a voice came low and hollow

And over by the window, a voice came low and hollow

Spoke into my pain, into my yearning sorrow

Who is it, I cried, what wild ghost has come in agitation? Who is it, I cried, what wild ghost has come in agitation?

It’s half past midnight! Why disturb me so late!

And then I saw a movement around my narrow bed

And then I saw a movement around my narrow bed

A ghost in giant sneakers, laughing stars around his head

Who sat down on the narrow bed, this flaming boy

Who sat down on the narrow bed, this flaming boy

Said, we’ve all had too much sorrow, now is the time for joy

And all across the world they shout bad words, they shout angry words

And all across the world they shout out their angry words

About the end of love, yet the stars stand above the earth

Bright, triumphant metaphors of love

Bright, triumphant metaphors of love

Blinding us all who care to stand and look beyond and care to stand and look beyond above

And I jumped up like a rabbit and fell down to my knees

And I jumped up like a rabbit and fell down to my knees

I called all around me, have mercy on me please

Joy. Joy. Joy. Joy

-Nick Cave

I’m not sure what I’m trying to get at here. Maybe that I cannot manage through my own sobriety to keep the wrenching reality of addiction from infecting my life. 

Or maybe that some days are an unbelievable mind-fuck of crushing sadness and liberating effervescence.

Or maybe just that pain and sorrow are always served on the same plate as joy and despite my best efforts, I cannot keep them from touching.

Whatever it is, know I am in it with you, 

Love, Nadia

Our First Glimpse of Love

Father Richard Rohr speaks of the significance of our first images of God:  

Most people first experience unconditional love not through the image of a man, but through the image of a woman—in most cases, their mother. It seems that for much of the human race, the mother is the one who first parts the veil and allows us to glimpse what love is, through experiences of grounding, intimacy, tenderness, and safety—things that most of us associate with God at God’s best. One of the disappointing things I have witnessed as a priest and spiritual director is how many people operate from the opposite of that—from a toxic and negative image of God. Nothing wonderful and nothing transformative is ever going to happen as long as that’s the case.  

One of the reasons I started to do men’s work was because I realized that an awful lot of people didn’t experience, expect, or trust that beloved relationship through the masculine. The more cultures I traveled to around the globe, the more convinced I became of the universal nature of what I call the father-wound. It seems to be a wound that many people cannot break through; they don’t expect love to come from that place.  

Author Shannon K. Evans considers the importance of allowing both masculine and feminine qualities in our experience of God: 

The feminine elements in God are an important balance to the masculine ones. If all we have known of the divine is God the Father, we are walking with a spiritual limp, yes, even those of us who were lucky enough to be raised to see “him” as loving and tender rather than aloof or stern…. 

The masculinity of God is not the culprit here. Imaging God as male is valuable and good for our spiritual selves…. But left unbalanced, a belief in a God who is exclusively male can lead us down a road of legalism, perfectionism, fear, self-criticism, and a plaguing sense of unworthiness. Sadly, many of our religious experiences have been marked by such things.  

On the other hand, when we integrate the divine feminine into our understanding of God, we find we have an easier time internalizing compassion, inclusivity, radical acceptance, justice for the outcast, and unconditional love. In my own life the divine feminine has offered me a maternal invitation to rest and be present. After a lifetime of assuming that striving and sacrifice would always be required for my spiritual growth, this was good news indeed. [1]  

Richard concludes:  

Whoever God is, God is somehow profoundly revealed in what it means to be feminine and masculine—both! But in our time, we have to find a way to recognize, to fall in love with, and to trust the feminine face of God. Most of us were not given that face in our churches, although we Catholics resolved it in an ingenious way through Mary. She, for many people, has become the accessible, trustworthy, and safe face of God.  

Why “She” Matters

Novelist Sue Monk Kidd describes why cultivating an image of the Sacred Feminine is so important, particularly for women raised within Christianity:   

A young girl learns Bible stories in which vital women are generally absent, in the background, or devoid of power. She learns that men go on quests, encounter God, and change history, while women support and wait for them. She hears sermons where traditional (nonthreatening) feminine roles are lifted up as God’s ideal. A girl is likely to see only a few women in the higher echelons of church power.   

And what does a girl, who is forming her identity, do with all the scriptures admonishing women to submission and silence? Having them “explained away” as the product of an ancient time does not entirely erase her unease. She also experiences herself missing from pronouns in scripture, hymns, and prayers. And most of all, as long as God “himself” is exclusively male, she will experience the otherness, the lessness of herself; all the pious talk in the world about females being equal to males will fail to compute in the deeper places inside her.  

When we truly grasp for the first time that the symbol of woman can be a vessel of the sacred, that it too can be an image of the Divine, our lives will begin to pivot…. Internalizing the Divine Feminine provides women with the healing affirmation that they are persons in their own right, that they can make choices, that they are worthy and entitled and do not need permission. The internalization of the Sacred Feminine tells us our gender is a valuable and marvelous thing to be. [1] 

Public theologian Christena Cleveland explores how an exclusively white, male image of God is limiting and even oppressive. She shares a mystical experience of encountering the unconditional love of the Sacred Black Feminine while on a mindfulness retreat:  

I sat cross-legged on my mat, and as soon as I closed my eyes and turned inward, a wave of Love crashed into me, a wave so formidable that it forced my upright body backward and onto the floor pillows behind me…. This was a mighty force that didn’t abuse. It was force without manipulation, force without control, and force without shame. It was the force of Love—a force I had never encountered in whitemalegod’s world…. 

I had never before experienced formidable strength in the form of Love and it undid me. I marveled that after an entire day of earnestly clearing my mind of fearful clutter, what lay beneath it all was not another to-do list from whitemalegod…. No, Love was underneath it all, just as I had hoped. That day, I discovered that at the heart of reality … flows wave after wave after wave of Love … for me….   

This experience showed me that no matter what is going on around me and no matter how much fear tries to consume me, the Sacred Black Feminine is always available to guide me into Love. [2]  

---

Our First Glimpse of Love

Father Richard Rohr speaks of the significance of our first images of God:  

Most people first experience unconditional love not through the image of a man, but through the image of a woman—in most cases, their mother. It seems that for much of the human race, the mother is the one who first parts the veil and allows us to glimpse what love is, through experiences of grounding, intimacy, tenderness, and safety—things that most of us associate with God at God’s best. One of the disappointing things I have witnessed as a priest and spiritual director is how many people operate from the opposite of that—from a toxic and negative image of God. Nothing wonderful and nothing transformative is ever going to happen as long as that’s the case.  

One of the reasons I started to do men’s work was because I realized that an awful lot of people didn’t experience, expect, or trust that beloved relationship through the masculine. The more cultures I traveled to around the globe, the more convinced I became of the universal nature of what I call the father-wound. It seems to be a wound that many people cannot break through; they don’t expect love to come from that place.  

Author Shannon K. Evans considers the importance of allowing both masculine and feminine qualities in our experience of God: 

The feminine elements in God are an important balance to the masculine ones. If all we have known of the divine is God the Father, we are walking with a spiritual limp, yes, even those of us who were lucky enough to be raised to see “him” as loving and tender rather than aloof or stern…. 

The masculinity of God is not the culprit here. Imaging God as male is valuable and good for our spiritual selves…. But left unbalanced, a belief in a God who is exclusively male can lead us down a road of legalism, perfectionism, fear, self-criticism, and a plaguing sense of unworthiness. Sadly, many of our religious experiences have been marked by such things.  

On the other hand, when we integrate the divine feminine into our understanding of God, we find we have an easier time internalizing compassion, inclusivity, radical acceptance, justice for the outcast, and unconditional love. In my own life the divine feminine has offered me a maternal invitation to rest and be present. After a lifetime of assuming that striving and sacrifice would always be required for my spiritual growth, this was good news indeed. [1]  

Richard concludes:  

Why “She” Matters

Whoever God is, God is somehow profoundly revealed in what it means to be feminine and masculine—both! But in our time, we have to find a way to recognize, to fall in love with, and to trust the feminine face of God. Most of us were not given that face in our churches, although we Catholics resolved it in an ingenious way through Mary. She, for many people, has become the accessible, trustworthy, and safe face of God.  

Novelist Sue Monk Kidd describes why cultivating an image of the Sacred Feminine is so important, particularly for women raised within Christianity:   

A young girl learns Bible stories in which vital women are generally absent, in the background, or devoid of power. She learns that men go on quests, encounter God, and change history, while women support and wait for them. She hears sermons where traditional (nonthreatening) feminine roles are lifted up as God’s ideal. A girl is likely to see only a few women in the higher echelons of church power.   

And what does a girl, who is forming her identity, do with all the scriptures admonishing women to submission and silence? Having them “explained away” as the product of an ancient time does not entirely erase her unease. She also experiences herself missing from pronouns in scripture, hymns, and prayers. And most of all, as long as God “himself” is exclusively male, she will experience the otherness, the lessness of herself; all the pious talk in the world about females being equal to males will fail to compute in the deeper places inside her.  

When we truly grasp for the first time that the symbol of woman can be a vessel of the sacred, that it too can be an image of the Divine, our lives will begin to pivot…. Internalizing the Divine Feminine provides women with the healing affirmation that they are persons in their own right, that they can make choices, that they are worthy and entitled and do not need permission. The internalization of the Sacred Feminine tells us our gender is a valuable and marvelous thing to be. [1] 

Public theologian Christena Cleveland explores how an exclusively white, male image of God is limiting and even oppressive. She shares a mystical experience of encountering the unconditional love of the Sacred Black Feminine while on a mindfulness retreat:  

I sat cross-legged on my mat, and as soon as I closed my eyes and turned inward, a wave of Love crashed into me, a wave so formidable that it forced my upright body backward and onto the floor pillows behind me…. This was a mighty force that didn’t abuse. It was force without manipulation, force without control, and force without shame. It was the force of Love—a force I had never encountered in whitemalegod’s world…. 

I had never before experienced formidable strength in the form of Love and it undid me. I marveled that after an entire day of earnestly clearing my mind of fearful clutter, what lay beneath it all was not another to-do list from whitemalegod…. No, Love was underneath it all, just as I had hoped. That day, I discovered that at the heart of reality … flows wave after wave after wave of Love … for me….   

This experience showed me that no matter what is going on around me and no matter how much fear tries to consume me, the Sacred Black Feminine is always available to guide me into Love. [2]  

---

The Highs and Lows of a Single Wednesday

NADIA BOLZ-WEBER MAY 12

Wednesday afternoon: Sugar under the carnitas

Pastor Samm and Vicar Sa7ah were already on the other side of the metal detector when I got to the women’s prison yesterday. I signed in and joined them as quickly as I could, grabbing a couple bags of sopapillas to help lighten their load.

We are allowed, just a couple times a year, to bring a special meal in to be shared with New Beginnings church council, and as is our tradition, we like to share a Mother’s Day dinner together.

So the three of us made our way through the clanking security gates and sally ports crowned with billowing razor wire, before crossing the prison yard and into the gym.

We forgot paper plates, but these women know nothing if not how to be creative with limited resources, so they separated the two halves of the clamshell to-go containers and no one seemed to mind the dusting of sugar at the bottom of their makeshift dinner plates.

Before us, a feast of street tacos: crispy birria (with consume), cilantro dusted carnitas, pulled pork, abundant elote, and so many sopapillas (now piled in a shopping bag after the repurposing of their containers).

For an hour and a half we got to feast and fellowship. It felt joyous. Liberatory. And at the same time, normal. 

I worked my way around the table eager for updates from everyone. N. spoke of having her first child when she herself was just 15 years old. Another gal (a woman whose determination to heal from and still be accountable for her addiction inspires me every time I speak to her) teared up saying her own teenage son was just charged with a class A felony and will likely be inside for most of his life now. Then S. described how, now that she’s clear headed and off of meth, the conversations she is having with her own children are more honest and tender than ever. Motherhood from inside a prison is complicated, and has its own beauty to it. 

Not everyone is inside here for drug charges or crimes committed while the throes of their own addictions, or as a result of fetal alcohol syndrome, or as a result of a childhood surrounded by addicted adults, but it sure feels like most are.

There was far more than just heartbreaking updates from their loved ones shared that night. We also spoke of things we were grateful for in each other, and there was some good-hearted teasing for everyone (me included), one gal got to celebrate getting paroled early than expected, and then D. somehow showed off her handstand pushups after eating tacos, which felt very risky.

God set a table before us in the presence of prison guards, and the savory goodness of the carnitas was un-dampened by the accidental sugar in the bottom of our makeshift dinner plates.

Wednesday night: A Wild God

I drove home and quickly changed before friends picked us up for dinner and a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds show. Walking into the Butcher Block Café, my heart lifted when I saw a booth filled with people I love from House For All Sinners and Saints days. When our dinner came, I tried to hide the fact that, like a child, I was obsessively trying to keep my eggs and bacon away from my French toast and syrup. WHY are they served on the same plate?

The Wild God show, at moments, felt like a trance of exultation. Thousands of people, arms in the air, singing bring your spirit down. Cave, our unlikely liturgist: former heroin addict. Goth-chaos post-punk rock monster. Grieving father. A dark evangelist for joy.

So many times that night I turned to Eric and say “wow”. He responded by just gently nodding his head as if to say, “exactly”.

During a quieter song I slipped away to the women’s room. Washing my hands, I hear a familiar voice behind me.

“Stella?” (name changed) I asked.

“Girl. What the HELL?” she said as she hugged me.

She and I spent years together as sober sisters, going to meetings, swapping stories, laughing too loudly over mugs of translucent diner coffee.

When I looked in her eyes I could see she was high as a kite. In that unmistakable clattering speech pattern she tells me she left the respectable job she had studied hard for and was eventually certified in, and has instead returned to . . . sex work.

Fucking addiction. 

The gift that keeps on taking.

I returned to Eric and our friends and soaked up the rest of a magnificent performance which felt like being taken to church…like being held in the telling of a magnificent story by a reliable narrator with back-up Gospel singers. It was soaring.

A ghost in giant sneakers

In 2015 Cave’s 15 year-old son Arthur fell off a cliff and died. The coroner’s report showed he’d ingested LSD. Anyone who has followed his career knows that this unspeakable tragedy stripped him down into a man who writes from the point of view “that something can happen to your life that is absolutely shattering that can also be redemptive and beautiful.”

So when I returned to my seat to the song Joy, I felt it.

I woke up this morning with the blues all around my head

I woke up this morning with the blues all around my head

I felt like someone in my family was dead

I jumped up like a rabbit and fell down to my knees

I jumped up like a rabbit and fell down to my knees

I called out all around me, said have mercy on me please

And over by the window, a voice came low and hollow

And over by the window, a voice came low and hollow

Spoke into my pain, into my yearning sorrow

Who is it, I cried, what wild ghost has come in agitation? Who is it, I cried, what wild ghost has come in agitation?

It’s half past midnight! Why disturb me so late!

And then I saw a movement around my narrow bed

And then I saw a movement around my narrow bed

A ghost in giant sneakers, laughing stars around his head

Who sat down on the narrow bed, this flaming boy

Who sat down on the narrow bed, this flaming boy

Said, we’ve all had too much sorrow, now is the time for joy

And all across the world they shout bad words, they shout angry words

And all across the world they shout out their angry words

About the end of love, yet the stars stand above the earth

Bright, triumphant metaphors of love

Bright, triumphant metaphors of love

Blinding us all who care to stand and look beyond and care to stand and look beyond above

And I jumped up like a rabbit and fell down to my knees

And I jumped up like a rabbit and fell down to my knees

I called all around me, have mercy on me please

Joy. Joy. Joy. Joy

-Nick Cave

I’m not sure what I’m trying to get at here. Maybe that I cannot manage through my own sobriety to keep the wrenching reality of addiction from infecting my life. 

Or maybe that some days are an unbelievable mind-fuck of crushing sadness and liberating effervescence.

Or maybe just that pain and sorrow are always served on the same plate as joy and despite my best efforts, I cannot keep them from touching.

Whatever it is, know I am in it with you, 

Love, Nadia

Restored by Divine Love

Friday, May 9, 2025

A primary or foundational sense of order can sustain us in times of exile and disorder. Richard Rohr explains:  

We must first honor the plank of order, next walk the plank that is always disorder, and only then fall into the ocean of infinite everything. When we are committed to the law of Torah, or basic law and justice, for example, we can then dare venture into the disruption of the Old Testament’s prophets, and trust that we’re being led on a great journey. There must be enough order to contain the disorder, enough authentic conservativism to hold together the scary advance of history, enough containment to hold a lot of variation. This very real tension is necessary to make us clarify our thinking, refine our laws, and stretch our humanity. Paul called this phenomenon “the folly of the cross” (1 Corinthians 1:18), where God took the worst thing, the killing of the Christ-Man, and made it into the best thing, the very redemption of the world.  

We can recognize this new order (reorder) when it is less violent and more universal than the previous arrangement. Jeremiah leaps toward such a reorder by introducing the unthinkable idea of a whole new covenant (31:31–34) to replace the old one. Hear YHWH speaking to him:  

I will not cease in my efforts for their good, and I will put respect for me into their hearts, so that they turn from me no more. It will be my pleasure to bring about their good, and I will plant them firmly in this land, with all my heart and soul.  
—Jeremiah 32:40–41 

Jeremiah has successfully walked us through the trauma of exile, all the while breaking the logic of vengeance and privilege that we normally use to interpret such events. Jeremiah proclaims that YHWH loves Israel even more when they sin: “I have loved you with an everlasting love, so I am constant in my affection for you” (Jeremiah 31:3).  

Where did Jeremiah get the freedom and courage to talk this way? Only God could have provoked such generosity. Whatever inner experience Jeremiah underwent to transform his theology, it must be allowed to fully transform ours. It’s the movement from external signs of belonging to the internal “heart” religion (Jeremiah 32:39–41) so treasured by Jesus. Let’s just move entirely beyond any notion of retribution or punishment, he joyously promises, as the frame for how God’s justice is done!  

Sincerely religious people, trained in forgiveness, exodus, exile, and crucifixion, should be the readiest and most prepared for this full journey into unconditional love, but up until now that has only been the case in a small remnant of every group. These are the evolved people whom we called “saints” and “prophets.” Like Moses, Jeremiah, Harriet Tubman, the suffragettes, and others, they always emerge before, during, and after any big societal event—be it a disaster or a major rearrangement of the historical reality.  

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John Chaffee 5 On Friday

1.

“Crux probit omnia (The Cross proves/challenges/probes everything).”

– Martin Luther, German Reformer

The centrality of the Cross was a significant marker in Martin Luther’s theology and pastoral work.  For him, it was the epicenter of all converging thought for Christianity, and every theological system or belief structure must “prove itself in light of the cross.”

For Luther, the Cross was so important because in his day, there was something he dubbed “a Theology of Glory.”  It was an approach to teaching and preaching that said our lives should be moving from one success to another, with increasing intensity and glory.  Life with God should always be looking up and up and up and up…

The only problem is that it did not even happen for Jesus.  Instead, the path for Christ involved being crucified naked outside the city of Jerusalem.

Not so glorious.

As a result, Luther was adamant about “a Theology of the Cross.”  Struggle, hardship, disappointment, loneliness, failure, etc., are all baked into the experience of life.  These are not things to be avoided, but on some inexplicable level must be accepted.

Hence, Luther’s insistence that “the Cross proves/challenges/probes everything.”

2.

“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.”

– Romans 13:8

The older I get, the softer I think I become.  I look back at earlier versions of myself and feel remorse over how harsh, stubborn, and cynical I might have been.

Love is the only thing that matters.

3.

“I do not believe in universalism, but I do believe in Jesus Christ, reconciler of all.”

– Karl Barth, Swiss Presbyterian Theologian

For many people, the conventional theology of Christianity is displeasing and irreconcilable with the person of Jesus.  Over the years, I can remember many conversations with people who struggle with the idea of a God who “keeps account of wrongs” and therefore cannot live up to the definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.

Years ago, I had a conversation with a pastor in a stairwell.

He asked, “John, are you a universalist?”

I replied, “No, I did not say that.  I said that I believe in the reconciliation of all, which Paul says in Colossians 1:15-20.  So, if you have an issue with me teaching the reconciliation of all, then you have an issue with me quoting Paul verbatim.  Are you saying you don’t believe the words of Paul?”

The conversation was a significant marker for me.

It gave me the clarity to realize that the bulk of Western Christianity is not interested in teaching what the Scriptures say but only in teaching a small segment of the Bible that overlaps with what it means to be “a good American.”  It also gave me a fork in the road; it forced me to choose whether I wanted to fall into rank or break with the conventional definitions of Christianity and side with the Bible passages that are intentionally overlooked.

The Gospel is disruptive, but only in the ways it needs to be.  It shatters our conceptions of who is in and out, how there can be full accountability and amnesty, and that our ethics can be entirely built on love and what is healthy, rather than any reward or punishment system.

4.

“I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting, and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.”

– Pope Francis

Or, as Brennan Manning used to say, “The Church ought to be a hospital for sinners, not a museum of saints.”

The faith has so much more life and adventure than people realize.  It is not meant to be a spectator sport where we sit back and watch God fix everything.  Instead, it is a co-redemptive project.  God invites our participation as co-laborers for the betterment of the world.

5.

“Above all, art should be fun.”

– Alexander Calder, American Sculptor

This quote jumped out at me.

Sometimes, it is possible to create for the audience or to make money.  It is another thing entirely to create for the sake of the enjoyment of the process of creating.

Invited Out of Exile

Thursday, May 8, 2025

God too is necessarily dependent on love.… God would not exist unless there is someone to love. In such love, we are all invited out of exile and into the holy life.
—Michael Battle, “A Holy Exile” 

CAC affiliate faculty Dr. Michael Battle served as chaplain for South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1931–2021). He writes about Tutu’s passionate belief that we all belong and are invited out of exile:  

For Tutu, God is a fellowship, a community, not an individual or modality. God is unified because love binds the three persons of God together. So, God created us the same way—out of love, not out of necessity. Herein is one of Tutu’s greatest contributions to how a holy life moves out of exile—namely, no one can be human alone.… 

I heard Tutu preach often when I served as his chaplain. One of his common refrains was that each of us represents God, not just the clever, the strong, the rich, the beautiful, the tall, or the impressive ones.… Tutu would go on to explain how monumental this was in terms of a paradigm shift—namely that in God, no one is exiled. Now, the old black lady that cleans houses and takes care of white children, whose employers do not even use her real name “because it is too difficult” and simply call her a generic name like Mary or Jane—when she walks down the street, and people ask, “Who’s that?” she will now think with her head in her heart, “I am God’s representative.” This is what I mean by Tutu’s holy life: He facilitated the perspective in others, even among those despised on this planet, that they are holy people. This was Tutu’s genius—that everyone, religious and nonreligious, friend and enemy, are all created in the image of God.    

It also must be said of Tutu’s holy life that he said his prayers. He didn’t pray ostentatiously, which Jesus warned against, but through his daily disciplines and rule of life. Tutu prayed the way my Apple watch makes me stop and breathe deeply several times a day. In addition to the Anglican daily office, Tutu recognized the wisdom of the Eastern world that prayer is tied to how we breathe. We all have the spirit of life breathed into us, and life is thus a gift from God. For Tutu, we become God’s breath in the world in order to transfigure creation to look like the Creator. I can still hear Tutu say, in his pastoral visits to churches, that you and I are placed in this world of hatred, violence, anger, injustice, and oppression to help God transform it, transfigure it, and change it so that there will be compassion, laughter, joy, peace, reconciliation, fellowship, friendship, togetherness, and family, and so that black and white people would want to be together as members of one family: God’s family, the human family. We are here to bring others out of exile.    

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Sarah Young Jesus Calling

When things don’t go as you would like, accept the situation immediately. If you indulge in feelings of regret, they can easily spill over the line into resentment. Remember that I am sovereign over your circumstances and humble yourself under My mighty hand. Rejoice in what I am doing in your life, even though it is beyond your understanding.
     I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. In Me, you have everything you need, both for this life and for the life to come. Don’t let the impact of the world shatter your thinking or draw you away from focusing on Me. The ultimate challenge is to keep fixing your eyes on Me, no matter what is going on around you. When I am central in your thinking, you are able to view circumstances from My perspective.

RELATED BIBLE VERSES:

1st Peter 5:6 NLT
6 So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor.

Additional insight regarding 1st Peter 5:6: We often worry about our position and status, hoping to get proper recognition for what we do. But Peter advises us to remember that God’s recognition counts much more than human praise. God is able and willing to bless us according to his timing. Humbly obey God regardless of present circumstances, and in his good time – either in this life or the next – he will honor you.

John 14:6 NLT
6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”

Additional insight regarding John 14:6: Jesus says he is the only way to God the Father. Some people may argue that this way is too narrow. In reality, it is wide enough for the whole world if the world chooses to accept it. Instead of worrying about how limited it sounds to have only one way, we should say, “Thank you, God, for providing a sure way to get to you!” As the way, Jesus is our path to the Father. As the truth, he is the reality of all God’s promises. As the life, he joins his divine life to ours, both now and eternally. Jesus is, in truth, the only living way to the Father.

Today’s Prayer: Lord, when things don’t go as I wish, help me accept the situation immediately. Prevent feelings of regret from turning into resentment. Remind me that You are sovereign over my circumstances. Help me humble myself under Your mighty hand and rejoice in Your work in my life, even when I don’t understand it. You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life. In You, I have everything I need. Keep my focus on You, no matter what happens around me. When You are central in my thoughts, I can view my circumstances from Your perspective. In Your heavenly name, Amen.

CAC Programs Director Barbara Otero-López writes in the spring ONEING issue about the colonizing exile that her ancestral family suffered, and the resilient love that her ancestors inspire:  

My ancestral family includes many Indigenous women who were taken captive by Spanish conquistadors and settlers. These women were captured and taken from their own families into communities that were vastly different from their own. They were taken as captives, wives and slaves. They were used as bartering tools and to secure alliances. They were exiled from the lives they once knew and were forced to live as wives and slaves. These women bore the trauma of captivity, the trauma of exile in the land of their own people. They were forced to marry and bear the children of their captors. Trauma such as this is known to be passed on through the womb, through the umbilical cord, from mother to child, and then again to that child’s child. Sustos is a Spanish word that names soul wounds such as these.    

Despite the pain and trauma of captivity and forced assimilation into a culture and society which was not their own, despite their sustos, these women learned how to love and pass on this love through food, song, healing, tradition, and the love of God and all Her creation. This love in the time of exile was a sacred love, one borne of resilience and silent resistance. And, as I have learned, just as trauma and soul wounds are passed on to successive generations through DNA, love and resilience are too.   

As Dr. B [Barbara Holmes] has taught us, “You journey with your ancestors. That’s why knowing your roots is important, because whether you know it or not, they’re journeying with you. Wouldn’t you want the help? Wouldn’t you want the warnings? Wouldn’t you want the blessings of those who have gone before you?”… [1] 

I am going to be a grandmother myself now, and I can hear my mother and my grandmothers calling me to listen and to wake up and live the stories they want me to pass on, to continue the honor of being the translator of memories and mythologies, to pass on the love and resilience which has been passed on to me.… 

There is an invitation for us all in times such as these. We are all being called to wake up and name our sadness, pain, and trauma, to allow our tears to flow and season our very lives. Times such as these are also calling us to stand up, to avoid becoming cynical and bitter, and to not be consumed and overpowered by our anger and sadness. Instead, we are to transform all that into something much more generative. We have much to learn from our ancestors, from their stories of trauma and from their loving protest of resilience.    

I believe that in times such as these, we are all being called to listen. What stories are your ancestors wanting to tell through you?   

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The Trembling Rock

Click Here for Audio I’m a fan of Marvel movies. I realize they get dismissed by serious film critics, and I know they’re created to appeal to the masses to sell merchandise and theme park tickets. However, when you get past the nonsensical action and corporate product placement, these movies often tackle timeless themes shared with great literature. Bruce Banner’s struggle to control his anger and contain his inner Hulk is an echo of Robert Louis Stevenson’s story about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The runaway A.I. called Ultron, created by Tony Stark to protect the world, is a retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. And the journey of a scrawny but courageous Steve Rogers into the righteous leader Captain America draws directly from the biblical story of King David. Among my favorite Marvel movies are the origin stories—the films that explain how well-known characters were plucked from obscurity and transformed from zeros into heroes. The best origin stories are told as flashbacks where the audience has already been introduced to the superhero, but only later discovers the hero’s unexpected and humble beginnings. Luke does something similar when telling the origin story of one of the church’s early heroes.Peter was likely well-known to Luke’s audience. He was, after all, the most famous leader of the Christian movement in the first century after Jesus himself. As Luke would later record in the book of Acts, Peter courageously defied both the Jewish and Roman authorities, performed miracles, and preached to crowds of thousands who came to believe that Jesus was the Christ. Tradition tells us that Peter eventually founded the church in Rome, where he was later arrested and martyred. His leadership, courage, and unwavering faith explain why Jesus gave him the nickname Peter, meaning rock. Peter was unshakable. It’s also what makes his origin story so amusing. Luke tells us that Peter, whose given name was Simon, ran a fishing business in Galilee. After a night of fruitless fishing, Simon and his partners washed their nets on the shore when Jesus arrived. Forced toward the water by the growing crowd, Jesus got into Simon’s boat and taught the people. Afterward, he told Simon to push out into the water and let out their nets again. Simon knew this was ridiculous for many reasons. One, in the heat of the day, the fish would be too deep to catch. That’s why they fished at night. Two, the men were exhausted from a sleepless night of work. And three, Jesus was a carpenter, not a fisherman. What did he know about where to catch fish? But for some reason—perhaps because he was persuaded by what Jesus had just taught the crowds—Simon agreed. You know what happened next. So many fish filled the nets that they began to break. A second boat was called to help with the haul. At this point, it’s evident to Simon that this was far from an ordinary catch, and that the man in his boat possessed a supernatural power and authority. So, he fell at Jesus’ feet and confessed his unworthiness. “Go away,” he said, “for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:8). While he doesn’t yet fully grasp Jesus’ identity, he is aware that Jesus carries God’s holy presence—and Simon is terrified. In this way, his encounter with Jesus echoes the experience of others called by God. Moses hid his face when God called to him from the Burning Bush, and when Isaiah encountered the Lord in the Temple he cried out in horror and said, “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty” (Isaiah 6:5). Simon’s calling was very similar. It started with a divine encounter that filled him with fear.It’s telling that this is the moment when Luke first calls him by the name Peter. Up to now, he’s only been identified in Luke’s gospel as Simon. But when he is on the ground, his knees knocking, and his voice trembling before the presence and power of Jesus, Luke tells his audience that this broken, whimpering, frightened man is actually the hero of the Church they know as “the Rock.” Early readers of the gospel must have been shocked by this origin story. This is Peter? This frightened man is the one who would defy kings, confront the authorities, and turn the world upside down? Really?Yes, really. Luke wanted his readers to take a lesson from Peter’s surprising origin story. It is through encountering Jesus and his power that we learn to fear nothing else. Having been shaken to the core in the presence of Jesus, nothing will ever shake you again. The transformation of fearful Simon into fearless Peter happened when he came to fear Jesus above all else. It’s the paradox John Newton wrote about in his hymn Amazing Grace: “Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear, and Grace my fears relieved.” DAILY SCRIPTURE LUKE 5:1-11 ISAIAH 6:1-8 WEEKLY PRAYER from Brother Roger of Taizé (1915 – 2005) O Christ, tirelessly you seek out those who are looking for you and who think that you are far away; teach us, at every moment, to place our spirits in your hands. While we are still looking for you, already you have found us. However poor our prayer, you hear us far more than we can imagine or believe. Amen.

Benedict of Nursia (480–587) is a central figure in the founding of Western monasticism. In the spring issue of ONEING, CAC affiliate faculty Carmen Acevedo Butcher describes how Benedict’s prayerful life in the desert became a chosen and holy exile from a world in crisis: 

A stirring in Benedict moved him to choose the uncertainty of self-exile and contemplation in a world of collective exile and traumatization…. Benedict’s monasteries were “the bomb shelters, time capsules, laboratories, and protected cultivators of the contemplative tradition in a world falling apart.” [1] They preserved the wisdom of the desert ammas and abbas and were communities of healing in a time of chaos.… We can learn much from Benedict. During societal disorder and crushing need, how did he sustain both his own and communal peace and compassionate activity?…

Richard Rohr’s allegorical adaptation of Archimedes’ law of the lever, in A Lever and a Place to Stand, can be applied to and can deepen our appreciation of Benedict, who repeatedly chose to live in and from the “fixed point” of a contemplative stance. In this calm place of daily ora [prayer]—Psalm-chanting and Scripture-steeping lectio divina—Benedict stood “steady, centered, poised, and rooted,” gaining “a slight distance from the world” even as his heart or fulcrum of engagement was “quite close to the world, … loving it, feeling its pains and its joys” as his own. In prayer, Benedict experienced a “detachment from the … useless distractions, and the daily delusions of the false self” that gave his fulcrum, set in the suffering of wrecked empire, the capacity to “move the world” through various “levers” of compassionate action, or labora [work]. [2] 

A communal rhythm of prayer focused on the Psalms permeated the lives of Benedict and his monastic brothers: 

Focused daily on doing the ordinary, Benedict’s life was a series of risings in the dark. Most Italians, even bakers, were sound asleep when lights fired up in his monasteries before 2 a.m. in winter, as Benedict’s community woke and walked to chapel for Vigils. They sang Psalm 51:17: “Domine, labia mea aperies, et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam” / “Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.”… 

Benedict prioritized this chanting through the 150 Psalms each week as a community, as his communities and descendants, Cistercians and Trappist monks, do today. The Desert Elder Athanasius (c. 300–373) described the daily hours spent singing Psalms as beneficial in teaching biblical history and prophecy, nurturing and maturing the emotions, and transforming how the chanter understands the Bible’s words and even God:  

The person who hears the Psalms as they sing them is deeply moved and changed by their words. They become a mirror where you see your soul. Whatever causes us grief is healed when we sing Psalms, and whatever causes us stumbling will be discovered. It’s like the Psalms were written by you yourself. They become your own songs. [3]  

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MAY 6, 2025 Universal Callings vs. Particular Callings

There is a cliche among more fundamentalist Christians that is often employed to end discussion and shut down dissent: “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.” I’ve had this quip, or some version of it, tossed at me by a critic many times on social media. More than just a way to virtue signal their submission to the authority of Scripture, it’s simultaneously used to accuse the person they disagree with of irredeemable heresy and to close the door on any further discussion. To be clear, the person who says, “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it,” is really saying: “I believe the Bible says it. That settles it.” In other words, rather than a humble statement of their submission to the Bible, it’s actually a prideful statement that elevates their own interpretation of the Bible. And their interpretation, like mine, is far from infallible. Of course, a fragile faith—not to mention a fragile ego—will never admit such fallibility to themselves, let alone anyone else.The more mature believer, however, accepts the difference between the authority of the Bible and the authority of their interpretation of the Bible. Why this distinction is so difficult for some Christians to grasp is a mystery to me. It’s no more controversial than admitting that God is perfect, but I am not. Perhaps we struggle because it requires us to acknowledge that the process of reading, interpreting, and applying the Scriptures is always a human endeavor and therefore open to error and ambiguity. It diminishes some of the certainty that provides both a sense of safety and self-righteousness, which are immensely attractive to religious believers and the institutions seeking to attract them. The fallibility of our biblical interpretation becomes evident when we explore which words of Jesus we hold to be universally applicable, and which ones we dismiss as particular. For example, I have heard many sermons where Jesus’ command to Simon, “Come, follow me, and I will make you a fisher of men” (Matthew 4:19), is broadly applied to all Christians. On the other hand, I’ve yet to hear a single sermon where Jesus’ command to the Rich Young Ruler to “go and sell your possessions and give to the poor…and come, follow me” (Matthew 19:21) is universally applied. Why do preachers apply Peter’s missionary calling to everyone, but not the Rich Young Ruler’s calling to poverty? Why is one calling seen as universal and the other seen as particular? Could it be that Peter’s calling looks a lot like the preacher’s own, and universalizing Peter’s calling also validates the preacher’s? Could it be that many pastors desire more of their people to participate in the mission of the church, and universalizing Peter’s calling creates more urgency for this work? Could it be that Peter’s decision to leave his fishing business for ministry reinforces the superiority of sacred vocations over secular ones, which is an assumption carried by many churches and church leaders? Could it be that our culture idolizes wealth and individual ownership, so we particularize Jesus’ words to apply only to the Rich Young Ruler and not to us? Could it be that we create both biblical laws and loopholes based on our cultural and personal biases more than we’d like to admit?  Here’s my point—interpreting the Bible always requires us to make choices, and sometimes our choices align with the biblical author’s intent and God’s. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes we are aware of the choices we’re making as we read the Bible; very often we are not. Instead, for many Christians, interpretive decisions are completely subconscious. We always read the Bible through the lenses of our culture, experience, biases, and personality, but few of us are actually aware of the glasses on our faces. Our interpretive decision-making happens automatically, invisibly. It functions like unseen software running in the background. We can’t turn these background programs off, but we can slow down and be more aware of their presence and influence. We can pause from time to time and remove our glasses and try to read the Bible through another set of lenses. For example, the story of Jesus’ calling Peter and the miraculous catch of fish, is often used to motivate more Christians to participate in evangelism and the mission of the church. For some, their evangelical cultural biases cause them to universalize Peter’s vocation and assume that we are all called to be fishers of men. But if we are aware of this evangelical lens, we might be more careful and discover other ways of reading the story. Rather than universalizing Peter’s response to Jesus’ call, we might universalize Peter’s response to Jesus’ miracle. After the miraculous catch of fish, Peter humbled himself before Jesus, called him Lord, and confessed his own sinfulness. This posture of submission is what prepared Peter to hear and obey Jesus’ call. What if the best application of the story isn’t that we’re all called to be fishers of men, but that we’re all called to humbly submit ourselves to Jesus and obey whatever particular calling he gives us? Maybe the story isn’t primarily about becoming missionaries, but about becoming people who are more surrendered to Jesus’ authority and much less certain about our own.  DAILY SCRIPTURE LUKE 5:1-11 MATTHEW 19:16-24 WEEKLY PRAYER. from Brother Roger of Taizé (1915 – 2005) O Christ, tirelessly you seek out those who are looking for you and who think that you are far away; teach us, at every moment, to place our spirits in your hands. While we are still looking for you, already you have found us. However poor our prayer, you hear us far more than we can imagine or believe. Amen.

In the fall of 2020, Father Richard Rohr began writing occasional letters that he called “Letters from Outside the Camp,” referring to the many usages of “outside the camp” in the Hebrew Bible. Richard suggests that such a position can support those who want to move beyond the contemporary political and religious “encampments” of our day. 

We know full well that we must now avoid the temptation to become our own defended camp. We want to inhabit that ever-prophetic position “on the edge of the inside,” described by the early Israelites as “the tent of meeting outside the camp” (Exodus 33:7). Even though this tent is portable, it’s still a meeting place for “the holy,” which is always on the move and out in front of us. 

In our ugly and injurious present political climate, it’s become all too easy to justify fear-filled and hateful thoughts, words, and actions, often in defense against the “other” side. We project our anxiety elsewhere and misdiagnose the real problem (the real evil), exchanging it for smaller and seemingly more manageable problems. The over-defended ego always sees, hates, and attacks in other people its own faults—the parts of ourselves that we struggle to acknowledge. Of course, we don’t want to give way on important moral issues, but this often means we also don’t want to give way on our need to be right, superior, and in control. Our deep attachment to this defended and smaller self leads us into our greatest illusions. Most of us do not see things as they are; we see things as we are. 

Richard considers the wisdom that the Buddhist Heart Sutra can teach us: 

The Heart Sutra (sometimes called The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom) is considered by many to be the most succinct and profound summary of Buddhist teaching—surely it must have something to say to all of us. It ends with a mantra that is a daring proclamation of the final truth that takes our whole life to uncover and experience. It is enlightenment itself and hope itself in verbal form. It’s the ultimate liberation into Reality. 

Here is the transliteration and pronunciation of the Sanskrit refrain: 

Gate, gate, pāragate, pārasaṃgate, bodhi svāhā! 

Ga-tay, ga-tay, para ga-tay, parasam ga-tay boh-dee svah-ha! 

It means: 

Gone, gone, gone all the way over, the entire community of beings has gone to the other shore, enlightenment—praise! So be it! [1] 

This isn’t meant to be a morbid or tragic statement, but a joyous proclamation, in its own way similar to Christians saying “Alleluia!” at Easter. It is liberation from our grief, our losses, our sadness, and our attachments—our manufactured self. It accepts the transitory and passing nature of all things without exception, not as a sadness, but as a movement to “the other shore.” We don’t know exactly what the other shore is like, but we know it is another shore from where we now stand and not a scary abyss. 

A Litany of Liberation

In yesterday’s meditation, we shared Father Richard’s reflection on the liberating wisdom of the Heart Sutra in Buddhism. [1] Rather than a morbid message, Richard encourages us to receive the refrain as a message of hope and enlightenment. We share a litany that Richard wrote inspired by that refrain: 

All the centuries before me: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All the nations of the earth: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All kings, generals, and governors: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All the wars, plagues, and tragedies: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All human achievements by individuals and groups: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All sickness, sin, and error: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All our identities, roles, and titles: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All hurts, grudges, and memories of offense: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All enslavement, abuse, and torture: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All diseases, afflictions, and lifetime wounds: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All rejections, abandonments, and betrayals: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All human glory, fame, money, and reputation: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

Our logical minds may say, “Oh, but these things continue in human memory, consciousness, and the standing stones of institutions and culture,” which is true. That is not the point this sutra is intended to communicate, however; this is ritual and religious theater, not rational philosophy. In terms of all those who preceded us, these things are indeed “Gone!” (Buddhism also uses the word “Empty!”) It takes just such a shock to encourage the ego to let go of the passing self, the false self, the relative self, the self created by circumstance, memory, and choice. 

All comforts, luxuries, and pleasures: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All ideas, information, and ideology: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All image, appearance, and privacy: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All our superiority, self-assuredness, and expertise: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All human rights, ambitions, and fairness: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All personal power, self-will, and self-control: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

This is the spiritual art of detachment, which is not aloofness or denial, but the purifying of attachment. In our world, detachment itself can become a kind of EXODUS, an abandoning—whether forced or chosen—of the very things that give us status, make us feel secure or moral, and oftentimes that pay the bills. 

We live in a time of great hostility, and we must resist the temptation to pull back from others, deny our shadow, and retreat into our own defended camps or isolated positions. This temptation is not true detachment, but rather a succumbing to the illusion of separation. True spiritual action (as opposed to reaction) demands our own ongoing transformation and a voluntary “exile,” choosing to be where the pain is, as Jesus exemplified in his great self-emptying. Rather than accusing others of sin, Jesus instead “became sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21). He stood in solidarity with the problem itself, and his compassion and solidarity were themselves the healing. 

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Christ the Harvester

MARK LONGHURSTMAY 4

The adolescent me was terrified of God. I pictured God as an unstable, but surely perfect and unquestionable, being who functioned similarly to Sauron’s eye. I’ve written about this before. I imagined God casting his piercing gaze across the world, into my heart, and there, as if glimpsing Frodo from across the wasteland of Mordor, God zeroed in on the evils within. God saw my pride, lust, and envy, and was mad. And when God was mad, punishment followed. It didn’t all make sense to my young psyche, but I knew there was hellfire and eternity at stake. With fiery, lasting torment on the line, I knew I had better shape up and confess all the misdeeds and mistakes that I knew about, as well as the ones I may have done, and the ones that I had not done yet.

This territory runs near the theological thicket of atonement theology and the ways it filtered to my emerging self: I was a sinner. God was angry at sin and all sinners deserved eternal death. Jesus died for my sins, absorbed God’s anger and punishment, and saved me from it. There are more complex ways of articulating it, but the felt sense of an angry God for me was to be afraid of God and afraid of myself. God’s love flowed somewhere in the equation, but I didn’t feel it. It was subsumed in anger.

I’ve avoided the more troubling biblical texts of divine wrath and punishment for a long while. It brought up too much, and my associations with God as Sauron’s eye prevailed. Studying the book of Revelation, though, has me facing my avoidance of the most difficult biblical texts and, oddly enough, praying with them. I can’t fully explain it, even, except that I realized several years back that I wasn’t afraid of God anymore, and that I didn’t want to be afraid of the Bible, either. If I can watch The Last of Us and its fungi-induced apocalypse and resulting zombies, I can surely read the book of Revelation.

So, here we are, readers. We squarely sit in the wrath-filled, violent part of the book. John’s apocalyptic visions cycle in sevens. We have seen seven letters sent to churches in modern-day Turkey (Revelation 2-3), and seven trumpets that symbolized God’s battle cry against the Empire and injustice (Revelation 8-10). Chapter 15 will prepare us for the seven angels pouring seven bowls of wrath, resulting in the corresponding seven plagues.

Before the bowls of wrath are poured, though, John sees several angels and gives us a vision of harvesting. First, John pictures one like the “Son of Man” (stand-in image for Christ) with a sharp sickle in his hand used to collect crops from over the earth (Revelation 14:1, 16). The “Son of Man” reaps the harvest. I don’t know about you, but that’s always been another scary image for me, akin to the Grim Reaper wielding his blade. Christ, the Grim Reaper, or maybe a Harry Potter Death Eater. But harvest is a time of profound joy and celebration in agricultural societies. At the farms I’ve known even peripherally, the harvest is an all-volunteers-welcomed time of hard work, long days, abundance (on good years), and feasting. An occasion to drink tasty beer, try out an apple or pumpkin pie recipe, and swap stories with friends and neighbors. Christ the harvester is not at heart a scary image; it’s a joyful one of bringing all friendship, mercy, kindness, peace, and justice to fruition—finally!

It’s understandable that we would be afraid, though, because the next thing John sees is a different being with another sickle, an angel who is harvesting grapes—and throwing the grapes “into the great winepress of the wrath of God” (14:20). Picturing God in a winepress is, on the one hand, a lovely, even joyful, image. A barefoot God stomps on grapes to make wine—a method of releasing grape juice before mechanical methods were available. But why does the potentially exuberant image of trampling in a winepress take such a terrifying turn, and why is it equated with God’s wrath?

Like many of its verses, this verse in Revelation reflects other metaphors from other books in the Hebrew Bible. In particular, John has in heart here a short prophetic book called Joel. In that brief, angry book, amid God rousing opposing armies’ soldiers and threatening holy war against enemies, Joel’s God says: “Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Go in, tread, for the wine press is full. The vats overflow, for their wickedness is great” (Joel 3:13). In the wine press, the Divine Warrior tramples foes in battle and stomps out injustice and evil (see, too Zechariah 10:5). But note here that, as in many places in the Hebrew Bible, God is doing the fighting—not the people. So, to place this troubling text in a hymn of a nation, say, as in the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” is a Christian nationalist total misuse: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.”

The following verse raises the violence further: “And the wine press was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the wine press, as high as a horse’s bridle.” That sounds like the third act of Ryan Coogler’s new movie “Sinners,” when the blood flows high and it’s all wooden stakes and silver bullets on deck for the battle against blood-sucking vampires! But on close examination, John is doing something fascinating with this verse, which he often does throughout Revelation: he’s undermining the violence of the Empire with the nonviolence of the Lamb/Jesus.

Here’s the logic, from an insightful, short commentary on Revelation by N.T. Wright: outside the city is a reference to “outside the city gate” in Hebrews 13:13, where Jesus is thought to have been crucified (“Let us go with him outside the camp/city gate, bearing the disgrace he bore.”) The grape trampling occurs “outside the city,” just as Jesus is crucified “outside the city.” A little later in Revelation, the Christ figure appears again, in a robe dipped in blood (19:13-16)—but it’s Christ’s blood, the Lamb’s blood. What are we to make of this? 

God is angry, and blood is flowing, but it’s the blood of those killed by the Empire, not God. It’s the blood of the martyrs (Revelation 6:9-11), victims of Empire, the tortured and disappeared, the separated immigrant families, the Palestinian people suffering catastrophic violence and hunger—and it’s the blood of the Lamb-Christ himself. It’s the cup of wine that all Christians who dare follow the nonviolent Jesus are invited, no, called, to drink, “the cup of the new covenant” (Luke 22:20).

God’s wrath is still there for us to reckon with. It’s wrath against the Empire, against injustice and violence, against the abuse of power, deportations, cruelty, violence, and lies that took place in John’s time, and that are taking place in our time. And still, the psychological impact of an angry God lingers for me and many. So, is there something more complex going on in the Bible’s treatment of God’s anger than Sauron’s eye glaring at my soul? To be continued…

A Franciscan Perspective

Friday, May 2, 2025

In an episode of the podcast Learning How to See, Brian McLaren considers Francis of Assisi’s celebrated affinity for nature: 

Saint Francis is probably best known for the “Canticle of the Sun,” the song of praise he wrote in 1225. It begins,  

Most High, all-powerful, good Lord … praised be You, my Lord, with all Your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun, who is the day and through whom You give us light. And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor; and bears a likeness of You, Most High One. Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars…. Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind, and through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather…. Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water…. [1]  

What strikes me in this poem is that Francis doesn’t say be praised for these things but be praised with them and through them. Francis is saying, I’m praising you, God, because I’m praising the sun. It seems to me that Francis was trying to return to a more primal identity—as part of nature, a child of soil, wind, and rain, a member of this earth community, all of which inhabits the loving presence of God. 

Sister Joan Brown, former executive director of New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light, responds to McLaren’s question: “What does it mean for a person to be a Franciscan and to feel themselves part of a Franciscan movement?”  

I think it’s being Franciscan-hearted.… It’s knowing and feeling oneself as part of everything—from the smallest molecule, to the tree, to the sun that was out this morning. This vast soul connection then interweaves us all together in a community…. We’re living in this time when it’s not the heroes that are influencing us; it’s the communal, it’s all of us, … and we recognize love as core to that. Love is what inspires and moves us towards justice, and towards engagement in the suffering world, to transform, I believe, to be a part of the evolution of beauty in the world, which is what we’re being pulled toward and into. That’s really what this Franciscan-heartedness is about: seeing of beauty within everything. 

Michele Dunne, executive director of the Franciscan Action Network, shares what being a Franciscan means to her:  

One of the things that appealed to me about the Franciscan life is that it’s a life of prayer and action, action and prayer, back and forth, one feeding the other…. I started down the path of becoming a Secular Franciscan [2], and I thought, I’m going to do this prayer and then I’m going to take action. Then I realized there was … something far more basic, which was my simply being in the present moment and seeing the humanity of every person in front of me and seeing the living earth. I realized I’d gone my whole life sort of objectifying and categorizing, hardly seeing living things. I was seeing them as things. I was seeing people in categories. I had to develop a whole new awareness, an ability to respond and live in the present moment, so that I could be open to what is mine to do.   

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John Chaffee 5 On Friday

1.

“If you label me, you negate me.”

– Soren Kierkegaard, Danish Philosopher

The human person is far too complex to summarize under any title.  To be labeled anything is a broad stroke that eliminates the nuances, feelings, stances, and paradoxes of what it means to be human.

Let’s take a moment and think about all the standard titles we use today…

Republican

Democrat

Libertarian

Believer

Atheist

Agnostic

Scientist

Professor

Park Ranger

Father

Mother

Child

Homeless

Rich

Poor

The list can go on and on.

At best, our labels only name one dimension of what it means to be who we are.

It is for this reason that names are better than labels.

2.

“Christ was never in a hurry.”

– Mary Slessor, Missionary to Nigeria

This one is quite a punch.

I admit to often thinking about the next thing while in the present. I am also prone to focusing on the next week or month at the expense of the now.

Modernity tells us that efficiency is one of the highest goals: to get things done as quickly as possible at a quality that is either “good enough” or “perfect.”

All of this contributes to a culture that hyperfocuses on hurry.

But Christ was never in a hurry.

According to our records, Jesus walked almost everywhere.

So, at best, God was content to go 2.5 miles per hour.

Also, if the universe is 13.8 billion years old, that means God took God’s time to get to us.

Yep.

This God is not in a hurry.

3.

“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone—we find it with [one] another. We do not discover the secret of our lives merely by study and calculation in our own safe and isolated meditations. The meaning of life has to be revealed to us in love, by the one we love.“

– Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk

As a head-oriented person, love has been too much of a theory.

That is not to say that I was not loved, but that over time, my head got the better of my heart. Frankly, my life experiences encouraged me to distrust love while at the same time wanting it on my terms.

Love is dangerous.  It requires a vulnerability that exposes our weaknesses and insecurities.

Theories are never dangerous.  They require nothing of us than to play with them in our imaginations.

So when I came across this quote from Merton in No Man is an Island, I had to accept that I was too independent and isolated.  No one is made whole or human by standing at a safe distance from love.  Myself included.

Love is our true destiny, our true identity, and it makes us whole again.

4.

“Justice is what love looks like in public.”

– Dr. Cornel West, American Theologian

I reject the notion that faith should not be political.  I do, however, reject the idea that it should be bipartisan.

If God cared that humanity created a healthy household and economy (oikonomia), we likely should pay more attention to making certain justice happens in the public arena as well.

5.

“Good souls many will one day be horrified at the things they now believe of God.”

– George MacDonald, Scottish Preacher

This past week, I met with a couple in spiritual direction.

It was a lovely time, and I consider doing those sessions a privilege.

One of the things we said is that we are relatively okay with people converting to Christianity. However, we are not OK with people having “micro-conversions” within Christianity. We don’t always validate it when people “fine-tune” their understanding of faith or change a stance within the faith.

The Apostles Creed is an important document or statement of faith, not only because it is one of the earliest formulations of the faith, but also because of its brevity.  There is a lot left out.

This leads me to think that there are a whole number of stances, positions, or opinions that are up for debate.

And so, thank goodness, we can constantly improve our understanding of this mystery we call “God” throughout our lives.