Choctaw elder and retired Episcopal bishop Steven Charleston explains how Indigenous elders carry the wisdom of the past in service of the present and future:
Elders are a people of the future. My culture respects the elders not only because of their wisdom, but because of their determination. The elders are tough. They have survived many struggles and many losses. Now, as they look ahead to another generation, they are determined that their sacrifices will not have been in vain, that their children’s children will not grow up in a world more broken than the one they sought to repair. The elders are voices of justice. They are champions for the earth. They defend the conscience of the community. We follow the elders because they have a passion for tomorrow. They are people of the future, not the past.
Tradition is not about staying the same. It is not about continuing spiritual business as usual. Native American tradition is the path to the future because it is how we constantly renew what we have. Faith is about making all things new. All things—not just a few. It is about transforming life in the kiva [communal home] by reimagining it and recreating it until life emerges, just as our past reshaped to fit our future….
The ancestors carried us. They were as troubled as we, our ancestors, those who came before us, and for the same reasons: fear of illness, a broken heart, fights in the family, the threat of another war. Corrupt politicians walked their stage and natural disasters appeared without warning. And yet they came through, carrying us within them, through the grief and struggle, through the personal pain and the public chaos, finding their way with love and faith, not giving in to despair, but walking upright until their last step was taken. My culture does not honor the ancestors as a quaint spirituality of the past, but as a living source of strength for the present. They did it and so will we.
Charleston speaks of how the wisdom of our ancestors can still guide us:
Our ancestors in the faith are not only still here for us, but they actively seek to help us in every way they can.
Our eternal grandparents. They are watching over us, all those who have gone before. They are our ancestors, and they have seen enough in their own lives to know what we are going through. They have survived economic collapse, social unrest, political struggle, and great wars that raged for years. Now, from their place of peace, they seek to send their wisdom into our hearts, to guide us to reconciliation, to show us our mistakes before we make them. Their love for us is strong. Their faith in us is certain. When times get hard, sit quietly and open your spirit to the eternal grandparents, who are still a part of your spiritual world. Receive their blessing, for their light will lead you home.
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Following are the Friday Five. Five quotes curated by John Chaffee. Today I included his introductory remarks where he gives a bit of his background and mentions his new program offering spiritual direction to those who might be interested.
Grace and Peace, Friends!The Spiritual Direction session over Zoom finished, and I felt a sense of purpose. Why? Because I was the Director, not the Directee.
Over the years, I have enjoyed deep conversations with family and friends. This was so much the case that I found myself doing 20+ years of church work. My approach was never so much as to tell people how to live, but more to share the wisdom of the long Christian tradition and help people figure out for themselves what they need to do next.
I soon discovered that is essentially what Spiritual Direction is. I found myself a Spiritual Director, read some books on the topic for my second Masters degree, and realized I wanted to do more of it.
So, when I finished the Zoom call finished earlier this week, I felt as though I had crossed a threshold because now all the parts were in place. And, it just felt right. I have done Spiritual Direction before, but now I had done it enough that I felt as though I was easing into a calling rather than still testing the waters.
Which brings me to you. If you need a Spiritual Director, someone who can help be an extra set of eyes and ears, helping to discern where Spirit is inviting you next, I would love to help. It can be difficult to navigate what to do next when various kinds of blocks keep us from listening to God.
When we are in transition from one phase of life to another, when we are stuck at a fork in the road, when we have accidentally put down roots where we did not mean to, it can be hard to know what to do next. If that is you, and you would like to set up a session of Spiritual Direction with me, you can sign up through this link. Mon, Tues, and Fri are the best for me, as responsibilities take me up on the other days of the week. The link will always be available at the bottom of these newsletters, so reach out to me as you need. Here’s to getting into the thick of the world for the sake of helping it!
Onto this week’s 5 quotes.
1.”If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.”- Mark Twain, American Author
When we begin a habit of lying, deception, and falsehood, we must keep detailed notes of what we say to various people. Lies invariably require more lies to be sustained. Truthfulness, transparency, and sincerity require no such upkeep. Think about it, you and I have the opportunity to never lie again for the rest of your life.
2.”You don’t give a man a weapon until you’ve taught him how to dance.”- Irish Proverb
As I contemplated this quote, the only thing I could come up with is that the violent will always find violent reasons to fight. However, those who were first taught to love and experience the joy of life will fight in a very different way. Not only will love and joy invite people to stand up for other things, but they may even decide that weaponry and the machines of war are not the best way of fighting for a cause anyway.
3.”Those who do not know must be taught, not punished. We do not hit the blind. We lead them by the hand.”- St. Dionysius the Aeropagite, Greek Bishop
The doctrine of the reconciliation, restoration, and renewal of all things (which is already present in the Hebrew Scriptures and Greek New Testament) radically transforms the way we think about correction. If nothing needs to be discarded, if no one needs to be thrown away, then we must say that anyone is redeemable. Punishment, then, for retributive justice is unbiblical and un-Christlike. Redemptive or restorative justice seeks to correct, curtail, redirect, and prune people long before it has any inkling of a desire to inflict pain. When I came across this quote, it was the most succinct rationalization for a pruning God over the false idea of a punitive one.
4.”For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.”- Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk
I had the opportunity to reread chapter 5 of New Seeds of Contemplation this week. It speaks to me every time I read it. Along with No Man is an Island, these two books by Thomas Merton are (I believe) the only books I have reread multiple times and return to frequently. The only book that outpaces them in my rereading is the Bible. All of us are on a lifelong journey of discovering who we are, and that means there is a lifelong task of choosing to not be some false self that we believe others will be more likely to love. To be loved for being our false self is an inherently lonely experience. Better to chance being our true selves and find ourselves surrounded by other true people who want to be in true relationships.
5.”Every Christian should find for himself the imperative and incentive to become holy. If you live without struggle and without hope of becoming holy, then you are Christians only in name and not in essence.”- St. Philaret of Moscow, Eastern Orthodox Archbishop
The German reformer Martin Luther had a similar insight. When approached by members of his church to ease their anxieties about whether or not they were faithful Christians, he was presented with a question that even he struggled with. In Luther’s mind, no one is perfect, no one lives up to the law of Love and therefore it is incredibly difficult to formally confirm someone’s status as a Christian. That is until he realized that the mark of a Christian is not that they live perfectly but that they “struggle” with the task of holiness. In the German language, Luther used “Anfechtung” to describe this ache and struggle to be holy. It is only the false Christian, the person who is completely devoid of a conscience, who is the most in danger. Anyone who does not struggle with the task of holiness needs to sit down and ask themselves with integrity whether or not they truly want to follow Christ or if they should stop pretending. St. Philaret of Moscow, whom I never heard of before coming across this quote, and Martin Luther would likely have agreed over this point.
