{"id":20219,"date":"2021-06-03T10:19:15","date_gmt":"2021-06-03T14:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20219"},"modified":"2021-06-03T10:30:08","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T14:30:08","slug":"20219","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20219","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Letting Go of What Used to Be<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Qtg9axTtNLg\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>God is doing new things, Jesus proclaimed, but only those with new minds and hearts can see a new world breaking through the cracks of the old.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2014Ilia Delio,&nbsp;<em>The Hours of the Universe<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>If evolution is the language of growth and change, then an evolving faith is one that accepts and even embraces change. While the word change normally refers to new beginnings, real transformation happens more often when something falls apart. The pain of something old cracking apart or unraveling invites us to evolve instead of tightening our controls and certitudes. Episcopal priest Stephanie Spellers is a leading thinker on change and growth in the church, and sees the current challenges of church and society as way of God \u201ccracking open\u201d people for greater possibility:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Institutions and cultures are durable partly because they obey the law of inertia. [1] Even if you think you\u2019ve exerted a strong external push and knocked a moving object or an entire institution off its set course, wait. Just wait. With barely a nudge, the object will drift right back to its original path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Think of your own experience. When you see a crack, what\u2019s your first instinct? Push the pieces back together and patch it over. Eventually a contractor comes with the bad news: there is deep damage here, and if you don\u2019t address it, before long the whole structure will be fundamentally compromised. You sigh and negotiate. I don\u2019t know about you, but I have a surprising capacity to delude myself about how broken the structure is. With enough duct tape and rope, I will get back to normal.&nbsp;<em>[I call this \u201crearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic!\u201d]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So it is for a nation and a church. In the midst of displacement, destabilization, and decentering, Americans and church folks have been tempted to replace, restabilize, and recenter. Let\u2019s return to the building. Let\u2019s encourage the protesters to come off the streets. . . . Let\u2019s move past division. Let\u2019s reestablish majority American Christianity in its former, privileged cultural post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or we could acknowledge the unraveling, breaking, and cracking&nbsp;<em>[Richard: what we are calling \u201cunveiling\u201d in this year\u2019s meditations]<\/em>&nbsp;as a bearer of truth and even a gift. Perhaps, as [Alan] Roxburgh suggested, the Holy Spirit has been nudging and calling Christians \u201cto embrace a new imagination, but the other one had to unravel for us to see it for what it was. In this sense the malaise of our churches has been the work of God.\u201d [2] . . . A church that has been humbled by disruption and decline may be a less arrogant and presumptuous church. It may have fewer illusions about its own power and centrality. It may become curious. It may be less willing to ally with the empires and powers that have long defined it. It may finally admit how much it needs the true power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit. That\u2019s a church God can work with.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"364\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/image-1-500x364.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-20221\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/image-1-500x364.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/image-1-300x219.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/image-1-768x560.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/image-1.png 778w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Letting Go of What Used to Be God is doing new things, Jesus proclaimed, but only those with new minds and hearts can see a new world breaking through the cracks of the old. \u2014Ilia Delio,&nbsp;The Hours of the Universe If evolution is the language of growth and change, then an evolving faith is one [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20219"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20219"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20223,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20219\/revisions\/20223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}