A Prophet in Pink Sneakers: Jesus: Teaching to the Test

A Prophet in Pink Sneakers: Jesus: Teaching to the Test: "The First Sunday of Lent Jesus: Teaching to the Test Matthew 4:1-11 (Based on an excerpt from The Message) Jesus went into the wildernes..."

McLaren's Seven Abrahamic Practices

Just when I start thinking that Finding Our Way Again is too simplistic and introductory for my taste, Brian McLaren comes up with another fresh insight.  Maybe starting from the assumption that the reader knows very little about the history of religion is a good thing, because it takes the reader back to re-evaluate old, easy assumptions.

McLaren uses Abraham, patriarch of the three faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as a starting point to identify basic categories of spiritual practices:

1. Pilgrimage
2. Fasting
3. The holy meal
4. Formal, fixed-hour prayer
5. Giving / tithing
6. Sabbath
7. Liturgical year

Although McLaren is stretching in some respects, this is a good concept: tracing back the patterns that the Abrahamic faiths have in common, and finding sources for them in shared story.

Edward Scribner Ames: Social Justice Sermon: Power

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Noticing life

The second chapter of Brian McLaren's Finding Our Way Again is another one that I will have to re-read many times, not because it's complicated (it's not), but because in its very simplicity and directness, it reminds me of so many things that I tend to forget.

Every choice that we make changes us, even the smallest ones.  We worry about slimming our bodies when we should be thinking about developing a more "weighty" character (I particularly like that phrase).  We need to stop and notice the tiny, beautiful moments which remind us of the joy of life.  All these are obvious things that we've heard so often before, but we don't really pay attention. We need to pay attention.

As I deal with the problems and stresses of the moment, I need to remember that the essentials of life aren't the big showy things on the outside, but the journey toward peace and serenity on the inside.  Right now, at this very point in my life, is a perfect time to notice God working, and to appreciate what I see.

Fundy versus New Age

The first chapter of Brian McLaren's Finding Our Way Again, entitled "Searching for an Everyday Sacredness," talks about "the cold war between science and religion," and identifies three categories of spiritual stance:  scientific secularism, "hot and pushy fundamentalism" and "warm but mushy spirituality."  (I like the rhyming of "pushy" and "mushy.")  The spiritual exercises at the end of the chapter ask the readers to identify for themselves what their position has been on this spectrum, and how the conflict between the various camps has affected their lives.

The concept of the "everyday sacred" strongly appeals to me.  Among my many half-read books are Everyday Holiness: The Path of Mussar by Alan Morinis, and Spiritual Fitness: Everyday Exercises for Body and Soul by Doris Donnelly.  I say "half-read," because books like these are not truly read by a quick skim.  They need to be absorbed slowly.  Finding Our Way Again is clearly going to be one of these.

I have often been caught in an approach-avoidance, attraction-repulsion reaction with "hot and pushy fundamentalism."  I am personally unable to accept that any set of answers is ever final;  there are always more questions.  Still, for a person whose primary motto is "Question authority," I am surprisingly drawn to faith traditions like Roman Catholicism, the Baha'i Faith and some forms of evangelical Christianity, including so-called Messianic Judaism.

It would be more expected for me to be comfortable in the neo-pagan movement, or humanistic Judaism, or even a Quaker meeting. I have tried those, and I have found value in them, but not deep emotional satisfaction.

I call myself CatEcumen the Ecumenical Cat because I'm always on the journey from one faith tradition to another, never settling down, never truly "finished."  I hope that's OK with God.  I tell myself that this constantly questioning spirit is how God made me, so it must be OK.

And so we begin!

Ash Wednesday, the beginning of new Lenten practices (and maybe some of them will stay year-round), and the first of them will be "conscious" reading.  By that I mean something more than the skimming way that I read most novels.  I mean slow, careful reading of spiritually important works, including but not limited to the Bible - a new way of reading inspired by the tradition of lectio divina, taking my time to think about what I'm reading, and incorporating prayer and contemplation into my reading life.

I haven't had much of a prayer life lately, and despite my office lined with books, I haven't had as much of a reading life as I did in years past.  Maybe the belt-tightening circumstances of the moment are a way to shepherd me back to the riches of all these unread or partly-read books, just waiting for me.

The book I'm reading first is called Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices by the famous (and somewhat controversial)  Brian McLaren.  From the description I'd read, I thought that Phyllis Tickle was a co-author, but she merely wrote the Foreword.  And in that Foreword, she points out how the urge for something new, different, even revolutionary, something to awaken and revitalize the church, leads us circling back to the ways of those who came before us.  We are not so much discovering as rediscovering, but then again, isn't that always true?  I'm pretty sure that it's true of me, right now.

Things I will work on during Lent this year:

1. I'm going to work on "less complaining, more gratitude."
2. I'm going to do daily readings and write about them, in at least a somewhat disciplined way.  That includes reviewing the books from BookSneeze, beginning with "Finding Our Way Again."
3. I'm going to spend some time in prayer and meditation every day, at least a little, and if I can't think of anything to say in prayer, I'll just recite prayers until I can find my own words.  But I won't use lack of words as an excuse; I can always sit in silence and just listen.