Fifth in a series based on Christianity for the Rest of s, by Diana Butler Bass
This week’s lectionary texts deal with two things in our spiritual lives - God’s commitment to us as we grow in faith, and our prayer to God to help us grow in faith. Coincidentally the two chapters in the book we are studying deal with reflection and beauty. Rather than preach a whole sermon today, we are going to do a different exercise - I am going to give you a few quotes from the book, and then we are going to break into smaller groups and talk to each other.
You might remember that when our Presbytery came to look at congregational life in Glen Ayr, one of the recommendations of that visit was that as a congregation we needed to spend more time in reflection on who we are, and in spiritual education and development. Now, most congregations tend to think that if they show up on Sunday morning, and maybe attend a Bible study once in a while, where the minister tells them what the Bible says, they are getting a spiritual education, and growing in faith. That isn’t true. Yes, the minister is a teacher, called for a certain expertise in interpretation and theology, but there is more to Christian development.
Here’s a bit from “Christianity for the Rest of Us”, a book about how mainline churches are quietly transforming themselves and becoming part of the neighborhood again. This is a quote:
‘The Christian life of the mind is not, however, merely some disembodied or mystical experience. “What got me excited when I first came [to this church]” said one Florida Methodist, “was that God was very real here, that it wasn’t just words. People really, really meant what they were doing.” Along with theological generosity, the practice of reflection in the congregations on my journey expressed the active intellect. The people I met clearly loved words and ideas, but the strove to connect words with action, to authenticate words by works of mercy and justice.”
Another church goer commented that “theological reflection taught her that learning about Christianity was not enough, you have to learn Christianity.”
An Arizona man said “God didn’t ask us to check our intellect in the parking lot when we drove in and the service started.”
...and in fact, I would observe, God created our intellect, and intended for us to use it, not just to reflect on everything else, but reflect on ourselves too. Theological reflection - a practice of using our faith to reflect on life, and using our life to reflect on faith.
So this morning, I want us together in small groups to do some theological reflection (slide into groups of four or five). What I would like you to do is use Psalm 51 (printed in the bulletin). Read it quietly to yourselves for awhile, and think about what the words might mean to you. I will give you a few minutes to do this. Then, in your groups, as you feel comfortable, please reflect with others on what this passage might mean for you in your life today.
Sources: Diana Butler Bass “Christianity for the Rest of Us” , pp. 187 and 191.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Contemplation and Testimony March 22, 2009 Fourth Sunday in Lent
Fourth in a series based on Christianity for the Rest of Us, by Diana Butler Bass.
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.
Henry David Thoreau
The essence of any religion lies solely in the answer to the question: why do I exist, and what is my relationship to the infinite universe that surrounds me?
Leo Tolstoy
Silence. It isn’t something we do well in the United Church. Silence makes us nervous, after a minute or so. I went looking for biblical references to silence, in terms of contemplation, and found one which fit - from the Book of Revelation, chapter 8, verse 1 - “and when he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” We have references in the gospels of Jesus going off by himself to pray and meditate. Sitting in silence, fasting in the desert, wrestling with a call to give his life. From reading between the lines, we can guess that Jesus used meditation, and contemplation, as a way of staying focussed and spiritually healthy when things threatened to come apart.
When we talk about contemplation in the church, we tend to think of it as unproductive silence. We tend to think of boring people going around saying nothing, taking a vow of silence. A quick look in the lists will find us many orders which employ and engage in contemplation, but not necessarily silence. Among them are the Augustinians of the Midwest (Order of St. Augustine) which is a religious order, but there is also Augustinians of the Rosary, a religious order for laity and professed members who live out their vows while remaining in the world. There are the Capuchin Sisters of Nazareth - a joyful order of apostolic contemplative sisters who live in community and who work with the youth and in parish missions, and the Companions of St. Luke Benedictine, an Anglican Community based on the Rule of St. Benedict. It is open to single and avowed partners, both men and women. The Priory honors the past with rich traditions, but also recognizes the needs of a contemporary society. Just in case you thought the contemplative orders were all Christian, there is also the Sacred Order of Living Paganism, which is a spiritual order of brothers and sisters dedicated to deep Pagan learning and service.
Look up the meaning of contemplation - it means thoughtful observation, deep consideration, purpose or intention, prospect or expectation. That’s a little more than sitting in silence, or doing nothing.
One of the most noted of the Christian mystics, Hildegard of Bingen, was both a contemplative, a mystic, and one who constantly testified, through her music, her visionary art, and her writings and words. She was the leader of her sister community. When her immediate superior refused to allow her and the community more freedom and independence, she went over his head to get approval from Archbishop Henry I of Mainz. She was hesitant to share her visions, confiding only to one sister. At the age of 42, she received a vision she believed to be an instruction from God, to "write down that which you see and hear."
Diana Butler Bass says that many church growth specialists (and probably some of us) think that successful churches keep everyone entertained in worship. Silence is seen as a turnoff. Tradition in the church reserved contemplation and silence for a handful of people. It has not been encouraged among congregations. No wonder we are uncomfortable with silence. John Fiorni, who teaches at Johns Hopkins University, says that noise is described in Latin as horrovacui, or fear of nothingness or emptiness. In our lives, we tend to fill up every moment with some kind of noise - talking, music, whatever. In our worship, we have to fill up every moment with prayer, music, preaching - and we rarely sit in contemplation. But to be spiritually healthy, we cannot reserve this for just some sort of spiritual elite. If contemplation means deep consideration, purpose or intention, then every congregation should be engaging in periods of contemplation in order to determine the purpose and intention, the reason the congregation has for *being*. Far from being an odd thing that only a few people do, it should be something we all do. The church offers us seasons, such as Advent and Lent, to take advantage of the opportunity to do some “intentional reflection”, and pay attention to God.
But contemplation doesn’t just mean silence. It also means times of speaking. Testimony. There’s another scary word for us, because we get in our head visions of televangelists rattling off rote “testimonies” of faith, and calling people into emotional commitments to something, whatever. Testimony is another thing, like silence, that we don’t do in the church. We think faith should only be a private thing. And of course, in the United Church, we don’t “do” testimony. We don’t say what we believe, unless it is included in an order of service, and we say it all together so no one sticks out. I wonder if any of us would have the courage to stand in front of our congregation, and say openly what we believe. Well, of course I can - to a point. Preaching, teaching and leading are all parts of testimony. Confession is a part of it, of course. But I am thinking of testimony in terms of telling others about our journey in faith, how we got to where we are now, what this community of faith means to us in the journey.
The disciples and followers of Jesus, in the Book of Acts, went from place to place testifying to their faith. Acts 8 says “When they had testified and proclaimed the word of God, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.”
Diana Butler Bass talks about the advertising campaign of the United Church of Christ, called “God is Still Speaking”. She notes that the Christian story is not about distant historical events, although these are part of the basis of faith; rather she says the Christian story of the power of faith is something which has relevance here and now. Stories of discovering faith, living faith, struggling faith and risky faith.
She notes sociologist Anthony Giddons claims that each of us not only ‘has’ a biography, we live a biography. The great philosopher Hegel spoke of the universe unfolding; likewise, our lives unfold as we live them. In fact or lives, and our faith journeys, are narratives. When we are able to see ourselves in the narrative, we can gain confidence in speaking about it.
I wondered, as I wrote this, how many of us spend time in contemplation, reflection on purpose and intent; and how many would be willing to speak about their life journey in front of others. Or book leads us to churches where people are willing to risk. In this Lent, a time of meditation and reflection, would we be willing?
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.
Henry David Thoreau
The essence of any religion lies solely in the answer to the question: why do I exist, and what is my relationship to the infinite universe that surrounds me?
Leo Tolstoy
Silence. It isn’t something we do well in the United Church. Silence makes us nervous, after a minute or so. I went looking for biblical references to silence, in terms of contemplation, and found one which fit - from the Book of Revelation, chapter 8, verse 1 - “and when he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” We have references in the gospels of Jesus going off by himself to pray and meditate. Sitting in silence, fasting in the desert, wrestling with a call to give his life. From reading between the lines, we can guess that Jesus used meditation, and contemplation, as a way of staying focussed and spiritually healthy when things threatened to come apart.
When we talk about contemplation in the church, we tend to think of it as unproductive silence. We tend to think of boring people going around saying nothing, taking a vow of silence. A quick look in the lists will find us many orders which employ and engage in contemplation, but not necessarily silence. Among them are the Augustinians of the Midwest (Order of St. Augustine) which is a religious order, but there is also Augustinians of the Rosary, a religious order for laity and professed members who live out their vows while remaining in the world. There are the Capuchin Sisters of Nazareth - a joyful order of apostolic contemplative sisters who live in community and who work with the youth and in parish missions, and the Companions of St. Luke Benedictine, an Anglican Community based on the Rule of St. Benedict. It is open to single and avowed partners, both men and women. The Priory honors the past with rich traditions, but also recognizes the needs of a contemporary society. Just in case you thought the contemplative orders were all Christian, there is also the Sacred Order of Living Paganism, which is a spiritual order of brothers and sisters dedicated to deep Pagan learning and service.
Look up the meaning of contemplation - it means thoughtful observation, deep consideration, purpose or intention, prospect or expectation. That’s a little more than sitting in silence, or doing nothing.
One of the most noted of the Christian mystics, Hildegard of Bingen, was both a contemplative, a mystic, and one who constantly testified, through her music, her visionary art, and her writings and words. She was the leader of her sister community. When her immediate superior refused to allow her and the community more freedom and independence, she went over his head to get approval from Archbishop Henry I of Mainz. She was hesitant to share her visions, confiding only to one sister. At the age of 42, she received a vision she believed to be an instruction from God, to "write down that which you see and hear."
Diana Butler Bass says that many church growth specialists (and probably some of us) think that successful churches keep everyone entertained in worship. Silence is seen as a turnoff. Tradition in the church reserved contemplation and silence for a handful of people. It has not been encouraged among congregations. No wonder we are uncomfortable with silence. John Fiorni, who teaches at Johns Hopkins University, says that noise is described in Latin as horrovacui, or fear of nothingness or emptiness. In our lives, we tend to fill up every moment with some kind of noise - talking, music, whatever. In our worship, we have to fill up every moment with prayer, music, preaching - and we rarely sit in contemplation. But to be spiritually healthy, we cannot reserve this for just some sort of spiritual elite. If contemplation means deep consideration, purpose or intention, then every congregation should be engaging in periods of contemplation in order to determine the purpose and intention, the reason the congregation has for *being*. Far from being an odd thing that only a few people do, it should be something we all do. The church offers us seasons, such as Advent and Lent, to take advantage of the opportunity to do some “intentional reflection”, and pay attention to God.
But contemplation doesn’t just mean silence. It also means times of speaking. Testimony. There’s another scary word for us, because we get in our head visions of televangelists rattling off rote “testimonies” of faith, and calling people into emotional commitments to something, whatever. Testimony is another thing, like silence, that we don’t do in the church. We think faith should only be a private thing. And of course, in the United Church, we don’t “do” testimony. We don’t say what we believe, unless it is included in an order of service, and we say it all together so no one sticks out. I wonder if any of us would have the courage to stand in front of our congregation, and say openly what we believe. Well, of course I can - to a point. Preaching, teaching and leading are all parts of testimony. Confession is a part of it, of course. But I am thinking of testimony in terms of telling others about our journey in faith, how we got to where we are now, what this community of faith means to us in the journey.
The disciples and followers of Jesus, in the Book of Acts, went from place to place testifying to their faith. Acts 8 says “When they had testified and proclaimed the word of God, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.”
Diana Butler Bass talks about the advertising campaign of the United Church of Christ, called “God is Still Speaking”. She notes that the Christian story is not about distant historical events, although these are part of the basis of faith; rather she says the Christian story of the power of faith is something which has relevance here and now. Stories of discovering faith, living faith, struggling faith and risky faith.
She notes sociologist Anthony Giddons claims that each of us not only ‘has’ a biography, we live a biography. The great philosopher Hegel spoke of the universe unfolding; likewise, our lives unfold as we live them. In fact or lives, and our faith journeys, are narratives. When we are able to see ourselves in the narrative, we can gain confidence in speaking about it.
I wondered, as I wrote this, how many of us spend time in contemplation, reflection on purpose and intent; and how many would be willing to speak about their life journey in front of others. Or book leads us to churches where people are willing to risk. In this Lent, a time of meditation and reflection, would we be willing?
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Believing and Living the Promise Third Sunday in Lent John 2:13-22
Third in a series of sermons on "Christianity for the Rest of Us" by Diana Butler Bass.
Jerusalem, - a city of over three million people, packed with even more people who have walked across the Negev, the Shepelah, from the Mediterranean coast, and the Tigris /Euphrates basin, to commemorate their liberation from oppression in Egypt.
From the time of Moses, when the law was given, sacrifice was part and parcel of Passover. But many people didn’t want the hassle of getting animals across the desert, and maybe losing the animal altogether. Many people preferred to buy in the city, and save time and effort.
Why animals being sold in the Temple? The historian Josephus suggests that a feud between the Sanhedrin and Caiaphas, the High Priest, forced the Sanhedrin from their office space in the Temple. In retaliation, the Sanhedrin invited merchants to sell animals outside the Temple area, near them. Not to be out-retaliated, Caiaphas allowed merchants to sell animals and exchange money inside the Temple precinct. Worshippers could not use official secular money - they had to exchange it for Temple money. So the outer courtyard where the Gentiles came to worship was full of animals, tables and the sound the secular coinage being exchanged for kosher coinage, and the Temple precinct was as well. A place of worship was turned into a trading post. Neither the Jews nor the Gentile converts could worship.
Jesus entered Jerusalem. He didn’t go there very often, and maybe hadn’t kept up on the inner politics of the temple. He went planning to spend time in worship and prayer, and found instead a market where the poor were being charged exorbitant prices, and brisk commercial enterprises. He grabbed some cords and tied them into a whip, set the animals loose, hurled the tables of the money-changers over, sending the money all over the ground, and screamed “You have turned this place of worship into a shopping mall."
I bet it was difficult for people to decide if they should applaud Jesus, or be embarrassed at his behaviour. This was pretty unusual, even for Jesus. Most of the worshippers probably wanted to come for some comfort, and calmness. Not only could they not get it in this already noisy place, but the whole day is shot when Jesus has a tantrum and brings everything to a spectacular halt.
In the Gospel, John has Jesus fired up that a place of worship had been turned into a marketplace, a money-making event. He defended Jesus’ actions as a case of confronting extortion and worship-gouging, and using the temple as a place to work out hostilities. Not only had the time of Passover been turned into a time of making more money for the temple, but the real core of the festival - the promise of God that there would be freedom from oppression - had been subsumed into oppression of others by the religious leaders. My vision of Jesus in this instant is that he was vein-popping furious.
In John’s gospel we’re right in the middle of a worship war. It isn’t about selling Fair Trade coffee after the service, raising funds for an outreach project. It is about far more than that. It is about God’s promise to the people, and the people believing the promise, only to be squeezed into another kind of oppression by the very ones who are supposed to be helping them grow in faith. It is about personal hostilities, and corporate greed being lived out even inside a place of worship. Jesus brings the focus right back to the purpose of worship and justice, and how they are lived out in the world.
There’s a clue here about the promise, too. Jesus was asked to show a miraculous sign that his authority is from God. Jesus responded, "OK, I’ll give you a sign. Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again. Top that one."
What no one realised, except perhaps Jesus, was a clear intimation of the renewed promise of God. John of course painted the listeners as really thick - all they could think of was the physical temple being completely razed, and Jesus somehow magically putting it all back together. Jesus, once again, left them with a zinger loaded with meaning.
On that day Jesus challenged an entire system - the street address that locked God to a specific place on earth, the way business was done, and the confidence placed in a structure that was supposed to last forever. He walked in, claimed a new authority, and another locus of worship: Jesus named himself as the new temple in which the Spirit of God lived.
There are two things outstanding in this reading for me. First, the issue of justice, which was among the commandments given to Moses, and contained in the Torah. Or perhaps I should say the issue of a gross injustice being perpetrated by a group of religious leaders who had themselves lived as slaves, and were now making slaves out of others who only wished to worship and live in peace.
In the book “Christianity for the Rest of Us”, Diana Butler Bass quotes theologian and biblical scholar Walter Wink, about the powers of the world - and I think this quote gets to the core of what really hit Jesus in that moment. Wink says:
“The Powers That Be are not, then, simply people and their institutions as I had first thought; they also include the spirituality at the core of those institutions and structures. If we want to change those systems, we will have to address not only their outer forms, but their inner spirit as well.”
In his sermon “Who Said You Could Do That?”, Rev. Thomas Hall asks if we run through our orders of worship and are more concerned about doing it right, than whether our whole being is attuned to worshipping God.
In the issues of justice, and belief in a promise, have we allowed lesser authorities to supplant God? Doing justice means first that we have to believe in the promises of God. If we believe the promises, then we move into the world witnessing to others about the peaceable realm of God.
I think in the moments when Jesus turned everything upside down, he realised the connection of worship and justice. If we believe the promises God made, then our worship has to reflect in every way a commitment to those promises. The result of that worship is to motivate us to live that out by engaging the spiritual centre of those powers which push God to the side.
The whole story of church renewal and transformation is a story of being willing to engage again with our faith, and make a commitment to discipleship which takes us outside the boundaries and outside the box. A fantasy? Perhaps - but Paul tells us in Corinthians that God’s foolishness is wiser than our wisdom - and we are encouraged, and exhorted, through faith, to engage any powers which prevent the coming of the realm of God.
I’m going to close with a piece of music called “Nella Fantasia” - “In my fantasy”. The words are by Chiara Ferrau, music by Enrico Morricone. It was originally written as a music score for the movie “The Mission”, about a Jesuit priest in Brasil in the 18th century. The words offer a broad hope, even for life today. The piece speaks to our promises of justice, and a spiritual world where that justice is the foundation.
In my fantasy, I see a just world.
Where everyone lives in peace and honesty.
I dream of souls that are always free.
Like the clouds that float full of humanity
in the depths of the soul.
In my fantasy I see a bright world
where each night there is less darkness.
I dream of spirits that are always free,
like the clouds that float.
In my fantasy exists a warm wind
that blows into the city, like a friend.
I dream of souls that are always free,
like the clouds that float full of humanity,
in the depths of the soul.
******************************************************************************
Sources:
1. Diana Butler Bass, Christianity for the Rest of Us. HarperSanFrancisco, 2006.
2. Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium (New York, Doubleday, 1998.) 4.
3. Rev. Thomas Hall, from the sermon “Who Said You Could Do That?”
4. Nella Fantasia, by Chiara Ferrau and Enrico Morricone.
Jerusalem, - a city of over three million people, packed with even more people who have walked across the Negev, the Shepelah, from the Mediterranean coast, and the Tigris /Euphrates basin, to commemorate their liberation from oppression in Egypt.
From the time of Moses, when the law was given, sacrifice was part and parcel of Passover. But many people didn’t want the hassle of getting animals across the desert, and maybe losing the animal altogether. Many people preferred to buy in the city, and save time and effort.
Why animals being sold in the Temple? The historian Josephus suggests that a feud between the Sanhedrin and Caiaphas, the High Priest, forced the Sanhedrin from their office space in the Temple. In retaliation, the Sanhedrin invited merchants to sell animals outside the Temple area, near them. Not to be out-retaliated, Caiaphas allowed merchants to sell animals and exchange money inside the Temple precinct. Worshippers could not use official secular money - they had to exchange it for Temple money. So the outer courtyard where the Gentiles came to worship was full of animals, tables and the sound the secular coinage being exchanged for kosher coinage, and the Temple precinct was as well. A place of worship was turned into a trading post. Neither the Jews nor the Gentile converts could worship.
Jesus entered Jerusalem. He didn’t go there very often, and maybe hadn’t kept up on the inner politics of the temple. He went planning to spend time in worship and prayer, and found instead a market where the poor were being charged exorbitant prices, and brisk commercial enterprises. He grabbed some cords and tied them into a whip, set the animals loose, hurled the tables of the money-changers over, sending the money all over the ground, and screamed “You have turned this place of worship into a shopping mall."
I bet it was difficult for people to decide if they should applaud Jesus, or be embarrassed at his behaviour. This was pretty unusual, even for Jesus. Most of the worshippers probably wanted to come for some comfort, and calmness. Not only could they not get it in this already noisy place, but the whole day is shot when Jesus has a tantrum and brings everything to a spectacular halt.
In the Gospel, John has Jesus fired up that a place of worship had been turned into a marketplace, a money-making event. He defended Jesus’ actions as a case of confronting extortion and worship-gouging, and using the temple as a place to work out hostilities. Not only had the time of Passover been turned into a time of making more money for the temple, but the real core of the festival - the promise of God that there would be freedom from oppression - had been subsumed into oppression of others by the religious leaders. My vision of Jesus in this instant is that he was vein-popping furious.
In John’s gospel we’re right in the middle of a worship war. It isn’t about selling Fair Trade coffee after the service, raising funds for an outreach project. It is about far more than that. It is about God’s promise to the people, and the people believing the promise, only to be squeezed into another kind of oppression by the very ones who are supposed to be helping them grow in faith. It is about personal hostilities, and corporate greed being lived out even inside a place of worship. Jesus brings the focus right back to the purpose of worship and justice, and how they are lived out in the world.
There’s a clue here about the promise, too. Jesus was asked to show a miraculous sign that his authority is from God. Jesus responded, "OK, I’ll give you a sign. Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again. Top that one."
What no one realised, except perhaps Jesus, was a clear intimation of the renewed promise of God. John of course painted the listeners as really thick - all they could think of was the physical temple being completely razed, and Jesus somehow magically putting it all back together. Jesus, once again, left them with a zinger loaded with meaning.
On that day Jesus challenged an entire system - the street address that locked God to a specific place on earth, the way business was done, and the confidence placed in a structure that was supposed to last forever. He walked in, claimed a new authority, and another locus of worship: Jesus named himself as the new temple in which the Spirit of God lived.
There are two things outstanding in this reading for me. First, the issue of justice, which was among the commandments given to Moses, and contained in the Torah. Or perhaps I should say the issue of a gross injustice being perpetrated by a group of religious leaders who had themselves lived as slaves, and were now making slaves out of others who only wished to worship and live in peace.
In the book “Christianity for the Rest of Us”, Diana Butler Bass quotes theologian and biblical scholar Walter Wink, about the powers of the world - and I think this quote gets to the core of what really hit Jesus in that moment. Wink says:
“The Powers That Be are not, then, simply people and their institutions as I had first thought; they also include the spirituality at the core of those institutions and structures. If we want to change those systems, we will have to address not only their outer forms, but their inner spirit as well.”
In his sermon “Who Said You Could Do That?”, Rev. Thomas Hall asks if we run through our orders of worship and are more concerned about doing it right, than whether our whole being is attuned to worshipping God.
In the issues of justice, and belief in a promise, have we allowed lesser authorities to supplant God? Doing justice means first that we have to believe in the promises of God. If we believe the promises, then we move into the world witnessing to others about the peaceable realm of God.
I think in the moments when Jesus turned everything upside down, he realised the connection of worship and justice. If we believe the promises God made, then our worship has to reflect in every way a commitment to those promises. The result of that worship is to motivate us to live that out by engaging the spiritual centre of those powers which push God to the side.
The whole story of church renewal and transformation is a story of being willing to engage again with our faith, and make a commitment to discipleship which takes us outside the boundaries and outside the box. A fantasy? Perhaps - but Paul tells us in Corinthians that God’s foolishness is wiser than our wisdom - and we are encouraged, and exhorted, through faith, to engage any powers which prevent the coming of the realm of God.
I’m going to close with a piece of music called “Nella Fantasia” - “In my fantasy”. The words are by Chiara Ferrau, music by Enrico Morricone. It was originally written as a music score for the movie “The Mission”, about a Jesuit priest in Brasil in the 18th century. The words offer a broad hope, even for life today. The piece speaks to our promises of justice, and a spiritual world where that justice is the foundation.
In my fantasy, I see a just world.
Where everyone lives in peace and honesty.
I dream of souls that are always free.
Like the clouds that float full of humanity
in the depths of the soul.
In my fantasy I see a bright world
where each night there is less darkness.
I dream of spirits that are always free,
like the clouds that float.
In my fantasy exists a warm wind
that blows into the city, like a friend.
I dream of souls that are always free,
like the clouds that float full of humanity,
in the depths of the soul.
******************************************************************************
Sources:
1. Diana Butler Bass, Christianity for the Rest of Us. HarperSanFrancisco, 2006.
2. Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium (New York, Doubleday, 1998.) 4.
3. Rev. Thomas Hall, from the sermon “Who Said You Could Do That?”
4. Nella Fantasia, by Chiara Ferrau and Enrico Morricone.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Knowing the Promise Lent 2 Genesis 17;1-7, 15-16, Romans 4:13-25
Second in a series based on Diana Butler Bass' "Christianity for the Rest of Us"
A lay colleague of mine, Anna Murdock, tells a story of a dream. Anna is new to faith. She writes, often, about everything. What is enlivening and exciting about Anna is that she sees our faith through new eyes, and often sees things we don’t. Here is her dream.
“The pastor called to ask if there was anything that he could pick up for me at the Cokesbury bookstore. I asked him to pick up a particular study Bible and he said that he would. A week later, it arrived. I opened the Bible slowly, with the same reverence I open any new, treasured book. My eyes fell on the open page, where I saw, written in the pastor’s own handwriting, some God -words that he had recently e-mailed to me. I turned more pages, and throughout this Bible, the words that he had offered to me through the years, the Scriptures he had passed to me, the prayers he had e-mailed, were there in the margins and the spaces... all carefully written in his handwriting. Tears began to fall as I realized that all that he had to offer to me were indeed steeped in his prayers for me, and in God's words offered for him to pass on to me. I turned page after page. Intermingled with the pastor’s handwriting were other handwritings that I didn't recognize, but words that were familiar to me and cherished. In the box that the Bible came in was a gold pen. The ink was the same as that of the writing.”
Anna’s story is one of many things. It is one of hospitality, faith and discernment, recognising a promise, and healing. Anna found herself welcomed into the church in a way which spoke to her soul. Her journey in faith is one of finding true hospitality; it is one of seeking and discerning a direction, and Anna will be the first to tell you that the way is not always clear; but she will also tell you that in the process she is being healed.
When we are asked about our hospitality in the church, we tend to talk about the coffee time after the service, or our groups which meet for entertainment, cocktail parties and meals, or how welcoming we are if people walk in our door. These are all part of hospitality, of course. But isn’t there more than this? Henri Nouwen, the Catholic writer, says today’s Christians are in fact nomads, part of “a world of strangers, estranged from their own past, culture, and country, their neighbours, friends and family, from their deepest self, and their God.” In our contemporary and fragmented world, there is no other choice than to become a kind of nomad. He says that if there is “any concept worth restoring to its original depth and evocative potential, it is the concept of hospitality.” We often speak about God’s radical hospitality. It is radical. It is a hospitality which says everyone - even those who have a criminal record, or those who don’t look like us or think like us, those who are not from our socio-economic level - are all welcome in God’s house and at God’s table - and if we are hospitable we treat them with care and respect. Too often, though, our notion of hospitality is more of a strategy to get people to come in to church. It is manipulative, and frankly most people see through it.
Diana Butler Bass says “True Christian hospitality is not a recruitment strategy designed to manipulate strangers into church membership. Rather, it is a central practice of the Christian faith - something Christians are called to do just for the sake of that thing itself. Hospitality draws from the ancient taproots of the Christian faith, from the soil of the Middle East, where it is considered a primary virtue of community.” Through our hospitality we are to be imitators of God’s promise, and God’s welcome. The people of Cornerstone United Methodist Church in Florida would put it this way ‘ We don’t care who you are, where you come from, what color you are, what your background is, with whom you share your life. You are here now, at Cornerstone and you are a brother and sister.” Some of the Cornerstone people have never been part of a church before. They are the Annas, who come looking, and are offered the freedom to ask and not be criticised, to have ideas and not be judged. Opening our doors means an intentional opening of our hearts, putting ourselves at risk in order to offer to others the welcome God has offered to us.
In recent weeks you have heard me use the word discernment. We use it a lot in the church, and it generally means a “search for answers”. In the process for ministry, discernment is often seen as jumping through a whole lot of hoops in order to get to the point of being ordained. Discernment, is both an individual process, and also a community process of listening for truth, or hearing with our hearts and souls, the promise God has made, and continues to make. Discernment is finding out who we are as a spiritual community, what the purpose of our spiritual community is, and what the promise of our spiritual community is.
Look at the story of Abram and Sarai. They could have dismissed what God was trying to tell them as hopeless. Instead, they heard with their hearts that God did have something in store for them, long after they had given up. They heard the promise with their hearts, and believed the promise with their hearts. Diana Butler Bass quotes the story of Mary Magdalene in the garden, seeing Jesus again and not recognising him with her eyes; but when he speaks to her, recognising him with her heart, and hearing the truth. Bass quotes Rev. Randolph Charles, who says “The Easter life consists of finding our true identity in God, and knowing that God has given us something to do.” The Easter life, as lived out in a community of faith, always requires listening, reading, praying both individually and together. For the Annas of this world, those who are listening with all their hearts and souls; and for those of us who have been part of a church community for so long that we’ve lost the way. Learning to listen for God, and listen to God. There is a caveat, though - as my friend Anna would tell you. Discernment is a dangerous religious practice, because it involves self-examination, self-self-criticism, questions and risks - and discernment often sets us off in a totally different direction in our lives.
Discernment today, in a re-emergent church, is a spiritual process for a congregation to be “born again”. Discernment points the way, guides, the way, and becomes the way. Think about that - discernment points, guides, and becomes the way. When we hear the promise from God, in our hearts, and are willing to walk the road in faith, discernment becomes the way - it becomes our way of life.
And in finding our way, we also find a concept of shalom - an expression of God’s harmony. God’s shalom, the shalom of God’s creation, is a healing of creation. Shalom is closely related to salvation, the healing of the disordered and broken into the harmony of its created wholeness.” the very centre of shalom is communal harmony.
Growing in faith as a spiritual community is a process. It doesn’t happen overnight. We live out the hospitality God has shared with us, by learning to be hospitable. We listen for God’s word to our hearts in our community, and we trust those words. In the discerning and the hospitality we also find a way to harmony and healing. It is God’s promise - a promise which we have had for years, since the beginning of time. We know the promise. It’s a matter of hearing it again, of listening with our hearts and finding God leading on the way.
Sources:
All quotes taken from the book "Christianity for the Rest of Us" by Diana Butler Bass.
A lay colleague of mine, Anna Murdock, tells a story of a dream. Anna is new to faith. She writes, often, about everything. What is enlivening and exciting about Anna is that she sees our faith through new eyes, and often sees things we don’t. Here is her dream.
“The pastor called to ask if there was anything that he could pick up for me at the Cokesbury bookstore. I asked him to pick up a particular study Bible and he said that he would. A week later, it arrived. I opened the Bible slowly, with the same reverence I open any new, treasured book. My eyes fell on the open page, where I saw, written in the pastor’s own handwriting, some God -words that he had recently e-mailed to me. I turned more pages, and throughout this Bible, the words that he had offered to me through the years, the Scriptures he had passed to me, the prayers he had e-mailed, were there in the margins and the spaces... all carefully written in his handwriting. Tears began to fall as I realized that all that he had to offer to me were indeed steeped in his prayers for me, and in God's words offered for him to pass on to me. I turned page after page. Intermingled with the pastor’s handwriting were other handwritings that I didn't recognize, but words that were familiar to me and cherished. In the box that the Bible came in was a gold pen. The ink was the same as that of the writing.”
Anna’s story is one of many things. It is one of hospitality, faith and discernment, recognising a promise, and healing. Anna found herself welcomed into the church in a way which spoke to her soul. Her journey in faith is one of finding true hospitality; it is one of seeking and discerning a direction, and Anna will be the first to tell you that the way is not always clear; but she will also tell you that in the process she is being healed.
When we are asked about our hospitality in the church, we tend to talk about the coffee time after the service, or our groups which meet for entertainment, cocktail parties and meals, or how welcoming we are if people walk in our door. These are all part of hospitality, of course. But isn’t there more than this? Henri Nouwen, the Catholic writer, says today’s Christians are in fact nomads, part of “a world of strangers, estranged from their own past, culture, and country, their neighbours, friends and family, from their deepest self, and their God.” In our contemporary and fragmented world, there is no other choice than to become a kind of nomad. He says that if there is “any concept worth restoring to its original depth and evocative potential, it is the concept of hospitality.” We often speak about God’s radical hospitality. It is radical. It is a hospitality which says everyone - even those who have a criminal record, or those who don’t look like us or think like us, those who are not from our socio-economic level - are all welcome in God’s house and at God’s table - and if we are hospitable we treat them with care and respect. Too often, though, our notion of hospitality is more of a strategy to get people to come in to church. It is manipulative, and frankly most people see through it.
Diana Butler Bass says “True Christian hospitality is not a recruitment strategy designed to manipulate strangers into church membership. Rather, it is a central practice of the Christian faith - something Christians are called to do just for the sake of that thing itself. Hospitality draws from the ancient taproots of the Christian faith, from the soil of the Middle East, where it is considered a primary virtue of community.” Through our hospitality we are to be imitators of God’s promise, and God’s welcome. The people of Cornerstone United Methodist Church in Florida would put it this way ‘ We don’t care who you are, where you come from, what color you are, what your background is, with whom you share your life. You are here now, at Cornerstone and you are a brother and sister.” Some of the Cornerstone people have never been part of a church before. They are the Annas, who come looking, and are offered the freedom to ask and not be criticised, to have ideas and not be judged. Opening our doors means an intentional opening of our hearts, putting ourselves at risk in order to offer to others the welcome God has offered to us.
In recent weeks you have heard me use the word discernment. We use it a lot in the church, and it generally means a “search for answers”. In the process for ministry, discernment is often seen as jumping through a whole lot of hoops in order to get to the point of being ordained. Discernment, is both an individual process, and also a community process of listening for truth, or hearing with our hearts and souls, the promise God has made, and continues to make. Discernment is finding out who we are as a spiritual community, what the purpose of our spiritual community is, and what the promise of our spiritual community is.
Look at the story of Abram and Sarai. They could have dismissed what God was trying to tell them as hopeless. Instead, they heard with their hearts that God did have something in store for them, long after they had given up. They heard the promise with their hearts, and believed the promise with their hearts. Diana Butler Bass quotes the story of Mary Magdalene in the garden, seeing Jesus again and not recognising him with her eyes; but when he speaks to her, recognising him with her heart, and hearing the truth. Bass quotes Rev. Randolph Charles, who says “The Easter life consists of finding our true identity in God, and knowing that God has given us something to do.” The Easter life, as lived out in a community of faith, always requires listening, reading, praying both individually and together. For the Annas of this world, those who are listening with all their hearts and souls; and for those of us who have been part of a church community for so long that we’ve lost the way. Learning to listen for God, and listen to God. There is a caveat, though - as my friend Anna would tell you. Discernment is a dangerous religious practice, because it involves self-examination, self-self-criticism, questions and risks - and discernment often sets us off in a totally different direction in our lives.
Discernment today, in a re-emergent church, is a spiritual process for a congregation to be “born again”. Discernment points the way, guides, the way, and becomes the way. Think about that - discernment points, guides, and becomes the way. When we hear the promise from God, in our hearts, and are willing to walk the road in faith, discernment becomes the way - it becomes our way of life.
And in finding our way, we also find a concept of shalom - an expression of God’s harmony. God’s shalom, the shalom of God’s creation, is a healing of creation. Shalom is closely related to salvation, the healing of the disordered and broken into the harmony of its created wholeness.” the very centre of shalom is communal harmony.
Growing in faith as a spiritual community is a process. It doesn’t happen overnight. We live out the hospitality God has shared with us, by learning to be hospitable. We listen for God’s word to our hearts in our community, and we trust those words. In the discerning and the hospitality we also find a way to harmony and healing. It is God’s promise - a promise which we have had for years, since the beginning of time. We know the promise. It’s a matter of hearing it again, of listening with our hearts and finding God leading on the way.
Sources:
All quotes taken from the book "Christianity for the Rest of Us" by Diana Butler Bass.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Living the Promise, Lent 1, 2009 Genesis 9: 8-17, Mark 1:9-15
(First in a series based on the book "Christianity for the Rest of Us", by Diana Butler Bass)
As a child, my earliest strong memory of “church” was about the time we moved to Prince Albert, in Saskatchewan. My father had been called to Wesley United Church, and was involved heavily in the building of a new imposing structure, complete with Casavant pipe organ. It was just 1950 - the heyday of churches, and Wesley United was clearly in the vanguard of ths heyday. Prince Albert was not large, but like most settlements in North America, the Protestant churches had presence and power. The fifties and sixties, following the war, were a time of great growth in churches. The economy was booming, almost everyone was Christian, and churches went up everywhere.
But look a little closer at the history of Prince Albert. The Cree natives called it kistahpinanihk, the “sitting pretty place”, or “great meeting place”. The first farmer, on the site where the current city is, was an Anglo-Metis named James Isbister, an employee of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Chinese immigrants who worked the railroad also settled in Prince Albert - even in 1950 there were established businesses run by Chinese. Prince Albert, like Canada, was not founded or settled by Christians alone - our history is much more complex than that. By 1950, of course, the Cree natives who were the original inhabitants had been relegated to a reserve, across the river from the town, and the Chinese and Jewish populations were only visible if you really went looking.
Prince Albert isn’t gone, it is growing of course, and if I go back now, Wesley United is still there. But it isn’t the same any more. The town of Prince Albert in which I grew up simply isn’t there.
In her book “Christianity for the Rest of Us”, Diana Butler Bass talks about growing up in a part of Baltimore, Maryland, called Hamilton. She says “I grew up in a village that has vanished. .... Although Hamilton exists on the map, my childhood universe - an urban village of the 1960's - is gone. It’s almost as if it never existed at all. The names may be the same, but there are no maps, no freeway exits, back to the place that once was.” This is a story played out across all of North America. The landscape has changed dramatically, and it isn’t going to go back again.
Both Noah and Jesus had experience of dramatic change in their lives. In the case of Noah, the village he knew, and everything in it, disappeared. There was no way to return, even if he could have found the right landmarks. He had to beach the ark on an unknown piece of land, and start all over again. He did have his family with him, and some animals - and that was about it. The path of his life was altered irrevocably when he entered into relationship with God.
Jesus had a similar experience, and I struggle with whether or not it was intentional. I choose to believe it wasn’t. Jesus also entered into a relationship with God, and his life was irrevocably changed. Mark’s Gospel has offered us the bare bones of the story. Jesus was baptised, and Mark says that the Spirit sent him into the desert, and he was with the wild animals, but tended by angels. Mark says that when John was put in prison, Jesus began preaching about the coming realm. So Jesus began preaching about change when you enter into relationship with God.
Both Noah and Jesus, in their own way, had to go into the wilderness. They had to let go of everything they were familiar with, and trust God. They had to allow their entire lives to be changed by their faith, and by their exercise of that faith. Noah and his family lived on the ark with wild animals, and then got off the ark - somewhere. The story tells us God was with them. Jesus lived in the wilderness with wild animals, in a place unfamiliar to him, and on his own. But the story lets us know God was with him there too.
What does it mean for us to be in the wilderness? When are the times we feel we are the only ones facing uncertain futures? What makes us fearful? Do we want to circle the wagons and shut things out, hoping just to survive? Being in a wilderness means confronting our deepest longings and needs, and exposes us to danger - whether real or not. Neither Noah nor Jesus was actually harmed - so perhaps the wild animals in both places are a metaphor for those things in life which make us fearful.
Diana Butler Bass says “All over the planet, villages are vanishing. We know that everything is changing, that some sort of new world is emerging. Everywhere. And we have no idea what it is becoming.”
The book, “Christianity for the Rest of Us” , examines fifty congregations across the United States where new things are happening, from six denominations considered mainline churches, which are now considered to be in the minority in the Christian landscape. It is noted in the book that there is a myth around that only evangelical churches can grow, mainline churches can’t. Of these fifty churches, ten are studied in-depth. They are all mainline churches, not evangelical. Hence the title of the book - while the common perspective is that only evangelical or conservative churches are growing, the rest of us Christians are working away quietly and also growing and having an impact.
Of course the church is in the throes of this massive shift happening throughout our cultures. From being in a place where everyone else was like us, and we all did pretty much the same things - we are now dealing with congregants born post-1965 who don’t relate to that at all. In a sense, they are already more comfortable in the wilderness, and with the emerging world.
What if the time in the wilderness is where real vision of the peaceable realm of God comes? What if the time in the wilderness gave Jesus the insight and hope to begin preaching and teaching and healing and loving - wherever he was?
Diana Butler Bass says there are a couple of different sorts of Christians today. “There are those who prefer to build walled villages and do not want to see, and those who take risks in the wilderness and are willing to open their eyes.” The people who are willing to go into the wilderness are seekers on a faith journey, learning again what it means to live as a Christian and be a Christian in a rapidly changing world. They are forming a new kind of village, as a “pilgrim community”, rediscovering Christianity. She notes that the churches she visited were certainly not perfect, but they embodied courage, creativity, imagination, and risk. They were looking for new language to express their ideals, recreating their structures in a way which emphasised spirituality. They were experimenting with new forms of worship and living in community. It is sometimes called transformational church, but a term I like better is the re-remergent church.
The wisdom of this renewed, re-emergent church is, not surprisingly, based in a solid biblical model. “You preach the gospel, offer hospitality, and pay attention to worship and people’s spiritual lives. Frankly, you take Christianity seriously as a way of life.”
At the end of the story of Noah, God makes a promise. “It is a hard thing, to believe in a promise with no power to make it come true. Everything is in the future tense - the land.....the blessing. Everything will happen, by and by, but in the meantime what is there to live on now?
And yet. What better way to live than in the grip of a promise, and a divine one at that? Who in her right mind would give that back? To wake every morning to the possibility that today might be the day - to take nothing for granted. Or to take everything as granted, although not yet grasped....
To live like that is to discover that the blessing is not future but now. The promise may not be fully in hand. It may still be on the way, but to live reverently, deliberately, and fully awake - that is what it means to live in the promise, where the wait itself is just as rich as the end. All it takes are some regular reminders, because as long as the promise is renewed, the promise is alive, as vivid as a rainbow, as real as the million stars overhead.”
Sources:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Albert,_Saskatchewan
2. Diana Butler Bass, “Christianity for the Rest of Us”. HarperSanFrancisco, 2006.
3. Diana Butler Bass
4. Diana Butler Bass
5. Barbara Brown Taylor, from the sermon The Late Bloomer in Gospel Medicine, Cowley Publications, 1995.
As a child, my earliest strong memory of “church” was about the time we moved to Prince Albert, in Saskatchewan. My father had been called to Wesley United Church, and was involved heavily in the building of a new imposing structure, complete with Casavant pipe organ. It was just 1950 - the heyday of churches, and Wesley United was clearly in the vanguard of ths heyday. Prince Albert was not large, but like most settlements in North America, the Protestant churches had presence and power. The fifties and sixties, following the war, were a time of great growth in churches. The economy was booming, almost everyone was Christian, and churches went up everywhere.
But look a little closer at the history of Prince Albert. The Cree natives called it kistahpinanihk, the “sitting pretty place”, or “great meeting place”. The first farmer, on the site where the current city is, was an Anglo-Metis named James Isbister, an employee of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Chinese immigrants who worked the railroad also settled in Prince Albert - even in 1950 there were established businesses run by Chinese. Prince Albert, like Canada, was not founded or settled by Christians alone - our history is much more complex than that. By 1950, of course, the Cree natives who were the original inhabitants had been relegated to a reserve, across the river from the town, and the Chinese and Jewish populations were only visible if you really went looking.
Prince Albert isn’t gone, it is growing of course, and if I go back now, Wesley United is still there. But it isn’t the same any more. The town of Prince Albert in which I grew up simply isn’t there.
In her book “Christianity for the Rest of Us”, Diana Butler Bass talks about growing up in a part of Baltimore, Maryland, called Hamilton. She says “I grew up in a village that has vanished. .... Although Hamilton exists on the map, my childhood universe - an urban village of the 1960's - is gone. It’s almost as if it never existed at all. The names may be the same, but there are no maps, no freeway exits, back to the place that once was.” This is a story played out across all of North America. The landscape has changed dramatically, and it isn’t going to go back again.
Both Noah and Jesus had experience of dramatic change in their lives. In the case of Noah, the village he knew, and everything in it, disappeared. There was no way to return, even if he could have found the right landmarks. He had to beach the ark on an unknown piece of land, and start all over again. He did have his family with him, and some animals - and that was about it. The path of his life was altered irrevocably when he entered into relationship with God.
Jesus had a similar experience, and I struggle with whether or not it was intentional. I choose to believe it wasn’t. Jesus also entered into a relationship with God, and his life was irrevocably changed. Mark’s Gospel has offered us the bare bones of the story. Jesus was baptised, and Mark says that the Spirit sent him into the desert, and he was with the wild animals, but tended by angels. Mark says that when John was put in prison, Jesus began preaching about the coming realm. So Jesus began preaching about change when you enter into relationship with God.
Both Noah and Jesus, in their own way, had to go into the wilderness. They had to let go of everything they were familiar with, and trust God. They had to allow their entire lives to be changed by their faith, and by their exercise of that faith. Noah and his family lived on the ark with wild animals, and then got off the ark - somewhere. The story tells us God was with them. Jesus lived in the wilderness with wild animals, in a place unfamiliar to him, and on his own. But the story lets us know God was with him there too.
What does it mean for us to be in the wilderness? When are the times we feel we are the only ones facing uncertain futures? What makes us fearful? Do we want to circle the wagons and shut things out, hoping just to survive? Being in a wilderness means confronting our deepest longings and needs, and exposes us to danger - whether real or not. Neither Noah nor Jesus was actually harmed - so perhaps the wild animals in both places are a metaphor for those things in life which make us fearful.
Diana Butler Bass says “All over the planet, villages are vanishing. We know that everything is changing, that some sort of new world is emerging. Everywhere. And we have no idea what it is becoming.”
The book, “Christianity for the Rest of Us” , examines fifty congregations across the United States where new things are happening, from six denominations considered mainline churches, which are now considered to be in the minority in the Christian landscape. It is noted in the book that there is a myth around that only evangelical churches can grow, mainline churches can’t. Of these fifty churches, ten are studied in-depth. They are all mainline churches, not evangelical. Hence the title of the book - while the common perspective is that only evangelical or conservative churches are growing, the rest of us Christians are working away quietly and also growing and having an impact.
Of course the church is in the throes of this massive shift happening throughout our cultures. From being in a place where everyone else was like us, and we all did pretty much the same things - we are now dealing with congregants born post-1965 who don’t relate to that at all. In a sense, they are already more comfortable in the wilderness, and with the emerging world.
What if the time in the wilderness is where real vision of the peaceable realm of God comes? What if the time in the wilderness gave Jesus the insight and hope to begin preaching and teaching and healing and loving - wherever he was?
Diana Butler Bass says there are a couple of different sorts of Christians today. “There are those who prefer to build walled villages and do not want to see, and those who take risks in the wilderness and are willing to open their eyes.” The people who are willing to go into the wilderness are seekers on a faith journey, learning again what it means to live as a Christian and be a Christian in a rapidly changing world. They are forming a new kind of village, as a “pilgrim community”, rediscovering Christianity. She notes that the churches she visited were certainly not perfect, but they embodied courage, creativity, imagination, and risk. They were looking for new language to express their ideals, recreating their structures in a way which emphasised spirituality. They were experimenting with new forms of worship and living in community. It is sometimes called transformational church, but a term I like better is the re-remergent church.
The wisdom of this renewed, re-emergent church is, not surprisingly, based in a solid biblical model. “You preach the gospel, offer hospitality, and pay attention to worship and people’s spiritual lives. Frankly, you take Christianity seriously as a way of life.”
At the end of the story of Noah, God makes a promise. “It is a hard thing, to believe in a promise with no power to make it come true. Everything is in the future tense - the land.....the blessing. Everything will happen, by and by, but in the meantime what is there to live on now?
And yet. What better way to live than in the grip of a promise, and a divine one at that? Who in her right mind would give that back? To wake every morning to the possibility that today might be the day - to take nothing for granted. Or to take everything as granted, although not yet grasped....
To live like that is to discover that the blessing is not future but now. The promise may not be fully in hand. It may still be on the way, but to live reverently, deliberately, and fully awake - that is what it means to live in the promise, where the wait itself is just as rich as the end. All it takes are some regular reminders, because as long as the promise is renewed, the promise is alive, as vivid as a rainbow, as real as the million stars overhead.”
Sources:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Albert,_Saskatchewan
2. Diana Butler Bass, “Christianity for the Rest of Us”. HarperSanFrancisco, 2006.
3. Diana Butler Bass
4. Diana Butler Bass
5. Barbara Brown Taylor, from the sermon The Late Bloomer in Gospel Medicine, Cowley Publications, 1995.
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