Keep Moving Forward

“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.

Since last week’s celebration of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., I have been pondering this quote. It speaks to me when I find myself discouraged and impatient. These words stand as a reminder that what each of us can do, each day, is keep going. Step by step, into an often uncertain future.

As the Church, this is our calling. At this time of rapid cultural change, we must keep looking ahead to the future God has prepared. The trick is figuring out what that is, and discovering how each of us can keep moving forward. As God draws us toward Him, standing still is not an option.

Kelly

When We Love One Another

Today we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. who said “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” As we honor this man with this Federal holiday in America and celebrations around the world for freedom of all human beings ‘we must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” He felt that “life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?” As Christians we should be following his example that “an individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns, to the broader concerns of all humanity.” Wow, powerful stuff!

This past year we also celebrated the life of another man who had many of these same virtues, Nelson Mandela, whose release from prison in 1990 and the passage in South Africa in 1992 of a referendum ending Apartheid, was history making around the world. Many of us in the Episcopal Church in the Northwest did not realize at the time that we were a part of it, but we were?

In the summer of 1983, my wife Doreen and I were fortunate to attend a family camp at Ascension Summer School, Cove, Oregon in the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Oregon. The featured speaker was unadvertised and was Desmond Tutu of South Africa and our lives were probably changed forever. His message was loud and clear. “Each of us carries a piece of God’s heart within us. And when we love one another, the pieces of God’s heart are made whole.”

Little did we know when we went to family camp in 1985, that then Bishop of Hawaii, Edmond Browning, and wife Patty, would touch our lives. He and Bishop Rustin Kimsey (a personal friend) of the Diocese of Eastern Oregon baptized our two oldest granddaughters at that time. Presiding Bishop Edmund Lee Browning and “No Outcasts” were to be a part of lives forever.

In 1986 Bishop Kimsey and P.B. Browning went to South Africa to attend Bishop Tutu’s enthronement as Archbishop of Cape Town and were an important part of the Episcopal Church’s strong influence in the sanctions against South Africa that led to the 1992 referendum. Bishop Stephen F. Bayne, Jr. of the Diocese of Olympia and his spirit of “Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ” were important to Ed Browning.

We met the Brownings again at Ascension Summer School at Cove when Bishop Browning was retiring as P.B.. They ended up retiring in Hood River, Oregon, attending St. Mark’s Episcopal Church where I was Baptized and Confirmed and in youth groups 1946-1953. Ed Browning is a champion of our present Bishop Greg Rickel. What a small world it is indeed!


Chuck

P.S. I would be remiss on this date, as my wife and I are 12th-man fans for 38 years and were at Super Bowl XL in Detroit in 2006, if I didn’t say: “GO HAWKS”!!
Amen

We've dropped the ball when it comes to communication

We've dropped the ball when it comes to communication.

The “meme” above was posted on Facebook by an acquaintance of mine who describes himself as an atheist. In reality, pretty much all he ever posts about is religion, particularly Christianity, albeit negatively. In Jungian terms, he's a shadow Christian, maybe even a shadow Episcopalian. Sure, one can negate the Nicene Creed, but even so one is still thinking in terms of it.

Typically, when we think of church communication, I bet most of us think of the church bulletin or the emails we get because we're already on a mailing list, etc. Our communication essentially consists of forming an inward-facing circle-- within church walls-- and disseminating information to each other about programs, schedules, church news, and so on. If you're reading this, chances are you're inside church walls, not outside them. We are in many cases literally preaching to the choir. And by “literally,” I mean actually.

Of course we need internal communication, but we also desperately need to communicate who we are and what we are about to those who are outside church walls.

Some of the points brought up at our last meeting include:

• We need to plant seeds, which will develop over time.
• We need to unpack the language that we use, both inside and outside church walls.
• People often think in terms of an artificial dichotomy of the Church and the World, when in fact the Kingdom of God knows no boundaries.
• We perceive resistance outside church walls to a false perception of who we are and what we're about.
• Teaching is a process that takes time.
• The church exists for the world, not for God.
• People are discussing theodicy, but the church is not.
• There is a focus on superstition rather than faith.

The common strand I see tying all of these points together is that they are aggravated by our failure to communicate what we stand for.

There is a marketplace of ideas in our culture and we are not participating. How many of you see anti-church “memes” such as the one above, deriding or mocking extreme positions that are not representative of the church? These memes are based on ignorance, but the fact that they are ubiquitous suggests that people outside church walls are pondering, even if unconsciously, theological issues. While I'm not suggesting that we necessarily respond in terms of how someone else may have framed an issue, people outside church walls will listen and be influenced by the voices they hear. If we're not speaking up-- and out-- we're not participating in the theological debates taking place in society.

Ironically, we have much to communicate that would resonate with those outside church walls. For example, St. Paul's in Bellingham has a growing Alms Ministry that provides immediate one-time financial assistance to those in need, Trinity Parish in Seattle supports a food bank that feeds hundreds of people each week, and Episcopal Relief and Development responds to natural disasters without proselytizing. These are but three examples, but they are representative of what is going on in every parish in the church. I'll bet information about these programs would be very well received by those outside church walls if we'd only engage them where they are.

If we don't communicate outside church walls, we are expecting those outside church walls to read our minds, and that's crazy. Worse, if we don't speak for ourselves, others will. And when people get the wrong idea we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

Brad

A Pronoun Shift

“They won’t make any changes.”

“She/he isn’t doing the right things.”

This is often how we talk about each other, especially where we’re struggling. Clergy point toward their congregations and claim, “They aren’t willing to (fill in the blank).” Parishioners point toward their clergy and say, “She/he doesn’t (fill in the blank).” We blame and deflect.

In healthy, productive organizations pronouns tend toward “We” and “I”.

“We are starting a new community food program, and I have committed to….” Or it might be, “We are struggling to agree about how to move forward, and I have committed to participate honestly in the conversation and pray that God’s will be done.” These pronouns don’t preclude disagreement or honest feedback, but they do shift the ground we’re standing on.

Our behavior isn’t surprising; we see it throughout our culture. However, it isn’t spiritually or organizationally healthy. It doesn’t make us attractive to Most People (to borrow from Brad). It especially doesn’t make us attractive to younger people, who express great frustration and despair about blame and shame in our broader culture.

We’re the people who emphasize grace. We recognize the presence of Jesus in the other. These things are attractive; they come from and reflect God. I commit to language that builds rather than blames – with God’s help.

Greg

Hopeful Choices: Inviting Conversations about Dying and Death

I’m President of The Hospice Foundation for Jefferson HealthCare, and, wearing that “hat”, I want to say that I deeply believe we have an urgent and vital ministry, inside and outside church walls, to open up and invite conversations about dying and death and the thoughtful planning needed for the end-of-life journey we hope to make. It’s a ministry I think has remained in the shadows for too long. We have hopeful gifts to offer to all the people in our communities if we are willing to invite and engage them in planning, sooner rather than later, their desired “walk through the valley of the shadows of death”.

Elisbeth Kubler-Ross, On Death and Dying, says “Mankind’s greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear.”

Yes, indeed. That we will die is a fact, and one that we don’t easily face or talk about. We need lessons in how to do so. How we hope to die can be shaped by choices we make. If we don’t make them, preferably in conversation with our loved ones, they will be made for us.

I offer you one resource (there are many) and invite you to spend some thoughtful time with the questions posed by www.engagewithgrace.org. We all have choices to make for the journey of a lifetime from here to eternity. Now is the time.


~ MaryAnn

Community Conversations

With the New Year, many folks look ahead with anticipation and ambition. We make resolutions, begin new routines, set goals, and enjoy the opportunity to think about a fresh start. On Epiphany, the Wise Men also marked a fresh start – they completed their journey to Jesus and witnessed a new miracle for the world.

This Epiphany season, OCW is inviting the people of our diocese to engage in another sort of fresh start. The Community Conversation Project asks us to talk with our neighbors, ask a few simple questions, listen, and learn. It is an opportunity to see our communities with fresh eyes, and perhaps become aware of new ways to serve and meet needs. I hope your church will join in!

Kelly

Finding Courage in the Mess

"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

These words have been quoted frequently of late, taken from the new Pope’s recent Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”). This document contains much to challenge the modern church, Roman and otherwise, and much to challenge our world and current economic systems.

But this quote struck me particularly today, as I sat down after a day on the streets of Aberdeen. I can tell you that, today, the streets were bruised and hurting.

One of the reasons I joined the Episcopal Church was that I loved the order. I liked knowing the whole service by heart. I liked hearing the same words over and over until I felt like they became a part of me.

I have spent a good deal of my life doing church work. Working in churches. Going to seminary. Sitting in meetings (we Episcopalians do love our meetings!). In all of these places, I have developed nice little categories and boxes for everything. This person does this job. This little white cloth goes there. This order does this work. I believe and think this or that about God.

And I love all those nice, neat little boxes. It is secure. Safe. Orderly. Sensible. Everything is under control.

Then, I step into the world outside Sunday morning service and the altar guild and the vestry meeting and the committee meeting and the theology discussion group.

And, it is a mess. I can’t solve all its problems. I can’t heal its pain. Nothing is more uncomfortable than sitting with suffering, my own or others. After all the security of my churchy life, life outside seems full of chaos.

Then I take a closer look. Out here, life is real. It hurts. It’s messy—messy to navigate family relationships, messy to live in on the street, messy to search for work, messy to simply try to live and survive in a post-industrial economy. In the middle of it, however, I find courage. Not my courage. I witness the courage of men and women who defy the odds, who continue to hope and struggle and survive in the worst of circumstances.

I find the church. Because, beyond our parish walls, outside our registers, are thousands and millions of children of God, who weep and pray and love and live and suffer and hope. I have learned the gospel sitting by old abandoned buildings and in nursing homes and I have been taught to pray by men and women who have seen the worst life has to offer and can still pray.

Whether we believe it or not, whether we practice it or not, the church is not confined to our committee meetings or buildings or vestries.

The church is already out there, on the streets—messy, hurting, and courageous. Jesus builds his own church, with or without our help. When I read Pope Francis’ words, I wonder if it is simply a call for us to join the already present and active work of God in the world.

A call to be willing to give up our neat boxes and our security and our easy answers for the harder road of the cross, the harder road of sitting with the blood and sh** of real life and finding the gospel there.

Sarah