It only takes one mistake to mess up at least a day...often longer. I once spent about eighteen months trying to get back on balance after making an unwise decision. If we spend much time adding up the mistakes and missteps, we can become truly depressed. On the other hand, if we continually deny the fact that we have, or do, make mistakes, we end up living a deception that can cripple our growth...both psychologically and spiritually.
Recently, I spent a late morning/early afternoon watching the movie, "12 Years a Slave." It took me a few weeks to get to an emotional place to watch that movie. Human enslavement is the ugliest manifestation of hate and prejudice I can imagine...except for outright genocide. The further we get from the actual historical reality that the institution of slavery was a huge part of this culture's history, the more inclined we are to try to make it an historical footnote or something less than the horrible institution it was...especially as it was practiced on many southern plantations. This particular movie did not back away from the shocking and very painful realities of life as a plantation slave in the pre-Civil War south. I don't close my eyes often during a movie, but, when I do, it is because the scene is too gruesome to endure more than a few seconds.
"12 Years a Slave" is a must see movie, in my book. It grounds us in the truth of how we can abuse religion, people and circumstances to the point that it becomes a "new truth." I spent the afternoon...after seeing the movie...trying to piece together how I would survive twelve years being ripped from my family and thrown into a life-situation so harsh and hateful that dying would be preferable. To do this exercise, I had to "unwrite" the history we have written to justify this part of our nation's journey. I began writing it (in my mind) from the standpoint of one who actually lived it. It may be the hardest work I have ever done, and it took me several days to recover my balance, when I had completed that internal journey.
Why would I do such a thing? I have watched three "big screen" movies in the past month: "August: Osage County," "12 Years a Slave," and "Monuments Men." Each one of them explores deception and twisted truth: in a dysfunctional family, through institutional slavery, and through political tyranny (Nazism). I think I needed to do this, because I have found it all too easy to avoid the real truth by calling my scripted and culturally implanted morays and folkways "the truth." This isn't anyone's fault. My parents raised me with the best truth that they knew, but the truth with which we usually work is the product of our familial, cultural and educational conditioning. Most of our prejudices are ways of coping with our fears and low self-esteem. We often really do believe that we will feel better about ourselves, if we can somehow show that others are worse. It's a fairly common, but nonetheless insidious, methodology...and we really don't consciously know we are doing it.
The way we Christians often deal with all this is to find places in the Bible that justify our actions (theologians call this "proof texting"). Biblical literature is grounded in journeys into the deepest places of human experience; the encounter with God; struggle with ego and True Self; and the discovery of the fullness of life (also known as Salvation History....the Healing Journey, or Journey into Wholeness). However, one can get stuck in a place where our darkness gets confused with the light of truth. It is in such a place that we project our fear and self-hatred to justify actions that are not those of a loving, transforming God. This is explored at an uncomfortable level in "12 Years a Slave."
It is easy, in retrospect, to gather all of our current brokenness and project it backward upon history...sometimes rewriting the script to make it more "palatable." The near destruction of a people...the mass murder of 6 million Jews and the desecration of their culture...can seem inconceivable and leave us horrified at how humans could do this to other humans. We cringe at the enslavement of, and denigration of humans different in some way from ourselves...creating, in essence, a sub-human judgment on an entire ethnic culture. Yet, to actually put one's self in that place and possibility (of being the one who is enslaved or about to be killed in a death camp) can shatter the myth of being "saner" or "above" such possibilities.
This is going to be hard for me.
I am no stranger to self-hatred. I am no stranger to deep, internal fear: fear of failure, fear of loss, and the deep and dark self-judgment that can erupt into senseless rage...a projection of self-hatred onto those most loved. This started (it has become clear through years of therapy and spiritual direction) when I was about 12 years old. I didn't make that age number up. I now remember the day I awoke and, for whatever reason, found myself deeply worried. That anxiety gnawed at me and erupted into a fear that I had never known. As quickly as it emerged, it seemed to disappear...about eight or so months after it began. I settled into life, but ignored this seething fear deep within. I did not face it again...in its raw form... until almost 44 years later. By that time, I had done a significant amount of damage. During those years, a small thing would set off a charge way larger than the situation warranted. Words and actions would erupt that I tried desperately to "reel in" as they were escaping and then feel an almost instant, deep remorse.
I could justify this via the ego. I was a parish priest who "specialized" in working with parishes that had undergone experiences of deep conflict and turmoil. My work was high pressure. The hours and days were long. I would become exhausted. I would get anxious about failing. In short, I did not take very good care of myself. In the early days of therapy and spiritual direction, this was a handy excuse...and it was true. BUT, it could not justify losing control. I came to realize that seeking justification for actions originating from personal brokenness is, in true fact, a kind of "proof texting."
In 2004, I met a retired Episcopal Priest who is also a trained Jungian analyst. I also met a psychotherapist who was truly insightful. These two persons embarked with me on a healing journey that continues to this day (even though, since our move, I no longer see one or often talk to the other).
In 2007, I cried for a vision on an isolated hill in the center of the Black Hills, as Lakota mentors prayed for me. I cannot describe that four day process other than to say that what was deep inside was opened to the light.
In 2009, I spent three days with a group of men who supported me on a journey of self confrontation. To this day, I have no memory of how I moved through what can best be described as a rite. Like Jacob, I wrestled with my deepest self and, for the first time found the part of me known to God. It was a rebirth.
In 2012, I surrendered. That surrender of Ego that carries the filters through which we believe we see truth. It is that which St. Paul exclaims, "We see now through a glass darkly...then face-to-face..." The light of day dawned.
In the year 2013 and continuing now, the images of those moments of rage and the "vomiting" of that which I had consigned to the depths of my being, come to me in my dreams and pass in front of me in my contemplative prayer time. It is a reminder of the frailty of human psyche and the insidious power of projection...both inward and outward. I cannot undo what I have done; and in the moments where Ego gets a voice, I either wish I could have a "do over" or see myself as worthless. I let these images speak, and acknowledge their reality. In doing so...by naming them in that moment...they have no power. There is no darkness. It is, I think, what Jung meant by "making friends with your shadow."
Am I healed? Being healed is not like that...a finality. Life is a process. My internal enslavement is over. I seem to be in the 13th year. I want to go home...to the ones I love the most. Like Solomon Northrup, I have been on a difficult journey. I want to embrace what is now and what is to come.
Again, St. Paul speaks Truth. What we think wise in this world is foolishness to God. In the light of Truth, I can see the foolishness more clearly and step away more quickly. I am still me...always will be; but there is a truer me..the True Self...that is having ascendancy. The last element of the sacrament of confession is amendment of life. That is where I find myself. The Bible was never a finished product. It is still being written. The Spirit still broods over creation...and there is healing in Spirit's Wings.
Love and Blessings!
Fred+
25 February 2014
07 January 2014
Shifts and Balance
 |
| Winter Sky at Stonehaven - 7 January 2014 |
Further emergence into consciousness causes me to remember that my wife is not on the other side of the bed. Of course (I now get clarity), she is in New York City visiting our elder daughter for a few days. That provides another reason that I feel sluggish. We had arisen at 3:30am yesterday to get her to the airport for an early flight...and I had a busy day afterward. I now sit up -- eyes adjusting to the darkened surroundings. It is 5:25am. Nothing unusual. The Duchess (our dog) does this every morning around the same time. Today, however, I do not want to climb out of the warm bed.
I hear the wind outside. Our townhome condominium is very well built. If I hear the wind, that means more than a stiff breeze. I retrieve my smartphone, activate it and access the weather app. Local temperature: 38 degrees; winds from the NNE at 12mph with gusts to 25mph. The radar shows that it has been raining, but the band of showers is moving south and east. What's this?! There is a band of pink with the greens and yellows of the radar....sleet in Central Florida. It is always colder inland than it is on the coast. Damn.
I slide out, exit the bedroom and pad down the stairs...Duchess leading the way with a rapid descent that sounds more like a group of animals than one 20 lb. canine. She is really enthusiastic about the early morning routine. I take my time...still groggy...and ease into my Gortex storm jacket and Crocs; retrieve the leash; attach Duchess and open the front door. I am met with the whirling wind on our front alcove. Now I am fully awake, as the chill slaps me in the face.
True, I am an native Floridian...having grown up 130 miles east/northeast of here...in Central Florida. But my years in Scotland, Wisconsin, northern Indiana and west Missouri conditioned me for the cold, ice and snow of winter. It was nothing as bad as what is now being experienced in those climes, but there were some quite harsh storms in that aggregate of 25 years. I shoveled a lot of snow, scraped a lot of ice and experienced the kind of cold that burned exposed skin. It is one reason we returned to Florida and settled on the west coast in what is known as Subtropical Florida. After nearly 21 months here, 38 degrees with a windchill of 22 degrees seems harsh at 5:30am. What the hell. Come on Duchess, let's get this job done.
Back inside, I give Duchess her morning arthritis supplement (a chewy nugget which she anticipates eagerly). Instead of making coffee, I head back upstairs to see if more sleep can happen. I am just about to lose consciousness when, to my utter surprise, a canine paw pulls at my arm...again. I open my eyes, and stare into the eager face of the Duchess. "We just did this!" I say. She doesn't hear well, so I am really saying this to myself. I have been back in bed for only about 10 minutes. I quickly come to the conclusion that this night of sleep is done. Duchess is often the sentinel for me needing to be about the business of contemplative prayer time. Early morning is most often that time of day when I am most able to center and listen for the "still, small voice" of The One who called me to my vocation and gives clarity...when I can park the chatty ego.
The coffee is good. The beans are roasted by a dear friend of mine in San Francisco. Actually, he is more like a brother than a friend. We are six months apart in age. He is a Ph.D. theologian, professor turned entrepreneur with a coffee roasting business called HelioRoast....roasting energy using solar power. I may be biased, but I think his coffee is the best. I receive a pound each month....about three days after roasting. I grind the beans as needed for a single dripped cup or a brewed pot. Sipping a cup of coffee in what has become known as the "prayer area" of our downstairs, having contemplative and Daily Office time (formal ritual prayers and reading of my tradition), and sipping a second cup with spousal conversation in the living room is the normal routine. Today, it is me and Duchess, who, now confident her job is done, curls up on the rug at my feet. Her light snoring and the sound of the wind outside being the only noises in my environment
Today, I have been reminded of my ancestors. Why does this "bubble up" in the quiet darkness of contemplation? The mind part of me begins to take part. Seven generations......going back seven generations, starting with my two parents, there have been 128 people who have contributed directly to the DNA that composes my physical being and makes it possible for me to be present to this moment. Through the choices made for each father and mother to enter a relationship and produce a child; and raise that child into an adult who would chose a spouse and produce a child.....ultimately, the seeming random meeting of my mother and father and their choice to enter a relationship and produce a child. In addition, each of those had other children, who followed the same patterns that created each generation of what we call siblings and cousins.
But, today, I am aware of Self -- the uniqueness of being that has made me a conscious person in this moment. My chance meeting with the person who would become my spouse and the two daughters we produced, raised and sent into the world as young adults fills me with awe on this morning.
As I grow deeper in my own spiritual journey, the term "random" seems less appropriate. My concept for this is "informed choice." Love, ultimately, cannot be driven by ego consciousness. We may choose to manipulate our environment (and most often do), but there are ramifications for such hubris...not always good ones. We call the negative ramifications "suffering." When our own suffering happens, it is easy...and convenient...to blame it on someone or something else. Biblical literature mentions the ramifications of hubris-driven choices being visited upon even the seventh generation. I think that is why that many generations of my own ancestors came to me in the pre-dawn hours of this morning. (see, Some Principles of Moral Theology, by Kenneth Kirk, 1920...a classic Anglican moral theologian; professor at Magdalene College, Oxford and later Bishop of Oxford)*
I cannot change my DNA, but I know that the gene pool carries the energy and and consequences of those 128 persons that preceded me for seven generations ... and all the way back. (see Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue, by Edwin Friedman, 1985...the chapters dealing with Family of Origin)*
My soul is the unique energy and character of my True Self. I have a reason for being for the sake of creation. This is precisely true for every human born into life...for whatever length of time we have. The greatest gift we have been given is the ability to consciously participate in creation that does not depend solely on bio-physical responses or simple response to stimuli for survival. We can actually make decisions and choose. At the very heart of this is the choice: Do I choose a Self born in love? Or, Do I choose the emotional and visceral response to stimuli that will gratify the moment for my benefit?
Kenneth Kirk suggested that both of those questions in our grounded choice are combined to produce a balance called the "informed conscience." If I am working out of Love in Self, I will choose (for instance) the kind of lifestyle that will provide the greatest benefit for physical, emotional and relational health. When Jesus said, "my yoke is easy and my burden light," I think he had this balance in mind.
My journey thus far has brought me to a place of shift. It is a relationship that I have known "in moments" throughout my life, but which is now becoming more constant. It is that "still, small voice" that is not my ego, but one that is driven by Love. It is the Divine...who is, for me, manifested in the person of Jesus. "Are you sure this is the best choice you could make?" Sometimes, "Don't do that, it will not go well." Sometimes, it is just a gesture or a pointing in a direction.
Today, I am at peace with my ancestral heritage and gene pool. I am grateful for the choices that makes it possible to be me and here in the moment. I am grateful for the choices made in, or driven by, Love. And, yes, I am even grateful for the choices made in the shallowness of ego-self. It is out of the suffering produced by those choices that I have grown...the "glass darkly" that gets clearer as I go deeper into true-Self.
Folks, we are all on this same journey. I am blessed to have a dog who wakes me up to remind me to take time to allow shift to happen and balance to be maintained. The pattern is now deeply enough set that, when her time of departure arrives, I will know instinctively that I need to get up and be about living life in a sacred manner.
Blessings,
Fred+
*I had the honor and privilege of studying for eight years with the late Dr. Edwin Friedman, before his death in 1996. His work and his ongoing "Post-Graduate Seminars in Family Process" did much to shape both my vocational and personal journey. My major work in graduate school (seminary) was sacramental theology and pastoral care. In the latter discipline, I focused on the moral and pastoral theological reflections of Kenneth Kirk and Robert Mortimer...along with a number of other major scholars. Those two early twentieth century scholars, however, were foundational for my own vocational development.
02 January 2014
New Again?
Here we are at the beginning of a new cycle of life. Celebrating the New Year has become a cultural marker for saying farewell to life events and the business of the immediate past twelve months and launching new endeavors. It includes the long tradition of creating "resolutions"... statements of intention that are supposed to enhance our well-being on a number of levels: health, employment, family, use of time, and resetting our internal clocks being among many options.
I agree with my sister-in-law, Toni, who reflected that she quit making New Year's resolutions years ago. I have also abandoned the practice of resolution-making. A resolve really does not carry the depth of commitment that will enact the hoped-for change that is intended. A recent study indicated that the average New Year resolution lasts about 45 days. Most often, a resolution lacks the resources necessary to engage life on the levels needed to drive the shifts and changes that bring about permanent results.
My brother-in-law, Frank, believes that the first day of the New Year would be best served by engaging the world rather than having a holiday. I had not thought about this until our conversation just two days ago. The problem with beginning a new cycle by trying to overcome the indulgences of the day and evening before does seem counter-productive. We wake up to the new year feeling hung-over, bloated, tired and lethargic from all the ways we have engaged our "one last fling" in the concluding cycle. What would happen if we shifted our celebration and made it a "new beginnings" party? Then, on 1 January we re-engaged our lives on a level of activity commensurate with our intentions?
Reflective Mode
1. This year, life has been a shade different than experiences of the past. I did not begin 2013 with the intention of undertaking a journey to rebalance my body so that Type II Diabetes would essentially go "under the radar" of physical health. There were a number of encounters and events that called for changes in plans and re-ordering of priorities.
The one planned journey was the two-week trip to South Dakota and the Black Hills area this past June. The plans I had tried to meticulously make simply fell apart...literally the day after I arrived. One part of me wondered why I was there at all, since what I envisioned as a research/learning event had become something very different. Every interview went from ritual and cultural topics to conversations about health and wellness. That...I thought at the time...had nothing to do with my project. Plus, I was not feeling well for reasons that would only much later be identified.
On the flights home from Rapid City, SD I became very despondent. I suddenly realized that those conversations were ways that my True Self (the one connected with the Divine) was working to get my attention. I was, in fact, killing myself...literally. Within a month of returning, after careful planning with my primary care and cardiology physicians, I was engaged in a journey that literally changed the way I relate to food and my body. At this point, it is quite probable that my death will not be from the affects of Type II Diabetes. The lifestyle is becoming ingrained.
2. I have had a love-hate relationship with social media for a quite some time now. Love and hate are strong words and probably, in the final analysis, really don't apply to how I relate to the several levels of electronic and digital connections. Whatever terms might be applied, suffice it to say that I enjoy being connected to family, friends, colleagues and folks who have been and continue to be important in my life journey. However, the shear volume of information via Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, G-Mail and marketing sources can literally "take over" one's life. This is researchable, but my strong sense is that more and more folks are shifting self-identity to social media definitions.
The fact that every thought one has can be immediately digitalized and shared with potentially millions of other folks can create addictive processes that are both neurological and psychological. I am not researching this and, therefore, have no data to support my observations. There is no doubt, however, that "ego projection" is a major content producer for social media. If one is not face-to-face with his/her intended recipient, it is easy to discharge all the anger, pain, frustration, fear, and presumed knowledge (shaped as opinions) while not being accountable for the impact and results of what has been discharged into cyberspace.
Somewhere in late August, I realized my own contribution to all of what I just shared. I also realized that commercial (read: cable) news media and social media had lost an edge of ethical integrity that made digging for the truth less exciting that simply ranting with sensationalized hyperbole. This isn't simply an ethical issue for me. It is a deeply moral issue. So, I backed away from cable news and generally stopped reading anything that smacked of "Constitutional Rights" or other issues. Since 90+% of what is shared comes from emotionally charged and unresearched information...or information from only one ideological source...I began reading and researching via those whose life-work is committed to these issues (e.g. economists, historians, constitutional scholars). I read and research widely...refusing to be "pigeon-holed" into some ideological slot.
3. I began 2013 with two planned trips...two weeks of being among the Lakota and doing research in SW South Dakota; and a six day Christmas trip to South Bend, IN, where our younger daughter and her husband, would host our Christmas gathering. By the end of the year, we had made five trips, and I had flown five different airlines to accomplish four of those trips.
Late in the summer, I hit upon the idea of taking my wife to Belize as part of her sixtieth birthday celebration. It turned out to be an eight day trip in late October/early November that was a delight for both of us on several levels.
In September, we received an invitation to participate in the 100th anniversary celebration of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Kansas City, MO that would take place the week before Thanksgiving. This is the parish from which I retired, after being the Rector for 7.5 years. Financial misgivings for making the trip were dissolved when a dear friend gifted us with round trip tickets to Kansas City. It was a deeply moving and wonderful re-connection with a faith community for whom I care deep within my heart. We also reconnected with dear friends outside the parish during those six days.
It is always a joy beyond words to have time with our daughters and the extended families that happen through marriage. Christmas in South Bend was white...and it was not the beach sand of Siesta Key. It was 71 degrees in Sarasota, when our flight departed early afternoon on 23 December. It was 5 degrees with snow flurries, when we landed in South Bend, IN early that evening. We were prepared for this, but our twenty years of living in the Midwest had "worn off" in the 20 months of living in SW Florida. It was an adjustment -- but one that was ameliorated by the warmth and love we shared in those days. We are separated by a lot of miles (South Bend, IN and NYC are not close to Sarasota), but here, social media is truly helpful.
I had two great Christmas gifts. I will share one of them. The day after Christmas, I was able to spend an entire afternoon with my son-in-law, Dean. After lunch with the four of us, Madie and Denise went to shop for baby things (more on this momentarily). Dean and I did some things neither of us do with any regularity. First, we went to an indoor shooting range. We rented a SigSauer 9mm P226 (Navy) pistol...identical to the one I own. I have not fired a pistol in three years, due to issues with my right shoulder. I was a marksman with a .45 in the Navy, but that was 40 years ago. I still had that status with a 9mm, but the shoulder replacement and resulting change in physiology had me nervous about firing a weapon. We each took 25 rounds of ammunition and took turns firing at a "torso target". To my utter amazement, 23 of the 25 rounds were in the central rings of the target...at 50 and 75 feet. Dean was also well in those rings with his target. The "old man" still has it, it seems.
We went from the shooting range to a cigar store and sat for an hour in the store's lounge with a cigar each and some of the most wonderful conversation I could imagine. I love Dean, but we have not had much time to talk in-depth over the past two years. This was pure gift, and one that I will always treasure. But, that wasn't all. We went from the cigar store to a downtown South Bend, upscale lounge and sipped a very good rye whiskey with some crafted beer. More wonderful conversation and reflection. The evening culminated with the four of us back together for dinner. Yep, an amazing gift.
Our fifth trip just ended. Denise's Uncle Richard died early Christmas morning in Panama City, FL...her hometown. He had been ill a long while and was receiving Hospice care. We returned home from South Bend on 28 December and drove the eight hours to Panama City after I finished a preaching obligation at St. Boniface on 29 December. It was a blessed reunion with a portion of Denise's family and childhood friends...folks I have come to know and love over the past 32 years. We spent a quiet New Year's Eve...eating ice cream, watching old television sitcoms, and appreciating each other. We spent a good portion of New Year's Day driving the eight hours back to Sarasota. With this trip, there was a bonus. Our dog, Duchess got to travel with us. No kennels this time (the sight of suitcases creates one of the most forlorn looks I have ever seen on a dog).
3. Transitions hallmark our lives. They are icons that tell stories of our choices and mark the anniversaries of significant events. For an Episcopal Priest (or any ordained person), the ordinations to the Transitional Diaconate and Priesthood are signal moments for vocation and life-long covenanted vows. In the midst of other events already described, I marked the 35th year of ordination to the Diaconate on 29 June 2013 and the Priesthood on 29 December 2013. I am not sure why 35 seemed like a significant number to me, but I think that, in retirement, those dates say more about being who I am rather than marking years of active career-oriented work. Ordination is a sacrament, and, as such is permanent -- or as the theological level applies it, indelible. I will never not be a priest. This past year has been marked with a deep pondering on what God may want me to do with this vocation in this stage of life.
I retired early...completely within eligibility for full retirement...at the age of 60.5. I am now one month into being 63. That number seemed unusually significant to me this year. Again, in itself, it is not special, but there are transitional elements at work within me that create a sort of platform for an emergent use of both the "senior" years and the accumulated vocational knowledge and experience.
Future Mode
1. When I began this essay, I stated that I gave up resolutions some years ago. What has replaced them is something akin to a plan or schema that provides direction and into which can be inserted attainable goals. "Letting go" does not mean forgetting. It means neutralizing past events in such ways that one is not carrying emotional baggage. Most of our current reality and future actions are based on events and experiences that are hugely charged with emotional content. My sense of beginning a new cycle (or simply beginning anew) is to entrust past actions...both successes and failures...to the Grace of inner healing. They cannot be replayed or changed; but they can become the soil out of which a new, stronger and more resilient Self can emerge.
2. I have a colleague who has been retired for some years and is now in his late 70s. I will identify him no further than to say that I run into him with some regularity. He has, indeed, had a number of experiences, in addition to being a priest, that shaped a wonderful career and for which he received numerous awards and commendations. My total career experiences are not as colorful, but, for me, they are significant. My colleague, when asked to introduce himself, will, literally, begin at the beginning and cite all the events and accolades which, for him, give substance to his identity. I happen to open a locked door for him on Sunday, and, as if I were there only for that reason (I was vested for a liturgy at which I was preaching), he looked straight ahead and muttered, "Thank you, my boy." It is an ego struggling to hold on to identity continuing to be lived out of the past.
At that moment, what happened in me was interesting (upon later reflection). My own ego wanted to make a comment that would have been both cutting and unsettling for him...one came to me immediately. Yet, something deeper inside simply smiled and, I said, "Merry Christmas and Joyous New Year." My hope is that he will, one day, be able to live in the present moment rather than in past perceived glory. My hope is that I continue to grow, shift and experience newness.
3. My plan for this year includes two ... and only two ... components. I have been edging toward writing a book. In November, something opened up inside, and I shifted my entire sense of what this book might be. There may be a visit to the Haskell Library (part of Haskell Indian Nations University) in Lawrence, KS for some archival research, and another visit to locations in SW South Dakota, where I have been working, studying and experiencing Lakota ritual since 2007. This seems to want to be the "year of the book."
The other component wraps around our younger daughter, Madeline, giving birth to her first child...our first grandchild...in the latter part of May. We now know for a fact that it will be a boy. We plan to be in South Bend at the time of the birth. So, this is definitely the "year of the grandparent" for us
Other than that, I plan to live each moment at it comes with an open mind and heart...no campaigns, agendas or issues. My plan is to make each day count and let what is be that which speaks the Eternal Truth. Emmanuel means "God With Us." God realization in the moment defines Life, and that's where I want to be.
Love and Blessings in this New Year!
Fred+
I agree with my sister-in-law, Toni, who reflected that she quit making New Year's resolutions years ago. I have also abandoned the practice of resolution-making. A resolve really does not carry the depth of commitment that will enact the hoped-for change that is intended. A recent study indicated that the average New Year resolution lasts about 45 days. Most often, a resolution lacks the resources necessary to engage life on the levels needed to drive the shifts and changes that bring about permanent results.
My brother-in-law, Frank, believes that the first day of the New Year would be best served by engaging the world rather than having a holiday. I had not thought about this until our conversation just two days ago. The problem with beginning a new cycle by trying to overcome the indulgences of the day and evening before does seem counter-productive. We wake up to the new year feeling hung-over, bloated, tired and lethargic from all the ways we have engaged our "one last fling" in the concluding cycle. What would happen if we shifted our celebration and made it a "new beginnings" party? Then, on 1 January we re-engaged our lives on a level of activity commensurate with our intentions?
Reflective Mode
1. This year, life has been a shade different than experiences of the past. I did not begin 2013 with the intention of undertaking a journey to rebalance my body so that Type II Diabetes would essentially go "under the radar" of physical health. There were a number of encounters and events that called for changes in plans and re-ordering of priorities.
The one planned journey was the two-week trip to South Dakota and the Black Hills area this past June. The plans I had tried to meticulously make simply fell apart...literally the day after I arrived. One part of me wondered why I was there at all, since what I envisioned as a research/learning event had become something very different. Every interview went from ritual and cultural topics to conversations about health and wellness. That...I thought at the time...had nothing to do with my project. Plus, I was not feeling well for reasons that would only much later be identified.
On the flights home from Rapid City, SD I became very despondent. I suddenly realized that those conversations were ways that my True Self (the one connected with the Divine) was working to get my attention. I was, in fact, killing myself...literally. Within a month of returning, after careful planning with my primary care and cardiology physicians, I was engaged in a journey that literally changed the way I relate to food and my body. At this point, it is quite probable that my death will not be from the affects of Type II Diabetes. The lifestyle is becoming ingrained.
2. I have had a love-hate relationship with social media for a quite some time now. Love and hate are strong words and probably, in the final analysis, really don't apply to how I relate to the several levels of electronic and digital connections. Whatever terms might be applied, suffice it to say that I enjoy being connected to family, friends, colleagues and folks who have been and continue to be important in my life journey. However, the shear volume of information via Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, G-Mail and marketing sources can literally "take over" one's life. This is researchable, but my strong sense is that more and more folks are shifting self-identity to social media definitions.
The fact that every thought one has can be immediately digitalized and shared with potentially millions of other folks can create addictive processes that are both neurological and psychological. I am not researching this and, therefore, have no data to support my observations. There is no doubt, however, that "ego projection" is a major content producer for social media. If one is not face-to-face with his/her intended recipient, it is easy to discharge all the anger, pain, frustration, fear, and presumed knowledge (shaped as opinions) while not being accountable for the impact and results of what has been discharged into cyberspace.
Somewhere in late August, I realized my own contribution to all of what I just shared. I also realized that commercial (read: cable) news media and social media had lost an edge of ethical integrity that made digging for the truth less exciting that simply ranting with sensationalized hyperbole. This isn't simply an ethical issue for me. It is a deeply moral issue. So, I backed away from cable news and generally stopped reading anything that smacked of "Constitutional Rights" or other issues. Since 90+% of what is shared comes from emotionally charged and unresearched information...or information from only one ideological source...I began reading and researching via those whose life-work is committed to these issues (e.g. economists, historians, constitutional scholars). I read and research widely...refusing to be "pigeon-holed" into some ideological slot.
3. I began 2013 with two planned trips...two weeks of being among the Lakota and doing research in SW South Dakota; and a six day Christmas trip to South Bend, IN, where our younger daughter and her husband, would host our Christmas gathering. By the end of the year, we had made five trips, and I had flown five different airlines to accomplish four of those trips.
Late in the summer, I hit upon the idea of taking my wife to Belize as part of her sixtieth birthday celebration. It turned out to be an eight day trip in late October/early November that was a delight for both of us on several levels.
In September, we received an invitation to participate in the 100th anniversary celebration of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Kansas City, MO that would take place the week before Thanksgiving. This is the parish from which I retired, after being the Rector for 7.5 years. Financial misgivings for making the trip were dissolved when a dear friend gifted us with round trip tickets to Kansas City. It was a deeply moving and wonderful re-connection with a faith community for whom I care deep within my heart. We also reconnected with dear friends outside the parish during those six days.
It is always a joy beyond words to have time with our daughters and the extended families that happen through marriage. Christmas in South Bend was white...and it was not the beach sand of Siesta Key. It was 71 degrees in Sarasota, when our flight departed early afternoon on 23 December. It was 5 degrees with snow flurries, when we landed in South Bend, IN early that evening. We were prepared for this, but our twenty years of living in the Midwest had "worn off" in the 20 months of living in SW Florida. It was an adjustment -- but one that was ameliorated by the warmth and love we shared in those days. We are separated by a lot of miles (South Bend, IN and NYC are not close to Sarasota), but here, social media is truly helpful.
I had two great Christmas gifts. I will share one of them. The day after Christmas, I was able to spend an entire afternoon with my son-in-law, Dean. After lunch with the four of us, Madie and Denise went to shop for baby things (more on this momentarily). Dean and I did some things neither of us do with any regularity. First, we went to an indoor shooting range. We rented a SigSauer 9mm P226 (Navy) pistol...identical to the one I own. I have not fired a pistol in three years, due to issues with my right shoulder. I was a marksman with a .45 in the Navy, but that was 40 years ago. I still had that status with a 9mm, but the shoulder replacement and resulting change in physiology had me nervous about firing a weapon. We each took 25 rounds of ammunition and took turns firing at a "torso target". To my utter amazement, 23 of the 25 rounds were in the central rings of the target...at 50 and 75 feet. Dean was also well in those rings with his target. The "old man" still has it, it seems.
We went from the shooting range to a cigar store and sat for an hour in the store's lounge with a cigar each and some of the most wonderful conversation I could imagine. I love Dean, but we have not had much time to talk in-depth over the past two years. This was pure gift, and one that I will always treasure. But, that wasn't all. We went from the cigar store to a downtown South Bend, upscale lounge and sipped a very good rye whiskey with some crafted beer. More wonderful conversation and reflection. The evening culminated with the four of us back together for dinner. Yep, an amazing gift.
Our fifth trip just ended. Denise's Uncle Richard died early Christmas morning in Panama City, FL...her hometown. He had been ill a long while and was receiving Hospice care. We returned home from South Bend on 28 December and drove the eight hours to Panama City after I finished a preaching obligation at St. Boniface on 29 December. It was a blessed reunion with a portion of Denise's family and childhood friends...folks I have come to know and love over the past 32 years. We spent a quiet New Year's Eve...eating ice cream, watching old television sitcoms, and appreciating each other. We spent a good portion of New Year's Day driving the eight hours back to Sarasota. With this trip, there was a bonus. Our dog, Duchess got to travel with us. No kennels this time (the sight of suitcases creates one of the most forlorn looks I have ever seen on a dog).
3. Transitions hallmark our lives. They are icons that tell stories of our choices and mark the anniversaries of significant events. For an Episcopal Priest (or any ordained person), the ordinations to the Transitional Diaconate and Priesthood are signal moments for vocation and life-long covenanted vows. In the midst of other events already described, I marked the 35th year of ordination to the Diaconate on 29 June 2013 and the Priesthood on 29 December 2013. I am not sure why 35 seemed like a significant number to me, but I think that, in retirement, those dates say more about being who I am rather than marking years of active career-oriented work. Ordination is a sacrament, and, as such is permanent -- or as the theological level applies it, indelible. I will never not be a priest. This past year has been marked with a deep pondering on what God may want me to do with this vocation in this stage of life.
I retired early...completely within eligibility for full retirement...at the age of 60.5. I am now one month into being 63. That number seemed unusually significant to me this year. Again, in itself, it is not special, but there are transitional elements at work within me that create a sort of platform for an emergent use of both the "senior" years and the accumulated vocational knowledge and experience.
Future Mode
1. When I began this essay, I stated that I gave up resolutions some years ago. What has replaced them is something akin to a plan or schema that provides direction and into which can be inserted attainable goals. "Letting go" does not mean forgetting. It means neutralizing past events in such ways that one is not carrying emotional baggage. Most of our current reality and future actions are based on events and experiences that are hugely charged with emotional content. My sense of beginning a new cycle (or simply beginning anew) is to entrust past actions...both successes and failures...to the Grace of inner healing. They cannot be replayed or changed; but they can become the soil out of which a new, stronger and more resilient Self can emerge.
2. I have a colleague who has been retired for some years and is now in his late 70s. I will identify him no further than to say that I run into him with some regularity. He has, indeed, had a number of experiences, in addition to being a priest, that shaped a wonderful career and for which he received numerous awards and commendations. My total career experiences are not as colorful, but, for me, they are significant. My colleague, when asked to introduce himself, will, literally, begin at the beginning and cite all the events and accolades which, for him, give substance to his identity. I happen to open a locked door for him on Sunday, and, as if I were there only for that reason (I was vested for a liturgy at which I was preaching), he looked straight ahead and muttered, "Thank you, my boy." It is an ego struggling to hold on to identity continuing to be lived out of the past.
At that moment, what happened in me was interesting (upon later reflection). My own ego wanted to make a comment that would have been both cutting and unsettling for him...one came to me immediately. Yet, something deeper inside simply smiled and, I said, "Merry Christmas and Joyous New Year." My hope is that he will, one day, be able to live in the present moment rather than in past perceived glory. My hope is that I continue to grow, shift and experience newness.
3. My plan for this year includes two ... and only two ... components. I have been edging toward writing a book. In November, something opened up inside, and I shifted my entire sense of what this book might be. There may be a visit to the Haskell Library (part of Haskell Indian Nations University) in Lawrence, KS for some archival research, and another visit to locations in SW South Dakota, where I have been working, studying and experiencing Lakota ritual since 2007. This seems to want to be the "year of the book."
The other component wraps around our younger daughter, Madeline, giving birth to her first child...our first grandchild...in the latter part of May. We now know for a fact that it will be a boy. We plan to be in South Bend at the time of the birth. So, this is definitely the "year of the grandparent" for us
Other than that, I plan to live each moment at it comes with an open mind and heart...no campaigns, agendas or issues. My plan is to make each day count and let what is be that which speaks the Eternal Truth. Emmanuel means "God With Us." God realization in the moment defines Life, and that's where I want to be.
Love and Blessings in this New Year!
Fred+
03 December 2013
Mullet and Egmont: A Natal Reflection
I was born in Lakeland Memorial Hospital on 30 November 1950, but my parents lived ten miles away, in Winter Haven. That is where I grew up. While living in the center of the state of Florida, my parents had a strong affinity for the Gulf coast...especially the area south of Tampa By. There is some history to this.
My maternal grandmother (maiden name: Agnes Amelia Hofacker) was born in Largo, FL in 1901. Largo was a fishing and merchantile community nestled between the, then, small towns of Tampa and St. Petersburg.
There is some contention as to where my maternal grandfather was born. National Archive records show the Burden family moving from the Northeast Borough of Erie, PA sometime between 1890 and 1892...settling in an area near the town of Miami generally known as the Homestead Region. They were mechants. My grandfather was born in 1892...either before or just after the pioneer venture to south Florida.
Some cultural history. Florida has lived under four flags: Spanish, French, English and United States. The Spanish laid claim to the region in 1538...as part of their quest for precious metals and an alleged "fountain of youth." There had been a strong indigenous population dating back about 8,000 years. On the west coast of Florida, the Timacuan, Tocobaga and Calusa groups populated the regions from what is now Crystal River down to what is now Naples. The Spanish were harsh "conquerors" and treated the indigenous populations very badly...usually killing the leaders and torturing the people to either get them converted to Catholicism or to find out where the gold and silver were located (there were neither).
On the east coast of Florida, the French had built a fort in a place that the Spanish later called Matanzas (means "place of slaughter") and laid claim to the peninsula. The Spanish landed at a place they called St. Augustine and did, in fact, engage and slaughter the French garrison. The oldest continuously inhabited city in North America was established in 1565, as a result of the French "deeding" the land to the Spanish, who called it "La Florida" (land of flowers).
To make a long story short, the Spanish established a string of missions and settlements from the the panhandle and down the east and west coasts of Florida. The Spanish colonial capital of the region was established in Havana, and the area claimed by Spain included the Caribbean islands, Florida, Mexico and parts of the regions now known as Central and South America.
During the French and Indian War (1757-63), the British captured Havana as a reprisal for the Spanish supporting the French. The Spanish traded Florida in order to get Cuba and their capital back. The British held Florida until the Treaty of Paris in 1783, which ended the American Revolution. Florida was returned to the Spanish. After some rather ugly fighting, the Spanish ceded Florida to the United States in 1821. Florida became a state in 1845.
The real losers in all this? The Indigenous peoples of Florida simply ceased to exist. Either killed or dying of invading European diseases, the remnants of these once proud people became what we know as the Seminole Nation. The term "seminole" is a Muskogee derivative meaning "runaway" or "wild." When Andrew Jackson began the campaign of moving whole nations west to the Oklahoma Territory, those refusing to go fled south into Florida and banded with the few remnants of Florida's indigenous nations.
There were three periods of fighting that are known as the Seminole Wars. During that time, the United States garrisoned troops in a string of forts...mostly along the western half of the state. The Seminoles were never defeated and have never lived under a treaty. Such cities as Ft. Meade and Ft. Myers reflect the investment of the United States in both the wars and then to protect the ranchers and settlers that began moving into west Florida in the 1850s.
Tampa Bay was not much explored or utilized by the Spanish. The most complete cartography of the area was done by Captain Francisco Celi in 1757. His map has become quite famous. His name for the island that sits in the middle of the deep channel at the mouth of the bay was St. Blas y Barreda. There were several barrier islands that ranged around the mainland that was called Pinellas. They bear names I cannot read on the original map copies. When the English gained control of Florida in 1763, they changed many of the place names and took great interest in the large, natural deep water bay. Barreda was renamed "Egmont Caye" in honor of John Perceval, Second Earl of Egmont (Ireland) and then Lord of the British Admiralty. The largest of the barrier islands at the edge of the bay was named "Mullet Caye" after the abundant fish prized by incoming settlers. The French/Spanish term "Caye" (pronounced Key) was shifted to the American English, "Key" somewhere in all this.
My deep interest in cultural history began quite early, and, obviously, Florida has a rather unique evolution. The Spanish, French and English influences remain obvious. Because the Spanish were harsh rulers...especially in Cuba...refugees from that island nation fled to the Tampa Bay area...beginning in the 1700s. (the name "Tampa" may come from a Calusa term meaning "sticks of fire" from the large number of lightning strikes common to the area). This heritage is still very much a part of the flavor of the Tampa Bay region.
My maternal grandparents would bring their family (my mom and uncle) to the north island of south Tampa Bay...Anna Maria...in the 1920s and 30s to camp, rent a small cabin and enjoy both the Gulf and Bay as a vacation from my grandfather's work as an entomologist for the Florida State Plant Board (a precursor to the United States Department of Agriculture). In addition to his work with the Mediterranean Fruit Fly and Citrus Canker, Grandad was a true Florida naturalist. His growing up in south Florida and later work with south Florida citrus and botanical diseases created a number of bonds with Seminole hunters and guides. I remember a number of visits with my great uncle Carl Hofaker and Aunt Hannah, who lived on Treasure Island (a key off south St. Petersburg) as a child.
The last seven years of her life, our mom lived on Anna Maria Island. Prior to that, our parents would rent a cabin on Longboat Key (south of Anna Maria) each summer. So, my childhood included a strong attachment to the area in which we now live. I have a memory that, around age 11, on a visit to Sarasota, I told our dad, "This is my favorite city of all, and I want to live here some day." Fifty years later, much to my surprise, we actually moved here.
Many times...especially as a young adult...I would do a morning six mile run around a large part of Anna Maria Island and end up on the fishing pier at the north end of the island (called City Pier). There was a small coffee shop at the end of the pier. I would get a large glass of water, a cup of coffee and sit on one of the benches to watch the fishermen and a +variety of avian and marine life. It is a place where Tampa Bay meets the Gulf of Mexico, so there is an ever shifting ecosystem (with the tides and weather).
As I would sit, my gaze would often rest on Egmont Key, nestled in the midst of the mouth of the bay. The lighthouse beacon always blinking and Coast Guard craft moving about, I would wonder what that island was really like...vowing someday to take a boat trip to see for myself. I knew that Fort Dade had been there, and small garrisons had occupied the island, prior to that, to protect the bay from pirates; to incarcerate captured Seminoles (during those wars); to protect the Union blockade during the Civil War (the Confederate militia holding the island was defeated in a small but bloody skirmish in early 1862); and to fortify this part of Florida at the beginning of the Spanish-American War in 1898 (the building of Ft. Dade). These garrisons and the fort were attached to larger garrisons and a fort on Mullet Key...on the north side of the deep channel. The 1898 building of Ft. DeSoto on Mullet Key and Ft. Dade on Egmont Key completed a coastal defense plan that had originally been submitted by a young U.S. Army Colonel and Engineer in 1849...Robert E. Lee. Col. Lee three other Army Engineers spent four months surveying and creating plans to complete a revision of the United States Coastal Defense Network, that had been instituted by Thomas Jefferson, during his presidency.
I told you I love history. It is all around us. When my wife asked me what I wanted to do for my 63rd birthday, I rather quickly hit upon a plan that would satisfy a curiosity that began in childhood. We would spend the day exploring both Mullet Key and Egmont Key. I reserved seats on a ferry that travels once daily from Ft. DeSoto Park to Egmont...a 20 minute boat ride. The ferry picks up its passengers in mid-afternoon, which allowed about three hours on the island. What can one do in three hours? If you hang around with me, you won't get it all done.
At the height of Ft. Dade's life, it garrisoned 175 soldiers in two artillery units. A small town supported the work of the artillery batteries, and the total population, at one time, reached 500. What remains, after the fort was deactivated in 1921, are the brick paved streets, concrete sidewalks and a number of concrete foundations of buildings that were largely made of wood. It is a ghost town that is maintained with explanatory markers and plaques with original pictures of the structures. Much of the five gun battery structures remain, but water erosion and storms have claimed some of the concrete buildings.
The key feature of Egmont Key is the lighthouse. The original was built in 1847 and was destroyed in a hurricane 10 years later. In 1858, the present lighthouse was completed and operational...and remains operational to this day. After its use in World War II for harbor defense and bombardier training , the Coast Guard took over the north end of the island and maintained the lighthouse. It is now full automated with daily visits from Coast Guard engineers. There are no permanent human inhabitants of Egmont Key. The Harbor Pilots have facilities on the island but do not live there. Pilots meet every incoming ocean going vessel and guide the ships through the channels to the various ports in Tampa Bay.
Mullet Key has a museum, remnants of Ft. DeSoto and a self-guided walking trail to view the layout of the 1898 buildings that comprised the fort and its support systems. It garrisoned 250 artillery soldiers at its peak. There was also a civilian quarantine hospital on site. The actual fame of the area and rapid growth of Tampa and St. Petersburg are the result of the influx of military during the Spanish-American War. Tampa Bay was THE staging area for all troops going to fight in Cuba. The infrastructure for that short war and World War I training...along with the increasing Cuban population at the turn of the 20th Century established modern Tampa as a major city in Florida
There is always much more to who we are and where we live than that to which we are awake. History isn't simply a gathering of facts and figures. To do history, one needs to be open to experiencing the "vibration" of one's surroundings. The bigger questions (bigger than the "who and "what") are "how" and "why." For answers, one has to walk around, be quiet in order to perceive the sacredness and life forces (human as well as other life forces that we call "nature"), and engage curiosity that is innate but often occluded by issues of self.
This is just one story and one place of curiosity satisfied after years of speculation. Now that, for me, was a real birthday gift.
Love and blessings!
Fred+
My maternal grandmother (maiden name: Agnes Amelia Hofacker) was born in Largo, FL in 1901. Largo was a fishing and merchantile community nestled between the, then, small towns of Tampa and St. Petersburg.
There is some contention as to where my maternal grandfather was born. National Archive records show the Burden family moving from the Northeast Borough of Erie, PA sometime between 1890 and 1892...settling in an area near the town of Miami generally known as the Homestead Region. They were mechants. My grandfather was born in 1892...either before or just after the pioneer venture to south Florida.
Some cultural history. Florida has lived under four flags: Spanish, French, English and United States. The Spanish laid claim to the region in 1538...as part of their quest for precious metals and an alleged "fountain of youth." There had been a strong indigenous population dating back about 8,000 years. On the west coast of Florida, the Timacuan, Tocobaga and Calusa groups populated the regions from what is now Crystal River down to what is now Naples. The Spanish were harsh "conquerors" and treated the indigenous populations very badly...usually killing the leaders and torturing the people to either get them converted to Catholicism or to find out where the gold and silver were located (there were neither).
On the east coast of Florida, the French had built a fort in a place that the Spanish later called Matanzas (means "place of slaughter") and laid claim to the peninsula. The Spanish landed at a place they called St. Augustine and did, in fact, engage and slaughter the French garrison. The oldest continuously inhabited city in North America was established in 1565, as a result of the French "deeding" the land to the Spanish, who called it "La Florida" (land of flowers).
To make a long story short, the Spanish established a string of missions and settlements from the the panhandle and down the east and west coasts of Florida. The Spanish colonial capital of the region was established in Havana, and the area claimed by Spain included the Caribbean islands, Florida, Mexico and parts of the regions now known as Central and South America.
During the French and Indian War (1757-63), the British captured Havana as a reprisal for the Spanish supporting the French. The Spanish traded Florida in order to get Cuba and their capital back. The British held Florida until the Treaty of Paris in 1783, which ended the American Revolution. Florida was returned to the Spanish. After some rather ugly fighting, the Spanish ceded Florida to the United States in 1821. Florida became a state in 1845.
The real losers in all this? The Indigenous peoples of Florida simply ceased to exist. Either killed or dying of invading European diseases, the remnants of these once proud people became what we know as the Seminole Nation. The term "seminole" is a Muskogee derivative meaning "runaway" or "wild." When Andrew Jackson began the campaign of moving whole nations west to the Oklahoma Territory, those refusing to go fled south into Florida and banded with the few remnants of Florida's indigenous nations.
There were three periods of fighting that are known as the Seminole Wars. During that time, the United States garrisoned troops in a string of forts...mostly along the western half of the state. The Seminoles were never defeated and have never lived under a treaty. Such cities as Ft. Meade and Ft. Myers reflect the investment of the United States in both the wars and then to protect the ranchers and settlers that began moving into west Florida in the 1850s.
 |
| Francisco Celi Map of Tampa Bay, 1757 |
Tampa Bay was not much explored or utilized by the Spanish. The most complete cartography of the area was done by Captain Francisco Celi in 1757. His map has become quite famous. His name for the island that sits in the middle of the deep channel at the mouth of the bay was St. Blas y Barreda. There were several barrier islands that ranged around the mainland that was called Pinellas. They bear names I cannot read on the original map copies. When the English gained control of Florida in 1763, they changed many of the place names and took great interest in the large, natural deep water bay. Barreda was renamed "Egmont Caye" in honor of John Perceval, Second Earl of Egmont (Ireland) and then Lord of the British Admiralty. The largest of the barrier islands at the edge of the bay was named "Mullet Caye" after the abundant fish prized by incoming settlers. The French/Spanish term "Caye" (pronounced Key) was shifted to the American English, "Key" somewhere in all this.
My deep interest in cultural history began quite early, and, obviously, Florida has a rather unique evolution. The Spanish, French and English influences remain obvious. Because the Spanish were harsh rulers...especially in Cuba...refugees from that island nation fled to the Tampa Bay area...beginning in the 1700s. (the name "Tampa" may come from a Calusa term meaning "sticks of fire" from the large number of lightning strikes common to the area). This heritage is still very much a part of the flavor of the Tampa Bay region.
My maternal grandparents would bring their family (my mom and uncle) to the north island of south Tampa Bay...Anna Maria...in the 1920s and 30s to camp, rent a small cabin and enjoy both the Gulf and Bay as a vacation from my grandfather's work as an entomologist for the Florida State Plant Board (a precursor to the United States Department of Agriculture). In addition to his work with the Mediterranean Fruit Fly and Citrus Canker, Grandad was a true Florida naturalist. His growing up in south Florida and later work with south Florida citrus and botanical diseases created a number of bonds with Seminole hunters and guides. I remember a number of visits with my great uncle Carl Hofaker and Aunt Hannah, who lived on Treasure Island (a key off south St. Petersburg) as a child.
The last seven years of her life, our mom lived on Anna Maria Island. Prior to that, our parents would rent a cabin on Longboat Key (south of Anna Maria) each summer. So, my childhood included a strong attachment to the area in which we now live. I have a memory that, around age 11, on a visit to Sarasota, I told our dad, "This is my favorite city of all, and I want to live here some day." Fifty years later, much to my surprise, we actually moved here.
Many times...especially as a young adult...I would do a morning six mile run around a large part of Anna Maria Island and end up on the fishing pier at the north end of the island (called City Pier). There was a small coffee shop at the end of the pier. I would get a large glass of water, a cup of coffee and sit on one of the benches to watch the fishermen and a +variety of avian and marine life. It is a place where Tampa Bay meets the Gulf of Mexico, so there is an ever shifting ecosystem (with the tides and weather).
As I would sit, my gaze would often rest on Egmont Key, nestled in the midst of the mouth of the bay. The lighthouse beacon always blinking and Coast Guard craft moving about, I would wonder what that island was really like...vowing someday to take a boat trip to see for myself. I knew that Fort Dade had been there, and small garrisons had occupied the island, prior to that, to protect the bay from pirates; to incarcerate captured Seminoles (during those wars); to protect the Union blockade during the Civil War (the Confederate militia holding the island was defeated in a small but bloody skirmish in early 1862); and to fortify this part of Florida at the beginning of the Spanish-American War in 1898 (the building of Ft. Dade). These garrisons and the fort were attached to larger garrisons and a fort on Mullet Key...on the north side of the deep channel. The 1898 building of Ft. DeSoto on Mullet Key and Ft. Dade on Egmont Key completed a coastal defense plan that had originally been submitted by a young U.S. Army Colonel and Engineer in 1849...Robert E. Lee. Col. Lee three other Army Engineers spent four months surveying and creating plans to complete a revision of the United States Coastal Defense Network, that had been instituted by Thomas Jefferson, during his presidency.
I told you I love history. It is all around us. When my wife asked me what I wanted to do for my 63rd birthday, I rather quickly hit upon a plan that would satisfy a curiosity that began in childhood. We would spend the day exploring both Mullet Key and Egmont Key. I reserved seats on a ferry that travels once daily from Ft. DeSoto Park to Egmont...a 20 minute boat ride. The ferry picks up its passengers in mid-afternoon, which allowed about three hours on the island. What can one do in three hours? If you hang around with me, you won't get it all done.
At the height of Ft. Dade's life, it garrisoned 175 soldiers in two artillery units. A small town supported the work of the artillery batteries, and the total population, at one time, reached 500. What remains, after the fort was deactivated in 1921, are the brick paved streets, concrete sidewalks and a number of concrete foundations of buildings that were largely made of wood. It is a ghost town that is maintained with explanatory markers and plaques with original pictures of the structures. Much of the five gun battery structures remain, but water erosion and storms have claimed some of the concrete buildings.
The key feature of Egmont Key is the lighthouse. The original was built in 1847 and was destroyed in a hurricane 10 years later. In 1858, the present lighthouse was completed and operational...and remains operational to this day. After its use in World War II for harbor defense and bombardier training , the Coast Guard took over the north end of the island and maintained the lighthouse. It is now full automated with daily visits from Coast Guard engineers. There are no permanent human inhabitants of Egmont Key. The Harbor Pilots have facilities on the island but do not live there. Pilots meet every incoming ocean going vessel and guide the ships through the channels to the various ports in Tampa Bay.
Mullet Key has a museum, remnants of Ft. DeSoto and a self-guided walking trail to view the layout of the 1898 buildings that comprised the fort and its support systems. It garrisoned 250 artillery soldiers at its peak. There was also a civilian quarantine hospital on site. The actual fame of the area and rapid growth of Tampa and St. Petersburg are the result of the influx of military during the Spanish-American War. Tampa Bay was THE staging area for all troops going to fight in Cuba. The infrastructure for that short war and World War I training...along with the increasing Cuban population at the turn of the 20th Century established modern Tampa as a major city in Florida
There is always much more to who we are and where we live than that to which we are awake. History isn't simply a gathering of facts and figures. To do history, one needs to be open to experiencing the "vibration" of one's surroundings. The bigger questions (bigger than the "who and "what") are "how" and "why." For answers, one has to walk around, be quiet in order to perceive the sacredness and life forces (human as well as other life forces that we call "nature"), and engage curiosity that is innate but often occluded by issues of self.
This is just one story and one place of curiosity satisfied after years of speculation. Now that, for me, was a real birthday gift.
Love and blessings!
Fred+
02 December 2013
Where The Lines Meet
There are places, in the cycle of life, where paths seem to cross. The obvious such crossings are the seasonal changes: vernal and spring equinoxes, and the summer and winter solstices. These are "sidereal" crossings...based upon the relationship between the sun and earth. We are nearing that place where the days in the northern hemisphere are the shortest, and our angle of axis and revolution around the sun will make for days becoming longer again.
There are much more subtle crossings that happen in our surroundings. My native and current home is Florida. I grew up in the center of the state and now live in the southwest coastal part of the state. The environment here is different...considered to be "subtropical."
Having lived in the north and central parts of our country for twenty years, I moved in a cycle that was much more definitive. With the coming of the fall season, almost everything except evergreens lost their leaves and entered a five to six month dormant period. All farm crops were harvested and fields "bedded" for winter...with exception of a few hearty grains (e.g. winter wheat). Lawns and landscaping entered a dormant cycle, and I generally did not have to mow from early November to early/mid April.
In the subtropical climate, it is a bit different. There are two lines of life cycle that meet about now. There are deciduous trees (like the Bald Cypress and Florida Maple), that are showing signs of entering a dormant period. Florida grasses are also entering dormancy. Instead of mowing weekly, our condo community lawn service mows bi-weekly...and could probably stretch it to once a month starting in January. There are signs of life quieting down.
However, there is also an emerging vibrancy in our ecosystem. The long dormancy of fruit and vegetable growth (May - September) has already shifted. The first harvest of citrus began in mid-November. A variety of locally grown vegetables are available, and farmers markets that have been closed for five months have re-opened to sell a wide variety of newly harvested veggies. This will continue (and increase) through late April.
The only drawback to the agricultural growing season in our area is the potential for a large arctic cold mass or winter storm to make it this far south. Usually, by the time such systems reach us, the affects of the Gulf, Caribbean and southern Atlantic waters have softened the edges of the freezing temperatures enough to drop local temperatures only into the 40s or high 30s...still tolerable for sensitive fruits and vegetables.
Surely, "deep freezes" happen here. The most notable to me (because I was here for both) were the freezes of 1962 and 1983. For the citrus industry, it was a "one-two punch." The first deep freeze killed whole groves of citrus in Central Florida. The second freeze killed the trees that had survived and many of the replaced groves that were just coming to a place of maturity for full fruit production. Those two events alone, changed the landscape...literally. Florida has also moved through several extended periods of drought and warmer than normal summers and winters.
Yesterday (1 December) marked a place in the Christian cycle of life that is generally called the "new liturgical year." The First Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of a new cycle of liturgical life...new biblical cycles for daily prayer and Sunday lectionaries and a variety of shifts in how we worship/pray and live our common faith journey. This is an emergent line of vitality and renewal...preparing us for the birth of the Christ and the coming of the Kingdom. It is a deeply incarnational time. As it happens, it is also based upon the solar calendar (the cycle for Easter is lunar, but this is another story entirely).
Our culture has chosen to create a line of increased activity that parallels the deeply spiritual one that has been in place. While it mirrors the spiritual, this line is almost totally secular. Our mobility and relatively increased wealth has allowed for a "north-south" shift that begins in November and shifts into its highest concentration after Christmas. Our population, in this area alone, will increase by more than 70% and will last until around 15 April (tax time). People who either own two homes or have seasonal rental agreements will close up their northern residences and be here, in the warmer climate, for the winter season.
This shift is not "bad" in itself. Local retail does quite well during these months. Many restaurants and businesses will make enough money during "the season" to sustain their year-round budgets.
I am not going to "rant" about the secularizing or commercializing of Christmas. I did enough of that as a parish priest. I simply choose, for the most part, not to play the game of Black Fridays and Cyber Mondays. I tend to fly under that high wire of frenetic activity. I am energized by the cycle of quiet but steady expectancy and subtle shifts of life that come with this cycle. Bald Eagles are nesting...as are Osprey and hawks. There is a quiet vibrancy, as one walks through nature preserves and the "back trails" of more rural parts of south Florida.
I am a contemplative and tuned, it seems, to the quieter frequencies of life that are, nonetheless, essential to the ongoing stability and order of creation. There is, within me, in this cycle, a time to embrace the ever emerging vibrancy of life. This line meets with the external, cultural hyper-activity. As long as we don't confuse the two, we can enjoy both. But, one has to choose which direction to take, when the lines meet.
Love and Blessings,
Fred+
There are much more subtle crossings that happen in our surroundings. My native and current home is Florida. I grew up in the center of the state and now live in the southwest coastal part of the state. The environment here is different...considered to be "subtropical."
Having lived in the north and central parts of our country for twenty years, I moved in a cycle that was much more definitive. With the coming of the fall season, almost everything except evergreens lost their leaves and entered a five to six month dormant period. All farm crops were harvested and fields "bedded" for winter...with exception of a few hearty grains (e.g. winter wheat). Lawns and landscaping entered a dormant cycle, and I generally did not have to mow from early November to early/mid April.
In the subtropical climate, it is a bit different. There are two lines of life cycle that meet about now. There are deciduous trees (like the Bald Cypress and Florida Maple), that are showing signs of entering a dormant period. Florida grasses are also entering dormancy. Instead of mowing weekly, our condo community lawn service mows bi-weekly...and could probably stretch it to once a month starting in January. There are signs of life quieting down.
However, there is also an emerging vibrancy in our ecosystem. The long dormancy of fruit and vegetable growth (May - September) has already shifted. The first harvest of citrus began in mid-November. A variety of locally grown vegetables are available, and farmers markets that have been closed for five months have re-opened to sell a wide variety of newly harvested veggies. This will continue (and increase) through late April.
The only drawback to the agricultural growing season in our area is the potential for a large arctic cold mass or winter storm to make it this far south. Usually, by the time such systems reach us, the affects of the Gulf, Caribbean and southern Atlantic waters have softened the edges of the freezing temperatures enough to drop local temperatures only into the 40s or high 30s...still tolerable for sensitive fruits and vegetables.
Surely, "deep freezes" happen here. The most notable to me (because I was here for both) were the freezes of 1962 and 1983. For the citrus industry, it was a "one-two punch." The first deep freeze killed whole groves of citrus in Central Florida. The second freeze killed the trees that had survived and many of the replaced groves that were just coming to a place of maturity for full fruit production. Those two events alone, changed the landscape...literally. Florida has also moved through several extended periods of drought and warmer than normal summers and winters.
Yesterday (1 December) marked a place in the Christian cycle of life that is generally called the "new liturgical year." The First Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of a new cycle of liturgical life...new biblical cycles for daily prayer and Sunday lectionaries and a variety of shifts in how we worship/pray and live our common faith journey. This is an emergent line of vitality and renewal...preparing us for the birth of the Christ and the coming of the Kingdom. It is a deeply incarnational time. As it happens, it is also based upon the solar calendar (the cycle for Easter is lunar, but this is another story entirely).
Our culture has chosen to create a line of increased activity that parallels the deeply spiritual one that has been in place. While it mirrors the spiritual, this line is almost totally secular. Our mobility and relatively increased wealth has allowed for a "north-south" shift that begins in November and shifts into its highest concentration after Christmas. Our population, in this area alone, will increase by more than 70% and will last until around 15 April (tax time). People who either own two homes or have seasonal rental agreements will close up their northern residences and be here, in the warmer climate, for the winter season.
This shift is not "bad" in itself. Local retail does quite well during these months. Many restaurants and businesses will make enough money during "the season" to sustain their year-round budgets.
I am not going to "rant" about the secularizing or commercializing of Christmas. I did enough of that as a parish priest. I simply choose, for the most part, not to play the game of Black Fridays and Cyber Mondays. I tend to fly under that high wire of frenetic activity. I am energized by the cycle of quiet but steady expectancy and subtle shifts of life that come with this cycle. Bald Eagles are nesting...as are Osprey and hawks. There is a quiet vibrancy, as one walks through nature preserves and the "back trails" of more rural parts of south Florida.
I am a contemplative and tuned, it seems, to the quieter frequencies of life that are, nonetheless, essential to the ongoing stability and order of creation. There is, within me, in this cycle, a time to embrace the ever emerging vibrancy of life. This line meets with the external, cultural hyper-activity. As long as we don't confuse the two, we can enjoy both. But, one has to choose which direction to take, when the lines meet.
Love and Blessings,
Fred+
26 October 2013
What Now?
"Sign, sign everywhere a sign; Blocking up the scenery,
Breaking my mind. Do this don't do that; can't you
read the sign?!"
--Words by Les Emmerson of the Five Man Electrical Band.
The group released the song in 1971 in the album, Good-byes and Butterflies
(NB: The link above is filtered via Google Gmail and Norton scanned)
(Editorial Note: This post began during the second week of October as a series of thoughts following two very good conversations with colleagues. The final paragraphs of this post are also reflected in the work I published just ahead of this ... "Beyond Ideologies." I apologize, in advance, for the repetition. Also, I am publishing this just prior to suspending computer work for the coming nine days, while traveling)
Tom Brokaw authored the 2007 bestseller book, Boom! Voices of the Sixties: Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today. It was a follow-up to his first social reflection, The Greatest Generation. I read both books, because the complex global and social issues surrounding the Great Depression, WWII, post-war industrial/marketing shifts, Civil Rights, a series of shocking assassinations, and the Vietnam War changed the entire function of our culture...not to mention our standing in the emerging global community. Plus (just to mention it), I like Tom Brokaw a lot. He is an example of well balanced and thorough journalism.
I know I am a dreamer...and I know I am not the only one (to provide a twist of phrase from John Lennon...a musical voice of the Boomers). I am a dreamer in both the psychological and mystagogical definition.
Psychology
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) classifies me as an INFP....Introvert, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving type. Jungian typology seeks to help one understand how one engages internal and external realities. There are four "spectra" in identifying types.
I know I am a dreamer...and I know I am not the only one (to provide a twist of phrase from John Lennon...a musical voice of the Boomers). I am a dreamer in both the psychological and mystagogical definition.
Psychology
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) classifies me as an INFP....Introvert, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving type. Jungian typology seeks to help one understand how one engages internal and external realities. There are four "spectra" in identifying types.
- Extrovert..........0..........Introvert
- Sensate.............0..........iNtuitive
- Thinking...........0..........Feeling
- Judging.............0..........Perceiving
The measure is how much energy is required for one to experience one or the other end of the spectrum from the zero, or center, point. The MBTI was developed in the late 1940s and is one of the most realiable research and evaluative tools in the field of behavioral and analytical psychology. Each person finds it more comfortable being somewhere on each spectrum. There are sixteen possible combinations, and each of those combinations tells a descriptive story about how we tend to engage our realities.
Without a painstaking exploration of each of the four spectra, I will simply summarize.
- An extrovert is more comfortable and energized by being with others. An introvert is more comfortable and energized by being more alone or in his/her own space (or with just a few others in "short spurts").
- A sensate person gains creative energy by engaging his/her senses and is, thus very pragmatic. An intuitive person is energized by the "creative juices" of ideas, possibilities and insights.
- A thinking person relies upon concrete, logical and objective (outside) data in responding to others or reaching conclusions. A feeling person "goes from the gut" and processes data through the internal, emotive field.
- A judging person tends to go by stated or published standards and work at a pre-determined pace. A perceiving person will often "read between the lines" to find alternative methods and works at a less planned pace to complete a task.
From the zero center, the spectrum goes to 49 on either end. The higher the number, the more natural is the function described at the extreme of the spectrum. I am a 37 on the Introvert side; 32 on the intuitive side; 22 on the Feeling side and 11 on the Perceiving side. Thus, I am very introverted and intuitive; moderately emotive and lightly perceiving.
Folks who have worked with me on a daily basis can see my "type" in action fairly easily. If there was commotion in the outer offices, I would get up and shut my office door (true mark of an introvert). Being highly intuitive is a good trait for a theologian/pastor/educator. Since my first response is often "from the heart," dealing with conflict that directly involved me was always more painful than for a person who is a strong thinking type. Because I am a "light" perceiver, I can work well at deadlines and can "think on my feet" in critical moments...thinking often "outside the box." I tended to know the rules, but I also knew where they can be bent or stretched when necessary.
Mystagogy
Mystagogy is the practice of what is called the "mystical arts." Every kind of spiritual tradition has a mystical element. It is the part that seeks the experiences of the deeper Presence. The Christian tradition is replete with mystics: John the Divine, Columba, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and the list goes on.
My best kind of experience: A week with a monastic community with four daily gatherings for the Prayer Offices and Eucharist: mostly silence with reading, writing, contemplative prayer time: and several one-on-one chats with a spiritual director. As a parish priest, doing that twice a year was pure fuel for doing my parochial work. On a daily basis, spending an hour early in the morning -- half an hour with the Daily Office and a half hour of contemplative prayer -- has been a major part of my Rule of Life.
I share all this for a reason. Now in my seventh decade of life (60s), I have been spending some time adjusting my journey and engaging the world in ways very different from the 33 years of being a parish priest. As a "child of the 60s" my typology was well suited to imagining possibilities and dreaming of ways that humanity could be brought together in healing and creative modalities. It is what shaped my character as an adult.
Applications
I read a recent Facebook quote from Billy Graham: "'Hope and change' has become a cliche in our nation, and it is daunting to think that any American could 'hope' for 'change' from what God has blessed." (Newsmax.com, dtd 9 October2013, article/interview by David Patten, dtd 6 October 2013).
It may seem presumptuous of me to disagree with an American icon of civil religion, but I honestly do disagree...with vigor. God has blessed our nation in any number of ways, but we risk grave moral error by making the "American experience" a mystagogy of its own. We have made terrible errors in our history. We, as a nation, have sinned boldly at times. The framers of our Constitution did not, in large measure, use the bible as a founding tool...many of them were Deists or adherents of Rousseau's "noble savage" concept of civilized man (see The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, published in 1762, which was a foundation for both French and American revolutionary governmental platforms).
What has made us a more Godly nation (if that is applicable as a title), is that we have had leaders, on all levels of societal life, who embodied hope and the possibilities for change. It is what emancipated slaves, created opportunities for the common citizen to experience a safe environment and earn a living wage, placed all persons on equal terms and protected civil liberties. Where God has been most present is when the Beatitudes have been best lived. There is much discourse in our culture that flaunts the Great Commandment (Love God and Love Neighbor as we love Self...to summarize). Yet, we continue to dream. In our dreaming, we imagine a time when we might reconcile with those who were displaced by our ancestors' greed for land ownership...when we abused mystagogy by proclaiming that God had manifested a destiny for the European to conquer and own this land.
This is not a sermon, but it is an extension of the feeling I had in the 1960s, when we were asked to dream big; when Martin Luther King shared a dream; when hopes long held became a true reality. After the 1960s, other shifts happened, and the pragmatics of making a living narrowed our dreams to the scale of "me."
As I was driving around on errands about three weeks ago, I was listening to a BBC broadcast on Sirius-XM radio. A British journalist was interviewing a British economist. Because I was driving, I cannot quote this exactly, but here is the gist: The current shifts and rancor in American politics and social rhetoric might suggest that we...the rest of the world...are witnessing the beginnings of the breakdown of the Great American Experiment. The United States has provided hope to many fledgling societies making their way toward equality and representation in a free, electoral government. America, of the past 25 years has become quite ragged around the edges I do think.
The commentator said more, but, again, I was driving and had no way to capture what was about five to seven minutes of reflective Q/A format. I present this as one aspect of how our society is being viewed from a distance by well educated and thoughtful folks.
I am hopeful and, in my deepest times of reflective prayer, long for the kind of change that will bring wholeness and balance to what is a great experiment. We will fail, if America itself becomes our definition of God rather than a society whose very heart is centered in Divine Love. When balance is achieved, we will...in our diversity...with one voice...be able to proclaim that this grand experiment has, indeed, succeeded.
Love and Blessings!
Fr. Fred+
Love and Blessings!
Fr. Fred+
Beyond Ideologies: Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
I think there was a time when, for me, belonging to something provided a unique sense of both personal identity and place in the larger social structure. To be sure, belonging to a group is a natural human trait (as it is with almost all known biological species). It not only insures survival but creates structure and order within a given system. However, belonging in that manner is not my point here.
Beyond familial and human culture infrastructure, there is a kind of "belonging" that acts as a means whereby we can classify our behaviors, beliefs and thought patterns. For instance: I was born into a family whose ancestry is Northern European...in my case, mostly Scottish. My parents were Christians...as it seems my ancestors had been for as far back as I can verify at this time (16th Century). My parents were Episcopalian Christians. This further identified/defined a particular methodology and doctrinal stream of belief. I was baptized into this tradition and raised in that micro-culture of the larger community.
I was raised in a small town environment in Central Florida. The population of Winter Haven, FL was roughly 30,000 during my growing up years. Further, it was a community with a mix of retired folks and families with post-World War II children...the Baby Boomers. There were several elementary schools, two Jr. high schools (as they were known at the time) and one high school. So, in the final three years of education, 430 (or so) of us were educated by the same teachers and in the same environment.
The defining membership duality that occupied our parents (and, thereby, us) in the 1950s and 60s was "Americanism vs. Communism." I vividly remember "A-Bomb Drills," fallout shelters, and the rampant cultural paranoia known as "McCarthyism." It was named after Senator Joe McCarthy, who spearheaded a relentless hunt for "Commie spies" along with individuals and cells of communists. Because mass media was still young, we weren't inundated 24/7. Yet,there was a palpable paranoia and anxiety about communism. There was also the dualism of race....being an "integrationist" or "segregationist" defining part of our teenage years. It was the only truly intense argument my dad and I ever had. I was 14 yrs old and supported integration in a paper I wrote in a Jr. high English class.
Somewhere during all of this (not even speaking of the rapidly intensifying Vietnam War-that-was-not-a-war...as we were often told), I decided that political ideology was a dirty game. For me, the one, truly safe group of my teenage years was the Boy Scouts. I lucked into a great group that included many of my childhood/neighborhood buddies. I immersed myself in the rugged outdoor activities that defined our particular scout troop and became an Eagle Scout just prior to my 14th birthday. I remained very active until my college years. Boy Scout Troop 122, St. Paul's Episcopal Church and Winter Haven High School shaped the critical teenage years of my life.
My vocational path emerged from the confluence of the above groups. Fred the "science guy" ultimately became Fred the Episcopal Priest. Early in my graduate studies leading to ordination, it became clear that one got defined by, a) the seminary attended; b) the theologians studied; and c) the collegial friends made. Without any effort on my part, I became known as a "High Church Anglo-Catholic" within the Episcopal Tradition. Even though my reason for going to my particular seminary had a whole lot more to do with my working through a potential call to monastic life, the ecclesiastical ideology brand got imprinted and stuck. My seminary graduating class may have been among the most culturally diverse group of folks to move through Nashotah House up to that time. Our average age was 28, and we ranged the whole gamut of socio-political and ecclesiastical orientations.
My growth path from high school was: college-military-seminary-priesthood. That path began in 1968 and culminated with ordination in 1978. Of the 33 persons in my seminary graduating class of 1978, only three of us had military service prior to graduate studies. That was not a popular time to be a military veteran. It took time to overcome the prejudice and judgment leveled on us in the seminary community...by a small but vocal group. It was during this time that I made a decision.
As far as it would be within my skills, craft, resources and leadership position to do so, I would create space in my working environment so that any person would feel comfortable and welcomed. That decision became a passion and defined how I conducted 33 years of active parochial ministry. While I remained true to this passion, I must report that I failed to create a truly inclusive community in any of the four parishes where I was the Rector (read: canonically in charge). Systems tend to not like diversity, because differences are used to define grouping. I like the word "glom." We prefer to glom onto others who think and behave like we do. It is the essence of Dualism. There it is....the central "-ism" that, in theological parlance, is the nature of sin itself.
It is true, in large measure, that we so much want to identify with something -- or someone -- that we end up belonging to...that is, being possessed by...that group or person. It has been my experience, as a parochial priest, that the term "demonic possession" has a great deal more to do with what or who we belong to than an actual malevolent, cosmic entity. Journeying with folks through the pain of deliverance from such possession occupied a great part of my pastoral work.
I am reminded of the story of Jesus and the rich young man. The young man questioned Jesus regarding salvation (wholeness). Jesus countered (as usual) with his own question about keeping the law. After the young man reflected that he had done all those things from his youth, Jesus simply said, "sell all you own and come, follow me." At this, the young man turns (sadly it seems) and walked away...."for he had many possessions."
Bishop Michael Marshall, an English theologian, did a teaching on the above story at a conference I attended some 25 years ago. As he reflected on the outcome, Bishop Marshall simply said: "He longed to belong, but he belonged to his belongings. He was possessed by his possessions."
Ultimately, Jesus was not equating wealth with discipleship. The request reached for something much deeper: Upon what is your ultimate value based? For the young man in the story, it was what he owned. For someone else, it could have been the group to which he belonged, or the position he held or the knowledge that he held. Think, for instance, of another encounter.
Jesus had an evening visit from a Pharisee, Nicodemus. Pharisees, as part of the local Sanhedrin, were both highly educated and carried great weight in council as teachers of the Law. Along with the Sadducees, they formed the Judean "political parties" of Jesus' era. Nicodemus asked what was necessary for salvation. This time, Jesus responded with, "you must be born anew." Nicodemus was considered one of the wisest of the Pharisee party, but he could not wrap his head around re-entering his mother's womb and starting the life process over. Jesus ultimately became frustrated with Nicodemus' inability to get past the practicalities of knowledge and into the deeper wisdom of Truth. My image is of Jesus throwing up his hands and saying, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and you do not understand these things?!...If I have told you about earthly things, and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you of heavenly things?"
In our age, we take great pride in how much we know, how many degrees we own, how many factoids we have ready to hurl at those with whom we disagree. Nicodemus is a person with whom we might readily identify.
One of the things I don't like about living in Florida is the necessity of declaring one's political party affiliation as a prerequisite to eligibility to vote in a primary election. One of the things I quit doing many years ago was defining my political ideology, and I did that based upon the automatic judgment from others that being a member of a political party invites. My ideology simply isn't that "clean," meaning it depends on the issue or the particular political theory attached to an issue. Yet, a huge amount of money and rhetoric is thrown into partisan politics. Such terms as "doing battle" or "go to war" is common, and abusive, language in speaking of opposing ideological stances. The arbitrary lines of being either "in" or "out" of these groups creates a duality that has great potential for a kind of near demonic possession.
It is highly unlikely that anything I say here will cause a shift in our currently toxic political and socio-economic rhetoric. The division between wealth and relative poverty; the "hostage taking" involved in partisan legislative process; the cultural and racial biases that are much more obvious than folks will admit within our decisions on who is in and who is out (e.g. state voter registration); the constant finger pointing and abusive language within all classifications of social media; the extremes of dualistic thinking that leads to "all or nothing" and "win or lose" behavior....all of these paint a grim picture. None of it reflects anything that I have experienced in my study of cultural and political history, regarding the hopes, dreams and intentions of our founders and those who articulated the great "American Experiment."
I am not, by nature, a cynic. Nor am I, in any way, a "doomsday prophet." Most of the time, I am both hopeful and optimistic. Most of the time, I am simply able to ignore abusive language, paranoid rantings, and opinions that obviously lack grounding in thoughtful or well researched investigation. My way of "doing business" has almost always included having some depth of knowledge or insight. Because I am emotive in my personality type, I know that the first level of response to anything is going to be "from my gut." With years of practice, I automatically do a "gut check" when faced with almost anything....and simply refrain from response until, and unless, I can apply my thought processes to the information being received.
I am not always successful in any of this. A person shoves an RNC or DNC card in my face....I know that that person is feigning a blow (a boxing term...throwing a fake punch to distract an opponent and get them flustered). That person is also insecure enough to believe that showing others that "I belong to this group" will somehow empower them; intimidate those who are not in that group; and set up some level of "I am in and you are out" rhetoric.
Actually, my response to someone, who "flashed" me with a political card, surprised them into speechlessness, when I pulled out my wallet and flashing my health insurance card. I simply said, "I'm covered, are you?"
There is an emerging level of spirituality and healing that is bringing people together in ways not seen in our history. I think the Great American Experiment will extend itself, but it will shift. It will not be fully what it could be until we get our own house in order. It means healing some very deep wounds: with indigenous peoples and peoples of various ethnic and cultural origins who are part of the tapestry of life but still marginalized by fear, bigotry and negligence. One essential component of any true democracy/republic is compassion.....the ability to "walk in solidarity with".... all creation.
Meanwhile, I practice the advice given in Desiderata:
Beyond familial and human culture infrastructure, there is a kind of "belonging" that acts as a means whereby we can classify our behaviors, beliefs and thought patterns. For instance: I was born into a family whose ancestry is Northern European...in my case, mostly Scottish. My parents were Christians...as it seems my ancestors had been for as far back as I can verify at this time (16th Century). My parents were Episcopalian Christians. This further identified/defined a particular methodology and doctrinal stream of belief. I was baptized into this tradition and raised in that micro-culture of the larger community.
I was raised in a small town environment in Central Florida. The population of Winter Haven, FL was roughly 30,000 during my growing up years. Further, it was a community with a mix of retired folks and families with post-World War II children...the Baby Boomers. There were several elementary schools, two Jr. high schools (as they were known at the time) and one high school. So, in the final three years of education, 430 (or so) of us were educated by the same teachers and in the same environment.
The defining membership duality that occupied our parents (and, thereby, us) in the 1950s and 60s was "Americanism vs. Communism." I vividly remember "A-Bomb Drills," fallout shelters, and the rampant cultural paranoia known as "McCarthyism." It was named after Senator Joe McCarthy, who spearheaded a relentless hunt for "Commie spies" along with individuals and cells of communists. Because mass media was still young, we weren't inundated 24/7. Yet,there was a palpable paranoia and anxiety about communism. There was also the dualism of race....being an "integrationist" or "segregationist" defining part of our teenage years. It was the only truly intense argument my dad and I ever had. I was 14 yrs old and supported integration in a paper I wrote in a Jr. high English class.
Somewhere during all of this (not even speaking of the rapidly intensifying Vietnam War-that-was-not-a-war...as we were often told), I decided that political ideology was a dirty game. For me, the one, truly safe group of my teenage years was the Boy Scouts. I lucked into a great group that included many of my childhood/neighborhood buddies. I immersed myself in the rugged outdoor activities that defined our particular scout troop and became an Eagle Scout just prior to my 14th birthday. I remained very active until my college years. Boy Scout Troop 122, St. Paul's Episcopal Church and Winter Haven High School shaped the critical teenage years of my life.
My vocational path emerged from the confluence of the above groups. Fred the "science guy" ultimately became Fred the Episcopal Priest. Early in my graduate studies leading to ordination, it became clear that one got defined by, a) the seminary attended; b) the theologians studied; and c) the collegial friends made. Without any effort on my part, I became known as a "High Church Anglo-Catholic" within the Episcopal Tradition. Even though my reason for going to my particular seminary had a whole lot more to do with my working through a potential call to monastic life, the ecclesiastical ideology brand got imprinted and stuck. My seminary graduating class may have been among the most culturally diverse group of folks to move through Nashotah House up to that time. Our average age was 28, and we ranged the whole gamut of socio-political and ecclesiastical orientations.
My growth path from high school was: college-military-seminary-priesthood. That path began in 1968 and culminated with ordination in 1978. Of the 33 persons in my seminary graduating class of 1978, only three of us had military service prior to graduate studies. That was not a popular time to be a military veteran. It took time to overcome the prejudice and judgment leveled on us in the seminary community...by a small but vocal group. It was during this time that I made a decision.
As far as it would be within my skills, craft, resources and leadership position to do so, I would create space in my working environment so that any person would feel comfortable and welcomed. That decision became a passion and defined how I conducted 33 years of active parochial ministry. While I remained true to this passion, I must report that I failed to create a truly inclusive community in any of the four parishes where I was the Rector (read: canonically in charge). Systems tend to not like diversity, because differences are used to define grouping. I like the word "glom." We prefer to glom onto others who think and behave like we do. It is the essence of Dualism. There it is....the central "-ism" that, in theological parlance, is the nature of sin itself.
It is true, in large measure, that we so much want to identify with something -- or someone -- that we end up belonging to...that is, being possessed by...that group or person. It has been my experience, as a parochial priest, that the term "demonic possession" has a great deal more to do with what or who we belong to than an actual malevolent, cosmic entity. Journeying with folks through the pain of deliverance from such possession occupied a great part of my pastoral work.
I am reminded of the story of Jesus and the rich young man. The young man questioned Jesus regarding salvation (wholeness). Jesus countered (as usual) with his own question about keeping the law. After the young man reflected that he had done all those things from his youth, Jesus simply said, "sell all you own and come, follow me." At this, the young man turns (sadly it seems) and walked away...."for he had many possessions."
Bishop Michael Marshall, an English theologian, did a teaching on the above story at a conference I attended some 25 years ago. As he reflected on the outcome, Bishop Marshall simply said: "He longed to belong, but he belonged to his belongings. He was possessed by his possessions."
Ultimately, Jesus was not equating wealth with discipleship. The request reached for something much deeper: Upon what is your ultimate value based? For the young man in the story, it was what he owned. For someone else, it could have been the group to which he belonged, or the position he held or the knowledge that he held. Think, for instance, of another encounter.
Jesus had an evening visit from a Pharisee, Nicodemus. Pharisees, as part of the local Sanhedrin, were both highly educated and carried great weight in council as teachers of the Law. Along with the Sadducees, they formed the Judean "political parties" of Jesus' era. Nicodemus asked what was necessary for salvation. This time, Jesus responded with, "you must be born anew." Nicodemus was considered one of the wisest of the Pharisee party, but he could not wrap his head around re-entering his mother's womb and starting the life process over. Jesus ultimately became frustrated with Nicodemus' inability to get past the practicalities of knowledge and into the deeper wisdom of Truth. My image is of Jesus throwing up his hands and saying, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and you do not understand these things?!...If I have told you about earthly things, and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you of heavenly things?"
In our age, we take great pride in how much we know, how many degrees we own, how many factoids we have ready to hurl at those with whom we disagree. Nicodemus is a person with whom we might readily identify.
One of the things I don't like about living in Florida is the necessity of declaring one's political party affiliation as a prerequisite to eligibility to vote in a primary election. One of the things I quit doing many years ago was defining my political ideology, and I did that based upon the automatic judgment from others that being a member of a political party invites. My ideology simply isn't that "clean," meaning it depends on the issue or the particular political theory attached to an issue. Yet, a huge amount of money and rhetoric is thrown into partisan politics. Such terms as "doing battle" or "go to war" is common, and abusive, language in speaking of opposing ideological stances. The arbitrary lines of being either "in" or "out" of these groups creates a duality that has great potential for a kind of near demonic possession.
It is highly unlikely that anything I say here will cause a shift in our currently toxic political and socio-economic rhetoric. The division between wealth and relative poverty; the "hostage taking" involved in partisan legislative process; the cultural and racial biases that are much more obvious than folks will admit within our decisions on who is in and who is out (e.g. state voter registration); the constant finger pointing and abusive language within all classifications of social media; the extremes of dualistic thinking that leads to "all or nothing" and "win or lose" behavior....all of these paint a grim picture. None of it reflects anything that I have experienced in my study of cultural and political history, regarding the hopes, dreams and intentions of our founders and those who articulated the great "American Experiment."
I am not, by nature, a cynic. Nor am I, in any way, a "doomsday prophet." Most of the time, I am both hopeful and optimistic. Most of the time, I am simply able to ignore abusive language, paranoid rantings, and opinions that obviously lack grounding in thoughtful or well researched investigation. My way of "doing business" has almost always included having some depth of knowledge or insight. Because I am emotive in my personality type, I know that the first level of response to anything is going to be "from my gut." With years of practice, I automatically do a "gut check" when faced with almost anything....and simply refrain from response until, and unless, I can apply my thought processes to the information being received.
I am not always successful in any of this. A person shoves an RNC or DNC card in my face....I know that that person is feigning a blow (a boxing term...throwing a fake punch to distract an opponent and get them flustered). That person is also insecure enough to believe that showing others that "I belong to this group" will somehow empower them; intimidate those who are not in that group; and set up some level of "I am in and you are out" rhetoric.
Actually, my response to someone, who "flashed" me with a political card, surprised them into speechlessness, when I pulled out my wallet and flashing my health insurance card. I simply said, "I'm covered, are you?"
There is an emerging level of spirituality and healing that is bringing people together in ways not seen in our history. I think the Great American Experiment will extend itself, but it will shift. It will not be fully what it could be until we get our own house in order. It means healing some very deep wounds: with indigenous peoples and peoples of various ethnic and cultural origins who are part of the tapestry of life but still marginalized by fear, bigotry and negligence. One essential component of any true democracy/republic is compassion.....the ability to "walk in solidarity with".... all creation.
Meanwhile, I practice the advice given in Desiderata:
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy. -- Max Ehrmann
(In the Public Domain, No copyright)
Love and Blessings!
Fr. Fred+
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