A short thought about maturity

This is a thought I had, following Wild Goose Festival (East) 2012 and my experience there both with friends, and reflecting upon a number of talks which touched on recovery from traumatic experiences:

It's a rare and precious thing to be capable of coming alongside someone as a friend without needing to explain them to yourself - that is, to offer your presence while allowing your friend to maintain their own mysterious integrity, free from your need to fit them - and their thoughts, actions, motivations, joys, passions, and sufferings - into categories that make sense to you and make you feel comfortable. I hope to grow in this capability.

I posted this in an online group, and my friend Janine responded with the following:

I'm with you, Mike, hoping to grow in this capability too! Perhaps non-dualistic thinking is the basis for being able to grow in this way. Seems to fit with Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation for today:

"Reality is paradoxical and complementary. Non-dual thinking is the highest level of consciousness. Divine union, not private perfection, is the goal of all religion (GOAL). 

"Reality is “not totally one,” but it is “not totally two,” either! All things, events, persons, and institutions, if looked at contemplatively (non-egocentrically), reveal contradictions, create dilemmas, and have their own shadow side. Wisdom knows how to hold and to grow from this creative tension; ego does not. Our ego splits reality into parts that it can manage, but then pays a big price in regard to actual truth or understanding. 

"The contemplative mind will be at the heart and center of all teaching in our new Living School. Only the contemplative mind can honor the underlying unity (“not two”) of things, while also work with them in their distinctness (“not totally one”). The world almost always presents itself as a paradox, a contradiction, or a problem—like our themes of “action and contemplation,” “Christian and non-Christian,” or “male and female” first did. At the mature level, however, we learn to see all things in terms of unitive consciousness, while still respecting, protecting, and working with the very real differences. This is the great—perhaps the greatest—art form. It is the supreme task of all religion." 

~ Richard Rohr, June 2012

I have to admit that I was surprised and a little proud to be tracking so closely with thoughts from Fr. Richard, whom I admire very much.

image:  Some rights reserved by janiebug2010

Live Lectio/Flash Fiction - Exodus 12

This is a fictional response to a reading of a passage of scripture during Common Table's Sunday morning worship service on retreat at Shrine Mont on 4 September, 2011.  It's also a cross-post from our shared Common Table blog; please see the first post in this series for context, as well as the biblical passage being responded to.

Disobedience

It was only an hour before the appointed time, when the Lord would send his angel of death - the angel with the flaming sword that would cut out the heart of each Egyptian family.  Rachel snuck out while her father was bundling their few possessions, and her mother was cleaning the remains of the tiny leg of lamb they’d been given by their next door neighbor.

She moved quickly down the street, careful not to slosh the blood in the bowl she carried.  At each Egyptian home she reached, Rachel dipped her rag into the bowl, and hastily dribbled blood on the doorframe.

She kept on running into the dark, painting hope on as many doors as she could reach, until the dawn broke, and Rachel heard the first wails of anguish from the homes further on down the street.

image:  Some rights reserved by panavatar

The Wild Goose is not safe #WGF11

This past weekend, I attended the Wild Goose Festival, in Shakori Hills, NC, with something like 1700 other...I dunno...misfits for Jesus? Something like that. It was "a festival of justice, spirituality, music and the arts...rooted in the Christian tradition and therefore open to all regardless of belief, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, denomination or religious affiliation." It was amazing. For four days, we camped, walked, talked, listened, sat, ate, drank, hugged, laughed, prayed, sang, danced, and wept together.

The Wild Goose is a Celtic metaphor for the Holy Spirit. She blows where she will, and (like Aslan in the Narnia books), she is not safe. I have felt her gentle breeze before, as it gently grabbed me by the ankle, turned me upside down, and banged my head repeatedly into the ground, after repeated attempts to whisper vital information into my ear and heart had proved noneffective.

I can't speak for any of my fellow Goose people, though I suspect I'm not alone. I don't really know if I went to this gathering - a gathering named for God's dynamic Spirit - expecting to come home unchanged. All I know is, that's not what happened.

I'll be a while sorting out all the ways this past weekend has affected me. I'll probably follow up this post with some more reflective posts on that topic. For right now, I'm actually using my blog (which I haven't used much, lately) for a very practical purpose.

The one thing that I feel clearly seared into my heart following my experiences at the Goose - the one thing that is prompting me to begin a process of formation leading (relatively quickly, I hope) to action - is a much-belated conviction that I have been a piss-poor ally (really, not worthy of that title at all) to my Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender sisters and brothers, despite the fact that I am a card carrying member of the institution that is doing more than any other to cause pain, suffering, and injustice for folks in those communities - that is, the Church.

I have many people to thank for this change of heart - long-time friends and folks I'd never met before this weekend. I won't try to list them all here - many of them will probably turn up in future blog posts - but I do want to mention my dear friend Rachel Swan. (Who will probably be like, "wha??" since she and I hardly talked about these issues at all this past weekend, despite spending lots of hours together and in company with others who were discussing these topics.) I want to mention Rachel, because just about all of the Spirit-leading I experienced at the Goose - in this area at least - flowed in one way or another from our friendship. Rachel, dear, thank you for being you - and thank God, too, for making you that way. :-)

In light of my experience, I am beginning an intentional process of opening myself to formation as an ally - one who actually uses his voice, risks and spends his privilege, and potentially helps make a difference in the world (and more specifically in the Church) in solidarity with my LGBTQ brothers and sisters.

As I begin that process, I think I'll use this blog to record resources and stepping stones I find along the path that seem helpful. I'm doing this for my own accountability, and also as a potential resource for others who might be feeling this particular call from the Wild Goose of God's Spirit.

So here's one, via Brian Gerald Murphy: a challenging talk from Dr. Omi Osun Joni L. Jones on "6 rules for Allies". (Thanks, Brian!)

More to come, Goose willing....

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I've never participated in a synchroblog before, and this post was not originally intended to be part of a synchroblog, but now it is, and I think I'm supposed to (and it's my pleasure to) link to the host of amazing folks who are also blogging about the Goose:

Anna Snoeyenbos – Wild Goose Festival – A Spirit of Life Revival

Lee Smith - Goose Bumps: Opportunities Everywhere for Offense. A Fair and Objective Review

Ryan Hines – 30 Years Later – “Controversy” at Wild Goose

Karyn Wiseman – Flying With the Goose

Kyla Cofer – I went to the Wild Goose Fest and came back in love

Brian Gerald Murphy – Born Again (Again) at Wild Goose

Chris Lenshyn – Chasing the Wild Goose

Cherie at Renaissance Garden – Wild Goose Return

Deborah Wise – Wild Goose Chasing

Custodianseed – “every day they eat boiled goose”

Will Norman – Back from the Wild Goose Fest

Martin at Exiles in NY – Greenbelt and the Wild Goose

Kerri at Practicing Contemplative – Waterfowl in My Life

Allison Leigh Lilley – Chasing the Wild Goose and Catching the Wild Goose: Thanks and First Thoughts

Abbie Waters – Jessica: A Fable

Steve Knight – Why Wild Goose Festival Was So Magical

Tammy Carter – Visual Acuity and Flying

Michelle Thorburg Hammond – I heart Jay Bakker and Peter Rollins

Matthew Bolz-Weber – Remembering Wild Goose

Paul Fromberg – Celebrating Interdependence Day

David Zimmerman – Wild Goose Festival: A Recap

Dan Brennan – U2, the Wild Goose, and Deep Freedom

Mike Croghan – The Wild Goose is Not Safe

John Martinez – The Table

Callid Keefe-Perry – Gatekeeping the Goose

Eric Elnes – The Inaugural Wild Goose Festival: Recovering Something Lost

Shay Kearns – The Power of a T-Shirt, Apologizing to Over the Rhine, and Public vs. Private (Part One)

Glen Reteif – Duck Duck Goose

Peterson Toscano – I’ve Been Goosed, What I Carried Into Wild Goose, and What I Blurted Out at Wild Goose

Seth Donovan – About More than “The Gays”

TSmith – What I’ll Take From Wild Goose

Dale Lature – Wild Goose Reflection

Steve Hayes – Wild Goose Chase?

Minnow – Grace Response

Christine Sine – Encounters With A Thin Space

Jeremy Myers – Giving Up the Wild Goose Chase

Robert – Thoughts On the Inaugural Wild Goose

Anna Woofenden – Slippery Slope Reflections

Wendy McCaig – Loosing The Goose

Joey Wahoo – Into The Wild

And also (unofficially) my amazing friend Rachel!

Rachel Swan – Goosed

Peace!

photo courtesy of Kirsti Reeve, used gratefully with permission