Pruning with Stephanie

Barbara: Hi everyone- welcome to 40 minutes of faith. My name is Barbara Cox and I host this weekly podcast to explore God's word and our relationship with God.

Today's guest is Stephanie Hittle. I met her in Germany a few years ago. Stephanie has been a military spouse for 11 years. She's from Washington state and has lived in seven States and one country outside the USA. Her family includes six children, three boys and three girls, and they recently moved to New York state Stephanie's faith background is Christian mystic.

She worked in the medical field as a medical assistant and her dreams are to travel the world and become a motivational speaker and author. Stephanie has been writing prayers for many years and they have been a blessing for this podcast since it started in June. Welcome, Stephanie! How are things settling in for all of you in New York state?

Stephanie: Hi, Barbara. Thank you for having me today. Things are going really well. We're finally settling into our own house to make it our own.

Barbara: I bet that's a lot of work, but so glad to have you in the neighborhood.

Stephanie: Yeah. It's nice to be close by you again.

Barbara: Today you have three Bible passages. The first one is from the gospel of John, which is more than halfway through your Bible. Stephanie will read John chapter 15, verses one through five from the new international version.

Stephanie: I am the true vine. And my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit while every branch that bears fruit, he prunes. So that will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you remain in me as I also remain in you.

No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing.

Barbara: Stephanie, there is so much powerful material in these verses. Do you happen to have any garden experience, especially with pruning? What's involved?

Stephanie: Actually, yes. Growing up, I helped my grandparents a lot with their garden and as well in our own home. I did do some pruning. And that's when you cut back the stems and buds during the late spring and early winter months, so new ones can grow back and it also helps encourage the plant or a tree to bloom new growth.

Barbara: Interesting. I have moderate gardening experience. So I'm vaguely familiar with the concept, it sounds like you know more about it than I do- it sounds like there's a purpose and a reason for what's done. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that as it relates to the Bible. We like to recommend resources.

And one Bible study that Stephanie and I did together in Germany is "Finding I Am" by Lysa TerKeurst. We will have the details listed on the podcast website, which is 40 minutes of faith.com. We have one of the I am statements in today's passage when Jesus says I am the vine. Stephanie, what does it mean to you that we are branches from this vine?

Stephanie: Well, Jesus calls himself the vine because he gives life to the branches. And as we are the branches to Jesus, it means to me that Jesus is our source of life. He feeds us, cares for us and gives us what we need to live. And when we accept his fruits, we ourselves produce healthier nurture fruits in life.

So he produces goodness for us and in us being his branches,

Barbara: that's a really beautiful image how you described that. Thank you. One of the things that the Bible study author Lysa writes about in this passage is that without Jesus, we tend to selfishly focus on how the quote fruit that we produce brings glory to ourselves.

Stephanie, is there a difference between what the world expects us to produce and what God is looking for in our lives?

Stephanie: I definitely feel there is a difference. The world seems to want to see more producing of money and power and success in terms of owning this or that. And who's more famous.

And it doesn't matter to some, if it's for positive or negative deeds. And at times it seems like society, it doesn't care too much about one's heart and soul. But as far as what God is looking for in our lives, I believe he seeks our true heart and soul fruits.

He's more concerned with our inner beauty and our true selves versus outwardly glam. Not saying that being famous and rich is a poor quality to have, it's just how one uses their gifts and blessings to help others as well.

Barbara: Yeah, that makes sense to me. God doesn't care if we're on the cover of a magazine or if we have a certain amount of money in our bank account or anything like that.

So there is a difference between what the world expects that's people by and large. And maybe we're just talking about Western culture. Maybe we're talking about what we're familiar with. It could be different in other places that we're not as familiar with, but those are some really good examples. I really appreciate that.

Lysa reminds us in this Bible study that we are not the vine. We are running around trying to control our lives. Well, I mean, I try to do that. Maybe you do, probably a lot of people. I don't want to throw everybody under the bus, just myself, but Lysa believes that God wants us to slow down and receive what we are being given.

Jesus says in verse four that we should remain. Stephanie, what is a real-life example of how we can remain with Jesus rather than trying to be the vine ourselves?

Stephanie: Like you said, as difficult it is, we do need to let go of feeling and trying to control every inch and aspect of our lives. We weren't created for that.

And when we do that, it brings on too much pressure and anxieties and disappointments. So some of us can be a bit of a control freak, so to speak. Like I know I can be. And when we're feeling overwhelmed or defeated, we need to take a step back and remember that Jesus is here for us and it is with him and through him that we remain strong. We can't always do it ourselves all the time. Like an example, our family buying a house. Here in New York, it takes six to eight weeks because you have the realtors, the lawyers, and the bankers and all of that stuff involved. And it's a very, very slow process. But our family, we kept being told you have to wait. There's nothing you can do. But my husband and I, we sat down and we prayed fiercely and felt and believed that God was in complete control and he was going to make a way in a quicker way for us. So after my husband made a couple phone calls and we just let go and gave it to God and we ended up closing our house in 30 days.

Barbara: Wow. So remaining could look like being patient. I'm hearing you also say prayer and that maybe we can still make some phone calls while we're remaining in being patient, but that we're not like just trying to hammer the control - and for me that comes from fear. Like if I'm not controlling this, then it's not going to work out, which I know is untrue.

Stephanie: Yeah. We just need to do what you can and then let go and let God do what he does behind the doors.

Barbara: And that sounds kind of scary sometimes, or maybe to some people, maybe to me sometimes. Stephanie, we're not done with this passage in John yet, but there is another story about vines in the Bible.

Actually, there are many stories about vineyards, but the one I have in mind for today is in the book of Isaiah. This is in the Hebrew Bible, also known as the old Testament, right in the middle of your Bible. I will read Isaiah chapter five, verses one to four in the new international version:

“I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard. My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a Watchtower in it. And cut out a wine press as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah judge between me and my vineyard.

What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it. When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?”

 Stephanie, how long does it sometimes take to see the results of things we plant in gardens or on farms?

Stephanie: Well, it always depends on what you're planting. Some items take longer than others to grow in order to produce a better quality. Wild flowers take a few short weeks while others such as grapes take years for the maturing.

Barbara: I actually didn't know that. So that makes this story actually even more interesting because it sounds like it took a few years to get all this stuff done where I don't know how long it takes to build a vineyard and then wait for the grapes.

Stephanie: Yeah, it can take about five seasons from what I've been told.

Barbara: Wow. Maybe we're more used to seeing kind of seasonal stuff like corn. I think it grows up in less than a year and you harvest it and it's gone and that's it. So this is a really long-term investment with these grapes here.

Stephanie: Yes.

Barbara: Interesting. Another resource that I've used for many years is called the Serendipity Bible for groups.

One of the reasons I really like this Bible is that there are discussion questions in the margins, and you can have a Bible study about any passage based on the questions that are right there. For example, regarding this story in Isaiah, the serendipity Bible for groups asks us this question. When you start a project such as a term paper or remodeling a house with high hopes, but it fails repeatedly.

What do you do? Give up, try again, wait until next year? And why? Stephanie, how about those larger projects that are just going nowhere in your life, which hopefully you don't have any, I guess we all probably do?

Stephanie: well, we have a choice because God gave us free will so we can either allow it to defeat us or we can allow God to defeat it for us.

And when things fail, it doesn't mean that we failed or are failures. To me, it means there's a better way for us, even when we feel like giving up and fall into allowing the enemy to speak negativity to our minds, we just need to take a step back and reevaluate, maybe seek out help from spirit, our spiritual brothers and sisters, classmates, and other mentors.

We don't always see what's in front of us. We don't always look at all the angles and things don't always happen on our timeline. They happen on God's and his timing is always perfect, even if we're impatient and don't agree with that. And the end it's always works out and there's always a learning opportunity in any of our challenges.

Barbara: I like that you're suggesting that there could be a new direction. Like there could just be a turn when we don't think there's supposed to be a turn. And then we're kind of confused and like, what's happening. This is a failure, but it's not a failure.

Stephanie: I don't really look at failure as failure per se. I always, I feel that God always has a learning opportunity for us. Even if we have to take a detour

Barbara: I like that. And one of my favorite quotes that I heard in a sermon actually in Germany in one of the American military chapels is, the preacher said that we want a microwave god. And I thought, yup.

Stephanie: Yup. We sure do.

Barbara: And God's not a microwave God. Now, God can move with lightening speed. No doubt about it. But in our day to day lives, we might be thinking, hello, what's going on? Hang on. And it could be a new direction. It could be a detour. And I also really like what you said about negativity that gets planted in our minds.

Can you say a little bit more about how we might see things as failures because of just negative messages that we're processing- how can we deal with that?

Stephanie: Well, like with a term paper, if you get a grade that you don't like, then of course you start believing the lies. I'm stupid. I didn't do good enough.

I can't succeed. But that's the enemy telling you that. You might have to put more studying into it. You just didn't comprehend what it was. You can always make up for that later on and God will show you and lead you that way.

Barbara: Yes- in fact, for my master's thesis, I was told to send it to the writing center. And I was kinda surprised because generally I think I'm an okay writer, but they said, no, no, we say that to everyone, which I'm assuming is true.

Maybe they don't. But anyway, it was probably meant to make me feel a little bit better. And I got fantastic advice from the writing center, just minute little things that I had no idea. I got some great ideas for clarification and just for more accuracy. So it did not in any way mean that getting sent to the writing center means you're a failure.

Stephanie: It was another learning opportunity.

Barbara: Yes, exactly. Thank you. Stephanie, there's one really important Lutheran concept that I keep bringing up because both of the passages we're talking about today have a lot of law in them. By this I mean that we humans are pretty good at not meeting God's expectations.

We are sinners and we cannot produce to perfection. The grapes we produce are sour sometimes, or even much of the time. We can't keep all the rules and because of that, it's impossible for us to earn our salvation. Instead, what a relief it is to know that salvation is a free gift.

So if that's true, then why would we want to bother with trying to produce good fruit?

Stephanie: Well, salvation is a free gift. However, it's a free gift to those who accept it whole-heartedly. And it's not holy to have the thought process oh, it doesn't matter if I break this law or a rule because I'm already forgiven.

That's not a heart that God seeks. God wants a heart full of good fruits, not decayed fruits. And he wants those who want him with true sincerity. We're humans and no one's perfect. We all make mistakes and errors. It's more of did we do this or that with an honest intention or did we do this or that because we weren't in line with Jesus and we got a little lost? If we come back to our shepherd and he sees and feels our sorrow and we admit our wrongs, he welcomes us right back and he graces us. Our punishment for ourselves is that we went through the wandered dry desert.

Barbara: Yes. I'm so glad you said that because even though we're talking about grapes, I really like that metaphor of we can stray.

We can wander around and then we're always welcomed back, no matter how far we wandered or how kind of bad fruit to go back to the original metaphor that we produced. There's no fruit that God can't love or that Jesus won't accept back into the fold.

Stephanie: No, he'll always restore us.

Barbara: So yes, salvation is a free gift and yes, we still seek to care for our neighbor and do the right thing in that kind of thing example of producing good fruit. And we have another question about that from the serendipity Bible for groups, which is what are some fruits people use today to evaluate how spiritual a person is?

How do these compare with what God looks for in a growing church? Thankfully, this Bible also gives us a hint at one possible answer, which is found in the book of Galatians chapter five. Galatians is a very small book almost at the end of your Bible. Stephanie will read verses 22 to 24 from the message,

Stephanie: but what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way the fruit appears in an orchard. Things like affection for others.

Exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart and a conviction that is a basic holiness permeates things. And people we find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our ways in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. Legalism is helpless in bringing things about. It only gets in the way among those who belong to Christ. Everything connected with getting our own way and of mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good, crucified.

Barbara: Stephanie, how did these verses compare with some “fruits” people use today to evaluate how spiritual a person is?

Stephanie: it seems as though people often give fake fruit versus fruit that is pure. They do things out of feeling obligated or for show. And the more one gives, the more you will be liked or praised. People seek out approval of others instead of the approval of the Holy spirit. It's in the quiet giving that we receive the true blessings and God sees our true hearts. We don't need to feed pride. We need to feed the soul. And in Matthew 6, he mentions about giving in the quiet and not on the streets. Even though we want to be liked as a person, we should only share our fruits that we're called to bring forward and people will see who we are because God's light will shine out of us.

Barbara: Yeah. Thank you so much for mentioning that new Testament passage, because that's exactly what came to my mind when you were saying it. And I was kind of scrambling like, Oh, I can't remember exactly where it is. Yes. We're called to give quietly and you know, sometimes people want to recognize that. And so I'm not going to say, Oh, you can never be recognized, but there's a difference between giving quietly and maybe anonymously because the people who receive know.

So are we doing it for show? Exactly like you said. That's a good point. And the, the Bible passage in Galatians give some really nice examples about affection for others and just how eventually it kind of goes into your whole body and your soul and your mind that we are not forcing our way in life.

And again, that goes back to the control. That's how I'm reading that and that legalism is helpless in bringing anything about, but that's something also, that's easy for me to judge other people very easy to judge myself too, but who's the ultimate judge?

Stephanie: God is.

Barbara: Yeah, but people sure do judge each other.

Stephanie: They definitely do. It's kind of a hard trap to get out of sometimes.

Barbara: Yup. And you talked about doing things for show, which to me that's judging a book by its cover because we never know what's in someone's heart based on what they look like on the outside. It could be totally the opposite of how you look versus what's inside in both directions.

Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely.

Barbara: I try to, do my best and, take a shower and put on clean clothes and stuff like that, but I know that in some faith communities you're really expected to dress up and be on your Sunday best. And I don't have firsthand experience with that. I'm not sure if you do, but I've heard about it that, the expectation is you put your best foot forward and you don't tell people your problems in church, which is, I think the one place where it would be really great to get prayers for your problems, but sometimes people don't want anybody to know,

Stephanie: could just look on the outside and think, well, she's smiling. She's happy. She's dressed nice. Her life's perfect, so to speak.

Barbara: Yep. Maybe easy for us to be jealous too, but we have no idea. Cause there may have been days when we were smiling and things were not perfect for sure. One optional question for consideration comes from my Lutheran study Bible. What kind of vineyard describes your life?

Stephanie, do we have different spiritual seasons in our lives that might change how our metaphorical vineyards look like?

Stephanie: Absolutely. I think we do. We all go through different seasons and it helps us mature and grow more fruitful. Some seasons may seem really dry and bare where we go through a lot more pruning than what we normally do in other seasons.

But God does this to prepare us for the abundance of blooms that are coming into our own fruition. It's not easy. And we may experience more thirst. And we don't feel full, but in time we turned to the sun as in the sunshine and then in the son as in the Son of God for our nourishment in light. And as we do this, our vineyards will be more abundant and we can share our fruit with others.

Barbara: I don't think that the expectation is that we ourselves, you know, symbolically with this vineyard, that everything is always blooming and abundant. Like you said, that even in nature, there's seasons when things look dead on the outside. We're in fall right now in North America and some plants are fading and that that's okay, that that's a part of the circle of life. Maybe there's other parts of the world where things are always lush just due to the weather, but around here, that kind of makes me think of that example, that there could be times in our lives when we're maybe limping along spiritually or thirsty, like you said, physically thirsty and spiritually thirsty, and then we're seeking out that vine.

That source, that spiritual source. And I like how you mentioned also mentors, before, when you were talking about maybe thinking about ourselves as failures, you know, who are we talking to? Who are we listening to? We're not always going to get just the stroking of Oh, you're so wonderful. I mean, that would be nice, but that's just fake, too. Where can we find spiritual mentors that will say, you know, there's another season coming?

This is a really hard season right now. And it might feel like it's lasting forever. I don't know if you have any thoughts on mentors. Cause sometimes it seems to me like it's kind of hard to find mentors in person, but maybe that's just me.

Stephanie: It can definitely be challenging, but now you can go to your local church and there's neighbors and like perfect strangers you can run into and having an amazing conversation with, and they shared the word of God with you or an experience.

And it's just like mind blowing. And next thing you know, you're like family and best friends. God will put the right people on the right path at the right time. I firmly believe that.

Barbara: Yes, that's wonderful. So spiritual mentors don't have to be people who have a lot of theological training. I mean, even Bible study teachers, I think when I read books or watch videos, even though I have never met them in person, but I love what you said, that it could just be a random stranger and you meet them and there's a connection and people can speak wisdom to us, even if they're relatively strangers. That's great. Thank you. So now we're back to the first passage in the gospel of John.

Let's talk about pruning in our lives. I suspect that pruning is uncomfortable at best and really painful sometimes. Stephanie, what might God see as needing pruning in our lives? And why does this pruning happen?

Stephanie: Oh, perhaps God will prune our relationships that aren't healthy or suitable for us, whether that's a friendship or romantic partnership, a pruning with a job that isn't allowing our branches to grow any further, or some sort of loss, we have to sometimes lose things in order to find things. And God's making room and making room for a renewal. It can be very difficult and uncomfortable, and we might experience some grief, but we won't be left empty and naked. He will fill us up again and keep us clothed with his richness and glory.

Barbara: Yes. I really like how you said that God is making room because it seems to me like we can fill up our lives just physically with stuff.

And then also emotionally, or just being busy all the time and running around. And maybe some of that has slowed down yeah with the pandemic, but still, how do we make space for something new in our lives? And maybe letting go of something isn't tons of fun. I took a life coach training course from Martha Beck.

And one of the things that she said was who do you have to thank for pushing you off the wrong path? And so for me, the answer is God, even if it was a person who did something that changed my path, that it was God, to make room, put me on a different path.

Stephanie: It's like cleaning house, deep cleaning the house.

Barbara: Yes. And sometimes people get mad too, in our lives, if we're going in a direction that isn't beneficial to someone else. So even, you know, if we want to spend time at church and someone else's like, I don't like how you're spending so much time at church or you're hanging out with all those church people or something like that, that it could be having different relationships, new relationships.

Maybe that's not the best example, but that's just the one that came to my mind.

Stephanie: cause they're not personally ready for that and they don't understand it. So they're going to push that away because it's unknown and uncomfortable for them.

Barbara: making a health decision- I'm going to do less of this and do more of this for my own health.

Even if it's physical health or spiritual health, how can we support and encourage each other when it comes to spiritual or physical pruning?

Stephanie: I think letting the person or persons know that you're there for them and share any experiences that may relate to their challenges, but also sharing God's sharp yet gentle tool, which is his word and his promises with them.

Barbara: Oh, I'm so glad you said promises because this could be a really awkward topic where you don't know - I don't have cancer, but I'm just thinking someone might say, why do I have cancer? Is God pruning me here? And there are other stories of people's faith journeys during medical challenges.

And that you said that there's also a promise and the promise is not eternal life on earth with good health. And I don't mean that sarcastically at all, but there's a higher promise of a relationship with God that continues beyond earth.

Stephanie: Yes.

Barbara: Stephanie, I just want to check in with you on the concept that while we can't earn our way into heaven by producing great fruit all of the time, we have a free gift of salvation, and we want to love our neighbor according to God's will. What's the point in judging other people for words or actions that we think is bad fruit?

What about when people say things to or about us when it comes to our own words or actions?

Stephanie: Well, I don't feel we should judge per se, but I think we should help out our brothers and sisters holding themselves accountable with situations that go against their own beliefs or that aren't holy. We all need a positive support system again, mentors, and it's not to judge them, it's to help them.

And if we do it in loving ways and not in a way you're saying, I know what's better for you. However, there are ungodly people out there in the world and we need to be aware and acknowledge they aren't good fruits. Some fruits unfortunately are decayed, but when it comes with things that are. Pointed out, that we've done ourselves, it's uncomfortable and we may feel defensive.

We don't like to be wrong. We don't like the feeling of being ashamed and we don't want to offend or hurt anyone. Yet, it helps us correct our behavior or at least helps us to reevaluate ourselves so our fruit stays vital.

Barbara: Yeah. That's a great point. I sure don't like it when someone points out something to me and hopefully they're in alignment with this whole pruning that we're talking about spiritually from God.

It could be that they're just coming from a wrong direction, like you said, and that we can also support each other and encourage each other to do the right thing. But ultimately the pruning is up to God. Yes. Is there anything else that you want to talk about on this topic of pruning Stephanie?

Stephanie: Not that I can think of right at the moment.

Barbara: Great. Thank you so much for your time. This has been really interesting. I learned some new things about gardening and I'm really glad we had a chance to talk about God's pruning in our lives and abiding and remaining.

Stephanie: I really enjoyed it too. It's a very interesting topic.

Barbara: Great. We'll have to do it again soon.

Stephanie: Of course.

Resources:

John 15:1-5

Isaiah 5:1-4

Galatians 5:22-24

Matthew 6

"Finding I Am" by Lysa TerKeurst

Serendipity Bible for Groups

Lutheran Study Bible

Stephanie writes powerful and beautiful prayers

Iona Pilgrimage

Hi everyone. And welcome to 40 minutes of faith. My name is Barbara Cox and I host this weekly podcast to explore God's word and our relationship with God.

Today, we're going to be talking about a few different topics. I have photos of a pilgrimage to the Island of Iona, which is off the West coast of Scotland. I've selected two Bible verses that have references to nature among the many Bible verses that refer to nature and God's creation. I also have some information for you from the Evangelical Lutheran church in America's social statement about care for creation. And finally, I want to offer some recommendations for different learning styles when we're doing a Bible study,

For those of you who have access to YouTube, there's going to be some photos. The first photo that I have is the reflection of a hillside in a still Lake. At the edge of the Lake, a photographer has a camera on a tripod, and we can just see this very small figure of the photographer against the reflection of the clouds in the Lake. Off to the side of the Lake is an old wood boat that looks like it's been there for a really long time time that has some rotted wood it's tipped to the side, but it probably served people for many, many years before it was left at the side of this Lake.

I'm going to read from Isaiah chapter 35, verses one to two and verses six to seven. Isaiah is just in the very middle of your Bible. I'm going to read from the new revised standard version: “the wilderness and the dry land shall be glad. the desert shall rejoice and blossom. Like the Crocus, it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing.

For waters shall break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand shall become a pool and the thirsty ground Springs of water, the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp. The grass shall become reeds and rushes.”

The information that I'm going to share today about different learning styles comes from a book written by Barbara Bruce. I highly recommend this slim volume. The title is “7 ways of teaching the Bible to adults” and the subtitle is using our multiple intelligences to build faith. One of the things I wonder when you hear things about nature, do your fingers itch to draw or doodle or paint? And if so, I welcome that during this podcast. What are ways that we connect the different parts of our listening, our soul, our brain, and our bodies?

I have a photo that I took on the Island of Iona of a wood door. You can see the grains of the wood and the planks that go from top to bottom of the door. And it has what I believe are iron nails and a piece of iron that holds the three pieces of wood together and an iron door handle that's a circle and there's a little bit of carved wood also at the top. And what I wonder is, as we go on our journeys, I don't mean to talk about travel in the sense that, Oh, you must go on a pilgrimage.

In fact, to the best of my understanding in medieval times into the Renaissance, people were told to go on pilgrimage to please God. And I believe that spending time with God does please God, but not that we have to go somewhere to do it. And that if we don't go somewhere that that's displeasing to God, I believe that we can honor God with our time in many different ways.

Especially these days when we have travel restrictions, we can't go to Iona right now, unless you're really close by to there already. So I feel like in our lives sometimes we may feel like there's times when the door is closed and I invite us to use our imaginations and think about times when there may be other ways to get somewhere besides through a door.

And some of us are home bound due to health reasons or transportation logistics. So I just want to offer up maybe a travel in the imagination. I have a few questions for us to consider. So if you're someone who likes to write, these could be journaling questions or just questions to ponder as we go through the day, as we take a look at some different topics today, one question that I appreciated learning from a professor is where is the love?

Where is God's love? Where is our love for each other? And a companion question to that is where is the fear? Where are we afraid and where are others afraid? Maybe we know for sure. Maybe we don't know. Maybe we're trying to understand the situation a little bit better. A different professor asked a really important question that I'm going to try to raise a few times today.

And that is whose voice is missing. So when I talk about going on pilgrimage to Iona, I believe that I have been tremendously fortunate in being able to travel. And I want to acknowledge that many people I know are so busy working two or three jobs, that something like an international trip, may be out of the question at this time in their lives.

And folks may believe that this kind of travel is probably out of the question for a really long time, if not forever. So I just want to acknowledge that we're all in different places. And this isn't only for people who do travel or who love to travel or who have traveled. Hopefully this is for everyone.

Where is God in this story, as we talk about care for creation or any topic? Is there an elephant in the room?

We traveled from the mainland of Scotland (Oban), took a ferry to the Island of Mull and then drove across Mull-that's where we saw this rainbow- and then took another short ferry to Iona.

I include this photo as often as I can on the podcast website, which is 40 minutes of faith.com, because it's important to me to welcome everyone. And I have heard some sad stories about folks who have felt rejected by the church for various reasons. And my belief is that God is it's the final judge and it's not my place to judge people.

Now we do have some pretty clear guidelines. In many instances, for example, I referred to the 10 commandments in a previous podcast that I did about what classes I was learning the first fall semester. And I'm taking another class right now that goes into much more depth about the 10 commandments. So we do have the law.

By all means. And then we also have the gospel, which does not wipe away the law. A lot of people think that some Lutherans have sort of done away with the law because we're so focused on the gospel and grace and God's love and God's forgiveness, but there is a balance to be had.

And I don't embody that balance all the time. There are times when we absolutely need the law and there are times when we really need the gospel, meaning grace and forgiveness and love and care. So I've got this rainbow here and we can talk more about the 10 commandments in another episode, but just for right now, I wanted to show you the beauty of God's creation and acknowledge that there are moments filled with pain for many people around different issues of acceptance and welcome, especially when it comes to God's church.

I have a quote for you from the ELCA social statement, and that's the abbreviation for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The main website is  ELCA.org, and I'm going to include a detailed link on the podcast website that goes straight to the social statements, or you can just search for them.

So I have on page seven of that social statement, a quote that I wanted to share with you:

“the earth in its fullness belonged to the Lord. No person or group has absolute claim to the earth or its product. In a world of finite resources for all to have enough means that those with more than enough will have to change their patterns of acquisition and assumption. Sufficiency charges us to work with each other and the environment to meet needs without causing undue burdens elsewhere.

Sufficiency also urges us to care for arable land so that sufficient food and fiber continue to be available to meet human needs. We affirm therefore the many stewards of the land who have been and are conserving the good earth that the Lord has given us. We recognize many forces that run counter to sufficiency.

We often seek personal fulfillment in acquisition. We anchor our political and economic structures in greed and unequal distribution of goods and services. Predictably many are left without resources for a decent and dignified life. We pray therefore for the strength to change our personal and public life to the end that there may be enough.”

I'm going to talk a little bit more about that statement as we go through the presentation. I have a photo here of a small window surrounded by large stones. This is from inside the Abbey on Iona, and we're looking out onto green grass. And in the foreground right in front of the window inside the Abbey is across.

I found a really interesting prayer by Thomas Merton in a very small book that I have about labyrinths. And I found this right after doing the recording about a pilgrimage to Spain in which we talked about labyrinths. As one way of spending time with God, even if you can't go somewhere, you can build a labyrinth and you can even imagine a labyrinth.

And the reason I have this little book is because there are small labyrinths that you can have in your house that you can actually trace your finger around. Now you can do that just with a piece of paper, but it's also kind of cool if you can find somewhere a labyrinth that has raised ridges for the path and you can trace your finger along it, and it's very soothing.

And the book talks about different ways that we can meditate, spend time with God and include some quotes, poems, and prayers to guide us in that endeavor. This prayer is attributed to Thomas Merton and I'd like to read it for you, especially when we're thinking about closed doors in our lives. And what I just read about in order for there to be enough for everyone, things need to change.

“My Lord, God, I have no idea of where I'm going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself and the fact that I think I am following your will, does not mean that I'm actually doing so, but I believe that the desire to please you does, in fact, please, you and I hope I have that desire in all that I'm doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road. Though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death, I will not fear, for you are with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

That reminded me of the 23rd Psalm: “Yea though, I walk through the Valley of the shadow of death.” And there's lots of beautiful nature imagery in the 23rd Psalm. One thing that I also want to raise is the question of access to nature. So one elephant in the room, and maybe one answer to the question whose voice is missing is not everyone has equal access to nature and or nature that they enjoy spending time in. So I want to acknowledge that the housing situation for some people is very crowded, tall apartment buildings and what sort of access to parks, nature, trees, flowers is available to folks and not just city dwellers, either?

We take nature for granted in many of the places that I've lived before. But I just want to raise up a question that never really occurred to me before I read Sierra magazine, and they've done a terrific job through the Sierra club of just educating and informing people that not everyone does have equal access to nature.

And I thought, well, of course, everybody has access to nature - you just go out your door and go find some. But depending on the realities of life of, working a bunch of jobs or transportation, how far do you have to go to get to nature? And then when you get there, are you welcome or are you not welcome?

Are people rejected? And the answer is yes. Are people suspicious of other people without cause? I believe that the answer to that is yes as well. I bring that up to really invite our awareness and our action in support of all people to have access to nature, that everyone can be welcome and that we consciously provide nature in a way that makes it more accessible to people. And I'm talking even in terms of city parks and things like that.

I want to read another Bible passage. And that's from the book of Joel, which is one of the minor prophets that's found after the book of Isaiah. So it's past the halfway point in your Bible. It's just a very short book and I just have verse 21 that refers to nature. I'm going to read from the message version. Joel, chapter two, verse 21: “fear not, earth. Be glad and celebrate. God has done great things. Fear not, wild animals. The fields and Meadows are greening up. The trees are bearing fruit again, a bumper crop of fig trees and vines.”

I read that with joy and also with a heavy heart, because I know that some parts of the world are suffering tremendously with nature at this time. I don't believe that our biblical promises are a guarantee everything will always be like that everywhere because of sin on earth. In part humans have created circumstances that allow for tremendous destruction.

Sometimes we create fires; sometimes how we have cared for the earth could make things worse. Dumping pollution into the ocean, horrific wildfires, climate change and things of that nature. Our stewardship of creation has put us in a position where some people take the Genesis quote that we are to have dominion over the earth to understand that we can exploit the earth. And while we have been exploiting the earth for many hundreds of years, there are other ways of living that don't require such exploitation. So one example that I can think of, a missing voice is actually the earth. And I believe that the earth does communicate with us and animals do communicate with us.

I wonder how easy it is to turn a deaf ear. I believe that some people are very sensitive to the needs of the earth and to animals and to our siblings, our fellow human beings. We can take power- we might say, well, I'm not taking this power. I'm not doing anything personally to these people or these animals or the planet, but just how we live can change the circumstances for all of those different groups, animals as well as the planet.

I'd like to read another quote from the ELCA social statement about care for creation, because I love to have all kinds of different background information. I also like to take action. So one example of using multiple intelligences is with our bodies. Do we like to spend time outside? Some people I think don't really like to spend a lot of time outside, but do we appreciate what we have? And yet we might feel really separate, but I don't mean to kind of say like, Oh, you know that nature over there- it's all around us. Even if we don't feel like it's immediately at hand if we live in a city and there's lots of concrete and buildings and cars and stuff like that. I want a call to action that this isn't just hypothetical, that we have this beautiful place around us, even if we don't see it every day and appreciated every day.

The multiple intelligences suggest that many people have body in kinesthetic joy, going for a run or something like that. And I know that if there's a lot of pollution in the air, then going for a run outside is not really a particularly helpful suggestion to you. I don't like to run myself, but I like to take a walk and I want to be grateful for what we do have. So I'm going to read a quote from the social statement, on page 10.

It says “we will welcome the interaction of different views and experiences in our discussion of environmental issues, such as nuclear and toxic waste dumps. Logging in ancient growth forests, personal habits in food consumption, farming practices, treatment of animals in livestock production, laboratory research and hunting, land use planning in global food development and population questions.

We will examine how environmental damage is influenced by racism, sexism, and classism. And how the environmental crisis in turn exacerbates racial, gender and class discrimination. We will include in our deliberation people who feel and suffer with issues whose economic security is at stake or who have expertise in the natural and social sciences.”

And it keeps going from there, but that's the part that I wanted to share for today. Because as we look at beautiful photos of places, I want to acknowledge that there are horrible photos of places and I've chosen today to not show those, but they are available to see just what is incredibly distressing to me and incredibly heartbreaking photos of pollution of birds, and of people who live with, say, oil.

That's just one example. Oil on water and on shorelines, fish who have died due to factory pollution going into streams and rivers, and the list could go on and on of different horrific ways that we have not cared for creation. And I'll talk about a few more examples as we go, but I want to just acknowledge, I have a photo of a beautiful stone building. That's the Abby on Iona, the grasses, the sea has fish. The birds are in the air. There's no visible pollution, but yet knowing that we pollute the air. Does the rain that comes down, is it still pure? What about different places on the planet? That's what the social statement is talking about in terms of whose voice is missing.

Who is being treated badly? And there is more awareness of this issue right now with places where the drinking water isn't safe or places where people get cancer. And a really important question about where is our love for each other is often those places with more pollution are near our vulnerable siblings.

And we treat people really badly like that. What is the skin color of people whose water is not drinkable or who have more cancers due to environmental pollution? I don't have a list of facts and figures to share with you today, but those are available. And I very much believe that we do discriminate against our black and Brown siblings and also at the animals and the earth itself. But in terms of our fellow human beings who is safe to live where they live,  who is able to safely drink the water that comes into their homes?

I have a beautiful prayer that I want to read about our focus on God, because I'm talking a lot about our human siblings, the earth and the animals. I was with a group of pilgrims who came from different church groups to look at a bunch of churches in Scotland. And this was one of them. And our tour guide read us an absolutely beautiful prayer by John Baillie. I wanted to share it with you because our focus can be on lots of different issues around us. And there's other issues that I haven't brought up today that are important to many people, but does our focus start with God? With spending time with God? So I want to give a shout out to the one who prays in many different ways and you've heard me over the weeks of this podcast prefer contemporary translations. So this is a very archaic language, but it really resonated with me. So I wanted to say, thank you to pastor Jim for helping us on our tour and I'll include that information. I'm not getting compensated for the shout out, but it was a wonderful tour and those tours are continuing as soon as it's safe to travel.

So this is a prayer by John Baillie: “Eter­nal Father of my soul, let my first thought today be of Thee, let my first impulse be to wor­ship Thee, let my first speech be thy name, let my first action be to kneel before Thee in prayer. For thy per­fect wis­dom and per­fect good­ness: For the love wherewith Thou lovest humankind:
For the love wherewith thou lovest me: For the great and mys­te­ri­ous oppor­tu­ni­ty of my life: For the indwelling of Thy Spir­it in my heart: For the sev­en­fold gifts of Thy Spir­it: I praise and wor­ship Thee, O Lord. Yet let me not, when this morn­ing prayer is said, think my wor­ship end­ed and spend the day in for­get­ful­ness of Thee. Rather from these moments of quiet­ness let light go forth, and joy, and pow­er, that will remain with me through all the hours of the day; Keep­ing me chaste in thought: Keep­ing me tem­per­ate and truth­ful in speech: 
Keep­ing me faith­ful and dili­gent in my work: Keep­ing me hum­ble in my esti­ma­tion of myself: Keep­ing me hon­or­able and gen­er­ous in my deal­ing with oth­ers: Keep­ing me loy­al to every hal­lowed mem­o­ry of the past:
Keep­ing me mind­ful of my eter­nal des­tiny as a child of Thine. O God, who hast been the refuge of my fathers through many generations, be my refuge today in every time and circumstance of need. Be my guide through all that is dark and doubtful. Be my guard against all the threatens my spirit’s welfare. Be my strength in time of testing. Gladdened my heart with Thy peace; through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.”

I had another really wonderful faith moment in this same journal that I just read from. We were in Scotland exactly one year ago. It was just between when we moved away from Germany back to the United States.

And I had been really stressed out because many military moves involve tight deadlines. Even if you know a long time ahead that this is going to happen. And we were waiting for orders and a lot of things can't happen until you get those orders and I like to control things. And I think, well, if I work really hard, then everything will be okay, which is completely contrary to what this prayer is about.

We work hard. But where is God's timing in all of this? And I was participating in a journal club activity. I'll put those details on the website too. And one of the questions during that journaling meeting was what is it that I can really control? And what do I need to leave to the universe?

And to me, that means to God. So what can I do to be responsible in my life? And what do I just need to leave with God? And the person who led the journal clubs said, why don't you make two columns? She sent this out to everyone. What is it that I have control over? You know, I can do the laundry- that's terrible example. And what do I need to leave to the universe? Or what do I need to leave to God? And I thought, okay. Oh, that's a really great idea because I had my to do list was like five pages long. And it's a good thing I started with my list of what can I leave to God, because it was only one word long and that is EVERYTHING. And yeah, once we get the orders, then I can spring into action and do all these things on my checklist. But ultimately in my life is my control pushing for things to be done?

And I say that there's another example of our Lutheran belief of justification and sanctification. And what that means is that we have a free gift of salvation. Grace is free. And then we act out of love with our behavior, and we're not trying to earn points to get into it. I have, and I say this in almost every podcast and the reason I bring that up at the same time that I have these two lists, what can I do?

And what can God do? Yeah, God can do everything. But then we react with God's love to love for others. Love for animals and creation and our human siblings. So I don't mean to be talking out of both sides of my mouth. Like on the one hand I'm saying I don't need to do everything because it's all on God, but my trust is in God.

And then when the time is right, then I can take action in response to that. So I hope that doesn't sound confusing. I wanted to talk about another elephant in the room, even though this picture is of cows, as an example of what we can do to honor God's creation. We have stewardship of the earth and what's on the earth and what's in the earth. And I really liked this picture because I had never seen Scottish cows before. And they're very, very hairy. They have bangs that go into their eyes and they're furry like dogs. We thought that they were really neat. And my question about stewardship comes to how we treat animals. Because I know that many people earn their livelihood from the land that this is very real - people don't have the luxury of just money growing on trees. So I know that there are people who depend on livestock for their own livelihood.

And then I also believe that people are making a tremendous profits from poorly treating animals, overcrowding-that's a whole other podcast on how animals are treated as they are raised for slaughter and for human consumption. But it's just a question that I'm opening up, where is our love for creation?

Fear could be, we're not going to have enough money for our family to survive. I think there's also a fear of, I don't know what my life would be like to live with eating a lot less meat than I eat right now. What would that be like?

I know that some people love the animals and take good care of them and even process the animals in a humane manner for human consumption, but by and large, that's not the case with millions of chickens and pigs and cows and other animals that are consumed, even fish, unfortunately. I am not giving a historical account of agribusiness or even the Island of Iona. This is not just another Bible study.

I do look forward to having a conversation about what is it that we're putting into our bodies. But right now, when we're looking at the beauty of creation and the care of creation and the stewardship of creation, and to a small extent, also the exploitation of creation. Let's just introduce this, touch on a few different things, and lifted up in prayer, and not just abstract prayer. Absolutely praying about this topic. And then also asking what is it that I can do to connect attributes to the wellbeing of the planet, to animals, to my fellow human beings, to those near to me, as well as those who are far from me, that I don't have any contact with- people who work in meat packing plants or people whose livelihood depends on the land.

This is one of the crosses outside the Abbey on Iona. And when we go back to the multiple intelligences. I want to honor that some people have  different senses of what they're able to do, what they want to do. And one of the things that's much more difficult for me is the logical and mathematical folks. Perhaps someone might enjoy taking the word Iona or any other word and just doing an acrostic.

And that could be writing the letters down instead of right next to each other, writing the letters down in rows underneath and then writing another word that could say, start with the letter I, or the letter I could be somewhere in that word. That is a spiritual experience for you that you're thinking about either just this one Island off the coast of Scotland or care for creation.

And if that's something that would be fun and meaningful to you, or it could be any other word in any of these Bible passages, or maybe looking up a map of where in the heck is Iona after all, and finding the West coast of Scotland, which has lots and lots of different little islands.

Or if you'd like to talk with other people about how can we care for our creation together? What can I do as an individual? And then can I get a group of people together to try to make a difference in a positive way?

I do have one more prayer written by Reverend George McCloud, about our sense of a place and our sense of the world and how can we contribute to the world?

I want to talk for a moment about new journeys - before I talked about what if a door feels closed to you? And now I have a question of what if there is a door and you're not sure if you should go through it? There's new opportunities and new endeavors for your life. So let me read the prayer written by Reverend McLeod. It's called, send us an angel.

And part of this talks a little about the Christmas season, but I really liked everything else in the prayer. And even though it was written decades ago, I feel like it's really applicable even in our day and age. And there may be one line when you think, Oh, I kind of have a sense on when this may have been written, but I find it still very relevant today.

“Lord God. Some of us are a little like the shepherds, just carrying on with our jobs. Despite the turbulence in the world scene, give us a message, send us an angel that will start us seeking a new way of life. Lord God, others of us are like the wise men from the East. We can see the need some power to come and to give us direction, but we don't know in which direction to go. Give us the wisdom to see that it is not in physical power that our salvation lies, but in love and humility, Lord God, a few of us are like Herod.

We don't want a new power to enter the world. In case it might threaten our own power. Give us the humility to be ready for a quite new form of power to fit the dangerous age in which we live, where atomic power is beyond our capacity to control. We ask you to make us expectant. Instead of planners, we ask you to make us seekers, rather than know-alls.

We ask you for grace so that we are ready to receive. We ask you for humility so that we are prepared to accept Your way of doing things, we ask you for faith, and faith is a gift, really to believe; that in this dark day for our land, we can accept the gift of Christmas: and bring our wealth as a land to serve the Christ, to bring our incense to worship him: and our myrr, the symbol of burial, to be ready to die for him. Thus we shall be able to receive the gift of love and light and life, when Christmas day shall Dawn.

When I see this photo of the shoreline, I think about where are we going? I think about the expression that we have in the United States, “from sea to shining sea”, in one of our national songs. I feel with great regret the concept of colonialism that we've stolen, this land, that our concept of manifest destiny resulted in the death and displacement of so many souls, because other people felt that they deserved this land. And again, there's a whole history lesson here. How did this even start? Why do people think this way? But here and now we have a time of reparation and of apology that this was wrong behavior. And there are probably still people who don't think it was wrong behavior, but I believe it was. And I want to offer in a capacity that I am able to, my apology for that behavior.

So again, back to the 10 commandments. Was where we live stolen from who was here first? And how do we share what comes from the land, the food that we eat and the animals that we raise in the natural resources that we use to power our lives? How can we create a sense of connection to the universe, to creation, to God?

Isaiah 35

Psalm 23

Joel 2

7 ways of teaching the Bible to adults: using our multiple intelligences to build faith by Barbara Bruce

https://www.sierraclub.org/people-and-justice

www.elca.org

http://download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/EnvironmentSS.pdf?_ga=2.162086012.1511034918.1589457339-1006791731.1589050443

Thomas Merton in “The Sand Labyrinth- Meditation at Your Fingertips” by Lauren Artress

A Morning Prayer by John Baillie

Send Us an Angel by George McCleod, in “The Whole Earth Shall Cry Glory - Iona Prayers”

https://scotustours.com

https://www.jamieridlerstudios.ca

Seminary Classes with Barbara

Barbara: Hi everyone. And welcome to 40 minutes of faith. My name is Barbara Cox and I host this weekly podcast to explore God's word and our relationship with God.

Today's speaker is me and the topic is: what are seminary students learning these days? I grew up Lutheran, mostly in new England, and was a military brat as a kid. I'm now a military spouse for over 20 years. I earned a master's of social work from Salem state in Massachusetts, and have worked with children, teen parents, adults, and military families.

It was an adventure living in Germany for nearly five years, and we recently moved to upstate New York close to the Canadian border. I went back to school a year ago and wanted to share some lessons learned from the classes I took that first semester. I will be sharing Bible verses - the first one is my favorite overall from Jeremiah chapter 29. Some people caution that we should not use this verse the way we sometimes do, because God was saying something really specific at that time. God's people were in exile in Babylon and God was promising a return to their home. However, I don't believe that it's wrong for us to take heart in a promise to us now. The book of Jeremiah is part of the Hebrew scripture found just past the middle of your Bible, right after Isaiah. Here's Jeremiah 29, verses 10 through 13, from the message version.

“This is God's word on the subject. As soon as Babylon's 70 years are up and not a day before I'll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I'll listen. When you come looking for me, you'll find me. Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I'll make sure you won't be disappointed.”

It's important to me that I honor a few different things about these verses. I believe that God does not abandon us, even when things get bad. I can't explain everything in the world, but I believe that there is redemption. I feel furious when people are abused, and I don't understand why some people get sick and die while others are healthy and live long lives.

There is sin in the world, and we all contribute to each other's wellbeing and suffering. I don't believe that this Bible verse is just a “feel good” sentiment that everything will be okay here on earth, and soon. Maybe it will, but it doesn't seem like it right now. We are also called to trust God.

When my husband deployed, I didn't know if he would make it. I know that many did not. And I feel guilty that my husband was okay while others were not. But I felt like I had to trust that there were no guarantees and that my own life, as a child of God, did not depend on the survival of anyone else or even myself.

Anyway, I take comfort from having a sense that God knows more than I know, and that I am not abandoned. So how did I end up in college again? That's why I read my favorite Bible verse a minute ago. Going back to graduate school after working full time for decades has not been too bad. That said I'm grateful for the GI bill, which allows me to be a student and not have to worry about bringing in a paycheck at the same time like I did for my first degree. Good thing, since I couldn't find a social work job in our second location in Germany. I prayed about finding a program that was a fit for me. And I believe that I'm in it now. The classes had to be online a year ago because we were living in Germany. So the transition to online now with the pandemic was seamless for me. My classes were and continue to be really interesting.

So here's some of what I learned last fall. Book recommendations and websites will be detailed on the podcast website, 40 minutes of faith.com. Lutheran ethics was one of my favorite classes. The most powerful textbook was about the pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who participated in the resistance movement during world war II.

I have a quote from a book titled “The Bonhoeffer Reader” edited by Green and DeJonge. On page 791, Bonhoeffer writes: “God wants to be recognized in the midst of our lives in life and not only in dying, in health and strength and not only in suffering, in action and not only in sin. God is the center of life and doesn't just turn up when we have unsolved problems to be solved.” That was really noteworthy for me, cause it's really easy for me to turn to God when I'm in distress and need help. And I also want to be thankful for the many blessings in my life. Also on page 816 in the same book is a poem, which I'm going to put the link to on the website.

The poem is “Who am I?” It's about Bonhoeffer's feelings as he was incarcerated for participating in a plot to murder Hitler. And that was actually one of the reasons that we talked about Bonhoeffer because one of the 10 commandments is “thou shall not kill.”

So it's an ethical dilemma to think about when, if ever, is it right to kill someone? And there's lots of other things I could talk about with that commandment, but I'm just going to keep going on the classes for last fall, and then this fall, I'm actually in a different class that includes the 10 commandments.

So I'll talk more about those things, a different episode. So I do recommend the poem “Who am I?” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. One of the many Bible verses from this course is Matthew 10:16, which from the message is: “stay alert. This is hazardous work I'm assigning you. You're going to be like sheep running through a Wolfpack. So don't call attention to yourselves. Be as cunning as snakes, inoffensive as a dove.” There's a speech given by Martin Luther King, Jr. that expands on this verse.* We also read some of the social statements from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which is the denomination that I'm part of and their website is ELCA.org

The social statements are about diverse topics, such as care for creation, peace, and many other relevant topics. I'll include a specific link also to the ELCA social statements portion of their website so that you don't have to go searching for them. It'll go straight to the social statements. Finally, during this class, I was very sorry to learn that Martin Luther, who founded this denomination of Lutheranism, even though he didn't really want it called Lutheranism, it's called Evangelish in Germany.

He wrote some terrible things about other people, including Jewish people. I want to offer my apology over that transgression. Growing up, I had only heard about Luther saying that some of the practices of the Catholic church were not in accordance with his understanding about the Bible. For example, the church during Luther's time sold indulgences, which people had to buy in order to have less time in purgatory.

And Luther objected to that. He said we don't have to buy our way out of anything and it's wrong for the church to sell that, that forgiveness is a free gift. In addition to Luther’s writings that were, I believe wrong about Jewish people, he also said unkind and frankly, hateful things about gypsies and peasants.

And he had some, I believe, brilliant moments of faith and insight. And then he was a human and a sinner, like all of us. And that's one of the Lutheran beliefs. We are all saints and sinners at the same time, but at any rate, I still feel very badly about some of the things that he said and wrote that were then used later to persecute other people.

Another class that I really enjoyed a year ago was called 21st century leadership. We read a wonderful small book by Henry Nouwen. I highly recommend his writings. During that class, we learned about boundaries, servant leadership, and organizational development.

We had some really fantastic guest lecturers who talked with us about starting new ministries resources and the impact of ministries on families among other topics. I'm not going to read the Bible passage for that class in its entirety, because it's from the gospel of Mark, the 10th chapter verses 35 to 45.

So it's a pretty long passage, but really it's about people who wanted to be first in line to sit with Jesus in heaven. And so the whole passage is about who's asking to be first and is that really the right thing to do? And it talks about being a servant and what does that mean to serve other people?

So one of the techniques in this class I wanted to talk about for a minute is a very powerful way to study scripture. And it's a very quiet way. So there's probably official directions on how to do this, but here's my summary of my understanding of how to do this. You select a passage, and 10 verses might actually be too long for a lectio divina- those are the Latin words for basically a divine reading, but a few verses, even one verse. And it can be done in a group and certainly individually as well. But the passage is read, and you just absorb it into yourself, into your mind, into your heart, into your soul. Quietly. And maybe there's a word that grabs you, that just jumps out to you, that's meaningful. And if you're with a group, you could say it out loud, or if you're by yourself, I have no problem writing in my Bible. So it's underlined and scribbled. I take notes in the margins and things like that, but it's just sit with that word or the phrase that was meaningful to you. And I don't have a certain number of seconds or minutes to wait for that pause, but maybe if it's done in a group setting, maybe there's an agreement, we'll have this much time of silence.

And then the passage is read again, and it could be maybe a different person reading it, or obviously if you're by yourself, you read it again and just notice what you notice. It could be the same word or phrase. It could be something different. You could journal about it. You could pray about it. You could just wonder about it.

You could just be with it. We tend to be action oriented and what's next? And what do I have to do? And for me, the experience of this process, a couple of different times that I've done it is that it can be restorative, it can reveal some interesting things. It can just be time in God's word. And if you're like me, you might have a to do list that's running through your mind and that's okay.

But just set it aside and just spend time with the word. And we did this Lectio Divina reading every week at the beginning of class, with the intention of seeing if anything jumped out to us, what did we notice? That was really interesting. I enjoyed that. That was a very meaningful and powerful experience.

So I would highly recommend a class in leadership, especially in faith-based ministry leadership. We had other very useful textbooks and I can list those on the website as well.

 Now you might ask what are plural worlds? That's a quote, plural worlds end quote question Mark. There were some really tough textbooks in this class and in a few other classes, but really, especially this one where I needed an English dictionary to understand the vocabulary words in those textbooks. So students spent plenty of time in the Bible, as well as other documents.

And at the end of this course, I found out that it's all about spiritual development and it's not necessarily supposed to be easy. I say that with the intention of really encouraging anyone who might be struggling with aspects of faith. I felt a bit behind the pack in this class, but who is to say that those who talk a good talk have an accurate understanding that's better than mine?

One of the concepts that Martin Luther taught is that our faith is about a relationship with God. There are many things to learn and to prayerfully seek to understand, but the leadership course just mentioned taught that we are imperfect and that's okay. So there could be other students in this class who would recommend some or all of the textbooks in this class.

And I am just going to be really honest because I struggled so much understanding this class, even though I'm a lifelong Lutheran, I've gone to church- that doesn't necessarily mean that you understand everything that you read or that you see- that I am recommending books that I absolutely love that I hope you'll love.

And you can find all the books you want yourself, you can Google plural worlds. You can find lots of different kind of faith development textbooks anywhere you go. but I have a few other things to recommend. So I just want to support and encourage everyone's individual faith journey. Even if it kind of feels like it's meandering around and there might be some boulders to climb over. There might be some ditches to jump over or find a bridge, or you're just kinda talking with other people and asking questions and having conversations. And I just want to support and encourage that and say, we don't have to have all the answers to everything. And it's also okay to change your mind over time. I don't think we necessarily talked about that in this exact class, but is it true that we have to keep every single belief the same from when we were young teenagers, young adults, middle age, older, whatever, or does our faith sort of evolve as our understanding of the world and our relationships with each other and our relationships with God evolve? So that's what I have to say about that class.

I actually enjoyed a class on research. I was surprised because I had to take a research class for my social work degree, which was very mathematical and statistical. And I struggled with that class a lot. We were required to take statistics before research methods.

This was 20 years ago and it was hard and I'm glad I did it. I made it through, I was very proud of myself. And at the end of the research class, I understood why we had to do it because people can manipulate statistics pretty much any way they want. And there are some pretty strong guidelines on what makes for good research- who's paying for the research?

How is the research conducted, who is being studied? How are they being studied? What is being studied? Is there abuse or mistreatment going on during the study, which there has been in the past, and I'm sure there is now too, but there's more safeguards in place to protect that. But anyway, this research class was not the same at all.

It was different and also very interesting. So I had the chance to learn from Germany at the time of this class, how to get information from really far away. And one example is something called a Bible commentary, which is either a really huge book or maybe even a series of books explaining different things in the Bible.

And of course, it's all online these days. Now, generally I am not the biggest fan of reading tons of information online, but it was just a revelation to me what I discovered in this class. So I went over to the military library that was closest to where I lived at the time. And they had a nice Bible commentary from 1971.

And I don't know how much it weighed- five pounds, 10 pounds- it was massive, but I took it home and read parts of it for another class that I'll tell you about coming up next. And you might say, well, the Bible hasn't really changed since 1971, which is true, but a lot more research and learning has been done since 1971.

And there are also different perspectives. So an example that I learned just this past semester, is that due to some research and exploration that's happening around the biblical lands is revealing additional cultural information that might not have been known in 1971. And one of my favorite Bible commentaries is actually called the women's Bible commentary. And it specifically looks at the point of view of women in certain passages, how women were talked about, or frankly not talked about in the Bible. And there's so many different kinds of commentaries that you can find from different perspectives, different authors who might've been interested in a more particular viewpoint, say for example, a LatinX point of view or, liberation theology is a concept of who is being oppressed and who is being liberated. That's probably not the greatest explanation ever, but I just thought of it right now. And I didn't have time to research a definition beforehand when I was planning.

So in terms of whose point of view is either there or not there, whose voice is missing. That was another question from a different professor, but anyway, things like that will come out from different types of commentaries. So I was amazed to see how many different kinds of commentaries there are and the faculty that I had tended to say, see if you can find commentaries from the last 10, 15 years.

Not that there's anything wrong with what was written in 1971, but see what contemporary researchers and scholars are writing about. Another thing I learned about is Bible dictionaries. Now I've had a Miriam Webster dictionary since elementary school. I think I finally got rid of it before we moved the last time.

Don't tell anyone- and then of course I missed it once I got rid of it, but I've been moving this thing around to lots of different places! A Bible dictionary is gonna give a lot more information obviously about things in the Bible. And there are some online, but again, I want to just invite you to consider when you're looking things up online, take a look at a couple of different sources. Right now, I do have access to my school library online with my student ID. So I have learned many interesting things through a bunch of different classes in Bible dictionaries, but just as an example of something that I looked up right before this recording for what the general public can find without going through a school library. And I saw, of course it started with a letter “A”, whichever one it is that I looked up, so I said, Oh, Aaron, the brother of Moses, how interesting, let me click on that and see what it says. So here was tons of information about Aaron, the brother of Moses.

And I thought, let me see what it says about Miriam. And this particular online dictionary had like one sentence about Miriam, who was their sister. And I thought, that seems a little strange- Miriam wasn't a major character in the Bible, but a significant character.

So I looked at a couple of different Bible dictionaries. And some of the other Bible dictionaries had more information about Miriam than the first one that I looked at that had a lot of information about Aaron. So that's obviously my own issue that I was interested in, but I kind of wanted to point that out that there's different sources and different types of information and different amounts of information that you can find.

 Another class that I really enjoyed last fall was about the minor prophets. And I wasn't even really sure who that involved, but I was very interested in spending a little bit more time in the Hebrew scripture, which is known as the old Testament among Christians. And we read the books of Hosea, Joel, Amos, and more.

And the classes had written assignments and discussion boards that were actually video voice threads. So this was my first time with a new type of technology and I'm very comfortable typing. That's no problem. I'm used to typed discussion boards, but I was nervous about these video voice thread discussion boards.

It's the same concept. You have a question, you answer it, but you answer it talking into your computer camera, it's recorded. And then your classmates view your recording instead of reading your typed words. So the first one that I did, I wrote out everything that I wanted to say ahead of time. Some faculty had a time limit, maybe say four minutes.

They're like, that's enough. Say what you need to say in four minutes, but not all of them had a time limit, and same on the response. So for the first video I read what I had written and it was fine and the responses were fine. And as I got to know my classmates through these video voice threads way better than you can get to know someone through typing.

It was a very positive experience. And I gained confidence as the semester went on to the point where I didn't have to write out my whole answer ahead of time and then read it into the camera. But we had to do some academic work ahead of time anyway. I mean, you knew the question ahead of time.

So you were basically summarizing your written assignment. So that was a very positive experience for me. Not all schools have it, but I just wanted to give a thumbs up and part of the purpose, I think as well, that makes sense is that some professions and careers, you never have to do any public speaking at all, but chances are, if you're going to do any faith-based type of work you're probably going to be talking with more than one person at a time. So maybe it was a confidence booster in terms of I'm going to have to talk to groups of people so I might as well get used to this concept. And I wonder if it prepared anyone who was doing extra public speaking now during the pandemic with recordings and things like that.

I'd like to think that it helped prepare people without us even knowing at the time that that's what it was for. This class textbook titled a short introduction to the Hebrew Bible by John Collins. And I would recommend that textbook. It was very interesting, and it covered more than just the minor prophets, but included lots of interesting information.

 The final class that I wanted to talk about today was called spiritual practices. This is something where the entire student body reads the same book, but we have small group discussions each week. And there was a Psalm that we read, often multiple scripture passages that were either required or optional.

And I strongly want to recommend the book that we read last fall by Deanna Thompson titled the virtual body of Christ in a suffering world. And I thought, Oh, well, this sounds kind of interesting. I wonder what this is all about. And it was eerie. The relevance of what she wrote about that we finished reading three months before the pandemic forced a shutdown of our state and, stay at home order, no church gatherings and things like that.

So her question was how can faith community support people through web based methods? Actually, she provided a bunch of answers to that question. And the author freely said at the beginning, along with many, many people today, no way, no how, this is not “ministry”, this online stuff. And what happened is that through some personal experiences, the author shared that, especially for ill, homebound, snowbound or people with long work schedules online church might be their only church and prayer can be done on Facebook.

See, for example, a group called Planting Roots, that was not in the textbook. That's just a group that I'm familiar with that offers online prayers and the author disclosed how other sites say for example, caring bridge, people may be familiar with, to support medical crises can be a terrific way of including people rather than excluding them.

And especially these days when we often can't even go to the hospital to be with someone or go to their home, if they're medically vulnerable. And in addition to physical vulnerability, in terms of germs and infections and things like that, the author also talked about emotional vulnerability. And I've been in times when people ask me in 2005, how long my husband was going to be deployed for, I literally could not answer the question because the order said 500 and some odd days, I couldn't get the number 500 out of my mouth without crying.

And I didn't mind that they asked and, I don't even know if Facebook was around- maybe it was around then. I don't remember exactly, but anyway, that's just sort of an illustration of someone's emotional situation. If they're battling say a serious illness or people are maybe asking the same questions over and over again, or it takes a certain amount of mental and physical energy to be social when you're sick, when you're in pain, when you're having different types of issues in your body and maybe in your soul. So in the end, the book was a ringing endorsement of different ways that we can support each other electronically. And also looking at certainly there are in-person methods- nothing can ever take the place of holding someone's hand, but there may be times when we just can't do that.

So I would highly recommend that book. And I also wanted to encourage creativity in terms of prayer and spending time with God. So during our small group sessions, the students took turns leading the courses each week and we were invited to do so in any way that we felt comfortable. So one students wrote a poem. We had the chance through a combination of email and paint, create a painting. Word clouds, listening to music when we were talking about various ways of connecting with God, and I really appreciated that. And a lot of people are okay with talking and some people find great meaning in other ways of expressing themselves or just of listening, responding.

So I wanted to read one of the Psalms that we talked about together during that class a year ago, which is Psalm 51 verses 10 through 12. And from the new revised standard version, it goes like this:

“create in me a clean heart, Oh God. And put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain in me a willing spirit.”

Some of you may think of music as soon as you hear those words, because for some faith groups or depending on when, where, and how you worship, that's a phrase that you sing every single week in church (“create in me a clean heart, oh God.”) Except at this point, some people haven't been able to be in church for a really long time. So those words were a consolation and just put a smile on my face when I immediately recognized the words. So those are the classes that I participated in a year ago.

And obviously every seminary experience is going to be different. Even the students at my same school, some of them took Greek. Some of them took a class about worship that semester. Some students were doing an internship. So even within my school, the classes are different. And I know that other schools have different programs, different requirements and different types of classes.

So this is by no means representative, but I thought, Hey, this is a really neat experience for me and might be of interest to others to hear about some learning and teaching that's going on. And some different books or websites to take a look at if you want to do some of your own study. So I would really, again, encourage and support any different type of learning that you're interested in, and any different types of responses that you feel called to with your skills of art or music or dance or anything like that.

So thanks for listening and I look forward to your feedback. Comments are always welcome at fortyminutesoffaith.com. The transcript of the episode is posted. And a comment section at the end of it. And your questions and suggestions are welcome. Thanks and praying for your day.

Resources:

Jeremiah 29:10-14

Psalm 51:10-12

Matthew 10:16

Mark 10:35-45

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/draft-chapter-i-tough-mind-and-tender-heart

http://www.dbonhoeffer.org/who-was-db2.htm

www.elca.org

https://www.elca.org/Faith/Faith-and-Society/Social-Statements

https://plantingroots.net

The Bonhoeffer Reader, edited by Green and DeJonge

A short introduction to the Hebrew Bible by John Collins

The virtual body of Christ in a suffering world by Deanna Thompson

The Integrity of the Body of Christ: Boundary Keeping as Shared Responsibility by Mahlberg and Nessan.

Barbara enrolled in seminar courses Fall 2019

Pilgrimage with Becky

Barbara:  Hi everyone- welcome to 40 minutes of faith. My name is Barbara Cox and I host this weekly podcast to explore God's word and our relationship with God.

Today's guest is Becky Powell. She's from Richmond, Virginia, and has lived in at least 11 places, currently in the black forest region of Germany. We met while Becky and her husband of 28 years attended a military chapel in the Kaiserslautern, Germany area.

Becky was raised Baptist, ordained Presbyterian and earned a doctorate degree on the religious practice and faith development in international churches. She's been an army religious educator attending Anglican Episcopal congregations and supporting all military members and their families of all religions for the past 12 years.

After she retires, Becky would like to return her focus to third culture kids, which we will have to talk about in a future episode. Welcome, Becky.

Becky: Thanks, Barbara. This is exciting.

Barbara: I've learned more about pilgrimages in the last five years than I knew in my entire life before that.

I knew that our biblical ancestors wandered in the desert and traveled to Jerusalem for festivals. But I, for some reason, didn't associate those with pilgrimages. The NIV translation of the Bible includes the word pilgrimage twice and the message version references Pilgrim songs and Pilgrim travels 28 times, 18 of which are in the Psalms.

Let me read Psalm 84 verse five: “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.” Becky, what does pilgrimage mean to you?

Becky: Well, I have to agree Barbara, that as a kid I never really heard much about pilgrimage. I remember the pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving, and I remember that they came to the new world, not to seek gold as the Virginia settlers had done, but to follow the sense of calling from God. And so those were pilgrims. And then in literature classes in high school I learned a little bit more about pilgrims because there was the book that we were forced to read snippets of, Pilgrim's progress, which I don't remember anything that literature teacher said, but then we all enjoyed reading snippets from Canterbury tales.

Barbara:  I'm glad you did- I didn't. In fact, I read prodigiously a 500 page Louis L'Amour book, but I didn't like a lot of high school literature

Becky: the difference purposes of travel really sparked my interest. I'm glad you asked this question about pilgrimage, because the reason why you go determines what kind of trip you're making.

So the Israelites sought God's refuge and were led through the wilderness, but the people of Israel, as they would travel to Jerusalem to go to the temple for their annual events, they were going on a pilgrimage, a time to travel and seek God.

There were times when people have had to move and there's times people have chosen to move, and Barbara, when you and I met, we were both working with the U S military and we lived where we were not because we wanted to, not because we were on holiday, not for religious reasons, but because we were sent to do a job

Barbara: and interestingly, I wanted to go and I had a tremendous faith based experience as well, but that's not a guarantee. That's not part of the deal automatically.

Becky: when you travel, you always need to recognize why you are going. I have known people who said, Oh, I'm going to Jerusalem and going on pilgrimage. And I'll say to them, why are you going? Well, I've heard there's this great shop on…, okay.

That might not be a pilgrimage. The motivation for your going might be shopping. And there's nothing wrong with travel for shopping. Believe me. Whereas when you and I and our friends, when we went to Santiago de Compostela, we did go for the intent of pilgrimage. But we didn't get there in the traditional way.

And I've caught some flack for that, by my friends who do the annual genuine pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. But our intent was to go and grow in our faith. Therefore I say we went on pilgrimage.

Barbara: I suppose I need to confess that I bought a really cool pair of sandals at the end of the trip. So I hope that didn't cancel out the benefits of the pilgrimage.

Becky: Well we are living in Germany for work. We shopped and we had days where we enjoyed the black forest as a tourist would we had days where we develop our faith. You can have the expressed intent of a trip to be for your faith development and happen to do some lovely shopping while you're at it.

Barbara: What was your experience in the town of Santiago de Compostela as it hosted people who walked a hundred miles across Spain to get there?

Becky: the Camino begins in various places around Europe. I have known people who started in Speyer, Germany to walk it

Barbara: across France

Becky: all cross France, across Spain, all the way. If you were to drive it, it's like 24 hours of driving.

Barbara: Yeah. We really cheated by getting on an airplane.

Becky: They really did miss some of that by getting on the airplane. But our intent was to grow in our faith, and their intent when they go is to completely separate from their normal lives and to grow in their faith.

And I do think that we would get a lot out of that traditional walking pilgrimage.

Barbara: I was being a little bit sarcastic and a little bit sincere because I want to honor, most Americans have very minimal vacation time if they have full time jobs.

Even when I was working in Germany, it was for Americans. I had three weeks of vacation per year. So for me to do a long weekend in Spain, that was it. I could have used all my three weeks of vacation at once to walk across Spain, but I would rather go to several different places for shorter chunks of time.

So I didn't mean to sound snarky that you can't go on a pilgrimage unless you can do it the right way, which some people might believe that.

Becky: last Christmas, Raymond and I were in Chartres, France at the cathedral. And it was an amazing place that people would go to in France for pilgrimage during the middle ages.

People would embark from there to other places like Jerusalem or Santiago for their own pilgrimages. Hundreds of years ago, the church leaders in that place said, Hey, let's do something. And this is the mad libs version of church history of that cathedral, but they decided to have a way for people to go on a pilgrimage without having to leave their local area.

And they embedded in the stones of the sanctuary a labyrinth. A maze is a twisty path that you can get lost in. A labyrinth is a path that only has one entrance and one exit, and you're never going to get lost doing it. And it is there on the floor of the cathedral for you to walk. And it's got to be 50 meters in diameter circle, and you can take your time praying or reading a Bible verse as you take an hour and follow the path of this labyrinth. And it is an opportunity without getting on a plane or without walking two weeks to step away from your normal world and to pray.

Barbara: I really enjoyed walking labyrinths and I agree with you. For me, there's more of a feeling of safety because I'm not in a maze. I'm not going to bump into a hedge like in a Harry Potter movie and be trapped. You are invited to think quietly, to pray, to meditate, to sing, whatever you like in your labyrinth.

And there's a really cool website called www.labyrinthlocator.com, where you can find all around the world, different labyrinths that are open to the public. And if you are really creative or more talented than I, you can also find ways online, you can draw labyrinth with chalk. If you have a driveway or a parking lot, you can build one.

If you have a backyard just with some string or something like that, to have a meditative experience without going somewhere fancy.

Becky: Well, when we were there, I really wanted to walk the labyrinth. I've seen replicas, we have replicas in my office, but it was Christmas and the chairs were set up. So you couldn't walk the labyrinth.

They needed the seating for people to come for the special masses. So I was disappointed. So I ended up finding my own way of having time of meditation as I walked around that cathedral. But there's nothing magical about a pilgrimage or about a labyrinth. When we were in Chartres, there was a lady with her teenage kids and she stood at the center of the Labyrinth image.

And she said to her kids, see, can you feel the energy from this place? Well, Christian theology doesn't say there's special energy in that labyrinth. It says the experience between you and God and the Holy scriptures make the difference. And she was seeking something magical. The intent behind labyrinths is a local pilgrimage, a local growing intent with God.

Barbara: I’ve had some different experiences with that feeling. When we were in Arizona, there were places where they said, Oh, you'll kind of feel this special sense. And I didn't. But I love nature and I feel close to God in nature.

And when I was in Israel, I really felt that the place of the Western wall was a Holy place for me. Like I just started to cry even as I was approaching it. So I just want to honor that different people will have different experiences, but there's not a formula or a prescription. Like if you go walk a labyrinth, you'll have a transformative experience.

Now you may very well, but it's okay if you just have a few moments of peace.

Becky: I had even less experience with labyrinths growing up than I did with pilgrimages. I didn't have the language for it or anything. And it was about 2012 when we used a labyrinth in a youth retreat.

And there was a teenage boy and he and his friends were making professions of faith becoming confirmed in the churches. And he was expressing that intent. And he's a dear sweet friend, but he just was doing it for social reasons. He really wasn't exhibiting the fruits of the spirit. He wasn't exhibiting a heart, strangely warmed, as Wesley would have said.

And I wondered, is he really having a conversion experience or is he just curtsying to God? Well, he was on the retreat where we had a labyrinth and as he began the labyrinth. He went in, goofing around as his sweet self always does. And I watched as he prayed. We sent him in with a Bible verse on a slip of paper.

He reflected on that Bible verse. And as he prayed and the 15 minutes it took him to do that labyrinth, I did watch something mystical occur. I could see in his body language and hear in his speech and his intent in life. By the time he came out, he had gone through a conversion experience and he was changed by God.

And to this day, he's 21. Now he's a member of his local church and sings in the adult choir. So God did use that time. Not all 21 year olds are in their local adult choir or attending church with any frequency. And I think we trace it all back to the 15 minutes in the labyrinth.

Barbara: And some people already have a personal favorite Bible verses very meaningful to them and that speaks to their hearts. But I'd like to offer a few more passages during this conversation if you can walk a labyrinth or if you just want to sit on a bench somewhere and meditate or at home on your couch. Psalm 21 is called a Pilgrim song in the message. And in another translation, the NRSV, it is a song of ascent.

And what this means is that as the pilgrims climbed the Hill to Jerusalem for these festivals that we were talking about, in history, they sang the Psalm. And actually, I would be curious to know if they still sing this song as they climb up to Jerusalem. So here is Psalm 121, an excerpt:

“I look up to the mountains. Does my strength come from the mountains? No. My strength comes from God who made heaven and earth and mountains. He won't let you stumble. Your guardian God won't fall asleep. Not on your life. Israel's guardian will never doze or sleep.”

Becky, as much as I would love to urge everyone to buy plane tickets and go on pilgrimage, that might not be realistic at this time for various reasons as many people still live in places where the pandemic numbers are increasing. It isn't always possible to attend a church service in person, either. Could it be possible to create our own pilgrimage close to home in order to spend time with God?

Becky: I have watched a lot of worship services online. I attended Bible studies online with friends. I haven't done anything physically in a church, really in a genuine worship experience since the 1st of March. And for me, it's been a struggle. But I listen to the church bells here in Germany and be reminded of what time of the day it is. Cause I forget the time of day or the continent, to stop and do my time of prayer and devotion. And I have a prayer book from the Anglican tradition that has prayer Bible verses for each time of the day- morning, noon, evening and night. And that has been a pilgrimage forcing me through four times of Bible reading through the day, not just the ones that I was taught as a kid.

Oh, you must do your Bible reading once a day. Well, this is integrating it into my lunch and my dinner. Another thing we did several years ago, Is we had, chapel congregations building space for Christ is what we called them. I had a bunch of clear shoe boxes and we invited each of the families in the chapel to, use the shoe box and to put in that shoe box, different things that help them feel, see, smell, taste, experience the love of God.

And so I noticed this morning on my shelf, my family shoe box with colors of the church year with reminders of Bible verses with pictures of a cross, with a sky in the background. And this is designed to take pieces out, not as an altar, so much as a reminder to stop and spend time with God. And particularly when our daughter was little, she would take time and set up.

This and change the pictures and the things that are on a little table in the hallway to remind us all to stop and pray. And, that's been a really helpful thing for us during the years. And it was sitting forgotten on a shelf until today when I knew I would be talking

Barbara: to you. Well, this is a great example of God's mysterious ways, because I actually had that written down as a question to ask you, and I'd love to have some detailed examples, maybe for some other folks out there about worship in a box  for your own home.

So here's the question I was going to ask you. Becky, I'm cautious to ask about home altars because it's important to me that I worship God, not an assortment of physical items that have meaning in my life. How can we create a space, either outside or in our homes that's special for our time with God?

Becky: So I think it's important to you that you have God's word laying there- a Bible to help you, perhaps a Christian book or prayer book to help, like having a Sunday school teacher beside you. Sometimes the Bible is hard to just open an experience, but if you have a devotional book or a book written by someone who's a Christian leader through the ages, laying there with it, then you have things to pick up the words to experience.

Some of our friends who created these spaces have an old iPod laying there with music that they would have playing periodically to fill the house and to remind them, I always feel like it's real important to have something that smells. So when I opened our box, just now it had the smell of something that we used to have in the chapel where you and I attended in Kaiserslautern, but I can't place the smell quite, but it takes me back to a time when I was in a worship service. So they're linking back to the actual experience of the body of Christ coming together.

Barbara: it could be a candle or even a piece of incense- whether you light it or not, it still has that fragrance.

I love that to engage the different senses. So there could be images. There could be a book, something you're holding in your hand. Something that you're listening to. That's really nice. I do have another Psalm to read and I also have a Bible study to recommend because we often talk about God is our strength and that we treasure God.

But I also want to honor that sometimes life can be hard, can feel stressful. Let me read Psalm 130, which is also called the Pilgrim song in the message version: “help, God! The bottom has fallen out of my life. Master, hear my cry for help. Listen hard. Open your ears, listen to my cries for mercy.”

And one of my sentiments actually came from this study that I want to recommend a Bible study, which is about the Psalms of ascent. It's written by Beth Moore. And the title of the study is stepping up and among other things, the study teaches about the pilgrimages that were made by our faith ancestors to Jerusalem.

And it's a helpful tool to learn more about the Psalms. And she writes that God wants to hear our deepest cries. Now we also do give praise and Thanksgiving for the blessings in our lives, but that we don't have to be kind of glossy with God and just pretend that everything is great. So I know that not everybody who goes on a pilgrimage or who walks the Camino, as it's called, is a Christian, or they might not even be doing the walk for spiritual reasons, but some people do pray while they're walking. And here is a modern interpretation of Psalm 119, starting at verse 33: “God, teach me lessons for living so I can stay the course, give me insights so I can do what you tell me my whole life. One long obedient response. Guide me down the road of your commandments. I love traveling this freeway. Give me a bench for your words of wisdom and not piling up loot, divert my eyes from toys and trinkets, invigorate me on the Pilgrim way.”

Becky: That's a good paraphrase.

Barbara: Anything else about pilgrimages that we could encourage listeners to do in their local environment since some people still do have travel restrictions?

Becky: One of the things I noticed when I was walking through a park, earlier in the spring when all the travel restrictions were happening, but people could go to their local park for outings, someone in that community was putting out little notes of encouragement or Christian symbols, or just cute little dolls  like baby dolls, tiny ones, tucked along the trees, in the branches and along the bases of trees all along the path of this park. I don't know why they did it, but it was a sweet thing to encourage people. And as the COVID restrictions were so very tight, you can watch as people notice these happinesses all along the way and you could watch it.

By the time I spent three weeks walking this path each day, there were lots of remnants of people had left behind to encourage others. And I think if you are unable to travel, perhaps find or provide encouragements for yourself or others to see. In a physical path or a park or walkway that you go to set up a place in your home, like this space for Christ, where you see something that forces you to either intentionally turn your back on God or intentionally pause and pray.

And I think seeking to recognize that God is calling you, and you are a Pilgrim if you're seeking to follow God, even if you're not getting blisters on your feet and walking hundreds of miles across the heat of Spain. Being intentional about looking for the signs of God, no matter where you are.

I'd say that the most important thing you and I did when we were in Santiago de Compostella was that you and I didn't go to the path and walk as your husband did down into the town. As the pilgrims were walking, you and I took two children and we went to the beach. And we had allowed those children to play and to be children.

And those two kids remember that sacred day that you and I gave them with safe virtual aunts taking them at a time where they could experience God's word God's nature and the love of the body of Christ. I know

Barbara: it's been hard for a lot of families with the shelter in place policies. In this example that you're mentioning, the parents and guardians of those kids did a longer walk that would have been harder for the kids. So family together time is awesome. And then sometimes family separation time with the kids in a safe situation is also good for everyone, if that's possible. I had a great time. I would rather spend a little bit of time on a beach with some kids than walk a great long distance, but I still am grateful for the people who walk, for whom that is something really important and special.

Becky: I would love to go back and do the walk again. I have a couple of friends who that's been a part of their annual vacations, taking a few days of walking chunks of that. But having been there and having traveled to Jerusalem, and we even got to go to Damascus years ago when that was a different world, and to being in places where the people of God had done extraordinary things, it's pretty neat.

But then I think it's important to remember that every place we go, we are in places where the people of God are doing extraordinary things. The key is to look for the calling of God, just whatever we feel like we may be doing. It goes back to the definition of pilgrimage, the intent to travel with God.

Barbara: I probably should have said at the beginning too, we're not sponsoring people to go to Spain. We're not getting any cuts from travel agents. It was just something that was really memorable for us. And a lot of people really admire the cathedral there because it has something really famous inside that I didn't know about.

And I know that some people really love high church with incense and lots of candles and bells. And this particular church is famous because it has a gigantic censer, another word for that is thurible. And these words are not necessarily part of my own faith tradition, but especially for the pilgrims, 80 kilograms is how much the device weighs. And they put in 88 pounds of charcoal and incense and light that thing up. And it goes across the aisle. It takes eight people to pull the ropes. So you have this massive silver- I don't know how to describe it- it's 180 pounds over five feet tall, that's swinging up and down the aisle with incense coming out of it.

And that's a really Holy experience for a lot of people. I was impressed- I think of the Bible verse that says, may my prayers rise to you like incense, but that's not something that I would necessarily seek out, but it was pretty amazing to see.

Becky: Well that memory of you and I standing there's that giant ball with incense and silver was flying at us, thinking of that as all of humanity's prayers going up and God puts prayer out of the, “Oh, what, we'll have some sitting in a parlor” into, “Oh my, that's powerful stuff!” I love the fact that with pilgrimages and incense, we have the head, shoulders, knees and toes, all the senses of the body, engaging with God. And particularly my work with children or people that have special needs having an experience with God where you walk it, you touch it, you taste it, you smell it is significant. And that was a pretty amazing unforgettable part of the trip.

Barbara: I feel like we always have a fear of missing out. Sometimes you really do miss out and sometimes it's okay if you have to take care of things in your life, then hopefully other people are benefiting from what you're doing. If you're working or if you're taking care of family matters. So that's why we're trying to describe something you might not get to- this tiny corner of Spain that's not really near the Capitol or even Portugal.

It takes some effort to get there, but that's why we're trying to describe and encourage people to have other ways also of feeling that connection with God.

Becky: the point is not the geography or the space in the middle of the labyrinth. The point is the engagement with God.

Barbara: Now one thing that really surprised me, Becky, I don't know if you had ever heard this. I use a website called Biblegateway.com and I literally typed in the word Pilgrim or pilgrimage, I can't remember which one. And that's where I got all these answers from, but I had never heard it presented this way as it was in the message. So I'm just going to read two verses out of Matthew chapter two, verses one to two: “after Jesus was born in Bethlehem village, Judah territory, this was during Herod's kingship, a band of scholars arrived in Jerusalem from the East. They asked around, where can we find and pay homage to the newborn King of the Jews? We observed a star in the Eastern sky that signaled his birth. We're on pilgrimage to worship him.”

Becky: They were not on an international negotiation, they were not traveling for diplomacy.

And particularly as that translation goes, they were on an intentional conversation with God kind of thing. And they might not have known what the God was. They were there to worship. And I think sometimes, like this kid that I knew who was doing the labyrinth, ‘cause I told him to. And he came out having experienced God- maybe that's the same sort of pilgrimage that the three Kings went through is that they were there on some sort of God related thing, and came out having experienced the incarnate God, Jesus.

Technology is a way that people can go on a pilgrimage without going to the pilgrimage. We had people here who had intended to go to Rome. They couldn't go to Rome, but the guide that was going to walk them around Rome had set up a video media version of Rome.

So he's lifetime walking around Rome and showing them what they would have physically walked around and seen. Which is a cheaper way of doing it, that the tour guide would never have thought of otherwise.

Barbara: Thank you for your time and your insights with us, Becky. It sounds like you've been on a bunch of pilgrimages, so we might need to have another conversation about a different one.

Becky: Sounds good. I would love to. And talking about the third culture and the experience of internationality and intercultural in this with our faith, it's a big deal, something that we're  living through right now ourselves.

Barbara: Yes. I have a heart for third culture kids ‘cause I am one and it's a really big deal for a lot of families. So that would be terrific.

Becky: I'd love to do it anytime.

Barbara: So we talked about actually going to a destination with the intent of spending time with God, and also ways to intentionally focus on faith at home. Walking a labyrinth can be a spiritual experience and having a box with supplies that help create a devotion time also helps. Here are some additional ideas: can listening to music, bring you on a spiritual journey?

Some people like to write their prayers and looking back on them later, can show answered prayers or those still being lifted up. I've been reading an interesting book by Barbara Bruce. The title is “7 ways of teaching the Bible to adults” and it shows how different learning styles help people make meaning of what they are being taught.

For example, some people might not be thrilled at the suggestion of writing their prayers, but they can dance to praise music. Some people might be able to pray while they run or walk while others want to research words or write an acrostic using the letters of a word. Say, for example, the word ascent, and either start a word with each of those letters or include each of the letters in the word ascent in another word.

If you'd like to draw, could you sketch what climbing somewhere to encounter God might look like? How about writing a poem about climbing to meet God? It's okay if climbing anywhere sounds stressful- our prayers don't always have to be all sunshine and roses, or our drawings or our dancing.

I recommend this book. For those of you who are musically inclined, in addition to our regular closing prayer, we have a new musical offering after the prayer. This version of the Lord's prayer was composed and is performed by Eric Haitz

Your comments and suggestions for future episodes are welcome at www.fortyminutesoffaith.com

Resources:

Psalm 84:5

Psalm 121

Psalm 130

Psalm 119, starting at verse 33

Matthew 2:1-2 (The Message)

Bible study:

Stepping Up by Beth Moore

Book:

7 Ways of Teaching the Bible to Adults by Barbara Bruce

Website:

www.labyrinthlocator.com

Becky goes on pilgrimages regularly

Spiritual Gifts with Carmen

Barbara: Hi, everyone. Welcome to 40 Minutes of Faith. My name is Barbara Cox. Today's topic is spiritual gifts and our guest is Carmine Ruvalcaba. I met Carmen in Germany and she's back in the United States now. Carmen grew up Catholic, taught Sunday school, provided childcare and was a nurse before getting married.

Being a military spouse has allowed Carmen to live on the East and West coast and the South plus four years in Germany.

Carmen's husband retired this year and they are getting settled in San Diego. Carmen is mom to four children and she hopes to go back to work as a registered nurse. Welcome, Carmen! How are things in California for all of you?

Carmen: Thank you, Barbara. We're adjusting to the weather quite nicely, a nice change from Germany, and getting to know the neighborhood and the community, despite all the different changes that are going around.

Barbara: Wearing a mask and things like that.

Carmen: Yeah.

Barbara: Well, excellent. We have a chapter in the book of Romans, if you're flipping through your Bible, Romans is towards the end, in the New Testament after the book of Acts. So here's Romans chapter 12, verses five through 10 from the message.

“So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other or trying to be something we aren't. If you preach, just preach God's message. Nothing else. If you help, just help. Don't take over. If you teach, stick to your teaching, if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don't get bossy. If you're put in charge, don't manipulate. If you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond. If you work with a disadvantaged, don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them.

Keep a smile on your face. Love from the center of who you are. Don't fake it. Run for dear life from evil. Hold on for dear life to good, be good friends who love deeply. Practice playing second fiddle.”

Carmen, there is so much in these verses. I'm curious about how people figure out what they are good at and how to help God's people and creation. Do you think it's hard sometimes to know what we're supposed to be doing with our lives?

Carmen: Oh, absolutely. It's definitely hard to know, but you always gotta remember that what you're doing is the number one thing; who am I in God's eyes and what can I do to serve? I think that's important to know.

Barbara: I worry sometimes that people might feel like they have messed up their lives and or that God has not given them any particular talent. Carmen, it seems to me that one of your gifts is noticing other people's talents. Could you give some examples of when you helped people discern their gifts and calling to serve?

Carmen: Yes. For me, I think the most recent would be PWOC, which is the Protestant woman of the chapel. That played a big role for me when it came to discovering my gifts. It was the first year I was there, God was definitely grooming me because I just wanted to belong to such a wonderful group like that.

And I found one. So when the second year came around and I was asked to do it, I was hesitant, but I said, you know what? I'm going to pray about it. And if this is what God wants to do, then I'll do it. I'm not gonna question it. And sure enough, I prayed about it and all that, the lights were green and I said, okay, I'll do.

And it also help that I wasn't doing it by myself. There was always a sister there by my side. And that was so comforting and uplifting. And I said, okay, I can do this. And I learned to see with God's eyes, I learned to hear with his heart, I loved and accepted all these women right where they were and what they had to offer, what their expectations were. I learned so much.

Barbara: Absolutely. I've also heard some people feel maybe badgered about volunteering And how do we look at the fine line between inviting someone to serve?

And you had mentioned kind of praying, is this the right direction for me at this season in my life? And when to say no, this either isn't the right season or perhaps the calling is a little different, like our human influence. We try to influence each other sometimes, especially when we're really looking for volunteer help.

Carmen: Yeah, that is so true. I think when you get involved with the church, you get the first hand that you should serve and you get people are asking, Hey, will you come, pray if we consider this or that. I think it's just always remembering to pray about it first.

When I look at this scripture, particularly, if we go back a couple of verses to Romans 12, verse one, it says there, offer your body as a living sacrifice. So for me, that's literally what I do. I look at my body and I say, okay, I gotta get up. I gotta get in a place where I'm one on one with the Lord and I got to get ready for whatever it is that he wants to prepare me with.

And in verse two, it says, do not conform, but transform by the renewing of the mind. And so that's when I open up the Bible. And I refer to scripture and I just have to remind myself what can I do? How can I not get warm to the outside influences whether it's the news or my children or husband, but to transform, have the Holy spirit come from within me.

And so that's the opportunity. That's where I hone in everything. And then lastly, once I get my body and my mind ready, I can then, I think verse three says don't think of yourself more highly, but have sound judgment. So definitely finding the sensible part of myself. I know who I am and a big part of me would like to say, Hey God, I would love to be the ambassador of world peace. How can I do it? But if I I'm with my sensible self and say, Hey, you know, what can I do in the now, what can I do in my community or my church when I'm asked to serve? And I can start with just saying, God, I just want to serve, how can I serve you? I have to humble myself. I have to remind myself, that it's not my work, but his will.

So for other people, it might look a little different, if you're good at praying, I just say, Lord, I'm going to good at praying. How can I pray for so and so , or if I want to help Lord, I really want to help. I don't know if I can be tasked with, organizing so-and-so's wedding, but I can definitely help maybe washing the dishes or clean up that day or something like along those lines.

I think if you have this urge to want to teach, Lord, how can I teach? How can I reach out and just make a difference? And sitting in that quiet time, you'll see that doors are open- you get certain signs or certain things just fall into place. I think the more important parts when you're trying to decipher whether you want to serve or not, or if you're exploring your gifts or not is just remembering not to be stagnant or not to feel frustrated.

When you're stagnant, you're not doing what God wants you to do. And when you're feeling frustrated is when you're trying to do too much from what it's asking you to do. So find the middle ground.

Barbara: I'm so glad you said that because I had a very wise mentor teach a workshop one time and she referenced a Bible verse that some people know as the 10 finger prayer. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” And this mentor, Victoria Robinson, suggested a very respectful amendment to that, to support volunteers. And she said, “I can do called things through Christ who strengthens me.” And that reminded me when you said, if you're feeling really frustrated and you're like, I just want to do what God is having me do, that there can be a way to look at it. Is this what God is calling you to do? Because the way she explained it was, God's not calling everyone to do everything. Like the example you gave of, I'm not in a place to plan this whole wedding right now, but I can help with the dishes or clean up or whatever my skill set is as part of the larger project. I wonder if people, sometimes myself included, bite off more than we can chew

Carmen: We do. And just knowing your boundaries is very important because, who doesn't want to serve? But we have to know what our capabilities are and if you don't know what your spiritual gift is, there's many ways to find out what your spiritual gift is and there's no wrong way of doing anything. You can't mess them up. I know people say, okay, well,  it's a gift. Yes. This a gift. And you don't just have one.

You can have multiple gifts and you don't have to be really good at all of them. Just get your feet wet and say, Hey, I  like this. My gift is to serve, but I also like numbers. I like to try on maybe administrative work, or, handle the finances- so there's no wrong way to go about it.

Barbara: Thanks for saying that because it might be a really clear gift that one person has. And, say you are good at decorating cakes- as far as I'm concerned, you can just decorate cakes from here until the end of time. But there might be something else that you're good at too. And there might be opportunities for training. If you're willing to learn something new, if there's an area of need with prayerful consideration.

Carmen: Yes, definitely. when I first got into it with PWOC, I thought I was there to serve and I said, I'm going to go into hospitality. Cause that's what you do when you serve. And, I remember starting off at the welcome table and, then I was asked to go into the kitchen and I said, yeah, wherever you need me, I'll go.

But then that second year, I was on selection committee. I said, no, that, that can't be right. I cannot possibly learn how to do this or how to do that. That's not me. But, if you pray about it and you really learn to let God work through you, you will discover things you will never thought were possible. Which is pretty awesome.

Barbara: Does God sometimes surprise us?

Carmen: Oh yes. Unquestionably. Yes, he does. I actually learned how to develop discernment. And then later I got into teaching, which it's still some form of hospitality, if you think about it, it goes hand in hand and you start growing and learning and it's just a beautiful feeling.

Barbara:  we have seasons of rest in our lives, and that's not necessarily the main theme of our conversation today, but if we're talking about discernment, have you encountered situations where you've talked with people about discerning that this might be a time for them to receive and to not give in a formal role?

We're all giving all the time and we're receiving too, but sometimes it's more of one than the other.

Carmen: when I got into the selection committee, I thought I was meant to do for three years straight. And you have to go in it in prayer.

And before every year I would pray about it. And it just so happened that on the third year I said, you know what? This is going to be one of maybe my last years, I really want to do it. And I prayed about it and I did not get the confirmation I wanted. And I was confused.

I was saying, Lord, my heart's in the right place. I feel my mind is in the right place, but why am I not getting the green light? And so I said, yes, knowing that inside, I was like, I did not get validated for this. And lo and behold, then we were served with orders to leave. And at that same time, someone actually stepped up and said, Hey, I'm willing to do this.

And maybe Carmen can come alongside and just kind of monitor and help. And it worked out fantastic. And I said, wow, this wasn't my time to serve. So I need to step down and say, okay, Lord, I got it. I might be coming from the right place but it's not your will.

Barbara: That is so helpful to say that. Yeah, just because it might be a season of not serving in a certain capacity, you're still coming from a good place and willingness to help. And are you able to give any more details about how do you feel that sense of calling? I think sometimes someone says, well, God told me this. And then sometimes someone else might say, well, God didn't tell me anything. What are one or two ways that people can have a sense of discernment?

Carmen: I think it's their brain knowing how, when you pray, how God speaks to you. The most basic way I learned, I think when I was little. My mom would say, well, if you pray, ask for confirmation and I would say, well, I pray to find money on the floor. Lo and behold, if I prayed about something, I would find a penny or a dime, which sounds kind of silly, but it was my confirmation.

And as I got older, you know, I prayed for different confirmations. And, it happened,  some people have that ability where they can hear the voice of God. I have the ability to only look for the signs that God gives me when I pray for them. So that's the way I do it. it's funny because he can minister through anyone different ways, but it could be a song.

It could be someone telling you directly, those are the ones that give me goosebumps where you don't know someone and they can give you either an example or they tell you straight out, Hey, God has a place for you. And it might be this, this or that.

It's like, wow. They know that, so looking for those cues, keeping an open mind and just knowing when he is speaking to you.

Barbara: And the example that you just gave is a perfect segue because a different word is used in the new international version translation of the Bible. For the same verses that I just read.

And I think that that word, it might be confusing sometimes. So I'm going to read just verses five through eight of Romans 12 so that we can check out this more unusual word, maybe examine it a little bit. So here's verses five through eight.

“So in Christ, we though many form one body and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace, given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith. If it is serving, then serve. If it is teaching, then teach. If it is to encourage, then give encouragement. If it is giving, then give generously. If it is to lead, do it diligently. If it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.”

Carmen, I'm wondering what can prophecy look like these days?

Carmen: these days it can look in many ways. One thing to always remember, I feel like when you read, don't take biblical ideology so word to word. Cause some people might think, okay, prophecy- I have to be the next Isaiah or Daniel

Barbara: wandering around the desert - and I'm not making fun, but we have this image in our mind.

Carmen: and we don't have to reinvent the wheel. It could look very simple. It could be, if it's prophecy, it might be a dream or a thought, something in your heart that you might just go up to someone and say, Hey, God put this in my heart.

And he said if you're going through a rough week, he's got your back, that simple. And there's truths to that. That's how I see it at least. And if it's teaching, you don't have to go straight into trying to be a deacon, you can say I'm willing to teach- how bout I do Sunday school, or maybe just fellowship?

Or maybe I can do a Bible study- now with COVID you can do zoom or any type of meeting like that. So it doesn't have to be the teaching that you might think that's in the Bible or exportation. I mean, there are countless examples. it's going to look different every single time and it's how you apply it.

Barbara: I'm glad you said exhortation. Cause that's actually in this passage, but in a different translation that I don't have in front of me, can you give an example of exhortation?

Carmen: exhortation is someone that gives us those hard truths. So it might be someone who may be struggling with addiction. And if you have someone who has the gift of exhortation saying, Hey, God wants you to know X, Y, Z. And those are those hard truths that will shake, or maybe it's someone who's facing infidelity. Hey, this is what the Bible says. You know, we've got to honor this and that. And so you need someone like that sometimes in your corner to call you out when you need to hear it.

Barbara: that can be a hard message to hear. And in some cases, I believe there's both discernment and a message to go with the exhortation, of God's love. You had no way of knowing this Carmen, but an episode will be published before this one about addiction and the person who did the recording said, I couldn't believe that God could still love me in all my mess before she went to rehab, and she's in recovery now. And yes, the exhortation is absolutely AND God still loves people despite how we mess up.

Carmen: Oh yeah. We come from different walks of life. If we were perfect, we wouldn't be here. You know, if we had it all down right. We wouldn't be here- from the novice to the most seasoned person on a spiritual walk, we're sinners. We are sinners and sometimes it takes you to live through some hardships- those are the things that build your character.

And so when you're ready and you confront certain things, you say, Oh, I got to see it through, and this is what I've learned, or, Hey, if maybe, someone who's struggling with addiction and is walking now, that walk of faith maybe can be an encouragement to someone who might susceptible to that, or was also dealing with that or has a loved one dealing with that. I love this about the new Testament, is Jesus Christ sticks up for the little guy, little guy being the sinner.

There's no one perfect person. And I love that because he doesn't do it scoldingly and he doesn't do it like he's shaming you or anything like that. It's always out of love. And that's another thing we have to take from that when we're put in these positions or if we have these gifts- always speak with love and hear with love, and that's a key, that's huge.

That will separate you from knowing when it's a gift and when it's not a gift.

Barbara: I was thinking about these two different translations that we have talked about, that we're all part of a body, and there's probably a million different analogies that we could come up with. But to me, it kind of feels like a box of crayons- there's room for all kinds of crayons in this box of crayons. Like if I had a box of only one color crayons, fine. But it's so much more unified to have all these different kinds of crayons in there. So please forgive me if that's a terrible example, but it makes me think of teamwork. I mean, really the example in here is one person as a hand, one person is a foot and it's kind of nice if you have, all these different the eye or the ear or whatever.

So how can we support each other with our different talents? Like we can't all be leaders or you don't need 10 different accountants, you need one accountant and a bunch of different roles in the organization.

Carmen: Yeah. And we are all working for one body there's room for everybody, and there's no one that makes you better than the other or one that is lesser than the other.

I literally just think of the body. If we think about our body and how weight is shifted, Even our neck can help sustain our head, the minute things. I mean, it all makes a difference and we're all there to work together and to build each other up.

Barbara: And even though this conversation is mostly about discerning our gifts or our contributions, it seems to me like sometimes even in our strengths, we can drive each other crazy. Hopefully not on purpose, but is it sometimes hard to respect each other's gifts and to leave room and how to work as a team together?

 Carmen: we will always be faced sometimes with a difficult person. Whether it's coming from us or from that other person, there's going to be some difficulty. And I think just remembering, if you can speak with love and if you can hear with love, that will make all the difference in the world. You can tell someone, Hey, I noticed you were tasked with this, but you're coming into my lane.

I've learned to be just direct also when you're faced with someone difficult, just to ask them, how can I best approach you, where you can hear me with love? And you'll stop them in their tracks. So just kind of be like, Oh, I didn't know you felt that way. And if they're willing to listen, you can tell them. And that's just the best way to do it.

Barbara: And there's different kinds of questionnaires even online on discerning your spiritual gifts. You know, we're all humans, we're flawed - the tools are as good as they can be. But there's still a very important room to hold for prayer in this whole thing. What are my gifts? And then I'm even thinking, what are the five love languages? Different people want to hear the information in a different way. Like when you said, how can, how can I give you feedback?

How can I speak in love and how can the other person listen in love? Or how can I listen in love when someone is speaking to me in a hard way? So if we have any resources, we can put them on the podcast website, which is 40 minutes of faith.com. There's even a book called the five languages of apology, because some people want to hear an apology in a different way. So you don't have to do all of these things with your teams or your groups, but there are tools to use as well with these things.

Carmen: Yes. I actually loved those two books. The five love languages and the five of apology, really good books. I think that when you can understand that there's more than just one way to receive a message and to give a message, you can definitely better approach that person too. How can I make it better?

Barbara: I really want to send a message of support to people who may be raising kids and having possibly a stressful time, or just kind of discerning their gifts and their balanced between you were a nurse before you were raising your family and traveling all around. Things are hard with daycare and military life and finding jobs overseas and things like that. So how can we support folks who are raising kids and volunteering and may or may not be frazzled, getting enough sleep just with a message of encouragement around talking about spiritual gifts and volunteering and things like that?

Carmen: Just know that if you're going to serve God with all that, definitely do it with the serving heart. We should work always to build each other up. And just know that we are put where we are put for purpose, whether it's a time of chaos or whether it's a time of isolation, like now. And always pray about how you can just make a difference.

I know for me, I never thought I was a big social butterfly, but when the whole COVID thing hit and I was in a room with six individuals, I was dying to get out and I was praying. I was like, Lord, give me the strength to look at another day, give me the strength to keep going forward. How can I continue to be positive if I can't even enjoy the relationships I once had or, certain things that I did?

And, lo and behold, I had strangers come to me and someone offered prayer or someone would offer a meal or someone would just give me a quick five minutes of just a conversation. And I said, thank you, Lord. That's all I needed to refresh. And it was so nice.

We're moving here to San Diego. I said, no, we're not. I know he put us here for a reason. And if it's to serve, please show me how I can do that. And if it's to learn, please humble me where I can receive that teaching. And I think on day three, I met the neighbor who lives across the street and she came over and she said, I really want to get to know you and your family- and that just meant so much to me.

I was like, really? You want to know us? And she said, Hey, I just suffered a mild heart attack a couple of weeks ago. And without a doubt I just said, that's the sign. I said, well, how can I serve you? If you ever need me, here's my number. And then maybe we can just get together. I can run to the grocery store for you and I can do something, don't hesitate to call and it's just that simple.

Barbara: You found a new neighbor friend maybe sooner than you thought in the time when you felt you're kind of alone and the new kid on the block.

Carmen: Yeah. So just looking for those good opportunities and just learning either how to be of service or to learn from them.

Barbara: Yes. So I want to honor the different seasons that we had talked about before that service doesn't have to be formal in a volunteer group with a title and meetings, It could be just the everyday little thing of bringing some groceries to the neighbor.

And I have become convinced of the tremendous amount of work that it takes to raise a family, from mundane household chores, to teaching children values and that's not a paid job, but really it is. And I say that with tremendous respect and honor.

Carmen: once you start having kids, that was for me a big one. How do I get them on their spiritual walk and how do I do it where I'm not forcing it upon them, but rather it's coming within them? And some days, that looks really good. I'm like, all right, Lord, they're on the right track.

And other days I'm just like, Oh my goodness. He's challenging me. Not necessarily them, but it's for me. So, got to have those loving eyes and just know that even when you hit those rough days, there's always tomorrow. You guys just got to work on it slowly but surely.

Barbara: One of my professors always asked us whose voice is missing. So we have this passage in Romans from the message and from the NIV, and we've got spiritual gifts and we've talked about volunteering. So I'm just curious if you can think of any voice that's not already been brought up in this conversation?

Carmen: I think maybe one person that might be missing is a non-believer- that's a hard one because I know that when you're a nonbeliever, how do you even begin to believe? But just know that there is something in you that has been bestowed in you, given to you. And often someone is born talented in certain things. And for others it might be that you have to work at it, you know? And so for a nonbeliever, know that there's something in you that God has given you.

And it doesn't hurt just to give it a try, you know, step out on a limb and it doesn't cost anything. It's free of charge and no harm comes to you out of this, just give it a  shot and see where it takes you.

Barbara: we're saying really clearly that God is able to do good things in the world, through anybody, no matter what has happened in your past, that there is room for God's love, even for anyone who might feel unworthy.

And that's not just to say you've never believed in God, but even sometimes people might feel like they have known God and then they can think, well, I don't deserve this and none of us deserve it. So it's not about one person not deserving. It we're all in the same boat, but it's still given freely, 

Carmen: in my life, I've known people who don't believe and are just saints. Whether they know it or not, I'm just like, wow, how do you not believe, being the person that you and just reminding yourself things happen for a reason? God's timing is perfect and you are where you're supposed to be.

Barbara: And I also want to honor that it might be hard to walk into a place where you don't know anybody. You know, the first time that we went to a Protestant women of the chapel meeting, we just were really trusting that there were going to be good people there to welcome us.

And hopefully that was the case. Maybe these days we're not walking into as many places, but even to join something online, And to just pray that people will be nice to you and not judge you. Cause that does happen too. And that breaks my heart.

Carmen: It happens but know that that's not the majority. It's definitely few and far in between.

Barbara: I've said things that I've regretted as well. I think I'm a good person. And then I just am like, why did I even say that? What is wrong with me? I'm so sorry then.

Carmen: Yeah, I know. We're human. We're not perfect.

Barbara: Carmen, Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate your wisdom and your insights.

Carmen: thank you. We may not all have the answers, but these are some of my experiences and I hope I can make a difference.

Resources:

Romans 12: 5-10

Books:

Formerly titled “5 Languages of Apology” https://www.5lovelanguages.com/book/when-sorry-isnt-enough/

Eric Haitz composed the guitar music and lyrics for “The Lord’s Prayer”, which he sings and plays at the end of this episode. He lives with his family in Iowa and is a student at Wartburg Theological Seminary, in the Diaconal Ministry degree program. Eric has been repairing musical instruments for the local school system for many years

Carmen encourages others!

Immigration with Jay

Immigration with Jay

Barbara: Hi everyone- welcome to 40 Minutes of Faith. My name is Barbara Cox and today's topic is immigration and the Bible. Our guest is the Reverend Dr. Javier (Jay) Alanis. I met Jay during a January course in Texas about borderlands and theology. As I've mentioned before, it's difficult for me to address professors by name, but that seems to be the way these days.

Jay is currently the associate professor of theology culture and mission of the Lutheran school of theology at Chicago, a joint program of Wartburg theological seminary. He is also the executive director of the Lutheran extension program located at the Episcopal seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas. Prior to his academic appointment, he served as pastor of Trinity Lutheran church in San Antonio from 1992 to 1996.

He is a lifelong Lutheran born in San Juan, Texas. Jay was part of a panel that examined the subject of border walls at international conferences held in Berlin and in Wittenberg, Germany. He holds a Juris doctorate degree, a master of divinity and a doctor of philosophy degree. Jay, how did you go from completing law school to seminary?

Jay: I was doing a lot of public ministry in my practice of law and people seem to recognize or discern a sense of call on my life. And that prompted me to do a lot of prayer and a lot of discerning conversation with other folks and including the seminary and church bishops.

And, they recommended that I seek theological education at the seminary where I now serve as director. And that's how I ended up being a pastor and then going on to get a PhD.

Barbara: I know that that's been a blessing in many lives. Today we will offer several Bible passages throughout our discussion about immigration. Jay has prepared a visual presentation for those watching on YouTube.

Jay: being a person of the borderlands, being born and raised about 20 miles from the U.S. - Mexico border has given me a certain lens by which to examine the current political asylum and refugee issues that are confronting the nation and the church and all people of faith.

Barbara: Let's start at the beginning. I offer to read the book of Genesis, the third chapter, verse 23 at the very front of your Bible. So verse 23 from the New Revised Standard Version is: therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.

Jay: anthropologists and social scientists have pointed out to us that humans, the homo sapiens species have been migrants from the very beginning from the dawn of civilization.

They have done all of the archeological work in Africa, for example, including, with a program such as ancestry DNA, which traces our bloodlines all the way to Africa. So Adam and Eve, as part of the narrative of the Bible gives us that insight into, the first migrants who are forced to migrate, out of a failure of trust in God.

And so leaving the garden of plenty, they're forced to wander in the wilderness. And that's so much like many people today throughout the world, they have to leave their comfort zone, their land of promise, the land of heritage, and they're forced to flee for X number of reasons- political, social, economic, and more.

 Barbara: I would like to read three verses out of Genesis chapter 12 verses one through 20: I'm going to read verses one and verses nine and 10. Now the Lord said to Abraham, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you and Abraham journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb. Now there was a famine in the land. So Abraham went down to Egypt to reside there as an alien for the famine was severe in the land.

Jay: I like to remind the church and remind my students that from the very earliest, reference in the Bible, we have the story of Abraham and Sarah being those wandering migrants, in the desert of their native countries. And so, in reference to their flight to Egypt, wandering Abraham and Sarah are a people of the diaspora who become economic refugees in Egypt, fleeing famine. They travel to the Egyptian empire to seek sustenance for their family.

They cross over into a land of promise, hoping to alleviate their hunger. How many refugees do the same today? We see them at the U.S.- Mexico border come seeking aid with little but their faith in God. And how do we receive them? The church, I believe, is called to offer aid and sustenance in the name of the Holy one who accompanied Abraham and Sarah on their journey to Egypt.

And so I pray: “Lord, help us to receive the Sojourner with helping hands.”

Barbara: I believe that diaspora means of people who are scattered. So they came from one place and then they kind of ended up all over the place.

Jay: people migrate for many different reasons. And so even now we're seeing the diaspora of the people of Venezuela. For example, I was seeing a program last night on Frontline, and of course the people of Puerto Rico know that experience first-hand, throughout their history as a territory of the United States. So they flee for political reasons, economic reasons.

And often they are forced to flee. And so they scatter, to any land that will take them. And so it was with Abraham and Sarah, they knew that Egypt was a powerful nation where there was food that they could receive for their sustenance. And that's the logical place for them to go, where they would find refuge and sanctuary.

Barbara: we've got another slide for viewers on YouTube, and we'll explain it for listeners. This first map shows the departure from Ur in Babylon, which I believe is contemporary Iraq up along the rivers, and then down through what is now Israel towards Egypt. And then we leave Egypt. We as a people, not we right now.

Jay: [the book of Exodus] is a classic text that my African American friends, students and community referred to as their texts of promise. it's that, theological grounding and reference for their own migration stories, out of slavery, for example, in the United States, that's something that we're still wrestling with as far as the consequences of that part of our history. In the story of the Hebrew nation, they flee, because of Moses who was an instrument of God that was used to go and confront the political power of his day, Pharaoh, with speaking truth to power, a narrative, that nation is forced to therefore liberate the Hebrew people who had been suffering, the social economic and political, and probably religious persecution over 400 years. So we are reminded that this story is still a living story for people who are fleeing that kind of persecution and seeking liberation from bondage, including human trafficking.

And so this becomes a part of the story that we continue to tell. And reference as part of the human story of liberation and seeking liberation from those things that chain people and keep people in chained to various bondages.

Barbara: there are many different examples that we see over history and in contemporary times. And we also know that a route out of bondage or a rout to escape to sanctuary can be circuitous- it's often not a straight line. So historically, we have the Exodus, wandering for 40 years, and then we have folks these days coming and not just from South America and central America North into the United States, but also from other countries. They may end up in Mexico trying to come into the United States, but they may have originated from across either ocean.

Jay: That is so true, Barbara. In fact, as part of my ministry, I have taken students to the  home for displace migrants here in Austin. It's a ministry that began between the Lutheran and Episcopal communities back in the 1980s during the war in El Salvador.

And it has been serving the migrant community ever since. And, we get to hear the stories of people from all over the world, from all over Africa, South America, Asia, somehow these folks find their way to freedom, so to speak by ending up in Austin and this home for displaced migrants. And when you get to hear their stories, you can't help but be moved, because they have traveled through such perilous terrains and through jungles, and through desert. And the stories are backed up by a series that was documented on Frontline that I happened to see last week, a journalist traveling with people through the jungles of Columbia and Panama in central America. As people migrate North to get to the U.S. - Mexico border seeking freedom from their political persecution in various countries.

So you're absolutely right. People come here from all over the world and they come here fleeing persecution. And  they traveled through the circuitous routes to get here.

Barbara: And I just want to emphasize that my understanding of political persecution is much more severe than just kind of mudslinging like we have now. I believe people judge each other quite harshly and perhaps they believe that they're justified, perhaps they are. But the political persecution that we're talking about that people flee from frankly, is murder. People's families are threatened. There's extortion, there's egregious violence.

Jay: Absolutely, Barbara, it's a matter of life and death for these folks. And, what we sometimes forget is that they are also a people of faith and we get to hear that in the stories that they relate to us at this home for displaced migrants.

They  come bearing only their faith, God, in this flight to freedom and their flight is based on a matter of life and death. They lose family members to persecution, and sometimes they don't make it through the journey. It's very heart- wrenching for us to hear as a people of faith. And that is why we are moved to act to do something about this situation.

And to provide a place of hospitality, of welcome of refuge, of sanctuary, a place where they can rest from this long journey to freedom.

Barbara: It never occurred to me until just right now, Jay, is it possible that our modern day refugees have even less on their backs than people fleeing Egypt? Didn't they have tents and animals and sort of a great caravan as they wandered out of Egypt and through the desert for all those years?

Jay: That's certainly the perception that they brought their goods or their belongings with them. Of course, it wouldn't have been much considering they had been slaves, but they brought what they could with the little they have. Current refugees bring nothing but the shirt on their back and the sad part is they often get robbed along the way and lose everything that they bring with them.

Barbara: I can also list the textbooks that we read for the January course on the podcast website, which is 40 minutes of faith for additional resources. How much water can you even carry, and how did they survive (or not)? Unfortunately.

Jay: that's a very good point.

Barbara: what is the Exilic period? I can read the years here, 1836 to 2020 along the U.S. - Mexico border.

Jay: I was literally born on the U.S. - Mexico border. I make the connection of the story of my parents and grandparents fleeing Mexico 100 years ago during the Mexican revolution of 1910, which lasted through 1920.

And so they became members of the diaspora, fleeing economic and political persecution in Mexico. And they crossed the border into South Texas, to a place where they had family members and they could find refuge. And so the exilic period makes reference to the time when Texas was declared a Republic independent of Mexico in 1836.

And it's a time when the border crossed native peoples of the borderlands, including Texas, it crossed them overnight. For native Tejanos, people of Mexican heritage, indigenous peoples living in Texas for millennia, the U.S. - Mexico border crossed us, and all of a sudden they found themselves being aliens in their own land.

And so, the exilic period refers to a people of exile who are forced into exile by a political declaration of independence by another culture. And it continues through today in the sense that we continue to receive immigrants from Mexico and from Latin America.

And we're continually reminded that our neighbors are people who live in exile. And it's also a reference to the oral history of, for example, my family, the oral history that informs me and my consciousness and my conscience of who I am as a descendant of people who had to flee a revolution and become a people of exile. And so this period of exilic experience really doesn't end. It continues throughout human history. And it certainly continues in and along the us Mexico border.

Barbara: it was arbitrarily created on paper by human beings. And then you could have from one town to the next, all of a sudden you're in Mexico and you're in the United States. Bam, here it is with all the upheaval going on, people then said, okay, I need to be somewhere safe. Imagine!

Jay: I'm reminded of a story of the rector of San Fernando cathedral. When several years ago, we took our January term students  to visit the cathedral and to hear his story. And he reminded the group that in 1836 with that declaration, most of the people who lived in San Antonio were native Tejanos or people of Mexican heritage, they lost their land or their property within one year of that declaration.

Barbara: And I didn't learn that as a kid, when I took U. S. History, it was, Hey, Mexico, and the United States had this big fight. I'm just generalizing- and now Texas is part of us. Yay. If you can forgive a little touch of sarcasm here, but nobody talked about what people lost or it could have been really mixed feelings.

Jay: who gets to write our history? But we have the advantage of oral history. So we don't forget the roots of our origins in our context where we come from. So

Barbara: is the third space, sort of the human and geophysical space along the border that could have people from both nations on either side of that border, either in their hearts or just physically where they are?

Jay: Yes. This third space is what I refer to that middle space where people's identity is something to, ambiguity and where it fluctuates. because we are living, between two countries at the same time. Therefore all people of the borderlands I can safely say are living in this third space, that has been constructed artificially by let's say a political system that all of a sudden places a line on the map and says, this is the border. And so we're having to navigate daily what it means to be a quote unquote, Mexican slash American slash or any other group that ends up here in the borderlands as a people from another space.

But that enters this liminal space, which is what I referred to this liminal space of ambiguity, where our identity is questioned and where we question our identity as well, because we're forced to question it. Well, when you're having to navigate life between two cultures at the same time.

Barbara: we'll say more about that coming up, but we want to reintroduce the Bible to this conversation in a way that I didn't pay attention to in Sunday school. I thought, okay, Jesus was born and then he grew up in Nazareth, but there's something really important that happens between the birth and Nazareth as it relates to our conversation today.

I'm going to read Matthew chapter two, verse 14, which Matthew is one of the gospels past the halfway Mark in your Bible. And the new revised standard version says this: Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night and went to Egypt.

So we've got a visual here for folks on YouTube, an arrow leading from Bethlehem to Egypt, and then other arrows leading out of Egypt and to Nazareth. So keep reading in Matthew and you'll get more of the story. And Jay, you have some parallels to tell us about modern day flights.

Jay: Yes indeed. In fact, I have traveled this route. Several years ago, I traveled to Israel. I travel from there to Cairo. So I was able to see firsthand just how intense that desert is. And so I could only imagine the Holy family having to make that trek across the desert to get to Alexandria. I equate that experience and that physical desert similar to the Sonoran desert in Northern Mexico, the deadliest desert which migrants cross through to get to the U. S. - Mexico border in Arizona.

It's not for nothing that many people refugees died in that day. They die in the heat of the desert, trying to cross into a place of refuge. I want to point out from this text is that Matthew relates the story of the Holy family who flee to Egypt to escape the persecution of Herod . Joseph, Mary and Jesus become political refugees in the empire of their day. They flee to escape the death squads that Herod ordered against the innocent. And Jesus was the undocumented child of his day and a homeless displaced migrant. Like his family, many flee the death squads of their native countries.

And arrive at our southern borders seeking asylum and refuge. And so I asked church, how shall we receive those who bring Jesus with them? And so I offer the prayer: “merciful God, help us to give shelter to the displaced homeless at our borders and to advocate for just and humane treatment of our global neighbors.”

Jesus' identity is rooted in his culture. As a Galilean Jew, he will speak in the dialect of his community. He will learn to speak Aramaic and read the Torah in Hebrew. He will be influenced by the Hellenistic culture of the region, the crossroads between Europe, Asia, and Africa, then the border States of the U S we call the spoken language, Spanglish or text mix, a mixture of English and Spanish, and many who traveled to our borders, bring their accents with them and are identified as foreigner. In time, they will adopt the dialect of the region in their effort to survive in a new country. I like to point out that language is a tool of empowerment and all cultures are defined by their linguistic heritage.

And we should not fear languages we do not understand but hear them as an opportunity to learn about the worldview of others who come here. In other words, language in today's world is politicized and, and used against. people who have a different accent than our own.

And no one in on earth, is accent less. We all come from a certain place. We all have an accent and we are all, people of God. And so language should be used as is as a gift, and not as a tool to, for us others.

Barbara: we have managed to turn language into hate. And even folks from different areas of the United States pronounce words or have certain phrases. And sometimes it seems like we use those against each other.

Jay: language is a worldview. So if you learn something about that language, you're going to, to learn about, an entirely different perhaps theological worldview that enriches our own. When we deliberately crossed that, a border within ourselves and are willing to engage the other, who is different from us and who has something to teach us.

Jay: when we engage the immigrant, who has a different faith experience as our own, we might be threatened by that difference, but we really shouldn't be.

In fact, we should be very careful. And treat with a lot of respect, the faith of the Sojourner of justice, Abraham and Sarah had their faith when they traveled out of earth. And when they traveled to Egypt, they took their faith stories with them. And here in Texas, our lady of  Guadalupe is very prominent. Because she is symbol and sign of the redemptive narrative of the Mexican people who were conquered by the Spaniards.

And they're still living out of that sense of redemptive history that the Virgin of Guadalupe provides that community of faith. And we should treat. The, faith experience of the sojourner of the foreigner with great respect. And we should be careful not to violate their dignity and especially their culture, but to respect it as our own.

Barbara: One thing that I learned this January was that not all immigrants from either Mexico or other Latin American or South American countries are Catholic. That was a false assumption that I had. So I was grateful to learn that and I believe, but I just want to double check also, Jay, that we're not only talking about since this is a Christian based.

Podcasts that we're not talking only about welcoming people of a common Christian faith, but also people of any faith at all, or no faith at all.

Jay: Thank you for pointing that out, Barbara. I've heard the stories from the migrants at the home of displace migrants here in Austin and also in Laredo. People who come here, come with their faith stories of whatever origin. So we are called to treat their faith stories with great respect and not to be threatened by them. It's part of the rich tapestry of God's people and of the faith stories that cover the globe and that informed people's relationship with themselves and their God, and with themselves and their neighbors.

Barbara: I believe some people come from a place of fear and that that will reflect in a manner of hypocrisy. So if I fear “where is my money going? Why is my money being used to support people who aren't from here or who don't belong here?”

And I don't believe that at all. I'm asking that as a rhetorical question to illustrate a point: how are we clinging to what we have? At the exclusion of others. And frankly, I think that that comes across as hypocritical. If many people are claiming to come from a place of faith or a place even of Christianity to say, “get out, we don't want you here.” That really hurts my heart.

Jay: fear as a place of departure for relating to the neighbor is in fact, very destructive, not only to the neighbor, but to oneself. And so we really have to ground ourselves in a theology of promise. In the theology of, sharing of hospitality  and truly, a theology of abundance.

If we believe that creators is the creator of all, then we need to place our trust in the one who provides for us- in fact, even looks after the sparrow.

Barbara: I believe in good fiscal stewardship and being wise. And I don't mind being very generous. I don't mind paying taxes to support other people's neediness. And yet I understand that that's a conversation of balance. And at the same time, there are many examples of it's not going to run out. And also, unfortunately we have examples of greed. So there are detention centers, as well as prisons that are actually making a profit.

So they made a proposal, they won the bid, they are getting the money and people are taking money home on the backs of the residents of these frankly interment camps, these prisons, these places where immigrants are staying, who are not getting. Sufficient food and shelter and that's of what you have on this slide from the United nations.

Jay: the Emmaus story, is a post resurrection story that offers us a view of the gift of hospitality. And as you were saying, sharing of food at our table, we have heard the story of the two disciples who meet up with Jesus on the road to Emmaus.

He joins them and explains the scriptures to them in their struggle to understand the unjust death of their teacher. They invite him, came into their home for the evening and offer him the hospitality of their table. They see him revealed in the breaking of the bread, an unexpected epiphany that changed the direction of their lives.

Amazing things happen when we extend the gift of hospitality to the stranger among us. So Lord help us to see you at the table that we prepare for the strangers of our communities. And the United nation declaration of human rights informs our conscience, by referencing the right, not to be subjected, to torture and or cruel inhuman degrading treatment or punishment, which we often see at the us Mexico border, which is unfortunate.

But in fact, the church is called to advocate for justice because in advocating for justice for our neighbor is to accompany those held. In detention and, who are sadly in cages in the town where I come from in the Rio Grande Valley.

Barbara: that's also a topic for perhaps debate or at least discussion. Define cruel, define inhuman define degrading: to me, separating minor children from their parents or guardians, that to me is all of the above. People sleeping on cement floors with an aluminum foil blanket. To me that qualifies as inhuman and degrading because essentially we're treating these people like dogs and that's not right.

Jay: a good point.

Barbara: How about the borders that we might be crossing in our own hearts in our own lives?

Jay: Jesus crosses all kinds of borders and spaces when he thirsts in the land of Samaria. He sees a woman at a well drawing water and asks for a drink. What follows is a conversation that violates all the political correctness of the day. He, a Hebrew man speaks to a woman of another culture and of a questionable history. And quite frankly, considered an enemy as a Samaritan. He engages her in a theological discourse that leads to greater insights of the dwelling, places of the spirit, and she received spiritual direction.

That leads to a thirst for the life-giving waters of the borderless spirit. She shares her gospel encounter with her community and becomes an ambassador for all who thirst for wholeness. Lord, help me to quench the thirst of others with the good news that you bring wholeness to the afflicted, the broken and the disinherited.

We as a church are called to engage these conversations in order to extend hospitality to others. And to cross the borders that we have artificially and arbitrarily constructed, both outside of ourselves and within ourselves.

Barbara: How about just ordinary folks, Jay, who may or may not be involved with a formal congregation? What are we called to do just as regular people around this topic?

Jay: Well, what do we mean by crossing borders of indifference? Borders are everywhere. They're human constructs of places that we're not willing to cross for X number of reasons.

And that becomes a border of indifference. Because we're not willing to cross the border as we do in South Texas to lend a helping hand people who are seeking asylum on the Mexican side of the border. And so in our own communities, we can't be indifferent to the changes that are occurring around us, to new people, inhabiting our spaces.

And we fail to reach out to them to extend hospitality to them. To ask the living questions that every human being has about their life and faith, and to engage in a spirit of mutuality and concern for each other, and also to discover the richness of others people's traditions. When we are willing to cross that border, we are opening ourselves up to a whole different experience of what it means to be human in today's world.

Barbara: And I know that some folks may say, well, Hey, look, I'm not really aware that there's a whole lot of refugees or immigrants in my community. We might not think that there's a lot, but are people staying behind doors? I'm not sure. Is there a way to be welcoming, say for example, teaching English as a second language? That's not to say that everyone who comes here doesn't speak English. That's not true. Some folks who come here speak really great English or five other languages, frankly, which I don't even speak five languages.

Jay: even a smile, a kind smile goes a long way to making someone feel welcome. And I tried to do that at every restaurant that I coach here, because I know that many of the folks working in these restaurants are new to this country and I have a lot to learn from them. And I often ask them after I get to know them, I ask them to tell me their story. And so in that conversation, in the engagement, I'm extending a word of welcome a warmth that every human being needs for the day and assign that you matter, you matter to me and you matter to the God that I serve.

Barbara: One of the favorite things that you said that I recall is that you ask people just to a friendly question, not to be prying, hopefully not to make them feel afraid. And then later you ask, if you can pray for them, if there's anything that they would like you to pray for. And I thought, wow, that is just so brave. I aspire someday to ask someone who's a stranger, “How can I pray for you?”

Jay: It's all about building relationships. And we construct our bridges. You know, we have a choice of constructing bridges or tearing them down. And I prefer to be one who builds bridges of understanding across cultures.

We have all heard the proverb “Tell me who you walk with. And I will tell you who you are.” When Jesus sits down for dinner with a hated tax collectors and sinners of ill repute, he offers an alternative view of a meal that shapes identity, practice mercy.

He advises- This is his way of saying “you follow me when you invite the least among you to my table.” In Spanish. We like to say, “tell me who you eat with and I will tell you who you are.” I share “Lord, help me to invite the unloved to the sacred spaces of our worship trip that we might commune at your table of grace.” I'd like to point out that all theological traditions recognize that feeding others is a sign of hospitality and an opportunity to serve others who cannot feed themselves. And I've had the grace of traveling to many, many different countries throughout the world. And I've often experienced a welcoming table as a sign of hospitality, and often with people I did not know and was meeting for the first time.

And so that's why I can safely say that, we are called to feed others as a sign of hospitality and welcome,

Barbara: and we're also called to give generously without expectation of return. So sometimes we invite someone and then we're pretty sure we're going to get invited a little later on and it kind of goes back and forth, but that's truly the opposite of what this conversation is about. You just give freely and not even patronizing, like let me go help these poor people.

Jay: in that table conversation, you're going to learn about each other. You're going to exchange the richness of who you are. So we all bring something to the table, you know, and if you don't have food, you're bringing your faith story.

Barbara: we can bless each other in many different ways.

Jay: That's right. And many of us know the story in Luke 10, about the Samaritan. When the lawyer asks Jesus, who is my neighbor? And Jesus tells the parable of the good Samaritan. The good Samaritan is the one who showed mercy to the injured man and on the side of the road. And so we become the neighbor who creates spaces of welcome so that others might receive, not only food to eat, but just a resting place where they can rest their bodies, their spirits. And allow themselves to just breathe safely for a little while.

Barbara: we really wanted to start with a biblical foundation today, and there are advocacy resources that I'm going to post on the podcast website, 40 minutes of faith.com that there are ways that you can give of your time, not necessarily of your money, but certainly if you feel so inclined to agencies, there's places like amnesty that are writing letters.

To campaign for these human rights that we've talked about. There's Lutheran organizations, there's groups of all faiths and that are not necessarily faith involved either.

Jay: if you have a faith advocacy group, as we do in Texas called the Texas impact, that's a lobbying group which is faith based that advocates for justice for our neighbors. And if you can connect with those kind of advocacy groups within your own community, I'm sure they exist. An informed conscience, advocating for the right to exist, the right to eat the right, to find sanctuary the foot or the right to be an asylum seeker and the right to be a refugee. The more you get informed by tapping into these advocacy groups, the richer your experience is going to be, and the more effective you are going to be as an advocate for justice for our neighbors.

I want to invite any here to go to my webpage, www.jayalanis.com And you're going to find resources there, theological resources and references to links that will take you to advocacy groups. I caution people against what I've referenced as cultural violence, that also includes religious violence.

And so by that, I mean, be attentive to how we treat the faith traditions of others who may be joining our sacred spaces and bringing the richness. I like to call it the richness of their traditions to our table. Because we have something to learn from each other. We don't know, we don't, we don't monopolize the truth as it were.

I think God, the spirit is every con every culture on earth, a reference to the divine, a reference to the sacred, their own symbolic language for it. And so we have something to learn from how you must have experienced the Holy. And so, I think in, in, in being receptive to learning. I think is the greatest contribution you can make for yourself and your community of, worship.

Barbara: I'm hearing you call us really to an invitation of being open minded.

Jay: Yes. There's nothing like an open heart and open mind to enrich your life. I can speak from experience because I've crossed many borders throughout my life and I'm the richer for it.

Barbara: Thank you. I'm so grateful that I was able to be in Texas. There's still a lot I don't know. And even what I take for granted, say for example, white privilege, I have it. And I took it for granted. So I didn't even know I had it. It's not a disease, but maybe it's a social problem. So to continue to raise that own awareness within yourself.

Barbara: Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom, Jay. I really appreciate it.

Jay: You're welcome, Barbara.

Resources:

Genesis 3:23

Genesis 12:1-20

Exodus

Matthew 2:14

Matthew 25:35

Books:

Jason de Leon, Land of Open Graves, University of California Press, 2015          

Anzaldua, Gloria,  Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, 25Th  Anniv. Fourth Edition, 2012

Juan Oliver, Ripe Fields: The Promise and Challenge of Latino Ministry, Church Publishing, 2009

Advocacy:

https://www.lirs.org

https://www.elca.org/ammparo

www.amnestyusa.org

https://www.aclu.org

www.change.org

Dr. Alanis advocates for our newest neighbors

Addiction with Michelle K

Barbara: Today's guest is Michelle Knight. I met Michelle at Wartburg theological seminary, where she's a final year student to become a pastor. Vicar Michelle serves at st. Paul's Lutheran church in Warren, Illinois. Prior to seminary, she worked in various fields, including investments, human resources, accounting and farming.

Michelle is especially focused on serving those in the addiction and recovery community. She's always been comfortable sharing her story of recovery with other addicts and alcoholics, and is sensitive to the spiritual needs of addicts and alcoholics. Michelle will share her resurrection story so listeners and viewers may receive the message of good news: There is hope and you're not alone. God is always with you, and so is the fellowship found in recovery if you choose to receive it. Her dream is to serve God and the church so that no one ever has to suffer in addiction alone, to create a recovery community and place of sanctuary for those on their spiritual formation journey.

Thanks for joining us today, Michelle, and for offering to provide an opening prayer for us.

Michelle: let us pray. Good and gracious God, we give you Thanks for bringing us safely into this new day. We give you thanks for the spiritual gifts you have given each one of us to use that bring mercy love and compassion to those in despair and suffering from addiction. Be with us in our conversation today. Inspire and encourage helpful discussion among your faithful servants- in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Barbara: Amen. Today's Bible reading is from the book of John. The fourth chapter verses seven through 15.

John is the last of the gospels. So it's past the halfway mark in your Bible. I will read from the new revised standard version. A Samaritan woman came to draw water. And Jesus said to her, give me a drink. His disciples had gone to the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria? Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans. Jesus answered her. If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

The woman said to him, sir, you have no bucket. The well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well and with his sons and his flock to drink from it?

Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give them will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.

Michelle, we'll talk about this Bible passage during our discussion today about addiction, but

I'm intrigued that you use the phrase resurrection story, please tell it.

Michelle: That is a term most associated with those that have been in the throes of it and recovery because we have been rescued from death and I think of in our confessions where you confess that Jesus died and descended into hell. And on the third day he Rose. So in that liminal space and that transformational time that Jesus was in the depths of hell, I believe that's where I have been rescued from that place and brought into new life, brought into the resurrection and it exists in this time, that my life has been joined with Christ and his resurrection to live life abundantly.

So, what was it like living in hell, living in the throes of addiction? I started drinking at a very young age- alcohol was introduced to me young, not only in communion at church, but I got to open my dad's beers and take the first sip. I would go into my grandma's refrigerator and take Peppermint schnapps and sneak that throughout the day. I had received a taste of alcohol very young. I was also suffering from childhood sexual trauma and I was hiding a story that I had not shared. It was healing that had not happened.

My teenage years connected the hiding response, the numbing response, the fear response with the behavior drinking and basically anesthetizing myself from feeling those feelings of shame, pain, insecurity, fear, and that sort of thing. So that continued into my young adult life and just in and out, bingeing drinking, hiding still- I don't like the term highly functioning because I wasn't functioning.

I was going to work. I never got into trouble. I never lost my driver's license. Had a really good masquerade going. I was a professional in the community- people did not know that I was suffering in silence.

Again, many relationships falling apart, abusive relationships. I was also getting into prescription drugs. January 5th, 2015 was my last drinking and drugging day; the next day I was found unconscious in my apartment after not showing up for work and taken immediately by ambulance to the emergency room and ICU, where I was suffering from alcohol poisoning and prescription drug overdose, and attempted suicide. And I honestly, I truly believe that I was ready to check out. I was in so much pain because I didn't know how stop drinking anymore. I was no longer able to go to work without a drink or a drug, engage in a conversation, leave my house. I had no control anymore. That behavior of drinking and drugging was so attached to all of my emotions around trauma, that I could no longer think or even look to another coping skill or even asked for help. So there I was in the emergency room, with doctors and nurses all around me and my pastor was called.

I honestly thought I wasn't going to come out of this. I remember my pastor saying it's going to be okay. No judgment, no words of condescension. Just being present and something clicked, and I believed her.

It was days in recovery, in the psych ward and talking with doctors and nurses. And I had a faith background. I've been raised Lutheran, but I didn't have a spiritual relationship with the triune God. I only knew of a God that I loved and who hated me, had to have hated me because of my life, had abandoned me, had no sense of God's presence in my life.

Had no idea that Christ died on the cross for someone like me, like this mess. It was an awakening in those days. And, talking with professionals and picking up my first 12 step program schedule and knowing that I wanted a different life for myself and knowing that I could not do this on my own, that it was a problem bigger than I could carry.

So the day that I was released, I walked into my first AA meeting. And it was a women's meeting and I was surrounded by the most loving mamas and grandmas in the world. And their stories are my stories. And for the first time in my life, I knew I wasn't alone. I no longer had to be ashamed to tell my story, all the ugly bits and parcels- things that I thought, nobody's going to believe this. Surely I am unique in my experience. I'm special.

Barbara: you're special, but not alone in those experiences.

Michelle: Right. I went to three meetings a week and I immediately connected with a sponsor and started doing the work. And I had a long ways to go.

As anyone in recovery knows those first few days, months, you're just a hot mess. Sixty days into my sobriety, my pastor asked me to do a via de Christo weekend- a living water weekend. It's a three day retreat. I had never heard of this before.

And you know, I'm thinking 60 days. And I had no idea what I was getting myself into. And I'm suffering from sugar cravings terribly from the absence of alcohol. I'm still trying to regulate my emotions, which are all over the board because I never allowed them to surface before still learning how to communicate and have even a healthy conversation or relationship.

So I'm plunked down into this retreat full of women and I'm like, what am I doing here? They're all singing Jesus campfire. I'm just like, Oh gosh, what is going on? And I just felt so out of place.

Cause I wasn't accustomed to being in community. I didn't know what that was like to allow other people to love me in that way. Strangers, nonetheless, just how you were and sober too. I remember there was like crafts and there's food and they're singing and there's worship.

Michelle: I was going to bail. I was at a really vulnerable point knowing that's where the Holy spirit seeks you out when you're vulnerable. And you're just at that point where your heart is ready to break open.

And allow the spirits to come in and allow Jesus to come in and walk with you. And I was right there and then Another gal that was there, came up to me, put her hands on my shirt. And she said, all of this, all of this is for you. Wow. He died on the cross or you. For you. And she just kept taking my shoulder and looking me in the eyes and telling me that over and over and over and first I'm like, lady don't touch me.

And then the words just sunk in and soften this hardened 40 something year old heart. And the words took seed, rooted. And just grew from there. And that's where I was raised from the dead. It was in that moment. It wasn't just the first day that I didn't drink a drug.

Right. It took time in that space. and then it was not long after that, that I had my sense of call re-ignited. I had a sense as a teen but rebelled terribly. I knew this was my story to tell- this is the good news that I bring to those that are suffering and addiction and need to hear these words of hope. All this, you are loved

Barbara: you and your mess, not you and your perfectness, which there is no such thing anyway, in your fake perfectness. Not you personally

Michelle:  that's so true. And later in that week I learned as people were coming off of sharing their faith stories and witnessing, what I saw was these perky little makeup, perfect hair, perfect husbands and families, and just perfectness. It's just all the superficial stuff.

Barbara: Yeah. We wear social masks. Like my life is great.

Michelle: Yeah. But we are trained as a society to those social things even from a young age, don't let anybody see what's going on inside.

Barbara: I'm all in favor of gratitude and optimism. But at the same time, I think there's a loss in our relationships when we can't share or don't feel safe to share like, Hey, I'm having some problems. And then on the other end is, you know, whining all day long is a whole nother thing that not everybody wants to listen to that, but where's there a balance between sharing the truth and supporting each other.

Michelle: as a person in recovery, I can tell you, I need community every day. I need my spiritual connection with my higher power- God, as I know God to be. I also need community.  

Barbara: our Bible passage has a little slice of community in it, an unusual community. And I feel like acknowledging some of the words in the Bible might sound, not off, but somehow it's not intended to sound judgmental, but it's sort of a social factor of the day.

These two ethnic groups didn't talk to each other, but then something really special happened. Can you share about your selection of this Bible verse in relation to your resurrection story and our theme for today?

Michelle: this text resonated with me right away, especially the lines about thirst- the living water. And as an alcoholic, I can tell you I was consuming more and more alcohol at each sitting because thirst was never quenched. That thirst was a God-sized hole in my heart but my behavior was telling me, wow, well, let's just switch to something harder. I was buying a case a day and then moving into harder. I mean, the thirst was just never quenched. So it's understanding what's that thirst on a deeper level? What am I longing for? Where am I spiritually dry? And for me, sobriety is like a three legged stool, for me to be successful in sobriety.

I address body, mind and spirit, and those are three different areas and as, a vicar or pastor. I know the spiritual realm is my lane and I stay there. But it's important for me to have my body addressed to my medical doctor, my mind addressed to my therapist or psychiatrist, and then the spiritual work with my pastor and my sponsor to the program, the thirst, I had to understand where that thirst was coming from.

And for me, it was doing the mind work. And in talking with my therapist and getting to the root of my trauma and talking about it. And I worked specifically with a sexual abuse professional and really talk about this and flush this out. And I was diagnosed with PTSD.

So I can deal with that. You're standing where my thirst came from then also spiritually and where this disconnect happened with God. And it comes back to relearning who God is in my life. The God of my understanding as a child being one who was punishing and wrathful. And I wasn't welcomed to the Holy table because I was a pregnant teenager.

All of those understandings of God had to be addressed. I had a lot of come to Jesus moments. I had a lot of moments where I got angry with God. Where were you when I was thirsty? Where were you when I was longing? And it was through that work and prayer meditation, and in conversation with my pastor that understood that Jesus was there along and in my suffering, I was connected to his suffering on the cross for me, that there were moments of safety and grace- things that I was involved in our events that could have been much worse- that I was brought out and saved from worse. I was reconnecting with an understanding that longing of thirst and knowing that Jesus is my source of life provides the living water.

So I never thirst again- there's an acronym in recovery H.A.L.T.: am I hungry, angry, lonely, or tired? Yes. I'm going to be thirsty. So it's been able then also to identify my emotions and I do spiritual practices and involve mindfulness meditation, where I just sit and be still and let thoughts and emotions pass through like clouds and name them.

Barbara: That takes a long time to practice. And I don't know if mastery ever comes- and HALT can be used for anyone. People eat their emotions, people sleep their emotions. I heard that emotions pass through our body on average, about 90 seconds, and they may come back. I'm not saying they're gone and never come back after 90 seconds, but if you can just sit and tolerate it and let it be. It'll fade.

Michelle: we're uncomfortable with emotions, especially if we're completely honest with ourselves. We don't like to feel all the feels because it's painful. It's anxious making- we like to stuff it all down. And especially now in the state of our nation with pandemic and crisis after crisis and natural disaster, we are such a high awareness, but we don't even know what emotions to name first. It's all happening. We have a serious problem, being able to meet around the tables in person, is not always possible for everybody. So our whole lives have been upended, right? We're in this sense of disorder. but I strongly believe that the Holy spirit is doing something with all of this and pandemic, and I've seen some beautiful and wonderful things come out of our creativity and imagination and those who are thirsty and know the steps to take.

To be connected with their higher power and be connected with community. I spend three to four hours a week just in community online, either with the fellowship, those in recovery. One-on-one with my sponsor on top of this spiritual practices that I do as an individual. And you said this early it's progress not perfection. I don't always get it right every day

Barbara: and we don't have to do it alone either. I think that's sort of an American cultural icon to just figure it out, suck it up, just do the best you can- but we don't have to do it alone.

Michelle: No, we don't have to do it alone in addiction. I'm sharing my story of alcohol and drugs, but addiction encompasses so many other. Poor coping skills. And it's all behavioral response to this trauma, to this pain, to things that haven't been fleshed out that have been stuffed down so deep. And you mentioned eating, I just finished leading a four week online spiritual practice group called honoring the body.

And it was a nutritional program. We looked at the practice of preparing our food and eating. And sharing meals and we did body blessings We talked about emotional eating and abusing as an addiction where most of us could fall into that category.

If we start asking ourselves some questions, and this is not just food, alcohol, and drugs, but it could be gambling. It could be pornography. It could be gossiping, shopping. Scrolling through Facebook. If we're getting to a point where we can no longer say no to ourselves and are able to stop this behavior.

If it is a knee jerk response to go to this substance or action, we need to take a closer look at, do I have control over this or does this have control over me? You know, the obvious signs of addiction with alcohol and drugs, are you blacking out? Is it keeping you from going to work and functioning in your family?

Are you abusive to yourself and others, or as you lost your driver's license, have you spent time in jail? I mean, those are the obvious ones. Are you now homeless? But there are things that we also don't see.

Barbara: Let's talk about the elephant in the room - if you appear to be functioning, what about underneath? And this is not meant at all to be judgmental. This is not to say, Oh, I'm so glad you're listening to this podcast. Guess what? You have a problem!

What do you suggest that people might want to prayerfully consider? If they're like I don't have an addiction. That's not me.

Michelle:  I am immersed in people who do have problems and have not hit rock bottom, or have not had the self realization that they are no longer in control of the substance or behavior. So some questions are asked are, is it your first thought of the day to get up and have a drink or take a pain pill?

Has someone else brought it to your attention? Is it keeping you from functioning, fully functioning at work? Where is it causing you to say or do things that are out of character for you, but you don't have control over? Are you having to apologize a lot the next day or things that you have said or done, or don't remember you've said or done cause you can black out from drugs or alcohol and still be awake. If your go to thing, when you are emotionally anxious, scared, afraid, if you're going to what type of food. I also have people keep journals, start tracking your emotions today.

I was joyful in celebrating this. What did you do? You do call a friend and the news. Did you pour a drink today? I was really sad because this happened. What did you do? Did you pray to call your pastor? Did you call your therapist or did you go to the fridge and eat a box of chocolate? I was really anxious about this, right.

Did you go online and start scrolling pornography? It's just a matter of journaling and tracking and being mindful. And it comes back to that mindfulness practice, being aware and connecting what's going on in your heart center, what's going on in your mind. And then what is the action coming out of that?

Barbara: It sounds like self-medication, and as a social worker, I also want to acknowledge that sometimes dealing with your pain can be painful. I'm not going to say, just go get counseling for a couple of weeks and all your problems will be gone and you'll never be thirsty again. Again, metaphorically speaking- is it worth the pain to get through the pain, to get to a place of healing? And I also don't mean to say, every time you go to counseling, it's going to be miserable and agony. That's not fair either, but I don't want to be all Mary Poppins and just say, Oh, get some counseling. You'll be fine.

Michelle: I encourage people- please connect with a professional or with a recovery community in your area and get educated- please be educated on the body, mind and spirit.

What does addiction do to the brain? What is the longterm effects of the brain? Because some of these drugs have lasting effects. The brain is permanently altered with heroin and opioids. So please understand that even though your person, your loved one, or you stop taking a drink or a drug does not mean that you were the same person physically, that you were before.

And it's a long process- for myself, I am just little over five and a half years sober. I see my therapist every other week. I meet with my sponsor every week, I talk to my pastor every week

Barbara: I think that's great. And that's normal. That's not weird within the recovery community, that kind of support is very appropriate. So you're not the only person who continues to have those supports on a regular predictable basis.

Michelle: Yes. It's about knowing that I can't do this on my own.  All of these connections are  grace from God. And my ability to get through this 24 hours without responding to any emotion that I'm feeling with a drink or a drug and carrying my story to other alcoholics and addicts. That's the beauty of it. But it's definitely a journey and with twists and turns and the step work, isn't easy because if it was easy, we all be sober, but there are a few that just aren't able to get through it.

Barbara: it really seems to me. I can't go out my front door and there's alcohol everywhere on billboards. Restaurants have these special little things on the table with pictures of all these fancy drinks. Like literally everywhere I go. I honestly can't think of any place at all. Maybe the library doesn't have alcohol. What are your thoughts around our American culture and folks either kind of on this path, to, or already in addiction and then in recovery.

Michelle: I love this topic. Y'all might want to be sitting down,

Barbara: sit down.

Michelle: we'll be real- our society romanticizes alcohol, there are some of the sexiest commercials on TV, around alcohol and all of our social get-togethers and gatherings or center around alcohol. Our fundraisers usually include alcohol. I was the one buying all the drinks all the time. So I had all the friends and I had people like me. And that's what, society told me to do.

Barbara: They liked you and they liked your full bar.

Michelle: They liked me, they liked my full bar and in my sober living, finding community is difficult. I got sober. I lost half of my friends. More than half, because they didn't feel comfortable in inviting me to the girls nights out anymore, that were all around alcohol. Nobody could think of any other activity that didn't include alcohol that would be “fun” Quote unquote fun. So I got left out of a lot of stuff.

Now I'm struggling to be in community with people outside of the program, which thanks be to God that I was connected to some wonderful groups that after the meeting, we would go to the local coffee house where there was live music and it was a safe place to go. So if you were in a community where you have access to resources and career to create these sober, safe places for people like myself or people who don't want to engage in drinking and drugs.

Please put your heads together and be creative and create these social places for us, because we want to have fun too. We're really fun people when we're sober and we're really looking for community and there's not enough of that in our nation right now in our, even in my own town. I'm in a context where if I want to socialize, I have to go to one of the three bars.

So I don't socialize because it's not a safe place for me.  I've become an advocate for myself. And when I entered seminary. I thought, for sure this would be the safest place for a person in recovery.

Barbara: That sounds good to me.

Michelle: it's not, because unfortunately we are not exposed to safer spiritual practices; instead there's beer and theology. There are a host of addictions happening. So typical college experience,

Barbara: but not what we'd hope for where you want spiritual safety.

Michelle: there needs to be more emphasis on prayer and spiritual practices and healthy coping skills. These are soon to be clergy and we're already not getting a good, healthy start in how we're dealing with our own stress now.

But what are you going to do when you're dealing with stress and ministry? But my other experience was attending worship in my Bishop's office. It was a one day get together meet and greet each other and mutual support. We had worship. But being offered only wine and they knew I'm an alcoholic. And I had to abstain three years later. I'm still having to remind others If you're going to have worship, you need to have grape juice. And there's also practices within congregations that have not fully embraced having grape juice as an alternative, but let's go one step further.

Don't ask me to walk across the room as I've done in seminary chapel to receive grape juice and be singled out because now I'm different.

Barbara: probably everybody knows you're in recovery, but what if you're kind of like, man, and do I want to go all the way over there for the grape juice? I've had it in the same tray. Like there's a different color, but it's in the same tray so nobody knows

Michelle: I have a local potter who crafted a split chalice for dipping your wafer into.  So much change needs to happen. And so much advocacy. So I take my seminary booth stuff and I said, I'll set it up as I'm there. And in the background, had a picture representing my seminary as craft beer of seminaries.

Barbara: So even the language, like why?

Michelle: please don't get me wrong. I love my seminary and I'm not trying to throw them under the bus. This is just the level of education that has not happened and needs to happen

This is my call and serving God in the church and in the world is to be vocal about this and advocate for change advocate for education and advocate. For those of you who are still suffering in silence so that you can come forward and receive the hope a God.

Barbara: when we're talking about what can people of faith or what can congregations do to support people? You talked about needing to learn to love yourself and that you thought, how could God love me when I'm a mess? So then coming to the realization, God can love us in all of our messiness- yes, there is law, but there is gospel, and we're gospel people and we're not throwing the law out.

Michelle: Holy communion is open to everyone. No questions asked. It's not my place to ask It's my place to steward the gifts of that God has given for all. And that's made very clear in our scripture. And when I talk to folks about providing spiritual accompaniments with those in recovery, and I use the word spiritual accompaniment specifically, there has been so much damage done to people in the church. So faith and religion is one expression of spirituality.

There are several expressions of spirituality going to church is just one of them. So when you're providing spiritual accompaniment, please do not tell people their only out is to go to church- go to them. What I love about what's happening pandemic right now is our building doors are closed and we are doing church in the park, outdoor worship, but a lot of people are being creative in where we are understanding that we are church, the building isn't that we are the church, but we have this beautiful opportunity.

Get out on the streets and be Jesus in amongst all those who are suffering and take them the word of God. I just saying, I love you. I'm here for you. I want to hear your story. Let people share their stories and receive it without judgment, without condemnation, without trying to fix it, but just be present.

I have been blessed with so many people that will just sit and listen and wipe my tears and give me a hug. A lot of times, that's just what I need.

The more I sat with this text from the gospel of John, that I realized that Jesus asked for a drink of water from the woman's vessel, from her container. He wanted to take something from her that she was providing.

And how little do we in learning to love ourselves come to the realization that this body, this being is a vessel worthy of caring, love, and nourishment, and the word of God? I would've never seen myself in this role six years ago. Never seen myself worthy to be a vessel of God's living water, but we all are.

Barbara: How about for families who are worried about their loved one, or maybe even a church member- Al-anon is that one place where folks can go to get some support?

Michelle: There's a fine line between loving and enabling. And I've had to learn how not to enable others. And it's hard because you love your person and you want the best for them. And our first thought processes. Okay. I'll just clean that mess up for you. Let's just keep that in the family

Barbara: again and again

Michelle: and again. And there are those that are continually abused either physically, emotionally, verbally by loved ones in addiction for those people may be easier to shut the door, kick you out. but there's all kinds of circumstances that I know addiction causes collateral damage.

Words matter. And time is of the essence for a lot of these people. Do we need to call nine one, one? Do I need to take this person to an emergency room? So learning to tell those signs, working with families.  Al-anon is a great resource.

Barbara: I've heard of alcoholics anonymous, so I thought Al-anon is the same thing and it's not, it's for families.

Michelle: www.aa.org is alcoholics anonymous, narcotics anonymous is Na.org. Adultchildren.org

Barbara: I just want to give a shout out because ACOA has alcoholism, but there's some similarities around other types of behaviors, check it out even if you don't think anybody in your family was an alcoholic.

 Michelle: Alalteen. There's co-dependence www.Coda.org   if you are a clergy a pastor with any type of addiction, I encourage you to visit F R LC, the fellowship of recovering Lutheran clergy.org (www.frlc.org ) you can visit, addiction and faith conference. It's all one word addiction, www.faithconference.com

Barbara: And all of these will be listed on the website for this podcast, which is 40 minutes of faith.com.

Michelle: one book that I recommend everyone pick up and read, Coffee House Contemplative by Jeffrey Nelson is wonderful. Especially if you are struggling with a spiritual disconnect or a poor church experience helps bring you back into a spiritual connection and understanding who God is and your spiritual self. And then The Sober Journey by Dirk foster,

Barbara: Thank you so much for your wisdom and your bravery and your mission to support people with God's love Michelle.

Michelle: It's all with God's grace.

Resources:

John 4:7-15

www.aa.org

https://al-anon.org

www.Adultchildren.org

www.Na.org

www.Coda.org   

www.frlc.org

www.faithconference.com

Michelle welcomes people with addictions and in recovery

Pop Culture with John

Guest John Evans and I discuss pop culture and Christianity: "skulking henchmen", summer camp for grown-ups, cherry-picking laws, and a variety of books and ...

Barbara: Today's topic is pop culture and faith - our guest is John Evans. I met John at Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa, where he's pursuing a Master's of Divinity to become a pastor. John is originally from Louisiana considers Atlanta to be his hometown and Northern New Mexico his spiritual home. John was raised in the Southern Baptist church but left at a young age.

He had a long journey in returning to the faith beginning in college, which included a reconciliation of his Jewish ancestry and some experiences he faced growing up in the deep South, this journey would lead to his discovery of Lutheran theology. John holds a bachelor's degree in political science with a minor in religion.

He has worked as a wilderness ranger for the United States forest service and as a leader in outdoor ministry and retreat centers, such as Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, Luther Ridge in North Carolina and Luther Ranch in Georgia. John is deeply passionate about the radical revolutionary gospel of Jesus Christ, which welcomes and cherishes the dignity of all people.

He's also passionate about the intersection between faith and popular culture, which he believes is key to communicating the reality of the gospel today. John, we're going to talk about pop culture today, but I would really like to hear about the outdoor ministry and retreat centers where you've worked.

Why would you encourage people to spend some time at one of these places or a similar place? Is there such a thing as summer camp for grownups?

John: Absolutely - you are never too old for the summer camp experience and it is a powerful way to re-center yourself. And ghost ranch in particular has a special place in my heart because it is most famous for being where Georgia O'Keeffe lived and worked and did her famous desert landscape paintings.

it was incredible. And, it's truly God's country. it's a thin place, a place where the divide between heaven and earth kind of ceases to be. Luther Ridge is also incredible. It's right down the road from, the blue Ridge Parkway.

Barbara: we'll put all those resources in the transcript of the podcast, which is going to be at www.fortyminutesoffaith.com . So you're invited to check those places out. And I know there's a bunch of others in different States.

Today's Bible passage is from the book of Colossians, which is in the new Testament towards the end of your Bible. It's after the gospels, along with many other relatively shorter books that are letters to communities around the Mediterranean I'll read Colossians chapter one verses 15 to 20 from the new revised standard version.This passage has a lot of HE'S and him's, which refer to Jesus.  

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;  for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.  He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,  and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”

John, one of the aspects that makes this podcast not just another Bible study is that we are going to reference this passage as it relates to pop culture, but we're not going to break it down verse by verse for meaning and historical context. I know you're going to explain how these verses relate to some books and movies that are a small slice of pop culture.

Why are some movies and books considered controversial among Christians today?

John: over the years, with the emergence of fiction in the popular culture, there's always been, especially with the success stories or the kind of. Cult followings that merge. there is a tendency, unfortunately, particularly in the segment of Christianity.

I grew up to have this negative backlash as if this is like taking people away from the truth of the gospel. And unfortunately, one of the tenets of fundamentalism, be it in Christianity or any other religion or ideology is that there always has to be this kind of boogie monster, right? This idea of there always has to be an enemy- most infamously was the response to the Harry Potter series when it first emerged. and I was caught right in the middle of that. I was a young person at that time. I was in. second or third grade when I first got my hands on more of the books and I got into huge trouble.

But the interesting thing is that after I encouraged my parents to read the books that had come out to that point, they both sat down and said, we see so much of the gospel in this. And I'm like, yeah, Yeah, exactly. And, it's, it's interesting how that response was so vitriolic to that series in particular, but over time, as people studied it, they saw that JK Rowlings’ faith was present, particularly in the notions of love and sacrifice and the willingness to undergo death so that other people may live in freedom.

Barbara: it's like there's a pie and the whole pie has to be about God. And if there's anything that's not God it's like taking away from the God pie, but that's not usually how I would see things.

And I want to be respectful and talk about these different opinions and of course I have my own opinions and we're going to kind of dig into some of the details together, but also who am I to say? This is the only way I can say what I believe, where you can say, Hey, this is how I see it.

And then we'll see where it goes from there. So how does our passage from Colassians connect with Harry Potter?

John: Well, I would say that it connects with Harry Potter. I would say most profoundly connects with Lord of the rings and the life and work of JRR Tolkien and also star Wars to a large extent.

The verse in particular, in Christ all things are created. That very much ties to this notion that J. R. R. Tolkien spoke of the idea of what he called the one true myth. In fact, this idea was what his friendship with C. S. Lewis allowed Lewis to actually become a Christian. A lot of people don't know that if it wasn't for J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis would have not become a Christian.

What Tolkien talked about with this idea of the one true myth is that because God is the ultimate creator, God is the ultimate storyteller. And God has been continuously revealing God's self through all kinds of means and all kinds of ways to manifest truth. God is the ultimate storyteller, right? And in Christ you have the greatest story ever told, a story of God coming to earth, not as a powerful über-mensch style figure, but as this refugee, this revolutionary who was hauled up on a cross for daring to say that empires will one day crumble into dust, but God will remain overall.

Barbara: you had alluded to a couple of the topics that we said, Hey, let's cover these because pop culture is massive. We selected a few and I did a little bit of research so I could have a better understanding of the opposing questions, because I read the Narnia books when I was a kid, the Hobbit, Star Wars, and I didn't see any nefarious, I didn't have any inkling of that stuff as a kid. So why do people object to them? So there was some talk about, is there racism or Eurocentric bias in some of the Tolkien books?

And I want to be sensitive that it's not enough to just say I'm not racist that to actively promote anti-racism. And the author said, yeah, there could be some of that read into it, even if it wasn't meant that way or could be interpreted in a different way nowadays.

John: that's an interesting point, in regards to antisemitism to me as a person of Jewish extraction. When Tolkien’s the Hobbit published in England in 1937, but it began to be published internationally around the world the next year, 1938. And of course, in Germany at the time that was. Where the Nazi party had really started to come to power.

And Joseph Goebbels, who was one of Hitler's skulking henchmen, had a very tight grip on publishing and, knowledge getting out through books. And there is an account of token getting a letter from the Nazi proper office, basically asking, him, if he had any Jewish ancestry. And Tolkien was infuriated by this because he had Jewish friends and he wrote back and said, unfortunately, I do not have any of the blood of that noble race in my veins.

And as for the Eurocentric elements, it's hard to ignore that. Tolkien was creating a mythology that was very much rooted in European traditions. But what's interesting about that is that even in this white space, there is diversity of race. You have human beings, you have hobbits, you have elves, you have dwarves. And what is interesting is it's about all these people coming together and realizing that there is a force of evil. And so much of the Lord of the Rings is about these disparate groups of people realizing that there is a common good that they must fight for, a really beautiful example of that.

Tolkien believed not at all in any racist ideology, he was adamantly opposed to Adolf Hitler. And on top of that, he was a profound environmentalist. He said that the most evil invention ever pushed upon human condition is the modern internal combustion engine.

So there's definitely a whiteness there, but the message there is very clear that all humankind must work together.

Barbara: And there's an illustration of sort of interracial friendship, if you will. And I remember the themes of nature even to this day.

And so knowing a little bit about the author's background or the author's situation could frame sort of some of those, and I'm not arguing, you know, with, if people say, yeah, there, there could be an interpretation of race in the books.

I'm not gonna just deny it and try to paint over it. But absolutely perhaps the context. And then there were some quotes that I also read from him where he had intended to create divisiveness, which is exactly what you just said. And some of the themes that you mentioned actually sounded familiar to me as we also have a few other books and movies to take a look at in terms of fighting off.

Well, really pretty much all of them that maybe that's a universal theme in a lot of books and movies. How about C S Lewis has children? Why do some people object to especially Narnia?

John: You know, that's an interesting one because, the environment that I grew up in C S Lewis was worshipped, and, and as an adult, as I began to study theology, I began to say, you know, if some of the people I grew up with really read CS Lewis, they would not be a fan of him.

He was very much a believer that God does not like set apart a certain people as like the ins and the outs. He talked about this idea that God speaks to people in the language that is best suited for them. I think that the main thing was Narnia. There is both a religious objection to it and a secular objection, too. There has been controversy in public schools with the Narnia books, because there are such strong Christian themes in there and the Christian complaint that I have heard is, and I think you brought this up when we first began to talk about it is this depiction of Jesus as Aslan. So as Aslan is depicted as this lion. So it's kind of that, victorious, just not Christ as the lamb, the same lamb that John, the Baptist pointed to. And yet the interesting thing is that the symbol of Judah, which was the area of Palestine that Jesus is from, and that was his ancestry is a lion.

And Lewis was drawing upon that. I think in going into the other controversy with Narnia is how dark they are for children's books. Cause they don't shy away from addressing real things like genocide, for example, or murder or, tyranny. I think it's detrimental to not expose children to darker realities of life because stories in particular, I think for kids are a way to confront reality that is very present. Look within themselves and say, if these characters can face the evil that's in their world, I can grow up and do the same thing. They have to be able to face evil in this world.

Barbara: on the one hand, we want to protect children and maybe preserve their childhood for as long as possible. But on the other hand, I'm wondering about just what kids are seeing on TV. I would rather have kids reading Narnia than watching the news these days.

I honor keeping kids young and safe and not aware of any of this stuff, but is that even possible? So then if you keep your kids in a bubble, then when do they ever get out of the bubble? Or is this just a fantasy bubble that the real world has taken care of?

John: we live in an age and time where information is just flying all over the place faster than it ever has. And people have more access to it. And subsequently there's this constant battle for truth in this postmodern age where, to quote, Pontius Pilot, what is truth, which is aligned that we have heard quite recently, certainly from some of our politicians and this country.

And you have to recognize for each child is individually what their gifts are, what their fears are, what their interests are, but you don't shy away from things because the more you shy away from things, the more they're going to find it out on their own.

And they're going to be even more confused, you know?

Barbara: And I also have an overarching question for the whole conversation is God being glorified. And so you and I experienced Narnia as God being glorified because I grew up going to church every week, too, even as a little kid. So I don't remember when I became aware of the symbolism. I can't remember how old I was when I read them for the first time. So did I understand the sacrifices Aslan, symbolizing Jesus? Yes. I honestly don't know, but it felt comforting to me in some way, the theme of redemption. So I can see Christian themes clearly. Now as an adult I’m wondering for the sake of conversation, this battle of good and evil and, and Christian themes. So then is it kind of worth it? And I feel like we're saying yes, but then, and I also have a sense of fear. From kind of other sources, there's so much evil or  Jesus is portrayed as a lion and not a lamb because the symbolism in the Bible was that he was a lamb, but you pointed out something else also.

So I just feel like we're kind of grappling with we don't want to take away from God's glory, but if we see God's glory and other people don't see God's glory, then where does that leave us with these books?

John: there's a different difference between allegory, which is a direct one to one comparison and what Tolkien and later George Lucas would identify as applicability. So an example of allegory would be something like George Orwell’s Animal Farm. That is a clear, direct one to one comparison with characters that are represented, meant to represent the likes of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky. Tolkien talked about applicability as this idea of you can come from a very specific background of diversity, but you can see your experience in stories.

And, that was part of the genius of what George Lucas did in Star Wars, in creating the idea of the concept of before it is a spiritual concept, but it is so simple that people can understand it. And yet you can come from a religious background, whether you're Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, any faith or no faith at all, but still have a value system.

And you still see that reality in there and regarding redemption, that is very much present. And also, I would say in star Wars where you have this,  very much aligned between good and evil, but also you have this central arch that it is never too late to stop and look at what you have done and realized I was wrong.

And with that comes forgiveness and redemption. And there's this beautiful scene in return of the Jedi, which is the last film the original, showed you where Luke Skywalker is fighting his father Darth Vader. And, Luke eventually viciously attacks his father with the intent of killing him, even cutting off his hand, just as his father had cut off his hand.

But then Luke realizes what he has done. And he throws his light saber away and says never, I will never turn to the dark side. You cannot win. And it's a very similar thing in Harry Potter where in The Order of the Phoenix, where he [Voldemort] has taken possession of Harry and he's mocking him and saying so weak, so powerless and Harry responds, you're the weak one that you will never know what love or friendship is. And I feel sorry for you. And how similar is that to the words of Luther in A Mighty Fortress is our God: the body they may kill, God's truth abideth still, the kingdom is forever.

Barbara: Neat. I'm wondering if you could explain pluralism? That's a big, fancy word for well, it's not a simple concept, but I know that you can address that because that was one of the concerns that was raised about Star Wars, which you said it in a term of generosity, this is something that a lot of people from different places can come to an understanding and yet that same concept is being objected to.

John: pluralism is this idea that all religions point to truth, all religions are right, so to speak. but the thing with pluralism and Star Wars is once again, it's this idea that there is a shared human experience.

There is this idea that we may have different beliefs about faith, but the central truth that Star Wars points to is that events in the universe are not meaningless. That we are not as, you know, Yoda once beautifully says: luminous beings are we, not just crude matter. He's basically saying your soul is more than that.

And we may have differences of opinion about these matters. But what is true is that for people of faith, we all recognize that there is order to this universe, that there is a creative presence. And the difference I think comes when, whether we are willing to explore and converse about these differences with others or whether we are going to say I'm right, you're wrong, which is this kind of black and white correlation as opposed to searching for that fuzzy, gray middle.

Barbara: is one of the objections that none of these books or movies are explicitly Christian enough? Are they too open, welcoming, vague?

John: that was one that I heard as a child, they have to be one to one correlation, but the reality is that if you think it has to be one to one correlation, I would argue you are actually diminishing the power of God to communicate truth.

We're not trusting if you believe that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is so almighty and so powerful. You don't have to go about this way of saying everything has to match this way. I mean, look at what Colossians says in Christ. All things are created and coming to be, and therefore, if you are a Christian, you believe and can see the reality of the gospel in stories from across generations.

Barbara: we search for those themes. And frankly, when I spot them, I get pretty excited. I mean, I read Harry Potter and I'm like, wow, this sounds really familiar. So there can be God, there can be our Christian faith, but at some point I'm wondering, just to throw this out there - at what point do we say this may be art, but this isn't God's art anymore? What I'm reading with all these objections is, is it a slippery slope? So when I was researching Harry Potter, there was a quote online about Deuteronomy chapter 18 verses 10 to 14 explicitly command against sorcery.

So this was the objection of we're teaching our children sorcery, which we're commanded against sorcery in the Bible. I don't think it's teaching children sorcery, but let's talk about that, when do you say this is no longer of God?

John: The first response I would give is as someone of Jewish extraction is: you can't cherry pick the law. If you quote one part of the law, guess what? You’ve got to follow, all of it. So no more barbecue for you. Secondly, the way that I like to think about it is, and I can't remember the exact verse, but it talks about whatever is good, whatever is wonderful, think about these things. And I think the common thread with all four of these that we have discussed is that they all provide moral fiber. They all teach that life has dignity and it must be preserved. And Liberty must take the day. I think the fine line it comes when you are seeing something that does not depict this truth. I think it comes when you are faced with something that is portraying a kind of nihilism, a cynicism about the world and a meaninglessness of life. I think that is where the fine line is drawn. but I will say, say that for example, even in a movie like Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, there is still little hints, amidst all the violence and Gore.

Barbara: I had my eyes closed for most of it.

John: Yeah. And F bombs, there is still little inklings there of gospel truth. They get out. I mean, obviously Samuel Jackson's Ezekiel 25 18, but there's still things there, but the fine line comes, does this story cherish the day dignity of life itself? That's the fine line.

Barbara: That's a great litmus test and people watching on YouTube will see you have tattoos, people listening to the podcast won't know that. So your tattoo doesn't have to be of a cross of Jesus, which if it is that's great, but are we looking towards a hundred percent sanitized version of Christianity? And I try so hard to be an optimist- I grew up optimistic. And then we all have our ups and downs. Does our message always have to be, sweet and kind? Where is there room for raw for pain for people's wretched experiences?

Is there room to say, Hey yeah. There's a whole bunch of mess going on and there is still redemption. There is still hope you are still welcome.

John: There must be room for pain and to bring in experiences of hardship and oppression, because that's what we are called to do as people of faith.

The example that I follow in that personally is what the Catholic priest already know, and identified as the notion of being a wounded healer- that unless you have been through the wringer, so to speak, unless you know what deep heartbreak and pain is, you cannot sit across the table as a minister from someone that is coming to you with pain.

I think that when we talk about, you know, calling out injustice, that's exactly what Jesus did. He followed the example of the Hebrew prophets that came before him, Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, and these people did not mince their words about the evil that they saw. I think that in a day and age where Christianity in the United States in particular has come to be associated with the likes of nationalism, racism, and homophobia, part of the way to reclaim the true Christian message is to engage in a modern prophetic consciousness that says, no, no, this is evil. This is wrong. This goes against everything that Christ came to this earth for and for him, meets all humanity in the suffering of the cross.

Barbara: there's room for art, there's room for creativity, there's room for God's message to come through a whole bunch of different ways. And then there's also a time and a place where we can say, okay, that's enough. Go to the movies, but this isn't art anymore. There's no faith message.

And then there's kind of that middle ground where you're seeing little tiny glimmers, but I really like to talk about the elephant in the room. So I am wondering John, are you able to share some of your journey back to church after you separated yourself from it? Are there things that people said or did that drove you away? And/or that welcomed you back? They gave you a sense of sincerity as you pondered coming back to church? And I also suspect that your faith journey and pop culture, maybe somehow connected and as pop culture is rejected by many church bodies or church people.

John: my father is a minister of music, but when I was nine years old, he came out of the closet. And at a very early age, I discovered what homophobia was. I also discovered what antisemitism was and, that journey back took a long time.

Pop culture played a huge role. Things like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter communicated to me things about the gospel that the Bible could not at a time when all I understood the Bible was a weapon to be used by people to tear them down.

The transition came for me when I was in college and I had an advisor who was a political philosopher in the Catholic tradition, but more progressive. He was my Obi wan Kenobi.

He was my Gandalf. He was my Dumbledore. And he saw in me something that was worth investing in. And he was the first person to say to me, you need to think about going into ministry. I spent time in a different tradition of Christianity but what I found is that my theology was not compatible. And I couldn't put my finger on it, but the moment that I read about the theology of the cross from Martin Luther, I instantly realized this is what I have experienced and what I have seen others experience that God meets humanity in the condition of suffering and that God loved humanity enough to live and die as one of us.

And that led to a deeper exploration of other Lutheran thinkers, like Soren Kierkegaard, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And as I tell people, the nail that really turned the coffin was when I read, Nadia, Bolz-Weber

Barbara: fantastic books. I highly recommend them.

John: Absolutely. She curses like a sailor. She has covered in tattoos and I'm just like, that's the kind of pastor I want to be. And, it's that journey too, that you mentioned reconciliation of my Jewish identity. I highly recommend people to read the works of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. He was a close ally and associated with Dr.King. And if you want to understand Judaism, he's the guy to read. I would also say too, what brought me back onto this journey was this reality and understanding of Tolkien's one short myth that that our job as Christians is to in the words of the old hymn to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love.

And that includes telling the stories that we love and have touched us and have communicated potent powerful truths of the universe to us.

Barbara: I know that there's thousands and thousands of people on different paths of faith growth, and sometimes you're feeling great, and then sometimes you're just feeling really hungry or disillusioned, or kicked to the curb. And that's a message of welcome that's really important to me that in my God there is not that ultimate rejection, even if you're wandering around that you're welcome home.

And sometimes people feel like they don't have a church home, and I'm not saying your home has to be inside a church building, but that there is that ultimate welcome with God.

And I just wanted to circle back because you said cherry picking laws. And I think that I understand what you mean by that, but I just want to touch on that because there might be some folks that are like, okay, what is all this? Because we've got the 10 commandments and then we have reams- pages and pages, hundreds and hundreds of laws. And I honor that and I respect that, and I know that there's people who to this day still try to keep every single one of those. Those could be our Jewish and our Muslim siblings. There could be other faith groups that I don't have as much of an understanding of. But for Christians to say, these are the ones- because there's even laws about attire in church or where you sit in church or what you eat. And some of that has come now out of the gospel that we are not bound by all of those laws, those hundreds and hundreds of pages of pages of laws. Can you just speak to that for a minute?

John: there was a very strict religious code of observance that was begun through the prophet Moses and that extended into the life of Israel. But the interesting thing about the law and you see this, even in the old Testament, the law begins with an exclusion of certain groups of people, Uzites are evil. Canaanites, they're evil. And then when we come to people like Ruth and Job- Ruth a Moabite, who became the mother of the lineage that would include David and Jesus. Then you have Job, this guy out in the middle of what is called Uz. We don't really know what Uz was, but not a Jew. He's a Gentile.

And yet he is identified as one of the most righteous people. And I think this is why the prophets are so important, particularly Isaiah. Because in Isaiah, we have this idea that God is not just the God of Israel. God is the God of all people. In fact, it's in Isaiah that you get the first true statement of monotheism in the old Testament.

I am the Lord God, there are none beside me, and you see this beautiful transition and understanding that the law is not meant to oppress. It's not meant to shame it is there to protect the dignity of all people. Understanding evolved, and that included elements of the law that were at one time present but are no longer even acknowledged today.

And think about Isaiah's words. Every Valley shall be exalted. Every mountain and Hill should be lift up and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

Barbara: Yep. So we're not saying that the law is completely wiped out. There is still the law. And we are obeying the law out of love, not out of fear.

I talk about it every single time, we are not promoting sorcery or all kinds of other things that are against the law. But for us to say a child's novel is not godly at all because there's a concept inside it, that's not our stance. That's the example you gave of cherry picking the law. That there's lots of other laws that we're not cherry picking or maybe some groups are.

John: we live in a time and place of great confusion. We live in a day and age where the realities of racism are becoming ever more apparent to people that had never hadn't faced them before, where we have come a long way, way in terms of LGBTQ rights and issues, but we still have a long way to go.

Particularly with people who are trans, nonbinary. And the thing is, the work never stops. It never ends. And take it back to talking. There is a beautiful scene in the two towers where Sam and Frodo are just worn out, exhausted and they feel done. And then Sam says, it's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered- folks had plenty of chances of turning back in those stories, but they did, they kept going because they had something and then Frodo asks him, what are we holding onto Sam? And Sam says that there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for- that is my encouragement to people.

And to also remember that in Christ, we have a strength and a grace and salvation that is freely given is never taken away and is what empowers us to reach out to those who are hurting and broken hearted. And to work that justice and righteousness.

Barbara: some joy and some laughter and then there's really heartbreaking tears, and we're called to support our siblings in so many different ways with a welcome, that's the message I heard from you

John: and indeed, and I appreciate your message and welcome, and your affirmation

Barbara: Thank you so much for your time today, John. Thank

John: you. May God bless you and your ministry as you continue to go about this.

Resources:

Colossians 1:15-20

Authors C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, J. K. Rowling, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Soren Kierkegaard, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Ruth with Paula

Hi everyone. welcome to 40 Minutes of Faith. My name is Barbara Cox and I host this weekly podcast to explore God's word and our relationship with God.

Barbara:  today's guest is Paula Jenkins. Our discussion will focus on the book of Ruth. I met Paula when she taught a class about how to start a podcast. Paula was baptized Lutheran at age seven. Her dad is Episcopal. Her mom was raised Mormon latter day saints.

She has lived in five different States, mostly California, and lives in the San Francisco Bay area. Paula holds a master of arts in religion from Yale divinity school. She's been a project manager for 20 years now doing podcast production and consulting. She has a life coaching certificate and still takes clients.

She's also worked as a retreat leader. Paula is living her dream now, and she'd love to keep working with heart centered disruptor businesses. Paula I'm intrigued. What is a heart centered disruptor business?

Paula: I like to think of the people that I work with, which is mostly women and they're doing something, maybe that's not right uncommon in the world, but they're doing it in a way that is kind of disrupting the status quo.

So one of my Clients is a doctor, and she's really putting information about fertility treatments out there for women to make it accessible and to empower them. And another client is a life coach, but she's also an activist and an anarchist. So it's like this sense of how do we shake things up, but stay true to what we know to be in our hearts. And how do we bring that into the world?

Barbara: That's fabulous. I'm going to try and use that phrase again. Today's reading is somewhat famous, but perhaps for the wrong reason, we'll take a look together. The book of Ruth is in the old Testament towards the beginning of your Bible, between judges and Samuel.

I'm going to read chapter one verses 16 and 17 from the King James version. “And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me. And there will I be buried the Lord do so to me and more also if ought, but death part, thee and me.”

Paula, I was pleasantly surprised when you said that Ruth is your favorite book in the Bible. What makes this book so special to you?

Paula: Well, it's a tiny book. It's mostly about a single family. It highlights the stories of women. And I feel like it's so nuanced that it packs a really mighty punch. And it's kind of in a strange place, meaning, like you said, it's right after judge, and it's hard for anyone to tell if this happened before or after exile, but it gives us this really fascinating view into how families work.

And it's a neat, really beautiful marrying, if you will, of family life. The laws of the land, but also this very heart centered approach about how people embody the laws and the commandments, but how they can play out in real situations.

Barbara: I was amazed as I did some research about the book of Ruth for this episode to see that one of the main characters Naomi was from Bethlehem. I recalled vaguely that Ruth was one of Jesus's ancestors, but I forgot about the Bethlehem connection.

We have the chance to learn about some tradition during biblical times from this story, Paula, would you summarize Naomi and Ruth's early years for us?

Paula: Naomi, best we can tell it is from Bethlehem and she's already an Israelite. So that means she's got a working knowledge would be the assumption of the commandments. She is familiar with the Hebrew Bible or the old Testament, same book, a different name. And a husband and she has two sons. They traveled to Moab, which is where Ruth is from. And both sons choose a wife and marry, Ruth is a Moabite woman. So she is probably not familiar with the laws of the Hebrew Bible or the old Testament.

And so she is finding herself in a space where she's marrying and she's becoming part of a different culture and part of a brand new family. Unfortunately both Naomi's husband and then Ruth's husband and the other brother all pass away. So that the three men in the story all die very early.

And it leaves the three women in a very interesting position. The law, as far as Naomi is concerned, says that she being kind of the lead of the family without a man present, can release the women. And so she tells Ruth and the sister-in-law, God be with you, you can go back to your own families.

And this is where it gets interesting because Ruth says what you just read, basically, she wants to stay. She loves Naomi and she even, said to her daughters in law, go back to each of you to your mother's house. May the Lord deal highly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me.

So we see Naomi is a caring woman. She's a lovely woman. She wants what's best for each of these daughters in law. And Ruth repays in kindness. That gives me goosebumps every time.

Barbara: My study Bible points out that after returning from the exile in Babylon, people were suspicious of foreign women. So because Naomi and her husband traveled to Moab during the famine, and Naomi returned with Ruth to Bethlehem years later, Ruth was considered a foreigner in Naomi's hometown. Two books in the old Testament instruct against mixed marriages- in Ezra chapters nine and 10. And in Nehemiah chapter 13. Simultaneously to that faith practice, when someone's husband died, the husband's brother was supposed to marry the widow in order to preserve the family inheritance.

If there was no brother, as in this case, then a close male relative could marry you. The regular listeners we'll know that I have never read from the King James version before, although I treasure some of the verses in it. But my sense is that this verses frequently read from the King James version.

Here are the verses from the message. But Ruth said, don't forced me to leave. You don't make me go home. Where you go, I go and where you live, I'll live. Your people are my people. Your God is my God where you die. I'll die. And that's, I'll be buried. So help me, God, not even death itself is going to come between us.

Paula. When is our passage in Ruth most often misquoted? And who is the statement really for?

Paula: we often hear this passage read during a wedding ceremony, which is lovely and appropriate. it's deeply meaningful because it is this really beautiful, how pouring from someone about how they love the other person at seemingly a soul level.

Right. So I think other places in the old Testament, we hear about heart, soul, a nefesh, which is a Hebrew word, but I believe it means the marrying of all three of the things. So heart, body, soul, like it's the whole thing. And so for someone to cry out to the other person, like.

Where are you go, I will go where you logged. I will lodge. This is huge because that's a woman saying I'm gonna, I'm gonna step back from everything that my culture and my place of origin and my family of origin is. And I'm going to go with you and I want to, and will you please let me. And I think it's a beautiful thing for people who are married, because they're also, usually we hope marrying at that kind of, that nefesh level of things, but it's really interesting that it doesn't have, or maybe it's subtly does have roots in a place of, of law and marriage.

But that's not really what it's about. I read it more is like kind of this lovely friendship between two women or this deep bond between two women that Ruth is acknowledging in a meaningful way. And, and stepping up to say to Naomi, you've been. A beautiful human for me to be around and what you've shown me through your culture and your laws and your beliefs is something that I want to keep being a part of.

So I want to go where you go. And even to the point where, when we die, I want to be near you, which is kind of, you know, it brings a tear to your eye almost when you think of people and relationships and what they mean to, you know, what people mean to each other.

Barbara: It's really sweet, because like you said, hopefully people have that since in their marriage.

Some people may have that with their in-laws and I have a very sweet and kind mother-in-law and I also though know that with biblical themes, many passages are or can be about our relationship with God. So I wonder if we can take a look at this passage. From Naomi and Ruth point of view, but think about  how are our relationship with God possibly affected by this passage?

Do you have any thoughts for us on that?

Paula: Yeah, I sure do. I think the really interesting thing about it is the marriage at several levels. also keeping in mind that Ruth came from a place where they wouldn't have likely had a familiarity with the Hebrew Bible or the 10 commandments.

she didn't know of the teachings. And I feel like one of the things we see with Moses, for sure. We see it with some other really prominent figures in the old Testament, but that God is trying to reach out to us in whatever way God knows we're gonna.

Respond to. So whether that's a burning Bush and we notice it and we're like, what's going on here? Or it's maybe something a little more subtle, but I feel like God keeps reaching out to the people in the old Testament and the us now and saying, Hey, I see you. I know you. And I want to have a relationship with you.

I don't want you to just follow the laws or the rules that I'm laying down. Sure. I'll tell you what it means to be a good, you know, air quotes, good person, and to be in relationship and to follow the, commandments and the commitment. But I want to see it, like, I want to feel this relationship with you.

And so I feel like Ruth's saying this to Naomi is also this really interesting, nuanced and layered way of saying to the reader, this is what a relationship, a loving relationship with someone looks like, yes, you get that. We're going to all follow kind of the same rules as a society, but you also get this heart level thing that comes out.

And that's what I feel like is. modeling the way the God hopes. We will react to God.

Barbara: Imagine if we said to God, God don't force me to leave you. God, don't make me go home. Where you go. I go, that just blows my mind.

Paula: Yeah. Goosebumps.

Barbara: Yeah. Wow. That's really great. Another important biblical concept is gleaning in this comes a little bit later in the book of Ruth.

And what this means is that God instructed people to leave extra grain at the edges of the field for the poor and aliens. According to the book of Leviticus, chapter 19, verses nine and 10. And chapter 23, verse 22 in the book of Deuteronomy 24 21, the green was to be left for the alien orphan and widow.

This was part of the legal welfare system, thousands of years ago. This is why Ruth was gathering green in fields. And then up on the land owned by a man named Boaz, Paula, what are ways that wealthy business and community leaders can show compassion in our

Paula: times? it dances in that space of what are the laws and what's right.

and by that, I mean the traditional sense of righteousness as we see from a loving God, like how do you put yourself in that space of doing what's right. And being a kind human? I feel like, yes, you're totally right. That there's this example here of. Part of what we do each day should be considering those people who may not have what we have, or may not have the privilege that we have acknowledged that we do have that, that either that's, you know, if it's a business that is able to make money right now during a pandemic too.

Pay back in some way or stand up for, the underserved in some way. And to make sure that even if one can't do that or they cannot afford to do that, that they are looking out for the underserved. And that might be by law. Interesting. Again, we're dancing in this space of law and what's right. but that we all have, I'm struggling with the word, cause it's not obligation.

It's bigger than an obligation, but that part of what we do as a society needs to take into consideration those who are considered air quotes, the other, which is something also that comes up in the Bible a lot. But how do we bring them into the fold? How do we make it so they can survive? And also how do we show them a kindness that's way beyond just providing food, but saying, you know what?

You're going to be safe. You're going to be okay. how can I mirror God's message that I know to be true with you, who may not feel like it's so true right now?

Barbara: And I'd like to amend that question. The Bible passage talks about a wealthy landowner who shared the extra gleaning, according to the biblical commandment, but for those of us who don't happen to be wealthy business owners or land owners or community leaders or something like that. Do you have any thoughts on how just ordinary people can show a welcome to these specific people that are listed in the Bible reference back to these texts, the poor aliens, the widow, and the orphan, not aliens from Mars aliens from other places.

Paula: it's a similar thing. You know, whether you're a business or someone who is maybe not in a space of having a lot by today's standards. I think it models to us that part of our daily work. should include doing things for others in a place that comes from kindness. And that comes from a place that it's baked into what we do, not out of a sense of obligation, but this is how we operate because we are people who have faith and know what it means to be taken care of.

But there's also a piece here because when Ruth is out there gleaning, she's also starting to catch the eye and get it noticed by other people in the community. and so I think because there's also this through line throughout the Bible that, when people do things that are right and are coming from a heart centered place and that they're taking care of others often that they get noticed.

And are then rewarded in some ways. Yeah. And I get really get a little nervous about using words like reward or whatever, because it always sounds a little bit too transactional for my tastes. We see that by putting out the good in the world. Good things come back to us.

Barbara: In pretty much every episode, I talk about the Lutheran concept of justification and sanctification. So our redemption is a free gift and we returned into the world out of love for God not to earn points or to try to earn our salvation because we can never keep the law anyway.

Paula: I think Ruth is showing us and interestingly that her roots are  not of being an Israelite so that she is showing kindness as  somebody who's new to the community and that she is trying to live out. The things that this community does is almost a point that we can take inspiration from, because it means that. Anyone is welcome into the community of God. And anyone is welcome to embrace these rules and laws or thoughts and ideas, and that we all, all of us benefit when we start to embrace things that are good for other people.

Barbara: here is a really lovely example of someone who is from another place. On the one hand, there was a commandment to not inter marry, but then at the same time, Ruth ultimately becomes an ancestor of Jesus. So there is that welcome and that redemption and I don't want to alienate listeners by having this podcast turned into a political hammer, as much as that is tempting to me yet, our Bible readings clearly talk about both suspicion of foreigners, as well as commanding people to take care of the vulnerable, which includes aliens, widows, and orphans.

Paula, what are your thoughts on balancing care for each other, with financial stewardship of our resources?

Paula: I think that's a really hard one to have, especially for people who are training to be in the ministry, because, traditionally people who are of faith and their livelihood is around faith are not necessarily some of the higher wage earners in the world.

Taking care of each other from a financial perspective should be built into whatever we do at whatever level we can do it. But I also think that it's about sharing the gifts that we have in a way that's meaningful. And so you sharing the message and offering people a way to study Bible and learn more about their faith on a podcast is a sharing of a gift, and it's inviting other people in a way that. Naomi invited Ruth in. So I think that's a modeling of something that's really nice and lovely and important. but I also think it goes then from the financial perspective, goes to a global way of if we. Are giving what we can.

We also owe it to ourselves to get involved and understand maybe what companies that we invest in are doing. Are they modeling some of this for other people? So I think whether or not we have a lot of financial means ourselves, we can give what we can, we can make sure we're also using our gifts in a smart way.

And we can also be really invested in the way that we are participating in the world to make sure that the finances, wherever they're coming from are going to people that could use help or that are of need. I like what

Barbara: you said that if we can build it into what we're already doing, then that makes sense and it could bear fruit. Like I know some people are in a position to be able to give away face masks for free, and some people are selling them and that's absolutely fine because sometimes financial resources are tight for people. But if sewing is something that you know how to do, when you're able to give something away, then that's a generous way of using your gifts where you don't necessarily have to be throwing a lot of cash into a situation.

Paula: that's really important. I generally do look for places where I can either volunteer my time, teaching podcasting or something like there are ways that you could equate whatever you can do to, either giving away masks or giving away your time or whatever and that could impact somebody financially down the road in a way you may not ever understand as well.

Barbara: So just because we don't have a field where we can leave gleanings for other people to gather, we might have a couch or a guest bed, or et cetera, give somebody a ride.

Paula: I think that's a nice way of looking at gleanings that they don't have to be a specific monetary giving, but they could be whatever our gifts or our fruit, the fruit of our labor is

Barbara: Paula, you've connected in your mind between our story of Naomi and Ruth and the new Testament, Matthew 27 verse 46 and share with us your thoughts on feeling forsaken and redeemed.

Paula: it's one of the things that Jesus calls out from the cross, which is father, father, why have you forsaken me? And that's a very strange favorite passage, but I feel like.  there's something about the way that Jesus is calling out to his father at that point, right before he's about to die. And he had known, all along what his fate would be why he was here, or at least for quite a while had known it.

 I love that passage because I think it is the consolidation of everything that he was here to do, which is he saw in one brief, second, all of the good, all of the bad and was like, this is painful. And yet here I am. And I agreed to do it, and the only person that can save me is my own father.

And so I think there is something about, The relationship there and knowing that we all have a role to play in things and knowing that, the relationship itself is what's important. So when we look at Naomi and Ruth, their relationship is what eventually leads them to a much better place.

they left Moab, they went back to Israel and they both were then set right again.  whether people in today's society, like the idea of Ruth goes on to marry, Boaz And then she is reinstated as somebody, that's the reward, whether we like that or not.

That's how things worked back then, but we see that then Jesus is reinstate it in a place or maybe it was always there, I guess, but that we see that the redemption and, the salvation for someone comes because of the relationship that they have with other people. And. In lots of ways.

I think we see that, yeah, we're given rules and we're given the right and wrong way. Like it's laid out plainly, but when it comes down to things, the heart of all of it is love. And the heart of all of it is how do we relate to other people? And what do we do with the rules that we're given?

Ruth chose- She could've gone back, her sister in law went back to her mother and her family and we don't know what her fate was, but what we do know is that somebody that chose to follow the rules as they've been laid out and then chose to choose love, then. the reward that we see is, that she is the grandmother of David and it puts her in  the maternal line of Jesus.

And so that's impressive, like that says something like this is a person that we want to seek out and see as an example of a marriage in many ways and a marriage of the law and the love, that she is an example of.

Barbara: So it's possible that Naomi and Ruth felt forsaken. It doesn't specifically say that, but you might, it sounds like there was a lot of death and uncertainty and things like that. it appears that they were redeemed in more ways than one, but just in kind of even an obvious way of returning to a place and having a life beyond that and a good life beyond that. And then some of us may feel forsaken at times. And some of us may feel like redemption is a long time in coming.

It's a marathon, not a sprint. And I don't say that to sound trite -sometimes the suffering or feeling forsaken feels eternal. Is there anything about the book of Ruth or this connection with Matthew in the new Testament that you'd like to explore a little more?

Paula: I know Naomi and Ruth both use the word bitter. right before Ruth says to Naomi, she wants to stay with her. So I think you are correct in saying that they did feel. at least that then be beaten down in some way by what's happened in their lives.

And I think that's an interesting example. Well, for all of us, even right now, we can see that maybe we do feel a little bitter. Maybe we do feel a little forsaken by. The events of the world buyer leadership of our country, whatever it is, again, not to lean into the political too much, but I think there is a message here of when you look at the laws and the rules that maybe we don't even feel that much a part of sometimes, but we could go back to the Bible and see what they are.

And then we leave the heart centerdness of it, or the, I love of it, that it puts us in a place that is what makes God happy? Like that's what God is asking us to join God in is that relationship and that space of holding room for the rules and for the heart part of it, and I think that's part of why I love Ruth so much.

Barbara: And love of each other as well, which is exemplified in the story. In several different ways. I feel like we've really talked a lot about love. And on the flip side of that, I'm wondering where in the book of Ruth is there fear?

Paula: I think there's the implied fear of, we don't know what might happen to us. And Naomi for sure is in a foreign land to herself. so she chooses to go back home. Now we don't really know what motivates that some of it could be. I don't know what I would do with myself out here in foreign lands.

And I would interpret that like, I don't know how I would make a living or I don't know anybody really here, so it's time to go home. And so I don't know if there's really that fears so much, I feel like they really embrace the love side of it, which I feel like are opposite motivators in any story.

Barbara: And it's not always fair to place our own imaginings into someone else's life, but that makes sense. I'm somewhere where I am new to. So how am I going to make this happen? Or then I'm going to go somewhere. Ruth was going somewhere where she didn't know anybody, but you're right.

That the love seemed to outweigh that. And there may have been fear of foreigners in Bethlehem. I got that impression from the commentary

Paula: the other is always a topic in the Bible too. And you're right. That maybe the people that they didn't know.

We're somewhat frightening to them, but I think there's also that space to be held of, Ruth would have been one of the people that they didn't know, and that was from a different tribe. And that was a foreigner when they first met her. So I think there's also that resolution in the story of once we get to know someone it's very hard to see them as another or as frightening.

and when we can show them love that often changes our hearts and it changes everything about them for us.

Barbara: One of my professors always asks whose voice is missing and sometimes I don't really notice whose voice is missing.

Paula: Well, I think Ruth's extended. Family's voice is missing. We don't know how her parents may have felt about her marrying. Presumably to them, a foreigner, right. Just kind of a fascinating thing. and we don't hear that much of the other sister-in-law and maybe that's a very similar story.

Why would you go back to whatever it was that you knew as opposed to this? And we maybe don't know so much about the husbands and the father. but I think that's in a way refreshing because oftentimes in the Bible and in many narratives, we hear all about the male perspective. And so I think it's really interesting that this author and the people that chose to keep the book in the Bible itself have left room for there to be more of the women's story.

Barbara: those women's voices may more often be missing from the story than anyone else's in other passages.

I also like to ask about the elephant in the room. Is there something that is on your mind about some kind of an unspoken sentiment?

Paula: there might be a little bit around the women's roles. We understand that there's rules and law and commandments, but if the tradition was that men are in the place of power is a women. Really want to go find another man. Do they really believe that by getting married, that, that reinstates them? And maybe that's a voice that's not being shared, but it might also be the elephant in the room that the only way that these women were being reinstated and being shown reward was by means of being involved with or married to a man, which there's something strange going on there for me. And. It just feels like it's worth calling out.

Barbara: there's also the new Testament question posed to Jesus about if a husband dies and the woman marries the brother and that brother dies and the widow marries the next brother and there were seven brothers. And then in heaven, who is she married to? And Jesus is like, that is really not point at all.

Please. Correct me if I'm wrong, Paula. That's my super short summary. That's what I recall him saying about that. I'd rather. In this day and age, be able to God forbid, should that ever happen, have a choice and not be like, okay, here's brother number one. And next in line is brother number two, right?

According to the laws of the, of the culture at the time,

Paula: it is interesting that Jesus said that's not even the point. I often wonder has Jesus entered the scene. Within enlightened. Well, always he has, but with an enlightened way of thinking, which is, Hey, you guys, you were so preoccupied by all those rules, like what's going on?

Like, you're being so cut and dry with all of this. Maybe that is the elephant in the room of like, yeah, it's a great story. And yes, she did the right thing and she followed her heart. But maybe even if we ask Jesus, would he apply what he does, what you referenced to this scenario as well?

 I wonder.

Barbara: And I fervently hope that those customs were in place to care for vulnerable people. So hypothetically, the culture was, what else is this woman going to do? Because that was one of the reasons that I learned for speaking against divorce is what is an unmarried woman going to do to put food on the table?

Right. So I just hope that the initial actual intention was care. That she wouldn't be abandoned in the street begging or worse. So, but still from our point of view that it seems kind of strange to me. Yeah. Well, I just have to do this because I don't have any other choice if I'm going to go along with the

Paula: custom.

Yeah. And I think that follows for most of what Ruth did too, with Naomi. She wants to be with her because of a sense of care and. And concern almost and, and appreciation. So, yeah, I think that works.

Barbara: Sounds like she was one of the early feminists in the Bible and many of the women leaders may have been, I never looked at it from that perspective before.

I'm wondering if I should go learn more about Miriam and we know about some of the myriad. Go ahead, Paula.

Paula: Oh, Miriam's a powerhouse. Well just briefly, when you look at it, the song of Miriam right around the time of the Exodus, I mean, that's the oldest. Piece of literature in the Bible is from a woman's voice.

Barbara: Say a little more about Miriam.

Paula: Miriam is Moses's sister and the song that she sings is around the safe passage of the people and she is a support to Moses for quite some time.

So I think there's an interesting thing there. I mean, Moses is one of my favorites too, like without the support of his sister and his brother, Aaron, you don't have the leader that he becomes. And he's even super reluctant to begin with, to rise into the position that he becomes.

But I think that part of it, it is because he has strong characters, one of them being his sister.

Barbara: there's actually a series of books that I've read and done as Bible studies called bad girls of the Bible by Liz Curtis Higgs. There were bad boys of the Bible too, but this particular study was about women that God can use any of our histories for any good. So, maybe I feel ashamed about something from my past, but that doesn't mean that God can't love me, that I'm unlovable that I can't be forgiven.

I'm not saying that about either of the two women that we just happened to have been talking about right now, but just at the study was really nice to talk about. We don't have to be perfect to serve God and each other.

Paula: Yeah.

Barbara: thank you so much for your time. I appreciate your wisdom and your insight, and we'll get working on another episode about Miriam and a whole bunch of other women.

Paula: Thanks for having me.

Resources:

Ruth 1:16-17

“Bad Girls of the Bible” by Liz Curtis Higgs

Paula of www.jumpstartyourjoy.com

Spiritual Direction with Michelle L.

Today's topic is spiritual direction and our guest is Michelle L’Allier. I met Michelle in a class about how to start a podcast. Michelle has been a Franciscan sister of little falls, Minnesota for over 30 years. Her journey was circuitous growing up in a Catholic home with six siblings. She was a young adult when she was first invited to a personal relationship with Jesus. Michelle holds a masters in theology and has worked in parish ministry as a spiritual director in adult faith, formation, youth and young adult ministry and the facilitation of retreats. As a religious sister, she never married but lives in a women's religious community. This is another form of family where they share life in community, in the God quest and in lives of service.

Michelle's dream is that the entire human family will learn to live with one another. And with God's gift of creation in mutual respect, love and service. Thanks for joining us today, Michelle. How are things in Minnesota today?

Michelle: It's a lovely day and I'm actually quite happy and content. What came to my heart as a way to start our conversation today is Romans chapter 12, the first two verses.

Barbara: for folks who are flipping through their Bibles, Romans is in the new Testament. So it's past the halfway mark after the gospels and after Acts.

Michelle: “I urge you, therefore brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, Holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that you may discern what is the will of God- What is good and pleasing and perfect.”

The richness of this to me is the beauty of recognizing God's mercy as not only a spiritual event, but it's an embodied event. We offer our bodies. As a living sacrifice and spiritual direction really includes the whole person art experience, not only, a spiritual relationship.

And then it comes into the mind too. We're body, mind, and spirit to be transformed by the renewal of our minds that we may discern and really discernment or making informed wise choices and decisions is a strong component of spiritual direction, so that we're being invited by St. Paul to discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.

Barbara: I really appreciate that. And this may be a familiar passage for some people while others might be hearing it for the first time. And I thought about all the different places where I've heard Bible verses over the years from either my family of origin or going to Sunday school or church services, even vacation Bible school, or a faith based school. And there could be additional names of faith development activities in other religions or denominations.

Some people may not have experienced any faith development at all as kids. They may have had a college or military chaplain or seen neighborhood churches or even preachers on television. Michelle, I'm curious because I had never heard of spiritual direction until several years after college, when I attended a retreat in Massachusetts. So what is spiritual direction and where did it come from?

Michelle: classically speaking spiritual direction is an art. It's an art of accompaniment of one Christian in a Christian context of one Christian to another. That enables them to pay attention to their experience of God, their capacity, to respond to God who initiates reaching out to us God, who is love.

And it offers an opportunity to grow in depth and in breadth, in our prayer and relationship with God as we live into what this means in our daily lives. Spiritual direction can be known by other names. You might say some would say spiritual companions, soul friends, spiritual accompaniment, and in a broader sense, it would fall under this area of having a mentor or a deep listener on the spiritual journey.

Someone who comes for spiritual direction. Can trust that they will be listened to and honored for wherever they are in their life journey. It is not about proselytizing, but rather listening deeply for the movement of the spirit in an individual's life and meeting them right there in that journey.

Barbara: sometimes I feel like there's a negative connotation to the word proselytizing-  maybe people are fearful about kind of getting clobbered over the head with a Bible and I'm hearing you kind of say the exact opposite of that.

Michelle: Yeah, it's very interesting because the content of it is a person's life and their life in God. And so it comes at it from that relational part.

When you mentioned I was a young adult when I came to a personal relationship with Christ, I grew up and went to what we called catechism and learned about God, but that's different than meeting God, being in relationship with God and spiritual direction meets us at that place of this hunger for God.

As a friend of mine, sister Mary, would say our hungers are God-sized and in dominant cultures today, certainly here in North America, that hunger is being usurped by hungers for the latest tech gizmo, addictive kinds of attachments to things or places or activities that can deflect us or distract us from our ultimate purpose of living in communion with God and of offering our lives, as Saint Paul says, as a living sacrifice that is our spiritual worship. So spiritual direction helps us stay tuned in to that spiritual moment of our lives. And where are the blocks and the obstacles in our prayer? and what is it that our prayer is teaching us about who God is? and where is the invitation or the call to grow even more so into our potential that we in turn can give back to God what God has given us? We develop our talents and then we give them back in service and in praise.

Barbara: I wanted to know a little bit more about the quote, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, because I fear that some verses Bible can be divisive and people can use them to say this is what this means, and this is what people should do. And I wasn't really sure what it meant. So my Lutheran study Bible says that God's gifts are so great that the only proper response is for people to offer their entire lives to God. And I kind of want to clarify- my understanding of my faith education so far, that you'd perhaps mean the ultimate sacrifice, the price of losing our lives, but there are other ways to give our lives to God that does not necessarily mean death and the message version says:

“take your everyday ordinary life- your sleeping, eating, going to work and walking around life- and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.”

Michelle: one of the sayings of St. Francis 800 years ago, and St. Clair, who is a contemporary of his, they would say, give yourself totally to the one who has given himself totally to you. So they're referring to Jesus and his sacrifice of life for love for us. And that we too are invited into that movement of giving freely what we have received freely. So that spiritual direction helps us attune to what brings us closer to God. And what is it that draws us away from God.

We get better at discerning or discriminating wisely and choosing that which brings us closer to God. And of course, Jesus did not separate that from the grace to love our neighbor. So love God with our entire being, and then love our neighbors as ourselves. They really are partnered, that if we choose God, we are also by the nature of God being love.

Barbara: I think it's pretty cool how that passage comes up in almost every episode. It's the greatest commandment. Love your neighbor. it's pretty core. Jesus made it the center point.

Now some folks may have attended Bible studies or maybe I have gone to Sunday school. And I'm curious what makes the process of spiritual direction different from what someone might think of as a typical learning about the Bible type experience?

Michelle: there's different kinds of Bible studies. Some you would have someone trained in facilitating and guiding the process. Others may have video series that give input with some of the historical or linguistic backgrounds and context to help it. And others is really more of a faith sharing using the Bible on the scriptures as a reference point to break open the stories of our own lives and there isn't a person designated as a facilitator or a teacher.

Spiritual direction would come often in a time of transition. maybe growing into a deeper stage of faith and they're doubting and they need someone to help with that; maybe they're in grief after moving or losing a job or the death of a loved one or a new diagnosis of an illness.

And having a companion on the spiritual journey where the Holy Spirit is the director and the spiritual director companion is one who helps foster a listening for that movement of the spirit and train in how to go about that. And their experience of God and their gifts of prayer and struggle with prayer.

And at times, because love of God and love of neighbor are partnered, then it will be freeing struggles in relationships, in the family or at work or within themselves that have a spiritual dimension to them. And the breaking through to new understanding conciliation opens a new pathway for the relationship with God as well.

Barbara: It almost sounds like it's a one on one relationship with another human being, but then leaving lots of room for the Holy spirit, which you might experience in different ways, but. Typically, can't see.

When I think of having a one on one conversation with another person around whatever's going on in your life, since I'm a social worker, it sounds a little bit like counseling, So I'm wondering if you could help us to understand the difference between  typical counseling and spiritual direction.

Michelle: it is not psychological counseling. It's not therapy, it's not pastoral counseling, but it is a confidential meeting with a spiritual director, someone trained to listen for these movements of the spirit and the development of the spiritual life. And it's for the purpose of deepening one's spiritual life and deepening one's relationship with God. It is a time to explore the movement of, and the listening to the Holy spirit. I hear it in one's life. And it is a way of, as I noted of growing in the skill of discernment and the actual on the ground practice of making good decisions.

Barbara: I really liked the words that you use, like a companion- and  some people might think of their counselor or their therapist as a companion, but in training, that's definitely not the language that's used. You're sitting in the room with another person for a period of time talking about your problems, but the focus is different. And you also mentioned pastoral counseling. I know I'm splitting hairs at this point, I don't believe I've ever participated in pastoral counseling. So that's even yet another layer sort of that I'm not really clear on. How might those be different?

Michelle: So my understanding, and I'm not a pastoral counselor- typically a therapist or a counselor clinical social worker will come and not be from explicitly any way of perspective of faith, but really looking at the psychological in your personal life and growth in health and dealing with difficulties; the pastoral counselor will come from a place of faith. And so it might be explicitly in a Christian context or in an ecumenical context of some form, even in interfaith context, but they bring a spiritual component to work very explicitly and that's what you're signing on for.

Barbara: But the focus with spiritual direction is still more accompaniment in discerning God's will where pastoral counseling could be a little bit more. This is my problem, I don't know what to do.

Michelle: Right. So counseling we'd often enter into because we're experiencing a difficulty or a challenge and needing help to navigate that in our lives; spiritual direction, even in the best of times- we're flourishing, our potential is infinite because we're made in God's image. And so a spiritual companion helps us grow into that potential. And as I think it was Marianne Williamson has this great poem or oratory piece about it.

It doesn't serve God to play small. We need to bring our whole selves forward. And, that the world needs people who are mature and capable of engaging and bringing gospel values into the world. So spiritual direction helps us flourish in our own relationship with God, which strengthens us. In our capacities with other people or with ethical issues or whatever it may be.

So spiritual direction is a nuance difference. Looking at pastoral counseling the focus isn't strengthening your spiritual life. It's strengthening your relational life or helping you deal with challenges in the season of your life with the spiritual component. So the focus is different.

Both deal with relationships, both deal with the spiritual life. But I would say the emphasis it's different. The starting point is different.

Barbara: Thank you. That's definitely helpful. I'm wondering from the years of experience that you have with spiritual direction, why do people seek out spiritual direction and maybe what are some common themes that you've noticed? What do people talk about ?

Michelle: yeah, that's a really great question because it can be a little bit intimidating to just walk in a door and say, what do I talk about? Sure. So for example, for myself, I've had a spiritual director since college and there've been some times I've.

Yeah. I have noticed in my life, I'm now in my early sixties, that basically for 40 years, I've had a very intentional commitment to be in my spiritual life. When I started out, I didn't know what to talk about. And so the spiritual directors trained in how to help encourage. ability to articulate one's life story, articulate our experience of God because we're body mind and spirit it also in, especially in spiritual direction, it gets at the feeling dimension as well, because what's the stuff of the discernment.

What leads us toward God and what. Moves us away from God is often in the body indicated by our emotional state of what brings us peace and what brings us lack of peace. It's so. what is it that we bring  to spiritual direction? As I noted, you might come with a concern or simply a hunger to deepen our relationship with God.

It could be that we're in a time of significant transition. Maybe. I'm retiring. And, and suddenly the threshold of my life is looking different. Maybe it's a divorce. it could be an empty nest situation, but, and maybe it's just a general Melendez. I remember when I was 39, I was leaving after five years in Nicaragua and I came back to the States.

I just felt like I I've got to have something more. The number one, I was burned out for five years there, but the sense that there's gotta be more. And so I was beginning as I look at it now to move into midlife and in midlife, the questions change. And so navigating the first half of our life in relation to the second half of our life often can benefit from having a company.

also, it could be someone wants to just a meaningful faith based conversation. There's a Franciscan sister whose name is Nancy Shrek. And she would talk about. Human beings yearn for thick conversation. That's T H I C K thick conversations. And what she means is to move beyond superficialities, like here in Minnesota.

Nice. We often talk about the weather. Well, okay. What else? Besides the weather, you know, move to the level of meaning and purpose and values. That we can practice that and, explore that in spiritual direction, in a way that often isn't possible in our day to day. I think the other piece of it in terms of themes that may be around the prayer life, what are images God are, how do I listen and clarify where God is leading me?

another piece may be that. An entry point for spiritual direction would be God, but I don't know how it fits this moral situation I'm facing in my workplace or with this conflict I'm in with my boyfriend or girlfriend. And so the embodiment of it is noted in Romans 12, offering our bodies as a living sacrifice to bring that faith perspective and relationship with God into those very real human experiences.

And one last thing I would say about this Barbara is we've read the papers and we know the story. Maybe even in our own families, there's a growing global reality of people who consider themselves spiritual, but not religious. Yes. So they're not in our churches. They're not reading the Bible. They're not reading Holy books, of any sort.

But they're on a spiritual quest. So spiritual direction is entirely applicable to people on a spiritual quest, but not rooted in a spiritual tradition at this point. I think that's an important acknowledgement that being human, we all have a spiritual dimension to our lives.

Not everyone has the gift of faith. And some actively are rejecting what they see in the body of faith, because it's not true to their sense of who God must be or it's  hypocritical or we're really in a time of crumbling institutional life. And so they're suspicious of religious institutions because they're suspicious of many.

And so how do we translate gospel values in that real context? Of people who are searching, but not finding what they're looking for.

Barbara: I really appreciate you clarifying that Michelle, because it doesn't mean, Oh, I'm Lutheran. So I have to go find a Lutheran spiritual director or I'm Episcopalean and I need to find, and that also speaks, maybe we can't get this thick conversation that you were talking about on a Sunday morning.

We have music. We have preaching. Well now during COVID-19 it's totally different. But anyway, some people might get the spiritual nurturing that they need on a Sunday, or Wednesday night Bible study or something like that. So sometimes you can't though, and then this is supplemental, but then if you're not involved in a formal church situation, but you're still a spiritual person, this could be another resource.

Michelle: That's right. And let me just say there are also group. Spiritual direction opportunities. And I would say at times a Bible study may have a component of that. Where, when I mentioned the faith sharing dimension of it, That, you give feedback or reflect back or listen deeply to one another in these very precious circles of shared life in a Bible study that does give guidance or does strengthen my relationship with God.

So there is an element of spiritual accompaniment there, but there also can be a place for the individual. And that's where we can really go in depth in my, the fabric of my entire life and say, what is it? That's consistent. What's been the message of my life. What is the yearning of my heart going forward?

And have someone tuned in at that level with you to mirror back, ask clarifying questions, perhaps give scripture or prayer practices or reflection practices to help get at articulating and making conscious what is. Troubling us or nudging us or restless within us.  

Barbara: I appreciate that you mentioned group spiritual direction, Michelle. Cause I hadn't heard of that until just a few months ago when I was writing a paper about faith development and learning that even Bible studies can look different. You can have lecture style, Bible studies, videos, fill in the blank, you know, praying with each other, talking about our life experience as it relates to what we're learning about in the Bible, but that group spiritual direction is also then unique from a Bible study in, you could be talking about the Bible, but it's more about our faith journey. That was my understanding anyway, of what was explained to me at the time,

Michelle: Yes

Barbara: and a group format can provide a tremendous sense of support and even companionship on the walk. Like you said, praying for each other, learning from each other. We have different seasons of our lives that we go through. just being with other people can be a really terrific experience.

sounds like you hinted a little bit, there could be some homework in spiritual direction. You've made it sound so kind and welcoming. And my experience in Massachusetts was certainly that it's really up to you. It's voluntary. You're the one who said, I want to do the spiritual direction stuff, but here are some tools perhaps that could help with that process.

Michelle: Yup. That's right.

Barbara: Great. Now I would much rather talk about the elephant in the room than anything else. I like to think that faith formation is free. You go to church and yes, most churches do ask for financial support, but you can go online and get tons of resources.

You could read the Bible. So a two part question, Michelle is why might someone consider making a financial contribution to receive spiritual direction and hand in hand with that? Is there a way for someone with a tight budget to have an opportunity for spiritual direction?

Michelle: just as you might think, there are people who are life coaches, the counselors, massage therapists, spiritual directors, too, have formation and are professionally trained and often count on some form of income for their work to support themselves or their families.

Now, having said that, depending on each spiritual director's situation, Spiritual direction may be offered in addition to their quote unquote Day job, or it may have been taken up in their season of retirement and bringing to bear a lifetime of experience in accompanying others. And it's a less stressful than a high responsibility job, but it's so for many of us, including myself, it's woven into the fabric of my service.

It's part of what I do and have done. for a long time, so fees, so to speak can be handled in different ways. Some would have a sliding fee scale, perhaps as a counselor would some would have a donation basis. So for example, myself, as part of the religious community, we have suggested donations and people offer what they can - more or less, range and some don't need, and they don't expect any financial contribution. I'll give you an example of say someone is a pastor of a church they're trained in spiritual direction and parishioners are coming for direction. They wouldn't necessarily charge over and above. So that is a really open question. What I can say is most often the first session is free and it's a time where  questions are asked and the person who's coming for direction says what they're looking for the director will say where they're coming from and what they feel they can contribute.

And at the end of that, if it looks like it has possibility would talk about at the end of that introductory conversation, the whole contribution or remuneration question. And if you're unable to pay or have a limited ability to contribute, just talk with the person and often it's okay. Doable that we understand.

Some are able to pay at a high end, most are able to pay a moderate amount and some are not able to pay it all, or just a little bit bet. And that's how it works. And it's a work of the spirit in the big picture.

Barbara: Great. So it sounds like maybe a little bit of research is in order or asking the question and not to be embarrassed about it. I'm sure someone has provided spiritual direction has had this conversation many times. And I grew up like you take care of yourself, you take care of business, you do the right thing and it might feel shameful to some folks to say, Hey, listen, my budget's pretty tight right now, or there's no room right now.

I'm hearing a very warm message of welcome from you that it's okay to share- This is my situation and it might be the opposite for somebody else might have plenty of budget and they're like, here's my check, no problem.

Michelle: That's great. Yup. Great.

Barbara: So how do you find a spiritual director? And do you ever see if there might be someone who's a little more in alignment that might be a better fit somehow?

Michelle: This is really, really important. Just as you might be looking for a marriage partner. In my case, I was looking for a fit in religious community. You have to find someone who is a fit for where you are in your spiritual journey, that there's a sense of connection, a sense of being heard and understood.

How do you find one then? if you know people who are in spiritual direction, you might ask them, well, who do you know and knowing me, who would you recommend? If you're not in those circles, which many are not, then there are people you could go ask, for example, look in your area. Are there any retreat centers and call and find out, do they have trained spiritual directors?

Are there religious communities that may have trained spiritual directors? And as I mentioned, a pastoral leaders or pastors, if they are not themselves trained, they may know of people who are. Now when you find maybe one, two or three that you want to check out and I would encourage you if the first person isn't a fit.

And even if you wonder if they're a fit, check out another one or two people,

you're looking for a spiritual director who is trained because you went through seminary doesn't mean you're trained in spiritual direction. It means you have an idea of what the spiritual life is, and you're trained in preaching and all of the things that need to go with pastoring, but that is not the same as an in depth, ongoing relationship and spiritual direction.

Okay. Also, I would say this is true of counselors as well. You want someone who has a peer supervision group? In other words, a spiritual director has a lot of, influence in one's spiritual life. That is a very tender, dimension of our being human and our relationship with God. You want to know that your spiritual director is doing their inner work.

In other words, they're dealing with their own loss. They're dealing with their own challenges. They are strengthening their own spiritual lives. Because if they're not doing that work, then their unfinished business can get in the way of listening to you and where you are in your journey. So you want to do your due diligence that your person has been trained and that they're in some form of peer supervision or group support so that you can trust.

They are able to be freely available to listen to you, your story and what you need and not be working out their own business. Secondly when you interview the first time or with two or three people, you tell a bit of your story, what you're looking for, you hear what their style of spiritual direction is.

For example, just like in counseling, there's different theories and practices. That's true in spiritual direction. So, so an example would be some would be classically trained. They listened when they reflect back, they may give you scripture or. comment on the story, but you're the leader and that's what you bring is exactly what's handled.

I would say I fall more in this side of, because of my training life experience. That depending on a person's experience with spirit direction, I may start on a side that is accompanying with more of a mentoring dimension of giving skills exercises to build skills about self reflection, articulating our story, different prayer types so that a person gets at home.

More fully in the interior life and in the spiritual life and various practices. And as they do, they become more comfortable in taking the lead. And I stepp back. especially with young adults who are not accustomed to articulating on a personal level, their relationship with God and the story of the values they live by.

Then the third thing is when you begin say you interview two or three people, you decide which one's a good fit. even if it feels a little uncomfortable the first or second time, give it at least three visits to see if you grow into a place of fit with each other.

And if not, then move on to the next exploration of a possible spiritual director. That's not something taken personally, if you start or stop, because it's a work of the spirit. You want someone who to walk with you who can walk with you, that chapter of your spiritual life. It may be for six months.

It may be for six years, but you will know, or the director will know. And usually on an annual basis, there's a little reflection to see if it is, on both sides that it's growthful and continuing. I used to be nurturing of the spiritual life. I think one more question that was, how often do you meet ordinarily?

It's about once a month, if you're in an intense time, like there's a person I'm meeting with right now, we're meeting weekly because of the intensity of what she's going through. And then there's others who check in maybe every two to three months because they're in a more stable place in their journeys, but they want to have that both accountability and support in growing in their spiritual life on a regular basis.

Would continue that for as long as the sessions are beneficial, the sessions themselves last an hour or so little more, little less, but it's about that time.

Barbara: I'm hearing you say that it's not rude to talk to two or three different people before you start. And it's not unheard of to say. Thank you. This may not be the best fit for me right now. So say goodbye, a provider would be mature and understanding. I get the sense that this is hard work. It might not be easy. So maybe there's some tough conversations. you're suggesting try a few meetings and then say, okay, that's great.

Michelle: Yeah. And it may not even be difficult. It just may be that you're not quite sure. It's not clear. But give it time to become clear, at least those three sessions.

Barbara: I'm wondering if you have any favorite resources about spiritual direction, that you would recommend. for someone who'd like to learn a little bit more about this.

Michelle: you may have heard of the Jesuits. Saint Ignatius of Loyola really was a master of articulating what other spiritual masters had done over the centuries, but he developed an Ignation method of discernment.

It was developed into a formalized method, and it really is one of the core practices globally. So, there's, Ignatianspirituality.com and they have a beautiful section on there on making good decisions and spiritual direction. You can just follow the links and get a Judeo Christian perspective on spiritual direction.

And then there's spiritual directors international. It has really moved to a very broad interfaith context now. So it is not explicitly Christian, but there are many resources on there about what is spiritual direction, what to expect, how do I prepare?

How do I find one? There's a global index of spiritual directors and it's not a licensing agency, so that's not what they're speaking to. It's a learning community about. what they call spiritual companioning.

Barbara: Yeah. The website's SDIcompanions.org.

Michelle: That's right. you just take what fits from a Christian perspective and leave the rest. But as I say, when we draw from the broader well of the spiritual life, because all of life was called into being by God, through Jesus, according to John's gospel. That whether people are Christian or not, there are still elements of the truth of being made in God's image in all of life.

we can gain illumination of our own Christian tradition by being in conversation with other traditions. If we're secure enough in our own. grounding in our tradition and our conscience formation and all of that.

Barbara: I think by now in the summer of 2020, we just take online meetings for granted, but probably before March. maybe nobody would think about, Oh, can I do this online or not? Cause you just would assume that you're going to do it in person, but especially for folks in remote locations, do you think that many spiritual directors at this point, given the pandemic are willing to meet electronically instead of in person?

Michelle: Yes. And that has been going on for a long time because there are areas of the globe that don't have access to spiritual directors. I would say most at this point, do some form of virtual availability

Barbara: for me, there's no comparison to meeting in person. that's something that I treasure, but it hasn't been possible this spring and into the summer. And some States are having second waves now. So that's great to know And I also am wondering if for any reason it's just not possible. It could somebody say journal about their faith journey in a way that helps them think through spiritual questions, which I know isn't the same as what we're talking about, but just sort of a plan B or a temporary plan, or this is how it needs to be right now.

Michelle: of course that would be very possible. And I think there's a lot of really beautiful tools out there that are like companion journals. Okay. I would encourage people to maybe do a little scouting out in research online as to spiritual direction. for example, there's daily examine of conscience.

This is from the Jesuit tradition. That is a beautiful, beautiful resource. For daily strengthening, a practice of living and discerning life basically has to do with where God was especially present and where I was especially responsive to the movements of God's grace, but then also acknowledging at the end of the day where I failed or fell short and making resolve, and how to strengthen my ability to be faithful the data come.

So there are a lot of spiritual exercises that are out there.

Resources:

Romans 12:1-2

www.Ignatianspirituality.com

www.SDIcompanions.org

Michelle explains spiritual direction