Whatever the Weather

To a greater or lesser extent, depending on where you are, spring has begun!

Hallelujah!

It's long been recognized that many people have a strong emotional interconnectedness with the weather.  Seasonal affective disorder (with the incredibly apt acronym SAD) is a real phenomenon, affecting 6% of the population each year (with another 20% or so exhibiting at least mild symptoms).  It's serious, too. No less a body than the Mayo Clinic encourages people not to "brush off that yearly feeling as simply a case of the 'winter blues' or a seasonal funk that you have to tough out on your own."  As someone who's had a life-long relationship with depression, I would echo that advice.

Is there an analogous interconnectedness between weather and our spirituality?  It might be hard to tease this apart from the effect weather has on our emotions, yet I do believe that our spiritual lives and our emotional lives are not mere clones of one another.  They are connected, to be sure.  What in life isn't connected to everything else?  This is one of the fundamental truths of Buddhism, sometimes called "dependent co-origination," and sometimes more simply, "this is, because that is."  Nothing exists unless everything else exists, because nothing exists entirely independently.  How can we think, then, that body-mind-spirit-emotion aren't inextricably linked?  

Nonetheless, just because things are linked does't mean that they are identical, so I return to my wondering:  is there a link between our spirits and the seasons analogous to that between the weather and our emotions?

I'd love to hear your thoughts ...

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Rest in Joy

I had the immense good fortune, and true blessing, of having the opportunity to learn from this amazing woman. She was a nun in the order of the Sisters of Notre Dame, a sensei in the White Plumb Asanga, one of the founders of the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation (through which I met her), and one of the gentlest, fiercest, most spiritually profound, and delightfully mischievous people I have ever met. My friend Ethel Hornbeck describes her as, “a kind spiritual badass.”

Two stories stand out for me as I think of Rose Mary.  During one of the residencies in Shalem's Spiritual Guidance program, it snowed overnight -- a lot.  My friends Ethel, Scott, and I were sitting at lunch, wishing that we'd brought sleds, or ski, or something (because there was a perfect hill outside).  As I remember it, Rose Mary must have overheard us, because as she walked by to bring her dishes into the kitchen she leaned over and said, quietly, "I think that there are some really big trays in the back of the kitchen."  She didn't tell us to go out and have fun sledding, yet she did remind us just how playful the Spirit can be.

The second story is one I think of often.  During one of her talks on spiritual direction she told us about the time she walked with a directee on the grounds of the convent.  The sun was warm, the air was still, and she was exhausted (from traveling, as I recall).  Along the path there was a large tree with a circular bench around it.  The two sat, with the tree between them, and as the directee talked, Rose Mary fell asleep!  She woke up, noticed that their session was up, and brought their time together to a close.  

She said that she felt awful, and was trying to figure out how to apologize to the man.  But he called her ... to say that it was one of their most powerful sessions!  She was a little relieved to know that he apparently hadn't noticed her extended silence, yet was also a little chagrined that one of this person's most helpful sessions with her had been one which, for all extents and purposes, she wasn't present for.  Cautiously, so as to give nothing away, she asked what about the session had been so important to him.  He said that it was her ability to listen to her without getting defensive, and she learned that he'd been talking about his feelings about women, authority figures, and the Catholic church.  As a female authority figure in the Catholic church, she might well have become defensive, yet because of her "absence" he had been able to speak freely.

After telling us this story she said something like, "Now, I'm not recommending that you fall asleep during a session ..."  It was a great reminder that, ultimately, the mysterious, mischievous, playful Spirit which comes and goes as it will is the most important element in this work.

Rose Mary died last week.  I thank God for her life, for the chance to have known her even just a little, and for the truth that (as I say at memorial services and believe with all my heart) -- life is stronger than death, and love is stronger than anything.  I would say, "rest in peace," but I do believe that that would get too boring for this remarkable soul.  So, instead, rest in joy, Sister.


Pax tecum,

RevWik

Tell Me About This God You Don't Believe In ...

As part of my preparation to become an ordained minister I took a unit of C.P.E. -- clinical pastoral education.  Simply put, for a year I became a part-time hospital chaplain.  I learned a lot!  Perhaps especially because I am a Unitarian Universalist, the need to be able to be of service to people with a wide variety of religious and spiritual beliefs was excellent training.  For those not familiar with the religious tradition I serve, Unitarian Universalism does not demand that people assent to a particular creed.  Instead of asking "What do you believe?" as our foundational question, we ask, "What kind of world do you want to see?"  We think that if we agree on the vision of the world we would like to create together -- if we can agree what justice looks like, for instance, or how inclusive community should strive to be -- then we can recognize each other as religious/spiritual kin.  The question of belief only comes up secondarily -- I believe that we should live in this kind of a world because I believe Jesus Christ shows us the way.  I believe that we should live in this kind of a world because I believe that all things have Buddha-nature.  I believe that we should live in this kind of a world because there's nothing but us and we need to take care of one another.

In a Unitarian Universalist congregation you can find Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Sikhs, Wiccans, Transcendentalists, Spiritual-But-Not-Religious folk, and atheists sitting next to one another as one community.  This same diversity exists for hospital chaplains.  You can walk into one room and find a Seventh Day Adventist, and then walk into another room to talk with a Buddhist.  One challenge I found, and others have encountered as well, was walking into a room and being greeted by, "Thanks for coming, Pastor, but you don't need to spend your time with me.  I don't believe in God."

My supervisor taught me a response that I have used many, many times in my career.  (I have since seen it pop up in other places, so I'm not sure of its ultimate origin, but I'll always be thankful to my C.P.E. supervisor for it.)  When someone would say to her, "You don't need to bother with me.  I don't believe in God," she would respond, "Why don't we talk about this God you don't believe in.  I probably don't believe in that God, either."

To some people, the only thing that qualifies as "pizza" is the kind you can get by the slice in New York City.  For others, "pizza" means deep-dish, Chicago style.  When I was in Japan I ate "pizza" with a crust so thin that it was like a cracker.  And these very different foods are each called "pizza," and each is considered by some the only way that word should be used.  "It's not pizza if you can't fold it in half."

This is true of the way people use the word "God," too.  Some people believe that you can only use the word to refer to a male, interventionist deity who judges all of our actions within very narrow proscriptions.  Others, when they say "God," are thinking about an all-loving Mother.  Some people understand "God" to be singular, others a trinity, and still others a multiplicity.  And some find the word to be utterly meaningless, like "purple tap dancing unicorn with dentures," or "flying spaghetti monster."  And, as with pizza, there are people who think that their understanding of the word is the only understanding of the word.

The dominant culture in the West seems to reinforce the idea that "God" is a triune being, who actively intercedes in people's lives and who ultimately stands in judgement of us all.  (That judgement being, more often than not, condemnation.)  And since that seems to be the predominate understanding of the word "God" in our culture, people who don't find that understanding to be true often end up believing that that have to reject the idea of "God" altogether.  In other words, there are a great many people who "don't believe in God" because they reject a particular understanding of "God."  And, so, the invitation:  Tell me about this God you don't believe in.  I probably don't believe in that God either.

Over the next few weeks I'll exploring some of the ways people understand and experience what they call "God."  For now, I'll encourage you to think about the God(s) you "don't believe in," and to try to define more clearly -- and personally -- the "God" that you do believe in.

Pax tecum,

RevWik