Whittier Presbyterian Church

Apparently the Amish have two sides to their communal nature, as do all other religious groups.  The Oct. 17, 2012 edition of Christian Century magazine gives coverage to both sides.  In one of the short articles in the “Century marks” section there was this:

“TEAMWORK:  someone asked an Amish farmer what community meant to him.  He said that whenever he and his son are finished with spring plowing, they let their horses rest at the highest point on their farm, where they can see 13 other teams of horses working the neighboring fields.  “I know that if I get sick or debilitated or die, those 13 teams will be at work on my farm” (told by Wendell Berry in Hedgehog Review, Summer).”

The same issue of the magazine tells the story of an Amish extremist and his followers who were found guilty of hate crimes.  This breakaway Amish bishop and his followers appear to have all the markings of a radical cult group, with bizarre punishments and free sex for the cult leader.  I’m saddened to hear of such behavior among the Amish, known for their ability to forgive deeply and exhibit some of the finer characteristics of Christianity.  But it reminds me that we are all human, capable of equally great love and great self-centeredness.

Where do you find the greatest inspiration from your faith?  What parts of your faith disappoint you, your own interior faith or the expressions of others who claim the same faith as yours?

May you grow through both the positive and negative elements of your faith.

We are witnessing an apocalypse-sized storm on our east coast.  I suspect days will pass before we know the fuller impact and damage of this storm.  Here are some words about the continuing apocalypse that we live in.  They come from Walter Brueggemann, now retired from serving a life as an Old Testament scholar.  I found these words in the July, 1994 issue of “Interpretation” magazine, a journal of bible and theology out of Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, VA.  At that time (the mid 1990s) Brueggemann was comparing faithful living in the US with faithful living in other areas of the world, like Eastern Europe or South Africa.

“Ours is a more difficult place, and we are always tempted to imagine that were we somewhere else, things would be more obvious and compelling.  It may be that the ethos and lack of serious discourse in the cultural matrix of the US make ours a most difficult environment in which to utter holy words.  Despite all our talk about “freedom of speech,” serious human discourse has, in reality, all but disappeared among us.  Issues are not much joined.  Serious hope is scarcely practiced.  Deep hurt is largely unacknowledged.  Ours is a most co-opted climate for humanness, besot as we are with power, arrogant in our greed, confident in our technology, still belatedly determined to work our powerful will in the world, characteristically on the side of brutalizing power.  It is ironic indeed that, in this society so impressed with “freedom of speech,” holy speech of abiding astonishment can apparently be completely obliterated by technique.  The cost of such “progress” is enormous, even if little noticed.  This cost comes in the disappearance of a human infrastructure, in the erosion of public institutions of justice, health, and education, and in the emergence of a permanent and growing underclass; the ultimate cost, however, is an absence of political will to match resource to need.  Indeed, the drastic separation of resource from need in our society is done almost with the arrogance of virtue, the virtue of a nullified compassion.  The outcome of such a procedure is the breakdown of persons, families, communities, and institutions the near disappearance of what is humanness.”

Aside from apocalyptic storms, these are fitting words for most of he presidential campaigns I’ve seen in the last 18 years.  Money, power and technology themselves are not to blame here.  It is our misuse of them all that calls our faith practices to pay closer attention.  Brueggemann’s is one of those voices that reminds me of the deeper forces going on around me, calling me to deeper prayer.

What calls YOU to deeper prayer?

I have always loved to read, I suppose since the time I sat on my parents’ laps and listened to the stories they read to me.  So I was delighted to read these words in the latest Christian Century magazine, by Deborah Smith Douglas, a Camaldolese Benedictine oblate who leads retreats in the United States and Britain:

“Over the course of my life, I have taken on all manner of spiritual practices, from now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep to centering prayer. I have prayed with the Psalms, with the rosary, with icons. I have picked up practices and put them down. Some still discipline and nourish my praying life.

But of all the spiritual disciplines I have ever attempted, the habit of steady reading has helped me most and carried me farthest. Of course, reading scripture has been indispensable. But reading fiction—classics of world literature, fairy tales and Greek myths, science fiction and detective novels—has done more to baptize my imagination, inform my faith and strengthen my courage than all the prayer techniques in the world.”

I could have written every word in those two paragraphs.  (See dream comments below.)  Here is the link to the whole article:  http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2012-09/saved-fiction.  I commend the whole article to you, particularly the way Ms Douglas describes how reading was a life-saver for her.

Note how she is referring to fiction, not what we would call ‘devotional’ literature.  That is the perspective that appealed to me.  Indeed, in some ways, reading fiction can be seen as a practice of Sabbath!

What is YOUR favorite kind of reading?  May God meet you in the stories that are happening all around you.