Stories

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I was delighted to hear Dan Church speak this past Sunday, and it’s not because I got a Sunday off! Dan shared a story he heard on NPR about a photographer who was in Ethiopia who was moved by a story of a woman named “Amazing” being helped by a man named “Grace.” (Dan’s sermon is posted on the website.) Then, underneath all of this was Dan’s own story, as he shared with us some of his upbringing and Bible stories that moved him.

On top of that, I had just returned from the SUMYT Youth Retreat at Indianola where the theme of the camp was…stories. Rev. Jim Head-Corliss built his presentation around a children’s story, and as it true at every gathering of youth in our Conference there were “faith talks” in which youth share some of their stories – particularly something about how they have experienced God in their lives. For me the juxtaposition of all of this was an experience of God – a “thin place” – that is now incorporated into my story.

Then, on Monday evening Rev. John Haller, our coach who is leading us through the Beta-Vitality process, while speaking to a group of us gathered to discuss Radical Hospitality, started out by sharing some of his own…. story. For example, he shared with us about a young woman from a sorority (not being a “Greek” the particular sorority alluded me) invited him to attend the United Methodist Church in Austin, Texas. This woman eventually became his spouse, and he was then also connected to that Church for the rest of his life. He says that most of his best friends remain in that Church. And he shared with us about how he was once invited to a six week class about some of the fundamentals of faith (kind of like our Reconfirmation class) and how moved he was by the openness of the discussions – any question was allowed and everyone was welcome. He then went on his own theological quest that eventually led to ordination in the United Methodist Church. Both of these experiences changed his life.

We were also invited to share with each other about a time when we experienced hospitality. After he recognized that two minutes was not enough time and he gave us five more, I found myself sharing about when I was in 8th grade and going through a tough time in junior high, my mother kept encouraging me to go to the youth group at church. For the longest time I resisted – being introverted and wounded by other youth at school. Finally I agreed, but hesitated again when we arrived and I sat for quite a while in the car… crying. It took some courage and a very patient mother to get me out of the car and into the building and my life was never the same.

A couple of weeks ago Carol Sullivan brought a friend, Yisrael to our Sunday School class. It became apparent to us that he had an interesting “background,” he grew up Jewish while his partner was Christian and they have gone back and forth over their years together. This got us off topic, but then God in our lives is the topic, isn’t it? I have since decided that in the class each week a person will be invited to tell a little of his/her story. I sincerely want to hear these stories. And that is one of the cores of radical hospitality.

John Haller also told us a story of a pastor who was working on starting a new church. He went to a coffee shop and first put up a sign, “Let me tell you my story and I will buy you a cup of coffee.” There were no takers, for ten hours! Then he changed the sign, “If you buy me a cup of coffee I will listen to your story.” He said there was a line. I told the folks gathered on Monday night that I would even be more radically hospitable than that – my sign would say, “If you let me listen to your story I will buy you a cup of coffee,” that way I would avoid all the caffeine. But then, we may need to add a line item in the budget for that.

People are hungry to be heard. And the stories of people contain a wealth of spiritual insight and wisdom. For me, what makes hospitality “radical” is instead of inviting people to come to us, we feel the urgency to hear their stories, believing that our lives will be changed.

See you in worship. P.Jim

Cedar Cross Cooperative Preschool

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Children are spiritual beings. We forget that because we tend to think of spirituality as something elevated and adult – that one achieves; we are an achievement oriented society, after all. I am no expert on human development, but I believe that spirituality like psychology needs to be considered developmentally. There are stages of faith, and each stage has its own authenticity and distinctiveness.

When Jesus said that one had to become like a child to enter the Kingdom of God I think he was trying to awaken in his disciples an aspect of spirituality or faith that adults often lose – that is a open ended, nonjudgmental and intuitive sense of awe and wonder. Consider the imagination of preschoolers. We see their painting as a bunch of blue and green splotches with little on no construct but to him/her it is surely a dinosaur swimming in the sea. We know that the last thing we should do is to tell them otherwise. With children we need to listen to their comments and questions as we view their paintings, not as constructs that need to be answered but as expressions of their inner spiritual picture book. We give them the language of faith – God, Jesus, stories in the Bible, the Church – as we would give them the paint and the paper and let them go with it. Questions about faith and spiritual matters can cause a panic as if we have to provide them with an answer, and it has to be the right answer. Rather, let questions be opportunities to explore – instead of trying to come up with the answer ask questions to further stimulate the child’s imagination. “Is God a man?” This could solicit a panic to get it right or to educate our children on the evils of patriarchy, but it could simply be an invitation to explore images of God. “I don’t know, what do you think?” isn’t a bad response. One of the challenging things for us is it could rouse our own explorations into how we see God, something we rarely do. When I teach confirmation to youth the first thing I ask them is about their images of God. At first they looked surprised because they were expecting something different – they were expecting me to tell them how they should see God or what they should believe about God. But once they understand what I am asking them they have no trouble talking about it because they have been imagining God all their lives. But sadly, they have rarely been asked the question.

With the youth in confirmation and with adults I say the theological task is not to come up with the answers but to articulate better questions. With children it isn’t to tell them what to believe but to awaken their spiritual imaginations. It isn’t as if we have to put God in them – God is already there.

Pastor Jim

Spiritual Training

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On my way up to visit Aaron in Bellingham last Friday driving through Mount Vernon suddenly a fast approaching car fills my rear view mirror. He has been weaving through traffic and now is tailing me. I am driving 65 in the left lane, traffic is ahead so that really there is no where to go. I usually leave a space between myself and the car in front of me so he might have imaged that there was room to get ahead – which is a kind of blindness. He then flashed is high beams four times. I was feeling a little…. angry and mischievous so I tapped my brake lights… four times. Then I got out of the way, he passed in a dash only to tailgate the next car, but he did manage to offer me a gesture going by. For the next few miles I analyzed my actions and decided it was really ill-advised to pump the brakes; when I saw the gesture it only made me more angry and that just didn’t feel good. I was reminded that automobiles are an invitation to rage.

This sort of thing doesn’t happen on trains. As many of you know, I took the train down to see my mother in February. One of those sitting near me on the way back, a young woman who is studying design at North Seattle Community College was on the train for the first time – it shouldn’t, but it astonishes me. I first took a train when I was about nine years old all the way to North Carolina and back. Of course, in Japan trains are standard and ubiquitous. The man sitting next to her was a 29 year old Englishman who was just traveling – spontaneously. That is, he went wherever he felt like, without a schedule (shejual) to his heart’s content. The man sitting next to me was traveling up to Everett to film a commercial. He grew up in Southern California, had been living in New York City for some years and had just moved to Beaverton, Oregon weeks ago. He was adjusting to “rural” Beaverton and the weather. We also talked about the Premier League – he is a Tottenham fan and was indignant when I told him that Kenneth liked ManU. “That’s like rooting for the Yankees!” On the way down I sat next to a man who had been up to British Columbia to visit his dying father. He had been going up from Albany, Oregon about every ten days. His father lived without family up there – he was the child living the closest. He said there was a man from the church who came every day to see him, as well as the priest, occasionally. Essentially, he said he didn’t know what he would do without the church. On the other side were two young men who didn’t speak to each other until after Portland, they were totally engrossed in their iPads! When they did they discovered that they were both students at Willamette University in Salem. Not only that, but the one nearest me was a just arriving exchange student from Japan! Well you can imagine how that perked me up. As he was just arriving he was having trouble with his English and I was able, surprisingly to assist a little. He asked me what I “did” and after I told him I was a “bokushi” he looked at me keenly and said, “I want to know about your church.” The best I could do at that point was to invite him to attend the First UMC in Salem. Even then, the connection was significant. Before detraining, in Japanese fashion he wanted to have a picture of us taken together. I can see him skyping home, “You wouldn’t believe I ran into this pastor who spoke Japanese.” That would never have happened if I had driven. And I was more relaxed when I arrived too.

We scarcely realize how isolated we have become in our culture. The automobile has been formed this in us over a century, and now its all those electronic devices that first kept the Willamette students separated. Ear buds say, “I’m not interested” whether we mean them to or not. I am no Luddite, I love email and the Internet, but I am also aware that much, if not most of the connecting via the Internet is with people like us. We increasingly organize our lives into lifestyle enclaves rather than into communities. I believe in the power of community in our world today. I believe that the focus of our evangelizing needs to be our community – not our “message” but who we are. There are so many people who live their lives like they drive, and it’s not very enriching. They are hurt and angry. THE WORLD NEEDS US!

See you in worship. P.Jim