April 15 - Dare to Dance Week 1

Dare to Dance: Moving towards Healing

Anchor: Judy Emerson’s drawing with one additional image

Thread: Dance, Song - Healed Healthy and Whole

Other Thread ideas:

prayer beads, with additional beads for each week added

Frames: April 15 -             Wk#1 – Internal/wounded

Image:  Child in fetal position, naked

Wounded, defended, holding back

2 Samuel 15:32-33

The king said to the Cushite, ‘Is it well with the young man Absalom?’ The Cushite answered, ‘May the enemies of my lord the king, and all who rise up to do you harm, be like that young man.’ The king was deeply moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept; and as he went, he said, ‘O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would that I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!’

                Our dance toward healing begins with the acknowledgement that we are wounded. Every one of us experiences some kind of wounding in life, none of escapes unscathed. In “Waiting for Godot,” Samuel Becket expresses this human condition: "The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops.” To acknowledge that we are wounded does not deny the hope for healing, but it is often a grueling, painful admission.

                David is one of the more wounded individuals in the bible. Wresting the kingdom from Saul costs the life of his best friend (David says of Jonathan, Saul’s son, “greatly beloved were you to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.”) When David takes the throne, he garners the hatred of his wife, Michal, Saul’s daughter. His best known failure is his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband. The text above is the culmination of his own son’s treasonous campaign to take the kingdom from David. Absalom’s treachery notwithstanding, David still loves his son and grieves deeply over his death. And yet for all his woundedness, David is still heralded as the greatest king of Israel. His imperfections and wounds do not prevent him from being of use and available to God.

                While woundedness is seen in common wisdom as a punishment from God, that is not always the biblical witness. Rather, it isi the midst of woundedness that God draws near to tend, to comfort, and to heal. The resurrection of Jesus can be seen as a cosmological parable in which God heals the world’s deepest wound: death itself.

                It must be difficult to dance when wounded. And yet, this may be one of the most important times to dance. Dance is an art form, a form of expression. To not dance is to repress one’s wounds. To dance is to give the pain back to the world, to release it into the ether. Some of the world’s greatest art has come from anger and pain (see Picasso’s Guernica). So dancing itself is an act healing and freedom.

                The image for this week begins with a person drawn into a fetal position. How do our wounds make us withdraw, pull in? Can healing begin when we are so contorted?

                It seems to me that we need to give people a chance to acknowledge, if not name, their woundedness. Maybe the church lost sight of the idea that confession is not about listing sins but rather about naming our wounds and calling for healing. What are ways we can do this in the Studio?

                A song ide might be REM’s Everybody Hurts:

When your day is long and the night

The night is yours alone

When you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on

Don't let yourself go

Everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes

Sometimes everything is wrong

Now it's time to sing along

When your day is night alone (hold on, hold on)

If you feel like letting go (hold on)

When you think you've had too much of this life, well hang on

Everybody hurts

Take comfort in your friends.

Everybody hurts

Don't throw your hand. Oh, no

Don't throw your hand

If you feel like you're alone, no, no, no, you are not alone

If you're on your own in this life

The days and nights are long

When you think you've had too much of this life to hang on

Well, everybody hurts sometimes

Everybody cries

And everybody hurts sometimes

And everybody hurts sometimes

So, hold on, hold on

Hold on, hold on

Hold on, hold on

(Hold on, hold on)

Everybody hurts

You are not alone

                The good news in acknowledging woundedness is that healing is indeed available. Dancing not only names our wounds, but opens us to that healing.

                I am still waiting to hear back from Tsahai about her availability to be with us. We may want to be looking for an alternative. I think it is important to have actual dancing in the house, but this video may also be of use to us: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTrb6i7gJAk&feature=related

Easter - April 8

April 8 – Easter Sunday

Anchor: The Way
Frame: We are invited to experience resurrection, continuing our pilgrimage of life
Question: Is resurrection for real?

Mark 16:1-8

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’ So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

                OK, here is my bottom line belief about Easter: Easter is something that happens to us, one that continues to happen, and not some isolated historical event locked away in the past. I do not know if the tomb was empty, or if there even was a tomb, but it seems to me that people have experienced the life-giving presence of Christ ever since the first century. Lots of people think Easter is something that happed to Jesus, but I believe it happens to us. Easter happens when we experience the life-giving-restoring-renewing presence of the Spirit of Christ.

                Mark’s gospel tells the story this way. The risen Jesus is never seen. The youth delivers a message that Jesus will meet the disciples (all disciples?) back in Galilee – back where the story began. The story of “The Way” ends by saying that the way continues, get back on the road.

                Which brings us back to the movie, “The Way.” Tom thinks he is taking his son’s ashes on the pilgrimage his son was unable to complete. The camino de Santiago ends at the cathedral of Santiago. But after an episode where a gypsy boy steals Tom’s pack (and Daniel’s ashes), the boy’s father tells Tom that he must continue his journey beyond the cathedral and go to the sea shore. There he can put Daniel’s ashes in the water. “You must do this for you, and for him,” says Ishmael, the boy’s father. When Tom shares this with his traveling companions, to a person they say that they will go as far as the cathedral but then they are done. Eight hundred kilometers is enough to walk. But after arriving at the cathedral, they laugh at themselves and the next scene shows them all walking with Tom to the sea shore. It is at the sea shore that these 4 characters really discover life, and find real acceptance of who they are: The author finds a story, the smoker accepts names her denial, the man wanting to change accepts his life, and Tom gives his son to the sea.

                A symbol given to the pilgrims walking the camino de Santiago is a small sea shell. Since the earliest days of the church, Easter has been a time for baptism, which os often symbolized with a sea shell. I don’t think that we will have an actual baptism to celebrate this Sunday, but we can all remember that we are baptized, and maybe we can give out sea shells to remind us that we are still on this pilgrimage called life.

                One unrelated thought: Back at the beginning of Lent we ran a video featuring Diana Butler Bass talking about hospitality as salvation (http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/index.php?ct=store.details&pid=V00722). In that video she is askedif she believes in the resurrection. She quotes a friend of hers who said, “Yea, I’ve seen it too many times not to believe it.”

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday – April 1

Mark 11:1-11

When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’” They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,

“Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!

Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

Buen Camino! That is the greeting offered to the pilgrims journeying on the way to the Cathedral of St James in northern Spain, beautifully portray in the movie, “The Way.” “Buen camino” means good way. We have been following signposts on way through Lent. Liturgically and seasonally, the journey through Lent leads us to Jerusalem. Palm Sunday marks the culmination of Jesus’ pilgrimage to the holy city, as he enters the gates with shouts of praise and hope. And, one way or another, on Palm Sunday we have come to Jerusalem, too.

The story of “The Way” is spun around the journey a father takes as he finishes the pilgrimage his could not complete because of his death. This father (Martin Sheen) is asks as he sets out why he is doing the pilgrimage. Why are you on the camino? When he really cannot answer, he is told that it is only for oneself that the pilgrimage is undertaken. Only for yourself.  The camino of the main character is one of discovery of his son, himself, and oddly enough of community. (It would have been a great movie for last week, but I only watched it on Sunday afternoon!)

The questions that Martin Sheen faces in the movie can be our questions as well. Why are we on this way? Why, other than blind tradition, are we in Jerusalem with Jesus on Palm Sunday? How do we make our spiritual pilgrimage a buen camino?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hy54CpKeqk

Maybe we can even plan an impromptu movie night during Holy Week at the church to watch the movie.

March 25 Group Therapy Practiced here

March 25 – Group Therapy Practiced Here

5th Sunday of Lent

Anchor: Signposts for Renewal
Frame: How do we journey together through life and in the Spirit?

Thread: Signs Added Each Week  (I don’t know where I am, but I know I’m not lost.)

Luke 6:12-16, 8:1-3

Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

Some Women Accompany Jesus

Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.

Whenever I read about the twelve disciples, I’ve always assumed that Jesus gathered followers because he wanted to pass on his wisdom. They were there to learn. Likewise, the women mentioned in the second part of the reading followed Jesus because of his teaching, his healings, as well as his welcoming attitude for all people. The women followed because they needed Jesus.

Back in Nebraska I was a part of a covenant group for almost 15 years. We met weekly for almost all that time, despite being in different communities for much of those years. We studied scripture for worship, we planned for our churches, but more than that we shared our lives: our hopes, our worries, the times we were lost on the road, the times we could almost shout for joy. We came together because we needed each other, and we were there for each other.

It was being embraced in the heart of that group that enabled me to see that there may have been a different reason that Jesus gathered people around himself. Yes, he had things to teach and wisdom to impart. But like all of us human beings, Jesus needed to be part of a community. Even he couldn’t go through life all alone. We are created to need each other. Jesus, too.

And so finally our journey through Lent, really the whole journey of our lives, is not a solitary sojourn. We do it in community. John Wesley said that there is no such thing as a solitary Christian. Being Christian is something we have to do together.

The signpost that was our inspiration for this week is one that says, “Group Therapy Practiced Here,” emblazoned below a collection of wine glasses. For a lot of reasons we won’t use the metaphor of drinking together as our sign of community, but the idea that we come together as a group for therapy, for healing is the core of this week. The idea that Lent is something we do together might be a little new for some of us. Usually we are encouraged to do self-examination, and even the contemplation we practiced last week can be seen in a solitary fashion, and other Lenten practices are often ones left to our own discipline and benefit.

Worship is the most visible form of community we do as Christians. To be sure, many religious and spiritual traditions worship in community. We are wrapping up our journey through Lent together. The interior construction, the detours, the words connecting us to God, the silence in which we discover God we bring with us as we gather in community. We may not know where we are, but we are not lost – together.

So, how do we celebrate spiritual community? How do we support each other? How does a spiritual community differ from other kinds? And how do we invite isolated, fearful people into our community?

March 18 – Stop, Look, & Listen

March 18 – Stop, Look, & Listen

Anchor: Signposts for Renewal

Frame: How can prayer and contemplation be a signpost directing us to home, to life, to renewal?

Thread: Signs Added Each Week  (I don’t know where I am, but I know I’m not lost.)

Luke 10:38-42
 Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ But Jesus answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’

                Children are taught to “stop, look, & listen” whenever they cross the street. It is also the instruction given when approaching an unregulated railroad crossing (one without crossing arms or bells).  It’s good advice: be sure it is safe to proceed, double sure.  For those of us on a spiritual journey, it is even better advice. We are not making sure that it is safe to cross, we are being sure that we are ready to encounter the Divine. Such is Mary’s example. She stopped what she was doing. She saw something in Jesus. She listened to what he was saying.

                Martha, on the other hand, was overwhelmed with her busy-ness. Yes, she was performing the tasks of hospitality, performing the role her society assigned to her, and presumably to Mary as well. But in her hectic state, she did not stop, she did not see Jesus for anything but an honored male visitor, and instead of listening she talked. Much commentary of recent years has defended Martha, and truth be told in Jesus’ day Mary’s behavior would have been disgraceful and scandalous. Nonetheless Jesus says that Mary has made the better choice. She stopped, looked and listened.

                So, in the context of the Studio, how do we stop, look and listen? Our series and the order of Diana Butler Bass’ book do not sync, but her chapter on contemplation reminds us that what we are calling “Stop, Look & Listen” is really prayer. This week’s studio is about experiencing prayer.

I do not have an order but I have thought about a number of ways to experience contemplation in the context of our worship:

·         sound a gong at regular intervals, signaling one minute of silent reflection (can just interrupt whatever we are doing, even singing)

·         we need some exploration of “monkey mind,” the interior chatter that makes silence difficult

·         highlight our prayer candles – making them more visible, maybe including that in our joys & concerns time

·         have a prayer station where a few people are engaged in prayer throughout the service, and invite others to join them for a few minutes or the whole time as they feel called

·         A video featuring “Listen to the Rain” by Evanescence as a call to stop and listen

·         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7M3uFaJ8K4 This is an annoying video that drums in the rule for crossing the street

·         bringing Mary and Martha’s story to life

We may also look for some personal stories of the ways that people have encountered God when they did indeed stop, look, and listen; to hear in their words why (as Jesus said) Mary chose the better part.

In-Formation March 11

Signposts for Renewal

March 11 – In-Formation

Anchor: Signposts
Frame: Scripture can be a signpost directing us to home, to life, to renewal

Thread: New signs (I may not know where I am, but I know I’m not lost)

                I am told that in years past, those who knew how to survive in the desert kept a look out for a tiny sign of hope: the dragonfly. Dragonflies are water-dependent creatures, and when a dragonfly was seen it could be followed and it would eventually (and assuredly) lead you to water. Dragonflies mean that there is water nearby, good news indeed in the desert.

                Scripture (the Bible) has been like dragonflies for a lot of people. Many of us do not know the grand sweep of the biblical narratives, nor have memorized the genealogies of the forebears of the faith. But lots of people know a verse here or there, something that has carried them through a difficult time or given them words of joy and thanks in times of celebration. On Facebook I asked what pieces of scripture have acted like signposts in your life. I got three responses so far:

                Zephaniah  3:17 (Just always what tells me to go forward in tough times.)

The Lord, your God, is in your midst,

   a warrior who gives victory;

he will rejoice over you with gladness,

   he will renew you in his love;

he will exult over you with loud singing

                I Kings 19:11-12 (a reminder not to look or listen to wrong things.)

 God said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before Yhwh, for Yhwh is about to pass by.’ Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before Yhwh, but Yhwh was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but Yhwh was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but Yhwh was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.

                Esther 4:14 (I am here -- "for such a time as this...")

For if you keep quiet at such a time as this, help and protection will come to the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Yet, who knows whether it was not for such a time as this that you were made queen?’

I am hoping we can find ways of lifting up the little signposts, the dragonflies,  that help us correct our course, or change direction, or head us toward home or life or hope. I’m thinking we could hand out blank cards as everyone comes in, asking them to reference a verse or passage that has been a signpost for them. Then we gather these up and read them throughout the service.

                I find it fascinating that even with only 3 responses we see quite varied examples of how scripture functions in our lives. (I also find it interesting that the 1^st 3 responses are all Old Testament!)  I know from asking similar questions that often the 23^rd Psalm is mentioned, especially in difficult or mournful times. We could bring back Bobby McFerrin’s beautiful version for his mother (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgbvHM03dMs&feature=related). I think this would be an apt time to hear from individuals for whom a passage or verse has had real meaning, and how that has affected the direction of their lives.

                If we have a “driver” skit again this week, we might have the driver seeing those kind of “Burma Shave” signs where each sign gives you just a word or two and to get the whole message you have to see all of them. We could get people to carry each sign across the front. I haven’t figured out what those signs might say yet!

                There are a couple of bible ideas I would like to confront. There is a saying that “BIBLE” means “basic instruction before leaving earth.” I believe the bible has much more to say about to how we live life here on earth than it does about the afterlife. The bible is not an escape hatch from life; it is a doorway into life in all its fullness.

                So, as far as scripture goes for Sunday, I think those signpost passages should be our focus. Therefore, I do not have a single passage to propose. Let’s ask each other what our signpost passages are.

March 4 - Detours and byways

Signposts of Renewal

March 4                Detours and Byways 

Anchor: Signposts for Renewal

Frame: Detours

Thread: Signs Added Each Week  (I don’t know where I am, but I know I’m not lost.)

               

John 14:4-7

“You know the way that leads to where I am going.” Thomas replied, “But we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?” Jesus told him, “I myself am the way— I am Truth, and I am Life.     No one comes to Abba God but through me. If you really knew me, you would know Abba God also. From this point on, you know Abba God and you have seen God.”

In “Christianity for the Rest of us” Diana Butler Bass says: “Christians think that faith is like a set of MapQuest directions—that there is only a single highway to God. After all, Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except by me.” He is the map. And Christianity is a kind of vacation destination, a place you wind up in to escape hell. Such Christians claim that God has a plan for your life, a route you must follow or you will be lost in this life—and damned in the next. They even have things like “four spiritual laws” and “forty days of purpose” that tell you how to get there. Like computer-generated directions, this road is predetermined, distant, and authoritative. You cannot exit this freeway or deviate from the route without peril. Taking a creative risk, as I did in my recent journey through Baltimore’s old neighborhoods, will not lead you home. Instead, it leads directly to hell and destruction. Who cares about a few spiritual traffic jams or construction zones? Better stick to the map. Follow the plan. But what if Jesus is not a MapQuest sort of map, a superhighway to salvation? What if Jesus is more like old-fashioned street signs in a Baltimore neighborhood, navigated by imagination and intuition? Rather than a set of directions to get saved, Jesus is, as his earliest followers claimed, “the Way.” Jesus is not the way we get somewhere. Jesus is the Christian journey itself, a pilgrimage that culminates in the arrival in God. When Jesus said “Follow me,” he did not say “Follow the map.” Rather, he invited people to follow him, to walk with him on a pilgrimage toward God. How, then, do we get there? How do we follow the Jesus way? You have to exit the highway, risk getting lost, and follow the signposts on the ground.”

Bass, Diana Butler (2009-10-13). Christianity for the Rest of Us (pp. 72-73). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

                When I am asked how many of these United States I have been in, I usually include West Virginia. Truth be told, I am not entirely sure that I’ve been in West Virginia, but I’m pretty sure I was. Back in college a buddy and I took a road trip from Minneapolis to check out graduate schools. Somewhere on the way to Raleigh-Salem, we decided to get off the Interstate and explore some of the more local roads. What these two sons of the prairie didn’t figure on was that roads in the Appalachian foothills don’t run straight. We soon lost our sense of direction and hoped that the next turn would finally take us back to the highway. We are both convinced that somewhere in that meandering drive we must have wandered into West Virginia. Y’all.

                What I remember about that drive was the few (well, maybe more than a few) times we stopped at an intersection hoping to gain some sense of the way back to where we knew where we were. The Interstate was the faster, safer, most predictable route. But it was not the only route to get where we were headed. And if we’d kept to the four-lane, we would never have visited West Virginia.

                My grandparents were great believers in the straight and narrow, and had they lived to see today’s society’s conversation about sexuality they would definitely have been on the straight side. They were of that theology and generation that believed that the goal of evangelism was to get everybody in the world to merge onto that grand superhighway of Christendom. They thought that God’s plan was to get all people on that straight and narrow road, confessing their sin and believing in Jesus. To them, the Hindu aphorism that there is one roof but many ladders would have been blasphemous and just plain wrong. But one of the characteristics of the new understanding of Christianity that is currently underway is that we see ourselves as one voice in the conversation of spirituality. And where our grandparents may have chosen the straight and narrow, many of us look for an interesting exit from the highway and seek to get a little lost out by West Virginia. Like Butler Bass’ description, the One Way of Jesus is not an autobahn, but is the act of following wherever Jesus leads us in this life.

In just the same way it took the Hebrews 40 years to go from Egypt to the Promised Land.  In fact, the biblical model is not the straight and narrow but rather the meandering path. In fact, the ancient Hebrew word for teaching, “halakhah”, literally means “the path one follows.”

                So it should come as no surprise that the Lenten journey is full of twists and turns and intersections at which we need to determine where to turn next.  The ending of the movie Cast Away captures this open ended nature. Tom Hanks’ character has survived a plane crash, being marooned on a desert island, losing the love of his life and his direction in life. He has finally delivered the package he protected through all his cast away years, and now stands at a literal and metaphorical crossroads. His life, rather than being over, is now wide open. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvGHSvfnlsQ  And that is possibly the best kind of Lenten message: our lives are wide open. Following Jesus is not about one straight and narrow road, but happens down all sorts of turning and twisting roads. Discerning God’s will for our lives is not a process of divining the one immutable thing God wants us to do. It is discovering God at work in a multitude of byways and options.

                I don’t know where I am, but I know I’m not lost. That little piece of wisdom tells us to trust our journey. I think we should begin by affirming that there is not lost place along the Jesus journey.  On Ash Wednesday we used a poem entitled “Lost” by David Wagoner (thanks, Elaine!). In that we had all of 16 people at Ash Wed, I think we could use it again. The poem affirms that lost is not really lost.