Author: revbaum

I manage issues of faith & politics with a dry sense of humor and my own unconventional perspective. I’m ordained, progressive and “woke”. I am a chaplain, health coach, spiritual director and pastor.

The Need That Can’t Be Met

We all have spiritual needs. We may not want to admit that, or think that, or contemplate that but nonetheless, these are very real, vital needs. They are life saving, life sustaining and maybe life creating.

I have recently realized that I have had a wide variety of spiritual needs in the past. In ministry, I have traveled with, been the tour guide, the tourist and the lamp post on the corner in trying to assist others in finding, naming and meeting spiritual needs, not to mention my own.

In ministry I share with many others in having a rather large suitcase to journey along with spiritual needs. I feel a little like a carpet bagger of old, displaying my used and recycled wares from and for my journey, your journey. The older I get, the more things I acquire. I think I may as well open a corner store right before you head into a camping vacation of a lifetime. I wonder what that would sound like …..

“Here, try this walking stick, cane, pole, staff, whatever – it’s called different things depending on how you use it, I guess; … it’s been many places; some folks have used it to hike, some really rowdy folks might poke people with it, some folks need to lean on it because of weakness and others use it to go as an accessory to go with their pointy church hat on special occasions…”

“How about a book? I’ve got many maps for your journey and collections of travel stories all put together in one volume … I call it a ‘Bible’, others call it holy, or useless, or perfect, or even Godself writing a very long letter just for you… Lots of people use it, or well, they get one at the tourist shop on the way. Some say it will take you right along The Way, some say it’s just too confusing and they need a guide instead. Or both.”

“You’ll need something to carry your water in; you won’t last a day without it. Most of the planet is made of the stuff; you can drink some here and there and other places, avoid it altogether. Your water may become wine so keep an eye on it. You wouldn’t want to wash your face with that! Your water may be a way to quench your thirst, or clear a tickle in your throat. Or it may be especially clean spring water, some will even bathe each other in it. In fact, some get so excited about it, calling it something special, making it personal or out in front of everyone. They’ll dabble some on a baby’s head and make a big deal out of it, or they’ll splash around in it when they’re kids and it shows up in the rain. Good stuff. You can’t hold it in your hands very long though, it will all be gone. And when it’s gone, there’s nothing you can do but wait for more to come. You can’t make the stuff.”

“And don’t forget to get something to nibble on while you’re journeying. You’ll need it. Bread’s usually pretty good for that. Some bread is white, light, seeded, course, brown, black, even. They’ll call it ‘the staff of life’, which is sort of silly, being as I already mentioned the staff up there with the cane & walking stick. And get this: some will say that the real bread is God’s body. I know. Sort of hard to imagine. We usually share it with others along the way … make a real special get together with it, and someone brings wine and then, maybe that’s the way to fill that need. Some folks are okay with that alone. Many folks need more.”

So I sit in the corner stand, greeting people as they go on their Way. Sometimes all they want is to hear how I got here, but usually they don’t want to hear it as much as I want to tell it. Sometimes I get to greet groups of people … the kids are my favorite. They’ll walk right up to that odd black shirt with a really tight wrap-around-choking-you-white-collar and play dress up. Funny thing about that though, is that some folks will only call them “father” when they put it on.” Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense really.

Meeting those spiritual needs, the ones that can’t be met, is the great irony of faith, I guess. That just recently dawned on me. Try as I may with books and water and journeys and bread, they never meet that need.

So while many of us have these huge collections of things we use to meet spiritual needs (typically our own, unless we’re in ministry and we deceive ourselves into thinking we obtain this stuff to help others) we really use them to pat ourselves on our backs – we, I can’t say “we”, I can only speak for myself … I collect this stuff and sometimes I’ll look it over and think it proves how spiritual I am, until that day comes when I have to box it all back up again and carry it many more miles, because i think I have this stuff for my spiritual “needs”.

And the “stuff” doesn’t meet a spiritual need. Even prayer, I’m thinking, doesn’t meet the need either. Because the bottom line is that nothing WE do meets that need. We have to stop trying to meet our spiritual needs ourselves. We are not capable. Only God is can do that.

Let go.

 

 

 

 

 

Gray Night of the Soul?

Praying in the Dark
I miss the days of adolescence when I was able to leave the house, unknown to my parents and go outside, in our ten acres of pine trees, and pray toward the sky. I would choose any group of three stars and believe they represented the Trinity. On retreats in adulthood, often held in rural areas, the night sky draws me all the same. When there happens to be a moon in the sky, that, I believe, is the face of God. It is a holy prayer in the darkness.
I now live deep within the city, without so much as a yard to wander in during the night, in silent contemplation. It was only recently that I realized, upon checking to see if it were raining, that I realized there was not much darkness in the night. I capture sunrises and sunset and cloud formations as I go about my coming in and going out. I have, without noticing, transferred my God-in-the-moon to God-in-the-clouds.
How that is deeply metaphorical is in this:
“Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you”. Psalms 139:12
My darkness in the city, like my darkness in my spirit, is no longer the darkest dark. It is void of stars among the city lights. It is gray. It is pregnant with light behind it; it is in the rising sun hidden behind a group of clouds at daybreak, when the sun will rise above and burn the clouds away.
The night is not as dark as my melancholy spirit on an average day. It is not as dark at my present address than it was in my pines of adolescence. It is gray.
Gray is a combination of black and white, of day and night.
Gray is exactly where my spirit meets the Holy Spirit; or better, where my spirit meets the Holy Spirit given to me. The “darkness is not dark to You”. It’s not as dark to me, either.
When I long for the darkness of ages past, I am longing for a greater contrast in my spirit; I am longing to see the difference between the light and dark, ensuring myself of the presence of light; a process in my unique spirit.
Ergo, is my “dark night of the soul” now gray? And in that all encompassing grayness has not my spirit surrendered to the “Cloud of Unknowing”? Have I truly finally surrendered that my prayers, my connection to the God of all creation, now is a process in the way of the saints that is incomprehensible? And shouldn’t prayer BE incomprehensible, if in it, we indeed surrender completely?

10 January 2017

“Yes We Did” & Will Again

1-1-2017

I’ve been listening to all the pundits and political commentators discuss the end of the year and the beginning of the new one. So many changes, surprises, setbacks in the midst of such progress.

And I believe we have 19 days until we end an era that I have been so very proud to see from my generation. The end of the Obama administration that reigned in such grace & restored dignity to our country. So many wonderful things; from a President only a year older than myself.

We both had our 50th birthday while he was in office.

And now here we go, off into a complete unknown. We’ve divided but not only that – I mean we did that when “W” was in the White House, but we’ve become violently divided. Those black and white videos of Black protests in the south have returned in living color. And the once unusual shooting in Columbine has become routine. Hijacked commercial airlines happened in the late 70s but they didn’t fly into buildings. We were scared then. We are now terror-ed, terrified, by a fear deep down in our psyche.

The Obama campaign shouted: “Yes We Can” and brandished posters that merely had the word “HOPE”.

History repeats itself, they say.

So my hope for our “backlash” for liberals is not only equality (we still don’t have ERA but that still gets overlooked) & progress, communities of hope and laughter and education, safe schools and neighborhoods and a waning of fear, each year, trusting each other a little bit more … stretching ourselves a bit further, to meet someone who looks different from you, and talks differently and worships differently and listens to different music and speaks in different languages…

But that backlash could possibly do something entirely unexpected. It could be a renewal of Christianity in America.

I don’t mean fundamentalist atonement theology where some of the Commandments, the convenient ones, are shouted out like war cries while the beatitudes are left in the shadows. No, I mean Christianity. I MEAN the beatitudes, the Church, liturgy, community, communion. While the Baby Boomers walked away from the American traditional churches, the millennials are poking around in the simmering ash heap of what is left of Jesus in America and what he represents. They are polishing off some of the hymnals, altars, and candlesticks, with new eyes. They are drawn to liturgy.

People need ritual. People need tradition. And while we are becoming much more inclusive, some traditions gets a little watered down, or replaced with what draws a short-lived crowd. But these rituals and traditions are pillars that tell us who we are.

As a child I remember my siblings telling my parents that they would live with their lover before they would marry them. Jaws dropped. And people started relationships without traditional marriage rituals.

And the gay community wanted that ritual, that pillar too. Not just the “living together” that moved into, “we’re not just roommates”, to “I’m gay…” but all the way, full circle, to marriage. And we made that law. And it was good.

I have no clue of what the future holds. No one does. 2016 was a year of shock.

But if anthropology, Old Testament history of the people of God running from, then running to – God, theology and sociology tell us anything right now, we will come around again in a new way. The kids i meet in the hospitals will see a new world, a new society.
I’ve got to believe, and even finally admit, and get off my pissed-off-ed-ness and say, “I believe it will be good”. Not what I’d expect, not what I can imagine. But it will be good. Someday. Again.

Why I Fear For My Country

– December 11, 2016
I love my country. People want to flee because of this basket case that has been elected. Even though I’m a dual citizen and I can literally go live in Ireland, I am not giving up on the USA. I am an American. I have studied our government and our history. I have travelled to other countries and seen how they govern, I have watched the news.

I had to memorize “We the people…” in school. Just as I had to learn the Pledge of Allegiance and My Country Tis of Thee (and I know it’s also the tune to “God Save the Queen”). I was also taught “We Shall Overcome” as a national song. I get choked up listening to the national anthem, especially on Veterans Day. My dad WAS a veteran as was his dad and two of my dad’s sisters. My dad was a mainline Republican and with my mom as a diehard Democrat, they had many a discussion over politics but they loved each other and lived with each other in peace.

I am in shock and appalled by Trump’s election to begin with. It still doesn’t seem real but I’m mourning as I watch 240 years of democracy morph into this egomaniacal horror story. CEO’s have fought mightily – not for this country, no – but against our numerous agencies as in Secretary of State, Chief of Staff, EPA (OMG) and others preparing to “serve” this country. Serve? These billionaires serve no one except themselves and the bottom line of their profits. They don’t even do their own taxes and have paid less than I have, no doubt.

Make America Great Again? How about stealing “We the People”. We are a democracy and something has gone very very wrong when the loser of an election has over 2.5 million votes than the one who won the electoral college. But as I study our government a little more, I am beginning to see a glimmer of light that maybe the Electoral Collage can do what they are commissioned TO DO and that is reject any candidate who does not, and will not, adhere to the US Constitution.

I did advanced Clinical Pastoral Education at the Dallas VA Hospital. Orientation was two days. On the first day, we had to pledge to defend our country against enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC. I was choked up when we were called on to do so and even though I am not employed by the government, I never rescinded my pledge that day. I promised to defend this country against any person, organization, or powerful billionaire who is a threat to our country. Donald Trump and his inexperienced billionaire cronies are not looking out for our country. They will not defend it. They will take all they can, hide behind lawyers to save their profits and CPAs to ensure they pay no taxes.

This is no longer about Donald Trump – the person and his wild personality. This has entered an arena of trickle down democracy, a take-over of the land I love. I will “stand beside her, and guide her” and question (because I am an American and I CAN) whenever “that star-spangled banner yet wave o’er the land of the FREE and the home of the brave” is disrespected.

How about the last verse of “My Country Tis of Thee”: “Our father’s God to Thee, author of liberty, to thee we sing. Long may our land be bright with freedom’s holy light. Protect us by thy might, great God our King”. Is it at this point in the history of our country that our Freedom of Religion kicks into high gear and we the people have no other choice but to plea for God to save us from this destruction of our Constitution?

I will bold each part of the Opening of the US Constitution that I feel is on the verge of destruction.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure DOMESTIC TRANQUILLITY, provide for the common defense, PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE, and secure the Blessings of LIBERTY to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Add to this “Liberty and JUSTICE for ALL’ and we’ve got a stew of annihilation of the founders hopes for our country.

Bill Maher printed up his own baseball cap in response to Trump’s campaign one “Make America Great Again”. Bill’s is blue and has the words “We;re Still Here”.

With Bill Maher I will not give up the land that I love to a narcissistic demagogue whose only agenda is for himself, his family, his rich friends, and those who bow at his feet (figuratively). I will not roll over and play dead to a tax evading sexual predator who chastises the press for printing whatever the press chooses to print, and blocks freedom of speech unless the speech about him is favorable. I will not passively sit back and watch the FDA and EPA destroyed in order that industrial manufacturers are no longer regulated and can potentially poison our food and medicine. I won’t ignore actions to repeal a woman’s right to do with her body as she chooses. I won’t keep my mouth shut if Trump et al decides to destroy our land and wildlife, and poison the water we drink.

I will not sit back quietly as Americans of any religion, creed, color, culture, age, gender or sexual orientation are singled out and no longer protected by our law.

I didn’t raise enough hell about this sexual predator because there were so many issues in addition to that, I couldn’t keep up. “Bleed from ‘whatever’, “grab her by the p*ssy”, “I know more than the generals” and I’m not going to begin to list the number of atrocities that were used about Hillary or Obama.

This land is my land, this land is your land. God created all the things that live in a magnificent ecosystem and beautiful terrain of all types and God created humans in God’s image and patted us on the head and said, “It is good”. These living and breathing things that grow and thrive and eventually die are vastly important. The borders of our countries are not sketched out in a permanent marker seen from outer space, they are drawn in the sand. We are all people who bleed when we’re cut; we are humans – awesome creations – who live in a land where we are given inalienable rights. Anytime one person has power over another, be it one woman disrespected in public, one race not protected but threatened by those sworn to uphold the law; anytime someone is overlooked or had their dignity taken away, I will stand. I will protect all living things: people, animals, wildlife and all cultures, sexual orientations, races, ages, religion or disabilities not only because of my faith but because we are to be protected by law. I will not match hatred with more hatred nor will I allow myself or others to be disrespected.

I pledge allegiance to all humans. A piece of paper that might be required to live in this country or the threat of dividing groups of people and giving rights to some but not to all is not America.

Here I Stand.Why I Fear for My Country

Advent 2016

Monday, November 28, 2016
Advent 2016
What Are We Waiting For?

And so Advent begins for 2016. It is the advent, the dawn, of a new era. This era is completely unprecedented.

In the visual world, Donald Trump won enough electoral votes to elect him as the new president of our country. I am not alone in feelings of nausea, fear, anxiety, unrest, insomnia and the need to step away, for my own safety, from national news programs.

This is the last Christmas with the Obamas in the White House. During his administration so many who have been hiding from society have been able to step out of the darkness. We can be gay, transgender, lesbian, queer, bi. We are protected somewhat differently because violence will be prosecuted as a hate crime. People of the same gender can legally marry. The prevalence of cellphone cameras has caught white police officers acting badly in traffic stops of African American (mostly) men. This has happened so frequently (horribly) that people gathered together in numbers (safety in numbers?) to protest that something has to be done about the persecution, the incarceration rates of Black men, the prisons built by private agencies where states pay for their use, and thus, the more in prison, the more money the jail attenders make.

Anyway …
The point – the reason – I’m writing is because yesterday Advent began in a country I am afraid of, and cannot recognize – and a church, the UMC, which also hangs on by a thread swaying between inclusion and exclusion. It seems to be the anthem of all large bodies of people – human people – who make mistakes.

So into this new church order, new national order, I light my first candle on the wreath. Hope.

I do actually pray for world peace. I pray for a day when we will literally bend our swords into shovels and care for one another all across this world. I do believe that all humans are capable of love and to be loved. I believe we are all able to listen. I believe we have the capacity to tell the truth. I believe we can see evidence of peace during times of disaster but I believe it won’t have to be a disaster to get us there.

It seems we always have to fail in order to grow. I am coming to realize that more as I grow older. We don’t grow just because our DNA tells us to. We mature as people, Christians, citizens of our country and our world when we pitch the “shitty first draft” (Anne Lamott) and get serious about what we need to do next.

I believe the table of Jesus Christ is a sacrament, as long as you define as Sacrament as something that is a concentrated focal point of God’s love for us. I believe that also applies in baptism.

I believe the “Last Supper” is all about Jesus serving the disciples and doing so with the knowledge of the one who betrayed him and the one who would deny him, and he served them anyway. He withheld nothing. If Jesus let them sit at the table AND washed their feet, than we have no right to decide who can be at that table, because all of us are there by invitation only. We couldn’t buy a ticket of bribe an insider. We were invited.

And in the Eucharist, we tell this story and we also that Jesus was crucified under Roman law because he and his followers went against the status quo. He died that way, like many criminals before him, in a painful death. He was killed because of the things he said and did.

I do not believe in any guilt-ridden explanation of “The Great Thanksgiving” if it tells the story of his crucifixion and death that maintaining that Jesus “paid the price for sin” or was sacrificed for us (by us?) to pay some debt we owe to God. I think those are human constructs that made sense to a few and then became the creed – a delusional creed of good and bad and angry blood-thirsty God. I just don’t buy that.

That notion of “atonement” is not law. It is not “good news” by any stretch.

I do believe Jesus really was a person, a teacher, rabbi and prophet. I do believe he “got it” in terms of understanding God, and he understood God and the love of God better than any human ever had. He had a relationship with God that was also unprecedented. And he taught us to do the same.

I believe Jesus was resurrected, bodily. On Easter. And that resurrection was what Jesus was talking about when he said he would “come again”. He did.

There may be a day that we all “get it”, there more than likely will not. We as people don’t have to “get it” in any uniform way; we “get it” when we want it. Most of the time, it’s right before our eyes.

I believe that Advent is a time for the Church, and for me personally, to stop and be still. It is time to remember that out of nothing and no inheritance did Jesus enter this world in a humble way.

It is time to remember God coming into the world to show us the way to live in peace with one another, with our planet, and how to thrive, be well and enjoy the world we live in … this beautiful awesome world of mountains and streams and puppies and babies, oceans and valleys – people of all different colors, sizes, languages, laughs.

It is time to remember the Sermon on the Mount; the teachings about caring for each other, about humility, about simplicity, and not being a show off spiritually or financially.

It is Advent 2016. It’s time for something new. And if God could create this world/universe/cosmos, then God can lead us to new and incredible things.

Maybe the direction of the country designed by and for the people with the most money in the world will discover that money has no value. None. It doesn’t buy love or happiness. It doesn’t make the world a better place.

Money makes us steal and lie to keep it or get it or protect it. “The root of all evil”. Yep.

Maybe the “value” of currency worldwide will disappear altogether. The thought of buying and selling will vanish.

Even in Star Trek; the future of space travel, etc, they wrote into their scripts that currency is outdated; something of the historical past.
It is time for change. It is time to throw out all of our old ideas and just ask a prayer – we will lose nothing by dong so. Just pray. Pray for our world. Pray for each other. Pray for hope and joy and faith and peace. Pray like it’s Advent 2016!