A friend among the Alexandrian Catechists

A nice feature of summer reading is that it seems to veer off the usual paths and scope out some new directions. I found some enjoyable novels but also in the later part of the season have returned a bit to some more esoteric writings. I have unanswered questions in that domain as to how it may be a part of my future. It is a deep well in my spirituality that cannot be shut off without doing violence to my spiritual path. Looking at it from an anglican three legged stool perspective, I have far too much contact with the scripture, tradition and reason/experience of Hermeticism for it to vaporize. It is part of who I am and it is part of my path to God. The best I or any of us can do is to give that path to God to do with it what he wills. We can trust that whatever that it is, it will be its Summum Bonum, its Highest Good.

So before the Academy begins in the Fall (actually the first gathering is next week!), I wanted to look at some old material & and see what new material may be about. As with other areas of spirituality and life in general, there are some very emergent happenings in these communities. In addition to a renewal within the Rosicrucian Order, the Institute of Noetic Science is becoming more and more active. I also found a system called New Hermetics meant to combine the best of magical practice with advances we have had in psychology and the workings of the mind, while letting go of some of the complicated metaphors from earlier paradigms. It seems to be watering some dry Hermetic patches in my brain. It is helping to complete some links and flesh out some of my Kabbalistic knowledge in a way that feels like it will stay with me.

And yet none of this deters me from the fact that my true will (to invoke Thelema which is another whole kettle of fish indeed) is to study, pray, work, and rest within a Christian Context. These past three years have brought possibilities to the fore, like nothing that happened in the decade prior. And yet, as I keep saying in different ways, I know that God will use it all.

Along those lines I found a comrade spirit among the early theologians of the Church. His family's Christianity and his education in secular philosophy (Greek & Egyptian the blend of which would later be foundational to Hermeticism) combined to shape his contribution to the church.

In the article on Origen in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, I found:

He became interested in Greek philosophy quite early in his life, studying for a while under Ammonius Saccas (the teacher of Plotinus) and amassing a large collection of philosophical texts. It is probably around this time that he began composing On First Principles. However, as he became ever more devoted to the Christian faith, he sold his library, abandoning, for a time, any contact with pagan Greek wisdom, though he would eventually return to secular studies (Greek philosophy), from which he derived no small measure of inspiration, as Porphyry (recorded in Eusebius) makes quite clear, as he continued with his ever more sophisticated elucidation of biblical texts.

Origen struggled with where his focus should be, but followed his inspriations and God used it all. I will continue to pray that he does the same for all of us.

Make No Small Plans

While browsing at Powell's, this quote popped out at me as something I needed to hear:

Make no small plans. Thay have no magic to stir humanity's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work... Remember that our sons and daughters are going to do things that will stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon, beauty. Think big.

- Daniel Burnham (renowned architect of the 19th and 20th Centuries)

This is now a couple days later. The seed of this post lives in my twitterstream as: "A whisper: remain open." While I am being called to focus as plans come together for the fall, I need to remember that this is only the beginning of my discernment process. While it is good to avoid extra bagage, projects, and false requirements; it is also good to leave the mind and heart open to big dreams and possibilities, for those which are too small lack the magic to inspire realization. Yet another tasty tension which calls me one more step forward.

Knocking on the Academy's Door

This fall the Diocese is holding the first class of a new local initiative. It is the Academy for Formation and Mission and will be used to provide training to potential Deacons and Priests as well as lay people. This blog has already done me an incredible service by serving as a place to work our ideas and statements that needed to be included on my application essay. This essay is below and though it is really a condensation of things previously posted I include because of the sheer amount that it reveals about me in so short a space (I was limited to one page).

Thank you.

Timothy/Kevin

*****


In 2008, I was confirmed at Trinity Cathedral and entered its Cornerstone Benedictine Community. Both of these events are quite important to me as I now consider my primary spiritual identity as a Benedictine in the Anglican Tradition. In many ways I feel that I have been welcomed home to a place where I can share my whole spiritual journey and join in those of others without being fragmented. Just after my college years, I definitively left the Presbyterian Church after a moratorium on discussion regarding the ministry of gays and lesbians was imposed. I knew that I did not have a place there. My spiritual pursuits had already broadened into less orthodox areas. While retaining the core of my Christianity I explored Rosicrucian mysticism, Kabbalah, and Druidry. For about 15 years, I focused considerable energy into these paths. In 2007, I came to a bit of a crisis point with my mystical studies. I was leading a group in Seattle that was collapsing due to shrinking attendance and facilities issues while my own sense of the numinous all but extinguished. I was to attend a worldwide conference of the Order in Berlin, the week after I resigned my position heading the lodge in Seattle. I knew that I was still called to Berlin but that I needed to let the conference go. It was an excellent time for reflection in a brand new environment. I found myself repeatedly drawn to churches. Upon my return, I became very ill which brought me even further to a halt and a point from which to reflect. There too I found Christian influence. A close friend offered a laying on of hands while I was staying in the hospital. That was probably the first prayer in Jesus name in which I participated for some time (though I had actually attended Trinity regularly for about a year in 2003). This prayer was an axis upon which I turned. I realized two things in that place of non-movement: the need for community and a call back to the church. Slow and steady steps led me to the two events I mentioned at the outset.
All of the bits and pieces, threads and links above contribute to what I hope for in studying with the Academy and the ministry to which it can lead, whether it be lay or ordained, in an intentional community or at work in the world. Even if ordained, I know that the church has need for those of mixed vocations and varying income sources. Form is obviously undefined. That is a major reason that I wish to participate in this educational opportunity under the guidance of the diocese. I trust that the where and how to serve will become clearer in the years ahead. In my return to the church I have been particularly inspired by those working as emergents and how that may provide ways to blossom in a rapidly changing environment. I attended the two Emerging Christianity conferences sponsored by Richard Rohr’s Center. This has inspired a few adult education opportunities at Trinity last year and for the coming year. Using these new understandings, I believe that reaching out and networking to a variety of communities will become increasingly important. Given my attachment to the City of Portland (having come to attend Reed College and feeling called to stay), I hope that I might be a link of mutual understanding between the church and the gay community as well as the “spiritual but not religious.” One thing I know from my esoteric forays is that this identification covers a wide variety of very distinctive stories and religious experiences. We will need Christians who understand the paths they have walked. Priests are called to minister to the whole church and wider community, but evangelism often and effectively involves a bit of specialization. I hope that I might put mine to use in service to God and neighbor in thanksgiving for the blessing it has brought me. Many others may be waiting for an invitation to return or to find a new home.

Kevin Day (kevin7day@gmail.com)
Feast of St. Mary Magdalene 2010

Connecting with the Kingdom

My experiences at the Episcopal Village conference and in reading Dwight Friesen's "Thy Kingdom Connected" keep reverberating. I find more and more examples and experiences of network ecclesiology and missiology. Recently I've found myself connecting through all sorts of ways to Christians in other places and bringing those more distant or weak connections into my primary Christ clusters. From the says the hours with folks at Anglican Cathedral and St. Matthew's by the Sea in Second Life (an framework for creating virtual worlds), following the Presbyterian General Assembly on Twitter, Facebook friending new connections met at a face to face conference to get behind the movement to Believe Out Loud, and bringing these conversations back into my weekly benedictine group meeting. Virtual and Physical; Far and Near; New and Deepening connections: a very Mixed Economy indeed.

And all of this in the past two weeks. This seems like a holy fire worth stoking to see how it may burn bright for the kingdom.

Blessings on the summer road!

"Like"ing our way deeper into or beyond dual thinking?

Walking to work this morning, giving a thumbs up or down to the various musical selections that Pandora was making for me led me to wonder whether Facebook style "like"ing of everything under the sun was making our preference oriented world more deeply mired in our opinions.

Then a different totally unsubstantiated thought entered my head. What if by giving the little self's voice expression on any topic it desires in a socially acceptable and even entertaining way, it no longer needs to compete with our true voice. They just each are allowed to find their own level. It's no good pretending that we don't like/dislike this or that particular song or restaurant or whatever.

A side note is that on Facebook there is in fact only one button: Like. Apparently they know Thumper's mom. Pushing this button only creates connections. (However don't push my metaphor too far because as soon as you hit it that button says in a rather Newspeak sort of way: unlike; oh well, one thing at a time).

So you be the judge. Feel free to Like this theory or "don't say anything at all."

Paradigm shifting our way into the Kingdom

One of the speakers at this week's Episcopal Village - Mission West [#epvwest in twitterspeak which I just started using because of said conference] was Dwight Friesen a church planter and professor at Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle. I actually missed a good bit of his talk but I thought I'd make up for it by picking up his book. I am so glad I did. I'm only into the second cluster of chapters but it is excellent. It is actually starting to give me a practical vision of what emergence can means for the churches. In some ways it seems to be the missing link between new theology/ecclesiology and the interesting new practices/efforts. This is focused right on the nexus between those two to show how shifts in our thinking (and the hows/whys of those shifts) can lead to what he called the "networked kingdom".

The shift that Dwight is focusing on is atomistic to networked. I think we can even broaden that scheme a bit to get a better view (this is not even a little bit of a criticism of his work, just pulling back for a different perspective, plus adding some of my own lenses on shifts and paradigms).

What if "networked church" can be for us the link between "atomistic individuals" and "shalomic kingdom". In many ways this reminds me of the old (semi-gnostic) schema for enlightenment:

Hylic to Psychic to Pneumatic

Letting go of the gnostic element by making this a corporate endeavor:

Atomistic Individuals to
Networked Church to
Shalomic Kingdom

In the book creating links is tied to getting things into the light. Moving from Hylic to Psychic is all about creating connections and shifting from dark to light. I am proposing that third layer so that the framework of the network can be filled in by the spirit this becoming "pneumatic" or soul-filled/God-filled. This is the "I am among you" element of the Kingdom. In some ways it reminds me of superconductivity. When the material is super-cooled it becomes a perfect network through which electricity flows like frictionless fluid.

I am all for the frictionless flow of peace in the kingdom.

Well. Off to Eucharist. Many blessings.

The conflicted field at the edge of mystery

I'm watching a speech given by Sister Mary Ann Scofield at the 20th Anniversary conference of Spiritual Directors International. She named something that I've experienced time and again these past few years. As people were encouraging her to coordinate a networking group for spiritual director, she admits that she felt both attraction and resistance. She recommends that when those two are experienced at the same time we are very close to the mystery. It reminds me of the consolations and desolations described by a spiritual director of Jesuit background that was one of the teachers for a class I took last year. Feeling compelled to move forward just as you are wishing you could simply flee the place and tasks ahead does indeed seem to be part of the field surrounding "the narrow gate" to which we are called.

I would run, but what would be left and where would I go? I know that I am getting closer and closer to that which seems to be real, mutual, and of genuine hope. The details and the necessary tasks can be worked through. Jesus said in many ways, that which needs to be done will be done. Just come and see, let the worriers take care of themselves.

One more step on the road.