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.

The Church of Second Chances and Free Will

Thus was named the community created by the cathedral's Youth Affirmation class this year. Over the course of their year together the sixth graders each Pentecost unveil their vision of the church.

None of this is easy and none of this is quick, but it is good and it is real.

I've just returned home after the second brief encounter with an old friend in as many weeks. I'm happy to say that it seems he has had such an experience. it had been a long time since I'd seen him. When we had last spent much time together it was under very different circumstances. I'd known him from my days of drinking and nightclubs. At one point things had become a bit more disorganized that usual for him and he was out on the streets for awhile. I was able to provide some hospitality when he had reached a point of exhaustion and frankly was getting beaten up a bit more than I appreciated. Being closer to street kids and understanding how permeable that line can be is one of the great benefits I received from that time in my life. It is good to remember that Jesus was accused of being a drunkard carousing with tax collectors and prostitutes. That edge is an important place to be. I haven't successfully found my way back after sobering up. Perhaps it is just something to keep in mind as I move forward so that the lines do not harden between myself and my neighbors on the streets.

So perhaps five years later, rather than being on the same bar schedule as my friend, we seem to be on the same grocery shopping schedule. His son is four or five and is beautiful. He and his dad seem well matched right down to their hoodies. If I remember right, when he stayed over at my apartment and slept for about two days straight he was distraught and trying to work things out with his girlfriend. I'm pretty sure it was the beginnings of the pregnancy which led to the little boy I saw this afternoon. I'm sure both my friend and the mother where out of their minds with fear for the future. How could they possibly pull this off given the challenges they were facing? I don't know those particulars, but it looks like they've managed to keep walking that path one step at a time. It seems to me that my friend is a great example of living the benedictine vows whether he's ever heard of them or not. He has proven a stable presence for his son, he has been obedient to the needs of his relationship with the mother, and he has very obviously had a sincere conversion of life. I'm so happy that he has been blessed with a second chance and found reward in family life. Not all of my friends from the street have been so fortunate. My prayers go out to the ones still on the road and to those who have come home. Amen.

Always we begin again

Passing under a growing crescent moon in the still-light sky of the early summer on my way home from the cathedral this evening I began to feel again a sense of openness that I lost in the past week or two. Between work imbalances and perhaps prematurely thinking that I was getting close to what the future might look like, the spaciousness that was a lenten gift this year closed in a bit. Returning to the daily office yesterday, checking in with the benedictines in my small group, an education commission meeting, and a wonderful benediction written by John O'Donohue "For New Beginnings" to send us off into that still-lit evening brought it back. I knew it was there around the corner waiting for me to catch up to where it had run off.

There is yet another month on this journey of transformation that I sensed and began to sketch out last fall. There are a number of key elements and events that will close this arc and begin the next: a book reading and signing for Marcus' novel, a retreat on the coast to complete a series of classes, the Episcopal Village conference, and events to highlight and fundraise for Trinity's Center for Spiritual Development.

By that time we will have reached the solstice of summer and whole new vistas will open up. One of the gifts of Marcus' novel is a character's use of "Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim." It arrived yesterday and looks to be a lovely reconnection to creation in the context of daily and occasional prayer; perfect for a benedictine who also happens to be a druid.

May there be space in the souls of all of us for the spirit to move and breathe. God within, God without; the light of Christ's Peace all around.