Faith in a Box

We try to capture God with rational formulas and rigid beliefs. Some of that is necessary. We want our faith to make sense, so we construct a box to hold it. It’s sealed with rational propositions, holding the box shut like packaging tape. But for Christians, an infinite God present in every molecule of Creation can’t be so conveniently contained. Further this God’s incarnate human presence in the form of a wounded, suffering servant doesn’t make sense. Neatly organized propositional systems requiring belief as a ticket of admission may bring rational comfort and clarity, but do they yield faith?

Question: Will Belief in Beliefs Save You?

Reconnecting Heads and Bodies

Reacting against superstition, infallible religious authorities, and corruption, the Reformation reconstructed Christian faith, with coherent rational systems. The Enlightenment’s sovereignty of reason fit well most of the time. But too easily, heads were severed from bodies. In Edwin Muir’s words, “The Word-made-flesh here is made word again.” In reaction, religion for some retreated into unvarnished emotion. The whole person was left unintegrated. When we begin walking on a pilgrimage, however, the physical and the spiritual connect intimately. Body, mind, and soul are woven back together. Faith burns in that crucible.

Exercise: How do you experience faith beyond rational belief? Make a list of those ways, practices, or activities when your religious faith finds expression beyond thoughts and words. Write in your journal, or share with a group, what helps you walk into faith.

We are on a Pilgrimage. These posts are published here periodically and on Facebook on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. Take time to disconnect from your daily rush to read, reflect and journal.

Leave it Behind

Pilgrimages are as much about what we leave behind as about where we are headed. Relinquishment precedes destination. At a literal level, a pilgrim learns to leave unnecessary things behind to lighten his or her load. More deeply, pilgrims walk away from familiar versions of their self to discover their soul. The “first half” of our lives are shaped by necessary external securities, providing structure and formulas of belief. But religion often stops there, freezing us in place. The test of faith is to walk forward into our “second half,” in a journey of service expressing our true self, mysteriously hidden in God.

Question: Whose life am I living?

“Let Go and Let God”

Honestly, that phrase can sound like one of those superficial spiritual formulas. But it holds a deep truth. Truly walking away from accomplishments which inflate the ego, and comfortable securities of belief which smoother questions, requires relinquishment and faith. As James Hollis writes in Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life:

In the second half of life the ego is periodically summoned to relinquish its identifications with the values of others, the values received and reinforced by the world around it. It will have to face potential loneliness in living the life that comes from within….No wonder so few ever feel connected to the soul. No wonder we are so isolated and afraid of being who we are.

Exercise: Review the story of Charles de Foucauld (see below) and then pray his “Prayer of Abandonment.”

(Change the gender language if you wish.) Pray it again. Listen to what it may ask of you. Record in your

journal, and share, if you feel free to, with others.

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From “Without Oars” The story of Charles de Foucauld.

Charles de Foucauld was born in Strasburg France in 1858. Orphaned at age 6, he was raised by his grandfather, who imparted parted to Charles faith in the Catholic. Eventually studies and experience shaping his development caused him to depart from religion. The death of his grandfather left him a rich financial inheritance. He joined the military, becoming an officer, and was sent to Algeria, a French colony. Captivated by the culture, and in a conflict with his superiors over a romantic affair, he eventually resigned from the army and settled in Algiers.

Europeans were generally forbidden in neighboring Morocco. But undeterred and leaving previous securities behind Charles spent 11 month walking for 3,000 kilometers, or 1,800 miles, through the country disguised as a Moroccan Jewish rabbi. Returning to Paris, Christian faith became vividly alive for him, and he embarked on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, spending Christmas 1888 in Holy Grotto of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Seeking an abandoned devotion to Christ, he became a Trappist monk.

But Trappist stability couldn’t contain Charles de Foucauld’s wandering spirit. In 1901 he was back in Algeria at Beni Abbes, committed to living a simple life among its inhabitants, striving to be in solidarity with the poor and nurtured by the eucharistic presence of Jesus. Four years later he journeyed further into the heart of the Sahara Desert. settling among the Tuareg people for more than a decade. Charles translated the gospels into the Tuareg language. His desire was to form a confraternity, or Catholic order, of those who would follow a witness of presence and solidarity amidst non-Christian peoples. His life was cut short when the effects of World War I reached Algeria. He was martyred by bandits connected to those fighting the colonizing French.

A pilgrimage marked by abandonment led Charles from comfort and wealth in Paris to poverty and vulnerability in the Sierra desert. He didn’t plan this, but he rather simply tried to follow and kept moving forward in consistent downward mobility with a radical faithfulness rarely witnessed. He had the strength to let go.

I first learned of this story when working on Capitol Hill and exploring life in the Church of the Savior in Washington DC. It was there I read Charles de Foucauld’s prayer of abandonment.

Don’t Grab the Marshmallow

We want it now. Instant gratification is the drug of our consumer culture. But as shown among young children in the famous marshmallow experiment, developing patience is key to emotional development. For our inward spiritual journey, it’s a necessity. “We’re so attuned to instant gratification in our daily life that we want it in our spiritual life too: instant wisdom, instant growth, instant clarity, instant wisdom.” (The Samaritan Song blog, L. Phillips) A pilgrimage is like a drug rehabilitation program from our addiction to instant gratification. We practice watchful waiting, getting there step by step.

Question: What am I waiting for?

Does Your Anchor Hold?

Patience requires the development of memory and attention span. In our inward journey, we remember our story in the sweep of God’s story. And we hold our focus, freer from distractions. A pilgrimage helps. But also, retreating to a contemplative space. Either way, it’s how our anchor holds. In the Middle Ages, some withdrew to hermitages called “anchor-holds.” In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard writes,

…some anchor-holds were simple sheds clamped to the side of a church like a barnacle…I think of this house clamped to the side of Tinker Creek as an anchor-hold. It holds me at anchor to the rock bottom of the creek itself and keeps me steadied in the current.

Exercise: Select a word or theme, like God’s love, or peace, or hunger, or forgiveness…whatever draws your deep curiosity or your inner disquiet. Hold your attention there, either while walking or retreating to a safe space. When your mind wanders, just observe what passes through, and then gently return. See how long your focus can be grounded. Write and if you’d like to, share.

Walk Away from Screens

Let’s face it. We’re attached. Our faces are glued to our screens. This “irresistible attraction to screens is leading people to feel as though they’re ceding more and more of their autonomy when it comes to deciding how they direct their attention.” (Cal Newport in Digital Minimalism) But when you walk on an unfamiliar path, it’s nearly impossible to have your eyes riveted to your digital screen. You’re likely to trip, and you’ll certainly miss wonders being revealed on your path. “The invitation to walk brings us to a place where we can slowly clear away the constant preoccupations running in the background, and sometimes the foreground, of our minds.” (Without Oars, p. 39) Our attention turns to basic questions. Like this one.

Question: Why are you who you are where you are?

“Wisdom is not the result of mental effort”

Those words of Richard Rohr’s are a valuable guide. A pilgrimage is a confession that we can’t discover our true self or maintain a vital connection to God, just by thinking. Our busy minds won’t get us there. An inward journey of the whole person uncovers layers far deeper than just thought. Three steps are necessary in our pilgrim walk.

• Detachment, as we step away routine obsessions.

• Attention, another name for prayer, open to inner promptings.

• And connection, discovering our true self, hidden with others in a love behind and within all

things.

Those steps can help us touch our soul.

Exercise: Decide how long you can detach from screens. Try just a day. Or three. No phone. No

computer. No iPad. No TV. Detach. Pay attention. And discover where you connect. Write in your

journal or share with your group.

Our Lenten Journey begins, using the Reflection Guide that coincides with pastor Holbrook’s preaching.

Without Oars: Casting Off into a Life of Pilgrimage

By Wesley Granberg-Michaelson

Reflection Guide

An Invitation

Whether you’re reading this in a sea of tumult, roiling political waters, fierce climate changes affecting lands by fire and water – or during a pandemic – your life has likely been disrupted from whatever “normal” may have meant.

It’s time to reset our souls. Can we learn to step away from the anxieties and crippling fatigue that seem to imprison us, and step forward in a journey to replenish our inner lives? That’s the promise of a life of pilgrimage. Through courageous relinquishment, we can discover the ways of walking and being in the world that will strengthen our outward journey, walking into a promised future.

Those forces which have worn us down are formidable. Political toxins have invaded with ferocity the spaces where we think and live. Public life has been poisoned, almost mortally, by political schisms and elections. Pervasive fears seem overpowering. Inner anxieties have cascaded into the public sphere, fracturing many of our hopes for work toward the common good.

Further, criminal police brutality instigated a massive movement of racial reckoning in the nation’s life. America’s original sin of racism and white supremacy was revealed, once again, as a moral

corruption chiseled into our corporate soul.

So of course we’re exhausted emotionally, politically, and spiritually. Our inner resources seem sucked dry at a time when we are called on to have even greater strength for the work ahead. We thirst, panting for living springs. We hunger, longing for the bread of life.

Whether for an hour, a week, a few minutes, or the duration of reading a book, it’s time for us to take a step back from the frantic and frenetic tumult that has swept over our society, and re-center our souls.

Already, we have experienced some hints of what this offers. Time for long-postponed walks on new trails, overdue connections via Zoom with treasured friends, dinners lengthened with leisure

rather than punctuated by another urgent appointment. Perhaps we’ve rediscovered some of these deeper longings which now require space for exploration.

Re-centering our souls helps us know how to step forward, not in reaction or fear, but with intentional, courageous purpose, on a pilgrimage.

If this resonates with you, let me invite you on a journey of renewal. Decide to embark on a pilgrimage. This may include a physical journey to a holy place. Or it may be an interior journey, in a quiet, solitary space. But your life will move, with holy purpose.

Without Oars: Casting Off into a Life of Pilgrimage is not a book about pilgrimages, per se, although that is included. Rather, it’s an invitation to begin the journey of renewal. My hope is that you will be challenged to work with the text and travel down its roads, trusting that you will discover a wellspring nurturing your life forward.

Casting off into a pilgrimage, whether real or virtual, beckons us to leave things behind. The book outlines ten such movements helping us discern what is essential to keep, and what baggage hinders us from moving forward. This reflection guides works with each movement, offering simple suggestions to prompt and probe your journey.

I invite you to walk together with me, with holy purpose, toward a holy and renewing place.

Suggestions for the use of this Reflection Guide:

Brief reflections, quotes, a question and an exercise are included for ten days, based on each chapter. You may choose to do this once a week, for ten weeks, or fit them into a season like Advent or Lent. You might go on a ten-day retreat. Better yet, I’d encourage you to embark on a ten-day pilgrimage. You could choose a destination that may hold sacred significance. Or you could decide to walk ten to fifteen miles a day, in various directions, planned or discovered, returning to a home base each time. Whatever you do, include

some walking each day, because pilgrimage is an embodied practice.

The guide can be used in a solitary way, in dialogue with yourself, and hopefully God, assisted by your words in a journal. But you could also embark on this pilgrimage with a group. Perhaps you might meet once a week or once a month, working through the questions and exercises together. Or, to build community that would likely last a lifetime, you might choose to go on a ten-day pilgrimage together, using the book and this Reflection Guide to shape your time.

I’d welcome hearing your feedback. You can be in touch through my website: www.wesgm.com. You’ll also find some other related resources there.

Buen Camino! Wes Granberg-Michaelson

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Interim pastor Jeff Munroe delivers another powerful sermon. We welcome all to join us at the church at 9:30 AM on Sundays or watch live or watch later.

Link to video on SCRC’s Facebook page: https://fb.watch/bmaW4TD7gw/

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Interim pastor Jeff Munroe and family are here with us on St Croix for the next three weeks. Pastor Munroe gives a powerful sermon here…

Link to Facebook video. You do not need a Facebook account to watch it.

https://fb.watch/be9kk7a0jx/

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Interim pastor Taylor Holbrook gets a great send off before he returns to the states for three weeks. The video link is below. You do not need a Facebook account to watch it.

https://fb.watch/be8kE8K7iA/

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There is no Acts 29. With the end of this book of the Bible, please consider this message from Pastor Taylor…

Acts 29 has been used as a metaphor for the continuing of the gospel story.  Paul’s story ends without conclusion in Rome, but everyone reading this story knew it went on from there all across the world.

With our first day being the challenge given to follow the wise men as the world of the Gentiles was opened up to the message of Jesus, how does this thirtieth day have impact for the story as it lives on in St. Croix?

The next chapter of St. Croix’s story is looking for a new pastoral leader.  What has the reading of Acts done for you in looking forward to the next chapter for this church?

Read Acts 28 and then answer the questions afterwards…

Paul on the Island of Malta

28 After we had reached safety, we then learned that the island was called Malta. ² The natives showed us unusual kindness. Since it had begun to rain and was cold, they kindled a fire and welcomed all of us around it. ³ Paul had gathered a bundle of brushwood and was putting it on the fire, when a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. ⁴ When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “This man must be a murderer; though he has escaped from the sea, justice has not allowed him to live.” ⁵ He, however, shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. ⁶ They were expecting him to swell up or drop dead, but after they had waited a long time and saw that nothing unusual had happened to him, they changed their minds and began to say that he was a god.

⁷ Now in the neighborhood of that place were lands belonging to the leading man of the island, named Publius, who received us and entertained us hospitably for three days. ⁸ It so happened that the father of Publius lay sick in bed with fever and dysentery. Paul visited him and cured him by praying and putting his hands on him. ⁹ After this happened, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases also came and were cured. ¹⁰ They bestowed many honors on us, and when we were about to sail, they put on board all the provisions we needed.

Paul Arrives at Rome

¹¹ Three months later we set sail on a ship that had wintered at the island, an Alexandrian ship with the Twin Brothers as its figurehead. ¹² We put in at Syracuse and stayed there for three days; ¹³ then we weighed anchor and came to Rhegium. After one day there a south wind sprang up, and on the second day we came to Puteoli. ¹⁴ There we found believers^[a] and were invited to stay with them for seven days. And so we came to Rome. ¹⁵ The believers^[b] from there, when they heard of us, came as far as the Forum of Appius and Three Taverns to meet us. On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage.

¹⁶ When we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself, with the soldier who was guarding him.

Paul and Jewish Leaders in Rome

¹⁷ Three days later he called together the local leaders of the Jews. When they had assembled, he said to them, “Brothers, though I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our ancestors, yet I was arrested in Jerusalem and handed over to the Romans. ¹⁸ When they had examined me, the Romans^[c] wanted to release me, because there was no reason for the death penalty in my case. ¹⁹ But when the Jews objected, I was compelled to appeal to the emperor—even though I had no charge to bring against my nation. ²⁰ For this reason therefore I have asked to see you and speak with you,^[d] since it is for the sake of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain.” ²¹ They replied, “We have received no letters from Judea about you, and none of the brothers coming here has reported or spoken anything evil about you. ²² But we would like to hear from you what you think, for with regard to this sect we know that everywhere it is spoken against.”

Paul Preaches in Rome

²³ After they had set a day to meet with him, they came to him at his lodgings in great numbers. From morning until evening he explained the matter to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the law of Moses and from the prophets. ²⁴ Some were convinced by what he had said, while others refused to believe. ²⁵ So they disagreed with each other; and as they were leaving, Paul made one further statement: “The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your ancestors through the prophet Isaiah,

²⁶ ‘Go to this people and say,
You will indeed listen, but never understand,
    and you will indeed look, but never perceive.
²⁷ For this people’s heart has grown dull,
    and their ears are hard of hearing,
        and they have shut their eyes;
        so that they might not look with their eyes,
    and listen with their ears,
and understand with their heart and turn—
    and I would heal them.’

²⁸ Let it be known to you then that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen.”^[e]

³⁰ He lived there two whole years at his own expense^[f] and welcomed all who came to him, ³¹ proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.

Questions to Consider:

1)  Paul impresses the people by being bit by a serpent and not dying.  They say he must be some kind of god.  He then is involved in healing many on the island.  The goodwill he achieved is rewarded in generosity for all as the ship is loaded with provisions by the islanders.  How has sharing the gospel in your situations helped build goodwill in the community?  Yesterday in worship we talked about reflecting light into the world.  How have you seen that done in your life?

2)  Paul makes it to Rome.  He speaks with the Jewish leaders.  We hear nothing of the emperor or his defense in court.  The Jewish leaders listened, some were convinced and others refused to believe.  Paul closes by quoting Isaiah about their hardness of heart and says this salvation has now been sent to the Gentiles. they will listen.  Do you think it strange after all the detail Luke shares about the journey to Rome that the story ends so abruptly?

3)  Paul stays in Rome for two years and proclaimed the kingdom of God  teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.  And so the story closes.  Is there something else you would want to know about Paul’s time in Rome and the rest of his life?  Why do you think the story stops here?