HELLO!

I have not received as much positive feedback on a church service, since I came to Woodlawn, as I did yesterday. If you missed it, here is the YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCTyAJyvmQA

Our latest faith study continues Tuesday, February 10^th at 7 pm in the Sams Room with our second session, as we reflect on chapters 3 and 4 of Barbara Brown Taylor’s book “Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others”. There is no requirement to read this text, I offer a summary of the chapters at the outset, then all of us are invited to make comment, ask questions about what we have heard or read. Last week we had 22 in our circle, there is no expectation for participants to attend all or most of these sessions. Come as you are able. Everyone is invited. Indeed, we had several people join us last week from other churches and no church.

The focus of chapters 3 and 4 is the exploration of Brown Taylor’s 25 young (most Christian) undergraduate students and the Buddhist religion. Brown Taylor asked her students to define who God was to them. She handed out index cards, requested no one put their name on the card. Here are some responses: 1) Naming creates God, 2) God is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, 3) God is anything that is served by humans and worshipped by humans, 4) God is the embodiment of absolute love, wisdom, and temperance, 5) God is a fatherlike figure who rules from the sky, 6) God is my road, my food, my shelter, and my goal, 7) mostly what I know about God is how little I really know about God. Of these seven which one most speaks to your understanding about God?

The Buddha’s teachings do not mention God. The genesis of the Buddha’s enlightenment came as a result of realizing no God could bring an end to suffering. This meant humans need to take responsibility for their response to suffering. It was the desire for a pain-free life that was the problem. Buddhists accept the human condition that all life is suffering. Brown Taylor finds in Buddhism aspects of practice and belief that help her know God by being present in every moment, rather than in worry, resentment and confusion. Still, as she writes, “However much I learn from other spiritual teachers, it is Jesus I come home to at night.”

In assessing, analyzing, reflecting, on other religions, Brown Taylor offers this insight from Krister Stendahl, “1. When trying to understand another religion, you should ask the adherents of that religion and not its enemies, 2. Don’t compare your best to their worst, and 3. Leave room for holy envy.” She also addresses something we now call appropriation. She calls it, “spiritual shoplifting”. When a sacred object from another faith is used in western spirituality to focus only on self we are twisting another faith into our own image. Raimon Panikkar, raised by a Catholic mother and Hindu father, uses the analogy of the world’s great rivers to describe their divine kinship to God. “None of these rivers meet on earth, though they meet in the heavens, where water from each condenses into clouds that rain down on all mortals of the earth.” Peace, Kevin

PS Our Musical Dinner Theatre rehearsals continue. Tonight, Adelia provided the men with dance steps to the Bee Gees “Stayin’ Alive”. Costumes come later. Tickets now on sale, Fri April 17 & Sat April 18.