It's About Time

I remember the first time someone called me a "lady".  I don't mean, young lady, or ladies and gentlemen.  I was about 25 years old, and I was coming out of a store when a young girl and her dad were entering the store through the same set of doors.  The man said to his daughter, "watch out, don't run into that lady."  Yikes!  When does a girl become a lady?  And why is it still so vivid in my mind?  The word lady, the feeling of being unknown as that lady by which the world would see me now... not a girl, not a young person, not a college kid, just a lady?  It freaked me out, But the realization, after sitting with it for some time, was a welcome one.  I was a lady, and it was time to act like one.

I think the modern day church is starting to realize that she too is a lady now.  It was all fun and games at Plymouth, the shore-lined adrenaline to turn the tides, fight the frontline battles, start schools, build bridges or let them burn without turning back, dip and dunk, preach and pray, here there and everywhere, all in the name of liberty without a simple look in the rearview mirror...sails flying, banners waving, flags held high the American protestant church was born to be radical, to set free, to cry out, to make bandage the wounds of this world.  Yet, what shadows she now finds herself a mist, what walled up rooms, what small confined spaces, what mannerless abandonment left to throw-up, her hands, her skirt, her majesty punk-rocked and chain worn childless and adorned with ash- she is a lady now...

This lady full of graceless interactions, a prideful inheritance, born of a barbaric lineage, spoiled of an unknown privilege, carries with her the indelible hope of the unborn child. The promised babe of Christmas morn unpackaged and yet pristinely wrapped, timeless and completely unexpected.  Birth itself a scar that leaves the fold in doubtless wonder.  The cry of the wind turned right, the sun in place and the moon to pull the stars to their rightly positions, the waters that creep along the earth, the spheres of ice and dry land, the forested plains and peaks where snow lies, each scream through the night as the pulsing continues, the rise of heat, the drop of water, the blood that sheds from battered days... This lady walks to and fro under the moon-lit sky, heeding the night's mystery to bring forth her babe under the stars each one promised as the watcher waits in peril.

If the Church is a lady upon the birthing stool, the world is in marvel awaiting her first born breath.

Church

I am in a small town in mid-coast Maine just outside of Bar Harbor where Acadia National Park spans the majority of the land.  It is a beautiful, slow-paced and quiet community to spend some time away.  As part of my sabbatical experience I am spending time in mediation, practicing yoga and writing.  This afternoon I attended a pure yoga class, a Hatha practice with about 8 other people.  It was such a refreshing and relaxing experience.  Before the class began a few of us were talking and introduced ourselves.  Two of the young girls in the class who spend every summer in Maine with family had just graduated from UNC this Spring and were excited to hear about my connection to Chapel Hill.  I shared with them that I was a UCC Pastor and that I was at a very progressive UCC church just a few miles down from the University.  Of course, I acknowledged the fact that most undergrads don't attend church on a regular basis and one of the girls admitted she'd only been maybe twice during her 4 years in Chapel Hill.  The third girl who was a friend visiting them from NYC said that she never went to church during college and that nobody ever goes- it's just not something we do.

church...

This past weekend I spent time in the beautiful historical town of Castine, Maine, one of the earliest settlements in this country- I don't think it's changed much since then actually.  Thankfully, I was there for a conference, a gathering of mostly Episcopalian and Presbyterians for the Downeast Sprituality Retreat with guest presenter John Phillip Newell a Presbyterian Theologian whose passions are grounded in Cletic spirituality really.  He is compassionate about two things:
Caring for the Earth, and Finding the Oneness within the various religious traditions.  Such a gentle, peace-filled person John Phillip is.

church...

On the second day, just following a 45 minute time for meditation we gathered as a group and then paired up with one another to discuss our meditative time together.  I was sitting next to a Buddhist, Hindu Professor, he'd been at Bangor Theological Seminary for 25 years, who was also a presenter during the conference.  After exchanging pleasantries we discussed our thoughts on the ideas presented by JPN and the challenges that seem to face the mainline church.  He asked me what I did as a Pastor to encourage oneness, and unification within the different religious traditions.  Again, we talked back and forth about this concept and then about opportunity, but what stuck with me was when he said that if the church had been more open during the 1960's when he left and sought spiritual truth in India he might not have left the church.

church...

Young adults these days are chomping at the bit to flee the church while some never go at all.