St. Patrick's Adventerous Prayer -- Bruce Epperly

It is St. Patrick's Day, and since an eighth of me is Irish, I should be ready to celebrate!  St. Patrick may be the patron saint of Ireland, but he is also the inspiration for Celtic spirituality.  With that in mind, Bruce Epperly has provided a brief essay that shares with us some of St. Patrick's own Prayer.   May your St. Patrick's Day not only be green, but blessed as well.

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St. Patrick’s Adventurous Prayer

Bruce Epperly

Life is adventurous and filled with surprises, whether or not we seek them out. According to legend, Celtic missionaries set off on voyages, without a rudder for steering, in order to find their place of resurrection, the place where they would experience God’s calling for their lives. They trusted God’s movements in the winds and waves.

St. Patrick shared that same adventurous spirit as he spread the good news of Jesus as Healer and Savior. Like Columba, he used the language of druid religion. Celtic Christians often described Christ as their “druid,” teacher, guide, and healer.

As legend has it, Patrick was being pursued by a local chieftain, who was planning to capture and kill him. Just as the chieftain’s troops were bearing down on him, Patrick disappeared. All they saw was a deer bounding across the pathway. God was at work, Patrick believed, in providing him shelter along with insight for the journey.

In the spirit of Patrick, Celtic Christians often rotate in a clockwise direction, drawing a circle around themselves whenever they left on a journey, whether across the neighborhood or into unknown lands. They recognized the adventure of each day, and their need for God’s guidance and protection. I use the prayer of St. Patrick, along with the Celtic caim, or encircling prayer, whenever I feel anxious or at risk. If you are in a public place or hospitalized, you may say this prayer in your imagination.

Here are some of the words of Patrick’s “Breastplate” or “Lorica.” Take them as a companion on today’s adventures.

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through the belief in the threeness,

Through confession of the oneness

Of the Creator of Creation.

I arise today

Through the strength of heaven:

Light of sun,

Radiance of moon,

Splendor of fire,

Speed of lightning,

Swiftness of wind,

Depth of sea,

Stability of earth,

Firmness of rock.

I arise today

Through God's strength to pilot me:

God's might to uphold me,

God's wisdom to guide me,

God's eye to look before me,

God's ear to hear me,

God's word to speak for me,

God's hand to guard me,

God's way to lie before me,

God's shield to protect me,

God's host to save me.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,

Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ on my right, Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,

Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through belief in the threeness,

Through confession of the oneness,

Of the Creator of Creation.

On this St. Patrick’s season, embrace God’s circle of care and inspiration. You are always in the dynamic circle of divine adventure. Your life is a holy adventure in companionship with an adventurous God.

Bruce Epperly is a theologian, spiritual guide, healing companion, retreat leader and lecturer, and author of nineteen books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living; God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus; and Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry. He has taught at Georgetown University, Wesley Theological Seminary, Claremont School of Theology, and Lancaster Theological Seminary. He is currently theologian in residence at St. Peter’s United Church of Christ in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He can be reached for lectures, seminars, retreats, or comments at bruceepperly@gmail.com

The Adjustment Bureau, Rick Warren, and Process Theology (Bruce Epperly)

Out this past weekend was the latest Matt Damon movie -- The Adjustment Bureau.  I've yet to see it, but Bruce Epperly, a regular contributor to this blog did see it and offers his thoughts from a theological perspective on the movie's message on the fate of humanity, comparing it to Rick Warren's rather deterministic Purpose Driven Life and the more open vision of Process Theology.  I think you'll find this essay intriguing and thought provoking. 

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The Adjustment Bureau, Rick Warren,

and Process Theology

Bruce G. Epperly

The Adjustment Bureau raises issues of God’s plan, destiny, choice, and chance. Rising political star David Norris is destined, yes destined, to become the President of the United States, until a chance encounter with dancer, Elise Sellas. This apparently chance encounter leads to an intricate struggle between the angelic case workers assigned to keep him on the Chairman’s (aka God) pre-established plan and the love struck Norris, who believes that he can choose his own destiny.

The Chairman’s plan takes a page right out of Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life. According to the movie, God chooses the important events of our lives, steering us toward the course God has determined that will be best for us and the planet. We think we are free, when are really actors performing the script God has already written for us. The death of Norris’ parents and his brother is not accidental, but the working out of the Chairman’s plan to give Norris the hunger for political greatness, thus fulfilling his father’s dream.

Rick Warren’s image of human destiny takes a similar path in making the following affirmations about the relationship between God’s plan and human decision-making.

• God plans all the important events (genetics, gender, talents, family of origin) in our lives without our input.
• Every experience, including traumatic events, such as cancer, abuse, the death of a child, or tsunami, is “father filtered,” or planned by God for our growth.  
• In every event God is testing our fidelity to God’s sovereign decision-making. 
• God “smiles” when we follow directions and do as “he” says. 
• God wants us to “color inside the lines.” Coloring “outside the lines” leads to meaninglessness in this life and alienation from God (hell) in the next. Those who seek to thwart God’s plan will be punished.

Warren’s belief in divine destiny led one of my friends to describe his book as the “puppet driven life.” Both Warren and The Adjustment Bureau’s image of God’s plan assert that when it comes to the most important things, freedom and choice are an illusion. Happiness and fulfillment come from following the pre-established plan.

Now the Adjustment Bureau takes two slight diversions from Warren’s spiritual determinism. Within the Chairman’s plan, chance events occur. Norris meets Sellas and the pre-established plan for his life is jeopardized. Second, the movie suggests that God can scrap certain plans in favor of others, and open the doors to choice in rare circumstances. Although neither Norris nor Sellas is aware of it, the Chairman’s plan had once included them falling in love. That plan, however, was scrapped for greater things for each of them. Nevertheless, the energy of the Chairman’s negation unexpectedly draws them together.

For both theologians and lay people alike, divine choice and human freedom have often been pitted against one another. Either everything reflects divine decision-making or we are entirely free. Perhaps, there is another alternative that joins divine vision and decision-making, human freedom, environmental and genetic conditioning, and chance. This is the multi-faceted approach of process theology.

From the perspective of process theology, every event emerges from the intricate and dynamic interplay of God’s vision, environmental influences, genetics, and creaturely choice. In the dynamic interplay of life, accidents happen – cells reproduce in ways that lead to cancer, bridges collapse, and brakes fail. In this same interplay, human choices can lead to cancer, abuse, faulty construction, and genocide. God has not willed these events, but must, like us, live with these events, seeking to make the most out of difficult situations.

Process theology asserts that God is intimately involved in our lives, providing possibilities, inspirations, and intuitions; working through the interdependence of life to promote synchronous encounters; inviting us to use our limited freedom to create a just and beautiful world; and giving us strength and creativity to respond to personal and communal calamities. God is not in absolute control, nor do we create our own realities.

Still, God is constantly innovating, working within the world as it is to bring forth the right balance of order and novelty. Within the limitations of the many factors of life, humans are also constantly innovating, using our limited freedom moment by moment to choose our pathways. While creaturely freedom may be quite limited, given the influence of the past, environment, genetics, politics, economics, and divine influence, human choices made moment by moment can lead to life-changing expressions of creativity and beauty. Sadly, they can also lead to pain and suffering.

Life is a dynamic interplay of call and response in which God calls and we respond, and God calls again, adjusting God’s vision to our choices rather than forcing us to follow a pre-ordained script. Still, from the perspective of process theology, God provides many possibilities and opens the door to many vocations, or personal destinies. There is God’s vision for a particular moment in time but this vision is part of many broader visions, embodied over a lifetime. Moreover, process theology asserts that God’s vision is neither coercive nor competitive. God creates the context for maximal expressions of freedom and creativity, congruent with the well-being of the global and local communities. Freedom is limited, but it is real.

Like a good parent, God hopes we make the right decisions for ourselves and others. But, God also welcomes surprises. Contrary to Rick Warren and the Chairman’s initial plan, innovation leads to greater and more energetic revelations of God’s presence in our lives. After God has given us the most creative visions to integrate with our freedom and the impact of the environment, like a good parent, who has supplied crayons and paper for our recreation, God whispers in our unconscious, “Surprise me. Bring something new into the world. Do something beautiful and unexpected.”

The Adjustment Bureau provides much food for theological reflection. It invites us to ponder the intricacies of freedom and destiny and God’s role in determining who we are and what we do. It suggests that we may not be puppets of fate after all, and that our calling is to take risks for love, beauty, and healing. These risks rewarded with greater opportunities for freedom and creativity in partnership with the source of all freedom, creativity, and possibility.

Bruce Epperly is a theologian, spiritual guide, healing companion, retreat leader and lecturer, and author of nineteen books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living; Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed (May 2011); and Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry. He may be reached at bruceepperly@gmail.com.

Nurturing Your Child's Spiritual Life (Bruce Epperly)

In the fourth essay in his series on parenting from the persective of process theology, Bruce Epperly speaks to the issue of cultivating trust in a child.  I found this to be an interesting and compelling post, especially after recently being with Martin Marty at the Academy of Parish Clergy annual meeting, where he spoke to the topic of his most recent book:   Building a Culture of Trust.  Bruce reminds us that the process begins as soon as children are born. 

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Nurturing Your Child’s Spiritual Life –

Cultivating Trust

Bruce G. Epperly

The world regularly disappoints us. Things don’t work out as we expected and our best laid plans are often thwarted by unexpected instances of Murphy’s Law. Our trust in the essential goodness of life and humankind is, on occasion, betrayed by institutions, employers, friends, and spouses. Illness strikes and our once predictable world is turned upside down. Beyond that, we know only too well the realities of natural disasters and unexpected accidents. We are never ever fully secure or safe in life on a personal or planetary scale.

Yet, trust, even in a world where death can strike at any moment, is essential for creativity, healthy relationships, and personal and community flourishing. Trust in the world and trust in oneself are intimately related. But, how do we cultivate trust in children in a constantly changing and often insecure world?

Erik Erikson spoke of basic or primordial trust as the most essential need of infants. To grow spiritually and emotionally, infants must answer what Einstein called life’s most important question: “Is the universe friendly?” with a resounding “yes” if they are to find personal and relational fulfillment. But, how do parents cultivate trust that lasts a lifetime in the first months and years of life? Obviously, the infant can’t produce her or his trust. This trust must come from the infant’s experience of the goodness of life, at a deep and unconscious level, through positive and supportive relationships with an infant’s most significant people, most especially mother and father.

Nurturing basic trust in an infant is a matter of parental character and spiritual maturity. Trust is nurtured by faithful and trustworthy persons, who can be relied upon to deliver what they’ve implicitly promised to those who are absolutely dependent and completely vulnerable. In fact, I believe that one of the roles of religious and spiritual traditions is to restore and promote the trust we may not have received in infancy. Healthy religion tells us that we are ultimately safe, cared for, and affirmed regardless of our life situation. The apostle Paul captured the essence of trust when he proclaimed that “nothing can separate us from the love of God” – not even persecution, illness, fear, or death. Centuries earlier, the author of Psalm 139 asserted that if we ascend to the heavens God is there and if we descend to the depths God is there. God is there even when we run away from God and cover ourselves in darkness.

Cultivating trust in infants is grounded in trustworthy and faithful parenting. And, this requires parents to cultivate a sense of consistency in care and love. While an infant can’t intellectually articulate the meaning of love, he or she knows love in action – in an available breast or bottle, in a soothing voice in the night, in the reading of books and massaging of skin, in the tone of our voice, and in the touch of loving arms. The Dalai Lama once said that we are blessed to be born into loving arms and later to die into loving arms.

As a grandparent, I seek to be faithful and trustworthy with my six month old grandson. When I’m visiting him and his parents, I wait till later in the morning to take a walk. My grandson tends to be an early riser, so his mother brings him down to me at 5:00 a.m., so she and my son can get a little more rest before facing the challenges of parenting, householding, and professional life. I place his concerns ahead of my morning rituals - writing or even meditating. I have learned that you can’t give a child too much love, nor can you say “I love you” in too gentle a tone. He learns trust as I securely hold him, come to him when he cries (nowadays after letting him cry a moment or two to begin to learn patience). He discovers trust in loving arms and gentle words.

Cultivating trust invites us to develop our own characters and spiritual growth. As parents, we learn to be trustworthy by taking time out for prayer and meditation, by learning to be patient with ourselves – and this is best learned through prayerfulness and trust in God’s care. We need to remember the flight attendant’s counsel, “put your oxygen mask on first” so we have the resources to be faithful through hours of crying, interruptions at night, and changes in old routines. Our own spiritual nurture reminds us that “it’s not about us” and that peace and well-being involve balancing our own needs with the needs of others.

Cultivating trust also requires a “village” not just to raise a child, but support and nurture parents. We are blessed at this time of our lives to be able to spend a couple days each week with our son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. We hope to do this for years ahead to support his professional parents’ balancing a career with family. And, beyond grandparents, a community of friends and a just and supportive social structure, including the government, contributes to an environment of trust.

Ultimately, we need to cultivate our sense that “all will be well” and that even when we reach our limits, we will have the resources to face life’s challenges with hope, courage, and equanimity.

Trust is a gift; the gift of community, of caring parents, and a trustworthy God. Life is challenging, but trust enables us to live through life’s challenges knowing that we have power to shape our lives and that, when are most vulnerable, nothing can separate us from the love of God.

Bruce Epperly is a theologian, spiritual guide, healing companion, retreat leader and lecturer, and author of nineteen books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living; God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus; and Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry. He has taught at Georgetown University, Wesley Theological Seminary, Claremont School of Theology, and Lancaster Theological Seminary. He is currently theologian in residence at St. Peter’s United Church of Christ in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He can be reached at bruceepperly@gmail.com



Starting with Spirit -- A Review

STARTING WITH SPIRIT: Nurturing your Call to Pastoral Leadership. By Bruce G. Epperly. Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 2011. Viii + 224 pages.

A first call to ministry can be both an exciting and a terrifying opportunity, especially if that first call is a solo pastorate. If you’re a Mainline Protestant pastor you have gone through seminary, an internship, and maybe Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), but now you’re on your own. Hopefully, during this period of preparation the new pastor has received a well-rounded education that will enable this person to step out in service to God and church with confidence, but as every first call pastor knows, this is a season of firsts and you wonder if you’re ready for what will come. In fact, it is a lot like being a new parent – you have the responsibility, but are you truly ready?

Bruce Epperly has written a wonderful book that looks at many of the issues that new pastors face as they enter their calls. Much of the material that is present in the book is culled from conversations that the author has had with first call pastors over a period of about seven years. As he examines issues that range from what one learned in seminary (and things one wished one had learned) to experiencing life as an associate minister, he draws upon these conversations. Every pastor who reads this book will identify with the journeys these men and women have taken in their ministries.

The book begins by examining the world of the pastorate. Bruce notes that many first time clergy experience both grief and anticipation as they move out into the world from seminary. While one may be “itching to get into the game,” upon leaving seminary one quickly discovers that it can be lonely out there in the real world of ministry. You may experience isolation, knowing that one cannot root one’s friendship circles in the congregation but find it difficult to make connections outside the congregation. There may also be feelings of inadequacy as one takes up many firsts in ministry from weddings to funerals.

In the course of these chapters Bruce looks into such questions as the need to continually develop new skills for ministry, developing an appropriate sense of authority that matches situations, recognizing that “honeymoons” can end quickly, along with wrestling with boundary issues and self-care. Then there is the issue of innovation. Many of us are eager to come in and do a new thing, but often congregations need time to build trust before they’re ready to innovate. Then there is death – which as the title of a chapter suggests “never takes a holiday.”

Some chapters speak clearly not only to first call pastors, but to those of us who have been at this work for some time. Chapters dealing with the spiritual life of the pastor, something that is of special concern to the author, and taking care of one’s own health are of special note for all. He talks too about the nature of our relationships, the challenges of being an associate, and the importance of continuing education.

By utilizing the conversations with first call pastors, Epperly helps his readers realize that they’re not alone, that pastors all across the country, young and not so young, have set out on a journey that demands much and that doesn’t always get a lot of respect. Ministry is like no other occupation. It is not simply a helping profession, though pastors engage in the work of helping professionals. It is not simply a teaching profession, though teaching is at the heart of this work.

Clergy are generalists, addressing all manner of issues, from administration to walking with the dying and the grieving. They are professionals, but more than professionals. They are accountable, you might say, to a higher authority. There is a certain distance that professions place between the practitioner and the one being served, but in ministry the distance is there but it’s much more fluid. And so wise guidance is needed if one is not only going to succeed but survive.

When it comes to survival it’s well known that large numbers of clergy abandon their calling soon after taking up their first call. They may not be ready for the politics that is present in many congregations or prepared for resistance to new ideas. They may experience not only resistance but abuse from congregants. And so they need wise advice, which Bruce provides.

I’m not a new pastor. I’ve been ordained for more than a quarter century, and have experienced both the ups and downs of ministry. I’ve been tempted to give up the calling on many an occasion, but there is something exciting and powerful about this vocation. Because clergy, especially solo pastors, are generalists there is something new and different to deal with each day. Yes, there is loneliness and there is frustration, but there is also great joy and satisfaction to be experienced. So, while this book is addressed to first call pastors, there is much wisdom here that we who have been on the journey for sometime can benefit from. This is clearly a book that needs wide distribution and reading. Whether in your first year or your fiftieth, this is a worthwhile read.

Circles and Safety -- Process and Parenting #3 (Bruce Epperly)

The third installment of Bruce Epperly's take on parenting from the perspective of Process Theology takes us to a place all parents have been.  He speaks to the question of safety and risk.  How do we protect our children while allowing them freedom to explore and grow.  He mentions a book that I read many evenings to my own son; it's a book that serves to remind the child that no matter where he or she runs, the parent is there.  Runaway Bunny is a favorite of parents and small children for it speaks to the kind of relationship we all envision.  It is, of course, also a relationship that God envisions for us to have with God.  I invite you to reflect and comment on Bruce's essay about drawing circles of safety around our children.

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Circles and Safety

Bruce G. Epperly

In the Celtic tradition, travelers often begin their daily journey with a prayer and the encircling (or “caim”) in which the traveler rotates in a clockwise direction, inscribing a circle with her or his index finger. Whether we do this through movement or in our imagination, the encircling reminds us that wherever we are, we are in God’s circle of protection. In the spirit of Romans 8, we discover that nothing – none of our deepest fears for ourselves or our loved ones – can separate us from the love of God. With the author of Psalm 139, we discover that if we descend to the depths, God is there; if we ascend to the heights, God is also there. Like the story of the Runaway Bunny, even when we run away, or clothe ourselves in darkness, God is there to embrace us.

I have found the practice of encircling to be a spiritual aid, especially when I find myself struggling with stressful situations or caught up in fear and anxiety. When I experience myself in God’s circle of love, I know that despite my fears that all will be well.

Being a parent can be frightening. We fear for our children’s safety and place in the world. We are constantly bombarded by news alerts and commercials that remind us, often unrealistically, that we, and our children, are always at risk. There are no guarantees in life, even for spiritual persons.

While parents can practice many common sense safety practices, the issue of safety is spiritual as well as practical. Parenting is about expanding the circle of our children’s experiences and this always involves risk. At five months, my grandson’s parents have 24/7 awareness of where he is and what he’s up to. They stay in contact with him by: being in the same room and through baby monitors. As he grows older, his circle of experience will grow to closing the door of his own room for privacy to playing alone in the backyard and to going on walks and bike rides with friends or all by himself. Eventually, he will go away to college, making a life of his own.

Parents and children alike need sufficient “primordial” or “basic trust,” enabling us to face uncertainty with confidence in our own abilities and the basic benevolence of the universe. Process theology sees trust as growing out of the dynamic divine-human relationship. God is involved in each moment of experience, providing possibilities and the energy to achieve them. God does not and cannot determine everything or provide an absolute safety net, but in every situation, God is providing resources for our well-being and safety, both in our experiences and by inspiring others toward acts of care and protection. We are always in the circle of God’s love and our calling is to create circles of love that expand to embrace others and that promote others’ creativity and freedom. This applies to parenting as well as to mentoring, marriage and friendship.

Parents need to join order and novelty in their parenting. Order describes the safe circles of life, of responsibility to protect our children with all the resources we can muster in terms of presence, household safety and security, diet, and health promotion. Novelty relates to allowing surprising and serendipitous moments to occur. These always involve a degree of risk. For example, in teaching my son to ride a bicycle 25 years ago, I put him at a small degree of risk as I pushed him forward and then let go so that he could ride on his own. He fell several times and then – voila! – Off he went, having learned to ride on his own without training wheels. The move from crawling to toddling and walking involves pain and failure; and yet it is necessary for growth and maturity. New ideas are threatening – and at times, painful – and yet without new idea, we stagnate intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally.

As a parent and grandparent, I take the Celtic encircling seriously as essential to my intercessions on behalf of my son and grandson. I circle them in God’s care whether I am visiting them in Washington DC or taking a walk in my Lancaster, Pennsylvania neighborhood. The encircling reminds me that we are always connected and that my prayers make a difference. There are no guarantees in life – the sun shines and the rain falls on all of us. But, through the interplay of smart and safe parenting and a constant expanding of the circle of experience, we can balance safety and risk in ways that support our children’s well-being.

A Spiritual Practice for Parents: Regularly inscribe the Celtic circle (or “caim”) around your children and teach them to practice it as well. In your imagination, visualize yourself drawing a circle around your child as you pray for their safety, well-being, and creativity. Invite them to simply draw a circle around themselves by movement or in their imagination.

Bruce Epperly is a theologian, spiritual guide, healing companion, retreat leader and lecturer, and author of nineteen books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living; God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus; and Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry. He has taught at Georgetown University, Wesley Theological Seminary, Claremont School of Theology, and Lancaster Theological Seminary. He is currently theologian in residence at St. Peter’s United Church of Christ in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He can be reached at bruceepperly@gmail.com

Parents and Playgrounds (Bruce Epperly)

Bruce Epperly returns for the second installment of his series on process theology and parenting, by looking at the way parents are present with children at the playground.  He raises the ever present question of how we balance safety and risk, so that children can soar.  There is a connection here between our own parenting skills and the way in which we envision God being present to and with us as parent.  I invite your reflections in response to Bruce's very provocative and helpful essay.

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Parents and Playgrounds

Bruce G. Epperly

When our son was small, the father of his best friend and I took the boys to the school playground every evening to ride their Hot Wheels three wheelers and play on the Jungle Gyms. My adult companion and I often engaged in animated conversations about literature and philosophy, but I always kept an eye on the boys. My task was to stay out of the way of their games and even some of their conflicts, to them let tumble and fall, but always be on the alert for real danger and run to the rescue if need be! The proof of my balance of distance and safekeeping is that both boys are still alive, married, and great friends.

Watching my infant grandson reminds me that good parenting involves intimacy and distance, order and chaos, safety and appropriate risk, immediacy and waiting an extra moment to intervene or respond to a cry. We parents feel our children’s pain, but good parenting involves appropriate distance so that children can learn self-reliance, patience, and problem-solving. Just recently my own son and his wife – and the grandparents, to a lesser extent – experienced this balance of intimacy and distance as they made the transition from their child sleeping in a co-bed in their room to him going to sleep in his own room. We all had to resist going in for a few moments to allow him to learn to soothe himself to sleep. (Of course, we did not leave him alone with his tears for too long!) This was tough since every cry broke our hearts.

Process theology sees life as a dynamic balance of order and novelty, and safety and risk. Disorder and pain are inevitable in a world in which there are many agents, each with her or his agenda. Not even God can control the outcome of every situation. As a matter of fact, the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, the parent of modern process thought, says that God’s vision, God’s action in any given situation, is the “best for that impasse.” Good parenting involves that right blend of order and predictability and innovation and surprise. In the evolving parent-child relationship, parents optimally encourage creativity and freedom appropriate to the child’s age. This isn’t always easy for either parent or child.

I recall the experience of encouraging our son to walk to school. Although most of the time, I drove him the circuitous route to his elementary school, I decided at one point that he should walk part way. We lived on a busy street so I always crossed the street with him. At the right time, we decided to experiment with walking to school. Over the course of a week, I gradually extended the circle of his freedom and agency – the first day, he just walked 50 feet by himself; the second day, 100 feet; the third day, the length of a football field. By the end of the week, he could walk the block and a half to school. Now, throughout this time, I always remained at the top of the hill watching him all the way to the school yard, always ready to sprint down the hill if I saw the slightest hint of danger. My son and I coined a phrase “I’ll watch you home” to describe any occasion where he was “on his own,” but I was there to provide the safety net, reassurance, or a virtual playground within which he could feel secure.

Parenting, like divinity, is about playgrounds and balancing safety, innovation, and risk. We hear a lot about “helicopter parents,” who even try to shape their children’s lives and insure their success in college. Such hyper-vigilance eventually makes a prison out of a playground, and prevents children from soaring on their own. Now, I belong to the “careful parents” and “careful grandparents” union! I am an intimate parent who still is involved at times as a coach and mentor, occasionally, an alternative voice in my own son’s life. (Of course, now that he is an adult, he gives me plenty of advice, too! And, he began to advise me on my clothes and public behavior nearly twenty years ago!) But, I realize that he is the ultimate decision maker now. I need to let go of being too good an advisor. My influence is in his bones and conscience, in his values and aspirations. My words are consultative, whether they relate to work or parenting, and given with a dash of humility since he now knows things and has expertise in some areas beyond my own. He is developing his own parenting style and his own way of navigating adult relationships; something we are always learning.

From a process perspective, there are many good ways of parenting, and good parenting is always situational and grounded in the relationship of the child’s experience and the parent’s gifts. Still, in the spirit of an evolving universe, good parenting – imitating the divine – is about expanding freedom and creativity and encouraging imagination and its embodiment in daily life. It is about nurturing a child’s own experience and uniqueness, mirroring God’s own movements in her or his life. It is about the intimacy of care and mentoring, and privacy of self-creation and growth. Imagine “all the places you’ll go.”

Today’s Spiritual Practice: Take some time to be still resting in the safety of the Universe. After breathing in a sense of peace, visualize your child or grandchild (or the child you are expecting). Imagine them as healthy, whole, and safe. Now, visualize them as growing in ability, resourcefulness, and courage. See them expand their circle of freedom. Imagine ways that you can encourage their freedom and creativity, while preserving their safety.

Today’s Affirmation: I nurture the right balance of safety and freedom in my child’s life.

Bruce Epperly is a theologian, spiritual guide, healing companion, retreat leader and lecturer, and author of nineteen books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living; God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus; Reiki Healing Touch and the Way of Jesus; and Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry. He may be reached for questions and engagements at bruceepperly@gmail.com.

Process and Parenting: Beauty and Breathing (Bruce Epperly)

Bruce Epperly returns with a new series of guest posts.  As a new grandfather, Bruce brings his theological foundations to the practice of parenting.  This is the first of four essays.  Enjoy!

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Process and Parenting:

Beauty and Breathing

Bruce G. Epperly

My recent adventures in grandparenting have inspired me to reflect on the role of parents as agents of creative transformation and growth in the lives of our children. While there are many pathways to creative and healthy parenting, I believe that the process-relational vision of life can provide parents with both practices and insights. These insights provide a context for the array of good materials on parenting, spiritual development, relationships, and healthy diet penned by psychologists, pediatricians, theologians, and holistic nutritionists.

Alfred North Whitehead once asserted that the aim of the universe is to bring forth beauty. John’s gospel captures this same insight in terms of Jesus’ affirmation that the goal of his ministry was abundant life. God wants us to live beautiful and abundant lives. That’s good counsel for parents – bring beauty into the lives of your children – and claim beauty for yourselves!

Perhaps, no human act shares in God’s activity as much as parenting. Just as God seeks the greatest good in every moment of experience, working with the many factors of life, so we humans in our role as parents are challenged to work within the many events of life – DNA, environment, and gifts and talents – both ours and our child’s. The question for parents is: how do we nurture beauty and abundant life in our role as parents? This is as much about us as our children!

Over the next few weeks, I will be reflecting on parenting from a process perspective, focusing on abundance, beauty, creativity and innovation, relationship, and character and courage. Children born in the twenty-first century, like my own grandson, will face a world of unprecedented change; indeed, they will face changes in planetary climate, the distribution of power, communication and medicine, and economics. The quest for beauty and abundant life will involve, in such circumstances, agility of spirit, the ability to initiate novelty – to make innovations – in response to the constant novelty of 21st century life. This will be, as Whitehead suggests, not just a matter of living – of sustaining life – but living well and living better. Today’s children will need to balance the global and local as they discover that individual well-being must include the well-being of the whole planet and the communities of which they are a part.

Today, I just begin with a simple affirmation: As a parent, I seek to nurture beauty of experience for my child, myself and significant others, and for other children. Beauty has many definitions, but it involves a dynamic interplay of unity and diversity, contrast rather polarization, plurality rather than monotony. As a parent, I seek to create from which our ability to experience beauty emerges – and that is simply trust in the goodness of life. Process theology affirms that God is present in every encounter, seeking the highest good in every situation. As parents, we seek to embody the same values: providing enough vision, support, and safety for a child’s exploration. Just as God provides spiritual nurture and overall consistency to the universe, we parents seek to join order and novelty as the basis for beauty of experience.

Order involves providing a basic safety net, a sense of security that enables a child to feel comfortable with her or his explorations. With infants this means an immediacy of love, care, and nurture. It involves parents cultivating patience as well as endurance to respond to midnight feedings, tears and fears, and the constant need for attention, especially in the first months of life. In many ways, parents and caregivers need to be omnipresent at life’s beginnings, responding immediately to every need, and only later cultivating a creative distance which allows the infant to grow in her or his own patience and ability to wait for gratification and others’ responses. The quest for beauty and personal growth involves nurturing freedom and creativity in the context of safety and every expanding circles of order.

As parents, we are challenged to see the world with eyes of wonder – to have the beginner’s mind just as an infant does, seeing the world and our child as if for the first time. With infants, every moment is a “thin place” – a place of holiness – as they encounter the world and parents are invited to share in this moment by moment novelty. This isn’t an easy task, because we have already established our own ways of orienting the world. But, the coming of an infant calls us to spiritual growth in which we learn to live moment by moment - in this now, considering the lilies as well as our child’s next breath.

Parenting truly is a spiritual discipline – it involves vision, patience, and self-care. Self-care almost seems impossible to new parents; but parents who realize that “it takes a village” will call upon grandparents, close friends, and occasionally paid companions in the first weeks of a baby’s life just to get a moment of self-nurture, rest, and prayer. Parenting involves an expansion of care – of altruism – such that the well-being of my child is as important as my own. I suspect that this is both a matter of nature – of the deeply-rooted desire to preserve the species – as nurture – the cultivation of practices of love, patience, and wholeness. We can’t control a child’s crying initially, but – as Viktor Frankl suggests – we have freedom in our response.

A Spiritual Practice for Parenting: The easiest spiritual practice for mothers and fathers is simply breathing. We can breathe intentionally, opening to the calming resources of the universe. We can see our breath as a way of connecting with our highest wisdom and calm, our insights. Breath inspires and connects with greater wisdom and peace. Breath enables us to be more patient and awakens our own energy when we are fatigued. It centers us so that we can provide a healthy center for our child. So, begin the day with conscious breathing and take a deep holy breath whenever you become stressed or impatient with your child.

Beauty and breathing are today’s words for process parenting along with opening to the resources of your community for your self-care and the care of your child.

Bruce Epperly is a theologian, spiritual guide, healing companion, retreat leader and lecturer, and author of nineteen books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living; God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus; Reiki Healing Touch and the Way of Jesus; and Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry. He may be reached for questions and engagements at bruceepperly@gmail.com.

 

Acts 29: A Never Ending Gospel (Bruce Epperly)

In last week's posting Bruce Epperly brought to an end our journey through Luke's Acts of the Apostles, a journey that reminds us that the Christian faith is an adventure.  It's not something to be taken lightly.  But, the Book of Acts ends with Paul in prison, but with the hope of release, perhaps to continue his planned journey to Spain.  In this final posting of this series, Bruce points us forward through history to our own day, where we continue writing the 29th chapter of Acts.  This may be the final contribution for a while, but it has been a blessing to have Bruce be a regular contributor to Ponderings on a Faith Journey.

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Acts 29: A Never Ending Gospel

Bruce G. Epperly

The final words of Acts of the Apostles describe the Apostle Paul teaching and preaching from prison "without hindrance." The message of Acts from start to finish is that God's good news is unfinished and unhindered; it breaks down the barriers of alienation, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. The good news of God’s presence in the world breaks down the separation of mind, body, and spirit; of contemplation and action; of mysticism and mission; and of reason and ecstasy.

Today, we are writing our own Acts of the Apostles in the ongoing journey of Christian faith and mission. In partnership with God, we are the creators of an unfinished gospel that lives on in our lives and witness. For the author of Acts and for us, divine inspiration does not end with the closing of the canon. God is still speaking, still revealing, still inspiring, and still healing, and we are part of the never ending story of God's movements in our lives and in the world. Like those first Christians, we are making it up as we go along, creating our faith traditions in concert with divine inspiration and our personal, cultural, and planetary context. Like them, we – that is, progressive, moderate, and open-spirited evangelical Christians - are at the margins; our voices are seldom heard on network television or cable news, muted by our own reluctance as well as the strident voices of those who claim to represent Jesus today. But, our story goes on: in fact, the margins may in fact be the frontiers that call us to adventure.

Today, we are creating Christian faith as we go along - a new vision of faith, open to diversity, embracing pluralism, discovering the promise of post-modernism in small stories and life-changing experiences that evolve into a life-transforming faith. Our faith stories honor and nurture experience, but also balance experience with agile and innovative theological reflection in dialogue with the novelties of our time. Acts 29, the unwritten chapter of Acts, is our chapter. Just as God calls every generation to be faithful in its time, God calls us to be faithful "for just such a time as this." This is our time of possibility, adventure, risk, and vocation. This is our time to create, in the dynamic divine-human call and response, a lively spirited-centered, pluralistic, evolving and emerging faith. Our faith is not based on labels that confine, but stature that includes and our emerging and evolving faith embraces Pentecostal ecstasy, evangelical intimacy, moderate rationality, and progressive open-endedness. We are spirit-centered in our openness to following the Spirit's guidance and then creating along with the Spirit new circles of healing and transformation.

This morning, I heard Rev. Harry Knox of the, Director of the Religion and Faith Program of the Human Rights Commission speak of a "fourth great awakening" as the emergence of the gifts of LGBT people for the church. I agree with Rev. Knox’s affirmation, for this awakening of the gifts of LGBT people is emerging alongside a new integration of mysticism and mission, spiritual healing and medical accessibility, tradition and experimentation, theological reflection and emotional ecstasy; all elements of an ever-widening circle of love. These movements reflect a holistic vision of embodied, emerging, evolving, and liberating faith.

Yes, the story of Acts 29 is still being written. It is your story and mine - it is the story of all those who awaken to God's unhindered Spirit and claim our role as partners in the never ending divine-human journey that lies ahead.

Bruce Epperly is Professor of Practical Theology and Director of Continuing Education at Lancaster Theological Seminary. He is the author of 17 books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living and Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry.

 

Adventurous Theology #10: A Never Ending Story (Bruce Epperly)

The journey through Acts is nearing its end -- that is, the exploration of the adventurous spirit that pervades Luke's description of the early church's journey comes to an end in this posting.  Bruce Epperly has taken us from Ascension to Paul's prison cell, noting here in the end that "God is still speaking."  There is one last post to consider -- next week -- that reflects on Acts 29, our continued writing of the story of this faith journey.  I invite you to consider with Bruce what the Spirit is doing in the world and in the church as, to quote (as Bruce does) Doug Pagitt, we live out a "Christianity Worth Believing."

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Adventurous Theology #10:

A Never Ending Story

Acts, Chapters 21-28

Bruce G. Epperly

Acts of the Apostles comes to an end with a travelogue descriptive of Paul’s journey to Rome. But, the final words, describing Paul’s preaching from prison in terms of “boldness and without hindrance,” suggest that Acts is but the beginning of a spiritual adventure that shapes us today. What’s to hinder us from embracing God’s world of wonders, unity with strangers, mystical experiences, and unexpected power and energy in our time? Open to God’s spirit, we have everything we need to be God’s ambassadors and healers in our time.

Paul’s future, even in prison, and our own is open and undecided. We are making it up as we go along, beneficiaries of Paul’s innovative ministry to the non-Jewish world. Signs and wonders abound when we commit ourselves to going deeper in our experience of God and God’s mission in the world. God is alive, doing a new thing, and inviting us to be creative as well.

The final chapters of Acts could be described as “ponderings on a faith journey.” Paul travels from place to place, sharing the good news of the new beginnings, inspired and energized by the living presence of the Risen One. Christ’s resurrection is not only a past event to Paul, but the source of confidence and spiritual power in the present moment. Christ has brought a new energy and new possibilities into the world, spiritually, metaphysically, and physically. While we cannot fully assess the power of the resurrection, its impact on Jesus’ first followers was holistic; it created a new vision of reality that encompassed every aspect of life. Just as the enlightenment of Buddha injected new spiritual possibilities, the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus changed the course of history and God’s relationship to the world. God’s attitude toward the world did not change – as John 3:16 notes, the coming of Christ is the manifestation of God’s love, not its cause or inspiration. Rather, Jesus’ life opens the door for new divine possibilities in our world.

The final chapters of Acts join action and testimony. Paul’s theology is holistic: the author of Acts records Paul’s narrative of his encounter with the living Christ in these final eight chapters. Paul’s theology encompasses his whole being: it creatively synthesizes the Jewish tradition, his mystical encounter with the living Christ, and the emerging Christian understanding of the meaning of Jesus in light of God’s revelation in Judaism and in the wider world. Paul’s own synthetic faith encompasses body, mind, spirit, and relationships. It is far from being purely cerebral or intellectual, but integrates his Damascus Road experience with the ongoing movements of the Spirit in his life. This is the way good theology should be – the isolated academic discipline of theology would have been an anomaly to Paul and the Parents of Christian theology. For them, theology was rooted in and connected to vital Christian experience. Theology, indeed, gave meaning and context to experience, shaped experience, and was shaped by experience – personal and communal.

Today’s emerging Christianity is seeking to replicate this same theological-experiential dynamic in its quest to join “ancient” and “future” in an evolving “now.” Like the first Christians, many emergents are seeking to create a theology that gives meaning and provides an evolving context for their current faith experiences. Such a theology must include reflections on “a Christianity worth believing” (Pagitt) in light of the end of the American empire, the internet and beyond, and global spiritualities. This is theology in the making – highly experiential, yet in need of enough tradition and enough imagination to provide an evolving spiritual home for seekers within and beyond the church.

At times, Paul must have been astounded by his own journey – inspired at every step by a living Spirit, pushing the boundaries of past belief systems, and learning to adapt to the Gentile world. Paul brilliantly joined order and novelty in the creation a good enough theology for the Gentile world. Belief in the living Christ along with a handful of foundational Jewish behaviors was “good enough” to insure the well-being of new Christians and their communities. While he may not have intended it, Paul laid the groundwork for theological, liturgical, ecclesiastical, and experiential diversity by his innovative synthesis of tradition and novelty. Christianity no longer could be identified with a few sacred spaces and holy lands, now all lands could be holy and all spaces sacred. Accordingly, indigenous faiths of all kinds could emerge and have emerged throughout Christian history. Hardly a fundamentalist, Paul laid the foundations for the evolution of Christianity, emerging in time and place and embracing the Living Christ, the God of Christ, and the victory over death in dialogue with culture and community.

The final words of this “unhindered” gospel remind us that we are part of this story. As the United Church of Christ proclaims, “God is still speaking.” When we understand the word “speaking” holistically, we see God’s voice as more than a matter of word and doctrine, but an energy and vibration, creatively and intentionally moving through all things, personal and global, touching each thing in light of its responsibility to the whole. Many voices compose the chorus of revelation. But, the many are inspired by a personal voice that honors uniqueness yet pushes us toward community.

As we conclude our journey through the Acts of the Apostles, it is clear that God’s call is global as well as intimate. Paul goes out into the world; and faithfulness challenges us to be world-oriented as well. Just as Paul did not fully know where he was going, we must look in a mirror dimly as we consider the future of Christianity. We know that the future of our faith must be global, for the earth and humankind are in jeopardy. Salvation must heed the cries of creation (Romans 8) as well as our own inner urgings. Honoring one another, we must find our pathways into the world – pathways that join personal experience, encounters with the holy, agile theological reflection, and commitment to strangers, neighbors, and the good earth – as we seek to share life-transforming words of God in our time and place. We are God’s partners in a never-ending journey.

Bruce Epperly is Professor of Practical Theology and Director of Continuing Education at Lancaster Theological Seminary. He is the author of 17 books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living and Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry.

Adventurous Theology #9: Christ in a Pluralistic Age (Bruce Epperly)

When Paul was on his missionary journeys through Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece, one of the stops along the way was Athens.  Athens was at that time one of the great centers of learning.  It was a cosmopolitan place.  It no longer had the political and military power that it had many centuries earlier, but it still was an educational and religious center.  Athens might be an equivalent to San Francisco.  The people there were open minded and eager to learn, but also quite willing to challenge people.  For Paul this was a place of overwhelming pluralism, but he found a point of contact wherein he was able to share his faith.  As Bruce Epperly nears the end of his journey with us through Acts, he takes us to Athens.  I invite you to consider his reflections.

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Adventurous Theology #9:

Christ in a Pluralistic Age

Acts 17:16-20:16

Bruce Epperly

Acts of the Apostles is an adventure that encompasses geography and spirituality. You can take a spiritual journey without leaving home, or you can be utterly bored on a holiday. In the case of Peter and Paul, adventure waited around every turn as God’s spirit propelled them forward to adventures of ideas, healing, and spiritual growth. Paul’s missionary adventure takes him to Athens, the hub of intellectual and cultural life in the Mediterranean world. As he strolls through the Areopagus, the marketplace of ideas, Paul experiences the pluralism of his time in all its glory. Statues abound and conversation is heard on every possible theme. Novelty is the name of the name of the game as new ideas emerge on a day to day basis. Everyone, the author notes, seeks to hear or tell something new.

In many ways, the scene at the Areopagus mirrors our time in which spiritual journeys and eclectic world views and practices abound. While many decry this as “cafeteria Catholicism,” “the spiritual smorgasbord,” or “designer religion,” the truth is that our cultural pluralism is challenging all of us to “make it [our spirituality] up as we go along.” Healthy spirituality involves dialogue and the embrace of pluralism, and not its denial, or a regression to the old time religion. Still, Paul’s distress is appropriate: as people run to and fro in search of the latest spiritual teaching or teacher, or guru who will promise enlightenment and prosperity in a handful of easy lessons, Paul – and many of us today – recognize that healthy spirituality involves depth as well as breadth. It awakens us to infinite possibility while rooting us in the concreteness of daily life. Christ opens us to pluralism, but also enables us to integrate new ideas and practices around a creative and growing spiritual center.

In his speech to the Athenians, Paul’s gives us a glimpse of his universalist theology – for Paul, Christ is not merely a parochial Galilean figure, located in space and time; he is the incarnation of God’s creative love, from which the world emerges and through which all things are reconciled. Paul would feel comfortable with the Prologue of John’s gospel and its ecstatic proclamation of God’s Creative Wisdom/Word that brings forth and enlightens all things. Paul’s vision of the universality of Christ is reflected in his much quoted affirmation of the Hellenistic philosophy of his time: God in the one “in whom we live and move and have our being.” No Deist, who consigns God to the fringes of life, Paul sees God moving through every breath and every encounter. In the Spirit of Romans 8, God moves through the non-human and human creation, interceding within us in sighs too deep for words.

Paul rightly critiques the many representations of God he observes: though he affirms God’s incarnation in the world – “the word made flesh” – he is equally cognizant of God’s grandeur. God is always more than we can imagine. God cannot be contained in any shrine or statue made by human hand. Here the kataphatic, God is present in all things, is joined with the apophatic, God is more than anything we can imagine. This is the yin and yang of theology and spirituality – we have a treasure (indeed, it has transformed our lives and awakened us to holy places) but this treasure is revealed in earthen vessels. The glory goes to God not to our concepts or representations of God.

Still, God is here – as near as our breath – inspiring people of every culture to seek God’s creative wisdom. While Paul proclaims the fullness of revelation in Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, he is – in contrast to Karl Barth – affirming that there is a “point of contact” everywhere between God and the world. Even our idols, that is, our localizing of God in space and time through nationalistic loyalties and religious rituals, is inspired by God’s presence in our lives.

These idols both reflect and conceal God’s presence, and need to be cleansed of their particularity so loyalty to one path opens us to a diversity of divine paths.

Pluralism inspires mission, though the not the mission of “us versus them” or “I have it and you don’t.” It is the mission of sharing good news that we already know deep down, but haven’t yet experienced consciously. It is the mission of inviting us to be part of God’s holy adventure in the unfolding history of people in all times and places. Christ within us lures us forward toward what we can become through divine inspiration and grace.

Christ’s good news partners must take culture seriously; they must affirm other faiths in light of what they have experienced in Christ. They must share good news that meets the longings of persons in our pluralistic, post-modern age, rather than denying or demeaning the spiritual quests of our time.

The Spirit that moves through all things inspires Paul’s journey throughout the Mediterranean world. Mysticism continues to lead to mission in Corinth, Ephesus, Macadonia, and Galatia. Paul speaks but also acts, mediating healing power to persons in need.

The Areopagus is our world today. We are people at the margins, but the margins can become the frontiers; the mission field is here; many gods abound and vie for our attention. Our task is to affirm wisdom where we find it – to honor the diversity – yet share the grace we have experienced, the Creative Wisdom of Christ, embodied in all things and inspiring all things.

Bruce Epperly is Professor of Practical Theology and Director of Continuing Education at Lancaster Theological Seminary. He is the author of 17 books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living and Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry.