How to Avoid Drowning in the Living Waters

As religion develops the role of the priest was born as the person who was the mediator between the people and the divine. We see this from the High Priest in ancient Jewish tradition to the priest in the Catholic Church. Protestantism argued that the control the Church had over people was not what God intended and that one way the Church exerted control was to elevate the role of the priest and the saints as mediators between the people and God. Since Protestantism protested the economic monopoly of the Church of the time, the protest toward mediated access to God became a rallying cry. Protestants are proud to say that "we no longer need a mediator and we all have direct access to God." Which is true, but direct access makes me recall the story of Moses and the people on the mountain.

Moses asks to see God and God says that it would not be a good thing to do, since to do so would be death. God then gives permission to Moses to view the God's cloak and backside. While Moses is viewing the backside of God, the people at the base of the mountain are told to not even touch the mountain or they too will die. 

If Moses cannot handle direct access to God, can we?

The role of mediator is not to be the one who limits access to God. Rather the role of the mediator is the one who makes it so that we can take in a portion of God that will not kill us.

Imagine that God is like a mighty waterfall. This water is powerful and yet the source of all life. It is life giving and yet if you try to drink directly from the waterfall you will be hurt or even killed by drowning. However, if we were able to lay a series of pipes so that the water can flow through them in a less powerful way we can drink from the waterfall. These pipes are the mediators and Saints of the Church. They are the ones who channel the water of life to us so that we can drink. 

For all the boasting of my Protestant tradition about not needing a mediator we forget that we have a mediator in Jesus Christ. Jesus as the mediator to all creation which is why Jesus is able to offer living water in the Gospel of John. If it is Jesus or St. Mary or St. Patrick or St. Teresa then, Catholic or not, I celebrate the mediators that help us all drink from the waterfall of God because they help us from drowning.

The Irony of Independence

Every July 4th, the United States celebrates "Independence Day". It is your typical celebration whereby we remember the foundational values of the country and the things that bring us together. There is also a good amount of pie baking, meat consumed, and paper blown up. Perhaps one of the most "Merica" stories shared this week was the bald eagle (now named Freedom) that was ensnared by a tree limb but was freed when a U.S. military veteran used 150 rounds to shoot down the tree limb and liberate the eagle.

Of the values celebrated on the 4th is the value of independence. This value is cherished when we applaud any myth of a person who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, applauded when the loan leader goes ahead, encouraged when the entrepreneur starts their business, and is used as the proxy for failed parenting if your child is not able to be independent. Independence is so valued and idolized that it fuels the myth of meritocracy which is perhaps the creation myth of America. 

The irony is that INDEpendence is built upon a foundation of INTERdependence. It is not possible for one person to be independent without the very real interdependence of creation. Independent businesses built from the ground up are interdependent on the infrastructure of roads and power grids. Even those who live off the grid and are even more independent from the world become even more interdependent on the ebbs and flows of the seasons, weather and nature. 

We like to think we are independent and in many ways we are. However, lest we forget that the very reality that anyone can be independent is because of a true and full understanding of the interdependence we all have with one another. 

This is the tragedy of much of the talk about nations taking their "county back." The desire to take a country back, as it is currently expressed, is by building walls and cutting connections. These isolationist movements on the surface look like movements toward independence but because they undercut the interdependence we share it keeps independence a pipe dream.

True independence is like that of a soccer game. There are rules and boundaries, there is an interdependence on the officials, teammates and opponents. The more one understands this interdependence the more one is able to express beauty and freedom. Isolationist behavior in soccer leads to anarchy on the field where the game of soccer is unrecognizable. Isolationism in the world affairs leads to anarchy where there is no trust of another and the culture no longer flourishes (see the Dark Ages of Europe). 

Your Practice is not Limited to You

Someone practice baking and gave me the possibility of experience these divine pies.

It is unlikely that a person can deliver a brilliant sermon without practice, but practice does not guarantee a brilliant sermon. Practice does not make perfect but practice does make possible. 

In preaching, sports, music entertainment, parenting or any other field we practice, we think about the possibility that practice can offer. We might think about the glory we may gain if we practice and 'nail it' when it comes time to deliver. We think of the personal sanctification we might get if we get the results we worked hard to obtain. However, we may forget that our practice may lead to another's possibility.

Each week, choirs around the church world practice singing their praise songs and hymns. When it comes time to offer those songs in worship, the practice of the choir offers a possibility for the choir to have a level of fulfillment to be sure. However their practice also offers a possibility to those in the congregation: the possibility of being reconnected to the transcendence of God and that which is beyond. 

Your spiritual practices also make it possible that you may encounter the divine, but more often than not, your spiritual practice creates the possibility of others to encounter the divine through you. 

The possibilities of practice do not end with you. 

Prayer Life is Dance Life

A song was shared to me the other day entitled "O Life Is Like A Sacred Circle". Here is the first verse and chorus:

Verse: I life is like a Sacred Circle when we walk the Good Red Road. We dance to pray. We pray to heal. We heal to live. We live to dance.

Chorus: We dance to pray. We pray to heal. We heal to live. We live to dance. I life is like a Sacred Circle when we walk the Good Red Road.

The person who shared this song with the group I was in then asked us to reflect on the lyric "we dance to pray" and what it could mean for each of us.

It was quickly pointed out that both dancing and praying are acts of vulnerability. That is, for many of us, dancing is not something we are trained in and as such we tend to shy away from. For as many people as I have heard say,  "I can't dance" I have heard that many people say "I can't pray." Dancing in public and praying in public each take a level of trust and vulnerability that our time does not encourage. 

It has also been my experience that there is a deep draw that dancing has on many of us. That is so many of us want to know how to dance. We want to be able to have the confidence and the moves, the rhythm and the smoothness of body to dance on the floor. The dance desire is also echoed in the prayer desire. That is many of us desire the words and speech, the poetry and prose to pray, and since we feel like we don't have those things - we don't pray. 

Prayer life is dance life. That is to say, the ones who I know have a vibrant prayer life are the same ones who are comfortable dancing. Through prayer, these individuals are accustom to being vulnerable and so the act of dancing is just another expression of the vulnerability they have practiced in prayer. 

Rev. John Thornburg, who was leading the discussion, said that the US is the only place and time that has a culture of "I can't dance". I would add that we may be the only place and time that has a culture of "I can't pray." 

I ask you to consider the mantra:

"We dance to pray. We pray to heal. We heal to live. We live to dance."