Topic: spirituality
It’s Sunday morning, a day that many survivors, no longer feeling entirely comfortable and welcome in any faith community, do not relish. Perhaps because it stands as a reminder of what used to be taken for granted as the only normal and acceptable way of feeling and relating on that day.
What I love most about Sunday mornings is “Speaking of Faith” on NPR.
This morning, rushing to get to a church where I do feel welcome and often am blessed with challenging thoughts, I was pleased to hear the voice of Joan Chittister. Joan is one of my favorite authors. I first met her and hugged in 1994, at Linkup’s International Conference, especially for survivors of clergy sexual abuse and their advocates. As the keynote speaker, she showed her huge understanding of the issues and framed it all in the most amazing sermon I’d ever heard, so validating the work that I was just beginning to launch in this ministry!
Joan was talking today about tradition. Moving away from tradition, to seek a richer commonality with others in our world, is not a bad thing for people of faith, according to this prolific writer, though traditionalists have traditionally considered those of us who think that way to be infidels. In fact, she declared it to be a sign of spiritual maturity when we question old traditions that may no longer work in our complex world while finding new ways of thinking, new ways of understanding issues, new ways of structuring our world to confront reality. Especially when it comes to social justice.
“When we cannot find it in the pulpit,” she said.” We turn to the bookstore.” Like Joan, I do not think that this is such a bad thing. There is nothing like a book to give us the details and concepts that can’t be captured in sound bytes. In a depth that could not begin to gain understanding in the hearts of the average person sitting in the pew.
OK--so I blew it today! I didn’t intend to; but in my rush to get to church, I got sidetracked. Or maybe I didn’t.
My old fundamentalist upbringing might land me in the infidel camp, but I got spiritually fed. Then, suddenly, I "made the mistake" of checking my voice mail, and that led to a place I did not intend to be, grieving with a young student of mine who is experiencing severe bereavement for the third time in three years.
Tradition tells me that there is something seriously wrong with my heart when I don’t follow “God’s plan.” So often these days, what I perceive as God’s plan, however, doesn’t end up putting me in a pew. As my ministry grows and my need to care for myself in some non-traditional ways, I'm finding that less and less.
I don’t know where your struggles with traditional definitions of spirituality may be today. Please understand that I'm not discouraging you from being heavily invested in old traditions either. I believe we need some of both.
Perhaps, like me, you were taught that your heart cannot be trusted. I believe, provided we are seeking a good that is greater than traditional rules of “morality” that so many traditionalists like to simplify, then our hearts can find just where we need to be, moment by moment, whether or not we have the approval of the masses or not. Even if it means sometimes taking a break from church formalities, to attend to "higher things."