Practice Makes Whole

I recently experienced the funeral of my longest lived friend. We shared many things including a Christian faith and the day of our birth - even though our birth years were at opposite ends of the twentieth century. But equally at "different ends" were some of our core understandings of the Christian faith as well. If labels were appropriate I might have called her faith "rigid." Her rejoinder might have been that mine was "loose." But for all of the perceived truth in such labels it was impossible to have an argument about faith-understanding with my friend. I don't mean that "she was a dear, sweet old lady and you didn't want to argue with her." I mean that something in her told you - right at the point of engagement - that she understood that surface understandings and human arguments weren't, ultimately, what faith was all about. It was an amazing paradox to see someone so deeply convinced about their surface level understandings and yet equally convinced that there was something deeper - something more important.

According to one of her eulogists, my friend thought she was not much good at "spreading her faith." Now the faith sharing she wasn't good at was the sharing of strictures, prescriptions, checklists and definitives of the surface level. Yet she was expert at sharing how her radical (that is, deep rooted) trust in God led her beyond her own agenda - led her to be an agent of hospitality to families on post-war farms across the Mallee; led her to engage faithfully in prayer as a connection to God, led her to use the Bible as a guidebook to personal humility - and - led her put aside a comfortable eastern Melbourne lifestyle to practice midwifery in Papua New Guinea.
 

There is a Sufi parable about a banquet where the king is yet to take his place at the table. A dishevelled man walks in to the banquet hall and takes a place in the king's seat. The prime minister, incensed, asks who the dishevelled man thinks he is. To questions of whether he is a cabinet minister or king the man says "No. Higher."

Are you then God?" asks the prime minister.

"No. Higher" says the man.

"That is impossible" says the prime minister, "nobody is higher than God."

"That nobody" says the man, "is me."

My friend seemed also to take the role of "that nobody." She was so fundamentally humble that she seemed always to be getting herself out of the way so that you saw her "through God's lens" or "on the other side of God" or "transparent to the light of God" or as "God acting through." To experience her was to experience Christian Good News - to experience pure evangelism. This article is about our opportunity to "experience evangelism" within the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA).

Brad Harris's article explores the concept of evangelism and some of the difficulties we (the UCA) appear to have with the concept. As always it is an insightful and provocative piece of writing by Brad. However in the call to action on evangelism I notice that there is typically a frenetic sense evident. "It needs action." "What do we do?" "Five years to respond." I want to relieve myself of such a frenetic burden, so this article is less about avoiding a perceived institutional melt-down and more about being authentic transmitters of God's light.

To further my argument (and because we know evangelism and "Good News" are etymologically the same) it will help to offer a definition of "Good News." There is neither scope nor space to develop this definition or the support for it, so I offer it with some frustration that may be shared by the reader. Nevertheless I see "Good News" as the realisation (made known to Christians in the event of  Jesus of Nazareth's life and death and carried on from that point through the body of Christ) that the human urging towards separateness and selfhood (which is necessary, in part for evolution but ultimately leads to spiritual and physical death) can be moderated through participation in a divine dance towards wholeness. Simple, more psychological language might be that it is possible, by moderating the ego, to enter a spiritual realm.

Like all concepts that are difficult to master however, such moderation requires practice - just as my friend practiced individually and in community. Whilst the subject of Christian practices is a large one, here I only want to start the conversation with a few basic points about Christian practices. And I want to suggest that to be authentic ego moderators (or evangelists) we need some "fluid re-traditioning" of the practices.  What fluid re-traditioning realises is that tradition is a "why' word and not a "how" word. This means that tradition is about a practical effect (why we do it) rather than a particular way of producing that effect (how we do it). Knowing this opens great scope for creativity that can be applied to our practiced traditions. Reshaping our approach to evangelism - being an experience of "Good News" - will require such creativity in our practices. Here are some simple suggestions for where to start:

Knowing ourselves and one another more deeply: If you are currently a member of a Christian faith community, what is the depth of post-worship-service conversation? From the conversations I've heard I suspect we need to re-teach the art of conversation. Think of it as a starting point for learning the practise of spiritual friendship. If I can't create the place to ask "but how are you really" I can't begin to create the type of community where we help each other with ego moderation -  a community of evangelists.

Making space: Soren Kierkegaard[1] famously noted that the true person of prayer "simply attends." Like or loathe such a provocation it is true that ninety percent of corporate prayer I see offered in UCA settings "speaks to God." If there are forty different prayer instances at a yearly Synod meeting might they offer forty different ways of being transparent to God? Might not different people appreciate different ways of placing themselves in the humility of the divine dance?

Connecting the Christian story to our lives: Our primary practice vehicle in this area is the offering of a sermon. I am not anti-sermon. Front-and centre delivery has its uses. Yet I estimate that about 1000 person hours a week is expended on sermon preparation within the Uniting Church in Victoria and Tasmania alone at a cost of approximately $38 000 per week. At the same time educators tell us that extended verbal presentation is one of the least successful engagement techniques. What are the new ways of merging scholarly reflection with input of personal experience from greater numbers of people, for the ebb (ego advancement) and flow (ego moderation) that is evident in scripture is our story too!

Acting justly in the world: The Uniting Church's substantive work in social justice is essential and the people of the Uniting Church are held up as "generous" and "concerned." If I offer a comment in this area I am most often confronted with "what more can we do?" Yet I am not looking for more - "more concern" or "more charity". What I want us to do is rediscover the practice of stewardship. Our UCA squabbles about "holding on" to material possessions suggest we need to relearn this practice. True custodianship is the goal - the sense of "take what you really need and pass on the rest" as is so evident in the (ego moderating) reflections of the early Jesus movement.

What I have written in this article may not seem like the usual reflections on the subject of evangelism. After all isn't evangelism something you "do" to spread the message? Shouldn't we get cracking with it? But if we are going to attempt to spread the Good News, then I first want to see us authentically "being an experience of Good News." It's time to re-learn the tradition.

[1] Prayer: Whatever Comes to Thee; Papirer X, A, 229

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At the heart of Christian faith is the belief that Jesus is not just your ordinary guy. It is not just that Christians believe that Jesus is a good teacher, or prophet. Instead, Christian belief is that in Jesus there is something more going on. For Christians, it is not just that Jesus reaches some higher level of enlightenment because of his closeness to the Divine.

Your writing Sally is as always evocative. And so in me it has evoked the following which is not critique or criticism but another lens through which to view your opening remarks.

I wonder whether, if the mystery of Jesus' divinity is brought to us in terms of "not just your ordinary guy" and "something more going on" then we risk defining and hence losing the mystery.

From the biblical Jesus arise statements like "many who are first will be last and many who are last will be first." Such statements could be just liberation politics: "Root out the first so that the last can take their place." Yet such an interpretation would create an endless cycle of "first and last" that hardly seems akin to God's wholeness. So there is also a resonance with a different interpretation - a parody on words such as "first and last". A parody that proclaims, "First and last. Last and first. We'll never really find God's realm with language of ‘first and last,' language of the false-self that puts us at the centre of the universe and allows us to make judgements we are not qualified to make. So make your judgements of first and last if you want to because in the end that is the language of the false-self and truth sits in a deeper place!"

And if this understanding has any credence it sets up for us a dilemma. For how can one who reveals God's realm to be beyond the language of "first, last, better than, more than" at the same time be identified as "not just" and "something more?"  And in such a dilemma is great paradox. Could Jesus be "not just your ordinary guy" because he is such an ordinary guy? Could there be "something more going on" precisely because there is nothing more going on? By this of course we mean he escapes the definitions of the false-self. Jesus "is" - nothing more or less is necessary.

In this understanding faith is not "belief" about Jesus level of capability or characteristic. I don't have to believe that Jesus is more than anything nor claim to understand how he became "more" (just I can never fully understand why I am as I am).  Faith, in this understanding, is the possibility - the hope - that in practicing the Jesus way  (the way of being deeply "who we are" without reference to "not just" or "more than" ) we mysteriously experience Christ. And this is not Christ as a false-self title - not Sir Jesus or Lord Jesus or King Jesus -  but Christ as "an-oint-ment" - the metaphorical "oiled body" which rather than stopping the flow of God, allows the spirit of humble God to "slide through" transforming me and the world around me in the process.

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Australian readers may have seen the tragic but equally faith filled "Australian Story" on the death of Dr Khulod Maarouf-Hassan in Noble Park in 2006. Dr Maarouf-Hassan, who had come to Australia from Syria, was attacked by a mentally ill patient from the local Sudanese community. Yet this was not a tale of racial division but of extraordinary grace. The link to the "Australian Story" website and the particular story is here:

http://www.abc.net.au/austory/

On the day of the Dr Maarouf-Hassan's funeral, which my wife attended, I was speaking at a local faith community in Melbourne and the funeral framed my reflections that day - as an invitation to "step into the chaos" in our church life.

The address can be accessed at the following link and I have also pasted it, long as it is, below - http://www.sdc.unitingchurch.org.au/ADR20060625.htm

Bring on the Chaos - June 25, 2006

You've no doubt noticed that my wife is not here with me this morning. Instead she finds herself at a funeral for a colleague - someone for whom she had great respect. Indeed, though their contact was only occasional, I suspect from my wife's comments that she had great love for this colleague - a real desire to nurture and grow her in her professional life and as a person. A love - again I can only suspect - borne of the colleague's sense of resilience and generous spirit. This colleague I speak of was killed last week in an attack that is somehow related to the work she does. Like all members of the helping professions, as we call them, she had accepted an extended sense of vulnerability as a professional norm.

I don't know the facts of the case. But a possible scenario is that, in trying to help someone to quiet a chaos in their own life, she too has been consumed by that chaos.  - conquered by a client's rage that could not be sufficiently contained and which boiled over with due finality.

But was she conquered? Is the outcome so final? Final, yes, in terms of the presence that we cherish ...and that is where our grief arises. But not final in other ways...

Today family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances and community gather to celebrate the life and mourn the loss of someone whose presence in this world they deeply treasured. And who can say - touched by the story of commitment and compassion of this woman - whether someone who hears the story will not be moved to tackle the chaos in a new way - to research the chaos, appreciate the chaos, immerse themselves in the chaos, publicise and demystify the chaos, bring compassion to the chaos, quell the chaos. The struggle to calm the chaos lives on.

Of course in post-modern times chaos can have a number of meanings, good, bad and indifferent. I should point out at the outset that I am talking here of the sort of chaos that seems bereft of the good; bereft of love. And this chaos is not only present in the wild eyes and actions of an enraged attacker. The chaos is present here in this suburb, in this street, in this block ...yes even in this congregation. It's present in history and it is present now. It is present with the Muslim woman walking along Melville Road. It's present as she's verbally assaulted and sprayed with the vestiges of last night's alcoholic excess from a passing car. It's present with the student supporting himself by working at the local corner store - risking the graveyard shift to earn a little extra and make those ends meet. It's present with the corner store owner - whose desire for financial deliverance has grown so acute that he short-changes that student by a few cents every week. "He'll never notice." he thinks. It's present with the copper on the local beat, whose homosexuality he conceals because of "some business way back with his father." It's present with two of his colleagues who have sensed his secret and who call him "Chris" behind his back (because "people like that" need an ambiguous name). It's present in the mind of the girl living just a few blocks from here who sees her salvation in the gospel of fashion and figure. She's learning how to pilfer the tops and skirts of her favourite labels while she starves herself to look the way she's told she should. It's present in the community that exclaims "that old girl down the street is a bit too old and a bit too mad to put up with anymore." It's present with the old lady who yearns for another human's voice, just once in her day. And it's present ....well it's present with me in the myriad ways I search for the shortcuts towards security.  - the ways I seek the low road; the ways I conspire for my own comfort - the ways I make that comfort a far superior goal to the collective needs of community - the ways I seek to wrap a safety blanket around myself, to be an island entire of itself, to isolate and individualise myself and  ...well ...to die. To limit my bearing or impact or legacy and to spiral down to true finality. Ironic isn't it.

You no doubt have heard the quote commonly attributed to Nelson Mandela but actually a quote he himself took from the 1992 book "A Return to Love" by Marianne Williamson.

"Our deepest fear" wrote Williamson, "is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Seen in the light of my opening remarks this is not just the stuff of trite self-help literature. In fact it cuts to the heart of what it means to be conspiring ("working with the spirit - with God") to calm the chaos. It cuts to the heart of what it means to have faith - to believe that our goodness can shine through to build a realm of love. And it tells us that to have faith we will have to overcome fear - the fear that we will make a difference and that then the forces that accentuate such chaos (sometimes even within ourselves) will pursue us and deride us and seek to ensure that we do not succeed. They will do that but faith must keep us going. And like my wife's colleague - like thousands who have stood up and said they will be a source of light in the World - sometimes the shadows of chaos will loom over us, seemingly extinguishing our flame. But will it be extinguished? Not if our conspiring with God (working with the spirit) becomes inspiring (breathing in the spirit) for others. The light keeps shining.

Last Sunday I listened to a radio program about other intelligent life-forms in the cosmos. The program explored the work of scientists in this area. The scientists were attempting to find signals in space that might come from such life forms. Eventually, the question was asked that if we do find life - that somehow parallels human existence - will that life have the capacity to be friendly or will such beings seek to destroy us? A scientist offered the view that they are most likely to be friendly. His rationale was as follows: If "intelligent" beings are inherently evil (his word), the likelihood of us finding them as a surviving society is miniscule. If all of the beings in a society are inherently unloving, then the focus of such beings is also inherently inwardly focused. Eventually, he concluded, they will destroy each other.

The psychology behind that is of course not new. It may not be particularly profound or meaningful for you. But, in this scientific context, I find it a wonderfully refreshing way of looking at the nature of faith and the need for love. It's just a wonderful example of "the rational" so beautifully shot-through with "the faithful." And it's obviously not just the case for beings beyond our planet. It's the case for us. We heard a reading from Job this morning and you probably already know something of Job's struggle and his attempts to understand whether the ways of society (accentuating the self) or the ways of God (accentuating other, love) ultimately bear fruit. This morning the Joban storyteller has God poetically exploring the way to tame chaos. And God's creative efforts at this taming prepare a place for us to go on taming - as images of God, as co-conspirators with God.. And the Gospel reading takes this theme further. The story has the Christ character - human infused with God - setting out with disciples to tell the story of faith at another place, across the sea. Another place, across the sea - in the context of the storyteller's culture it's an environment ripe for chaos. And, surely, the chaos comes. The Christ initially sleeps through the chaos, perhaps an indication that he does not fear it, that he is comfortable within it. Then, when awoken, he does confront the chaos ...and stops it. Such "confronting" and "stopping" seems fairly painless but when we place them in the context of the whole Christ story we know that they are not. The forces for chaos seek to exterminate and succeed in exterminating the one who quietens the storm.

But do they exterminate, do they extinguish the flame, do they conquer? There is that question once again. We are told that, though the chaos has been quietened by Christ, the disciples look to him and are fearful. What do they fear? Could it be that they are inspired to be like the Christ - to be the force for love whatever the consequences? And could it be that they know what those consequences are  - and that they fear them? And could it be that we know, as "the body of Christ," as the ones who called on to carry on the inspiration in this time and in this place, know the consequences? We need the support of each other to face the fear. We need the support of each other to have faith. We need each other to help us inspire each other with love, whatever the consequences ....to keep us from looking inwards ...to keep us from destroying what God has crafted for us from the chaos.

I want to conclude by considering the ramifications of all of this for our worshipping communities. What does it mean, for example, for a small congregation like this in middle Melbourne? On thinking deeply about this question you might significantly revise your plans for mission and your ways of resourcing that mission in this place. You might completely reconfigure this physical space. You might bring some of "spaces of potential chaos" closer to you with a mixture of community, supported and paid residential and sensitive commercial around a hub of community and gift-sharing or worship space. You might use that space to create a sense of enlivening mission around:

-          relationship building (you can't engage with a community and it's chaos unless you relate to them)

-          exploration of the Gospel and how it informs choices for twenty-first century community

-          spaces, places and ways for seeking God and searching for spirit and

-          specific, helping actions in our local community and world.

Let's say you do all of this in some way and things seem to be bubbling along nicely. Then one of your members notices a group of teenagers who have a particular talent, who are somewhat maligned for their talent and need a space to practice it. It doesn't matter what the talent is. It is probably something that most people over thirty would say "What do they need to do that for?" Use your imagination. Nevertheless they have this talent and your member identifies that talent and sees the need to develop it. Your member also feels that one of the spaces in your newly configured property is just perfect for them. At a tense meeting the Church Council certainly expresses concerns that these teenagers may get up to "no good." But working through the difficulties the Council is finally convinced that if you are to be a loving, mission filled community, you can't step back from the possibility of chaos. You have to be amongst it if you are going to engage with it, understand it and calm it.

The program runs for a little while and certainly some of the chaos eventuates, but at the same time this community seems enriched by the experience as do the teenagers. Then a couple of locals become the self appointed "concerned residents society" with respect to what is "going on here." They canvass other supporters and exaggerate claims of what has been going on. More people come on board to support them. The local press gets involved and Kim Cain has to come from the UCA Centre to help manage the media attention. Public meetings are held. A resident at an aged care facility, just five blocks away, busses in twenty fellow residents to protest against "youth activities in our neighbourhood."

What do you do? Do you pull away from this new chaos. Or do you engage with it? I think the message of today is that being the body of Christ is inherently messy, dirty, chaotic BUT if we are to be co-conspirators with God, if we are going to inspire another generation to be the body of Christ, if we are going to avoid being the chaos ourselves and destroying ourselves, we mustn't pull back from the chaos.

Author Kester Brewin writes, ".....in the Emergent......Church we would expect to see a very blurred boundary between local community activity and specifically church activity. For many this will be seen as dirty - as infecting the good and pure activities of the Church - but it is precisely this blurred boundary, with no hard line between in and out, that will be allowing the Church to sense, respond to and shape the community. For others this blurring will be viewed as rocking the boat - upsetting their equilibrium and their comfortable place with 'no alarms and no surprises.' Too many people currently scatter themselves on pews for a sense of comfort and tradition - an escape from the outside - and to suggest that the outside should be brought in will be very threatening. But the closed system churches with ageing and unchanging congregations are literally dying and wilting, entombed in buildings with massive potential to resource local community life - yet which are clad with citadel doors and iron locks."[1]

Let's break the locks. Let's step into chaos and let the chaos come to us. Let's be full of faith that God resources us to be there and to be co-conspirators and inspirers...And let's do all of this ....whatever the consequences.

[1] Brewin, K, The Complex Christ: Signs of Emergence in the Urban Church, London 2004 SPCK p77

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Nuanced Christian thinker and writer (and board member of the Center for Progressive Christianity [sic] in the USA) Jim Burklo, recently published a blog entry about Eckhart Tolle at his Musings blog. Burklo's blog focussed on the important contribution that a non-Christian writer like Tolle can make to Christian understanding and practice of faith. Burklo writes,

One of the more significant books I've read recently about the practice of Christianity was written by a non-Christian. I found Tolle's book ("A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose") to be an exceptionally good introduction to spiritual practice.  The message of the book is very simple.  The more often we can have what I call "out-of-ego experiences", the happier we'll be and the better life will be for human beings on planet Earth.  If we can wake up to the fact that the essence of who we are is divine and one with the whole universe, if we can wake up to the fact that our egos are artificial constructions of our minds, then we can live more in harmony with the here and now, and more in harmony with each other and with the earth. Tolle describes this awakening beautifully in clear, non-sectarian, non-religious language.  But he also salts his prose with quotes from the great world religions, like Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and, yes, Christianity!

I too have been impressed with Tolle's ability to open up the sense of post-egoic mind that is present in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Exponent of Christian centring prayer, Cynthia Bourgeault, uses an information technology metaphor to describe this post-egoic mind. Around five or six thousand years ago humans' sense of self-awareness came to the point where they were able to exercise judgement - to "line things up" in terms of good; better; best (or not so good, worse, worst).  This "egoic operating system," though necessary for evolutionary purposes, also gave individual humans the ability to develop an unnecessary sense of separation from creation. Then around 2000 to 3000 years ago a range of actors on the world stage (among them Jesus of Nazareth) began to boldly demonstrate the ability to transcend this egoic operating system. They demonstrated a capacity to relate to all creation, and through them we became aware of the capacity for unitary consciousness. Taking her information technology metaphor further, Bourgeault suggests that at this point a new post-egoic operating system became available. However, despite the likes of Jesus making it available, society in general decided against taking the download. Mystics over the last two thousand years have tried to increase the popularity of the "new" operating system. But it is with the likes of Tolle, with his popular new book, that the download is seemingly becoming a more common thing.

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Twice before leaving for the USA in May and twice whilst there I heard different people pronounce the church dead. Knowing a little about each of these people and their journey I know they were talking about the death of mainstream church as we know it - the so-called Christendom church which takes its place at the centre of western power structures and is concerned about membership strength and institutional conformity. Each of these people related the death with some joy, not in petulant ways ("the mean old church is dead, hooray") but in ways of some depth ("how does the passing of church as we know it open opportunities for a new depth of spiritual development?"). Each of these people was practicing lament in what I think is its true sense.

I hear the call from time to time that "The death of the church is to be lamented." But usually what is meant by that is that we are to mourn the passing of previous structures of faith as if they were the only way for faith to be developed. Oh we of little faith! How can people of a religious tradition that has death and resurrection as a central tenet experience the passing of previous structures in this way? Surely what Christianity teaches us about death and resurrection is that life and death are not opposites? Death (the passing of old structures) is part of life (the development of the new). Lament then is part of a process of allowing something to "die well" - to allow something to be ushered from present reality to deeply cherished memory - and to allow that ushering to happen graciously, gracefully and with deep thankfulness for what was added to our lives. And hence it is a process of great joy. Not joy as cheap bliss but joy as appreciation for the eternal given-ness of God - that every passing carries into a new presence. I know that is not the way we have come to understand either lament or joy but these are understandings I think we need to develop.

I sense we will be helped in our process of lament if we can better come to understand the concept of tradition. Most understandings of tradition focus on "how" something has been done in the past rather than "why" it has been done. We can better let the exacting nature of "how" go (or even re-adopt it with new life!) if we begin to understand the "why."  Christian researcher and author Diana Butler Bass speaks in her book The Practicing Congregation (and Dr Butler Bass is also the author of Christianity for the Rest of Us) about a process of fluid re-traditioning. I think this process has at least some resonance with what I am saying here. In calling for a continual process of re-traditioning I suspect Butler Bass is calling from a movement from "how" to "why." A couple of examples from my recent experience may highlight something of this movement.

Example 1: Let's say an early Christian community develops a particular prayer process which helps them, in community, to settle themselves to "experience" God. The practice requires a particular physical posture - comfortable but not too comfortable - and a particular mantra. It seems to serve that community well. Seeing how well it seems to serve that community, other communities take up practice, sometimes contextualising it appropriately, sometimes not. In certain streams of "tradition" the practice allows communities to deepen their connection to God. In others it becomes a rote action, bereft of much meaning.

Fast forward one thousand years or so and in an early, modernist review of the practice experts have identified that there is a slight chance of long term back injury through repeated use of the practice. They have introduced a set of warm up exercises to lessen the chance of such injury. The purpose of the exercises is purely functional, not spiritual.

Fast forward another sixty years to "The Church on the Hill" and note that they are using an adaptation of the technique, including warm up exercises, in their weekly liturgy. No one can tell you much about the original meaning of the practice and no one can tell you at all that the warm up exercises are indeed that - warm up exercises! But three stalwarts of the worship committee vehemently insist that the practice must be repeated exactly as it was done when they arrived at the church in the 1960s. "It is important to us and to God" they insist.

Tradition as "fluid re-traditioning" would have kept "the Church on the Hill" (and all of the earlier communities in the path of this tradition) aware of the "why" behind the tradition. It would also have kept people questioning the appropriateness of the tradition to their context rather than blindly adopting. And if you think this example is far fetched, I do know of a Christian community where the meaning of a health and safety practice became lost, and it became lodged as an insisted-upon spiritual practice in their weekly liturgy.

Example 2: I have been reading and reflecting significantly on the Christian understanding of Trinity recently. The topic will receive more attention in this blog in coming times. However my reading and reflection has led me to understand a deep wisdom in Trinity. This is about the wholeness (the holiness, the divinity) which is experienced through the inter-relationship of more than two entities. Early Greek Christian reflected on Trinitarian God as the "dance" of more than two entities. Specifically for me, I have a sense that "communities of wholeness" are formed where a sense of vocation/ purpose dances with a sense of contextualisation/relationship and simultaneously dances with a sense of practice/discipline. As I have travelled in the USA, reflecting and speaking of this concept, others people (both from Christian and non-Christian perspectives) have come to me and said "That's interesting Adrian. We have been reflecting on something similar." Then they have produced their own three pronged perspective. Different words - same concept.

The blog has been quiet for a few weeks and will be for a couple more while I am in the US looking at various church research activities.But you can see a little bit about our trip and our work at this report on the Alban Institute website (click here).

Also Gen X minister and writer Carol Howard Merritt was one of the people we visited on our journey and she comments on our conversation on her blog (click here).

Recently a new retail grocery store opened near my house. As part of the opening celebrations the store offered some significant reductions on the usual prices of everyday items. One of the most popular items, I am told, was half price toilet paper - about a three dollar reduction on the usual price. I understand that individual customers were scrambling over each other for two, four, six, eight and ten packs at a time. Store staff-members were being abused because stock wasn't immediately available on the floor. All of this was happening at a grocery store in the midst of one of Melbourne's (and indeed Australia's) most well-off communities.

On the same day that the grocery store opened, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation showed its gritty television piece about youth homelessness and the struggles of one Salvation Army Officer (The Oasis). After that I found myself thinking that no matter how many coins we throw in the Salvo's plate, we won't address issues of social exclusion whilst mainstream society sees "three dollars off" as an issue worth squabbling over.

I am not trying to be self-righteous here, for I struggle everyday with how to best embody generosity. But I need the help of my community to ensure I keep "three dollars off" in perspective.

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I have found myself in three recent but very different conversations about how Christians connect with others in their community. Each of these has left me a little uneasy. On reflection I realise that in each case I had quite different views from my conversation partners, about how validly we can relate to those not identified as Christian.

The first scenario related to a rural congregation that was "working very hard" to "build community" by connecting with "denomination XYZ" up the road. But despite this hard work the leadership of "denomination XYZ" were uneasy about the relationship. "Why do you persist?" I asked. "We're all on about telling the story of Jesus" they said, "We think ecumenism is important." Meanwhile a couple of other great community development activities going on in the town, were collectively eschewed by the congregation. "They're not specifically Christian" they told me.

The second scenario related to a congregation in an area of rapid population growth in the city. There were myriad opportunities for growing community connections with local groups in creative ways. Yet the main interest of local congregation members for connection was a congregation four suburbs away. This was a congregation of another denomination, that had grown rapidly and now had a "fantastic set of buildings." The clear implication was "let's do what they did."

The third scenario related to a thoughtful and open-minded Christian who I have personally witnessed modelling that thoughtfulness and open-mindedness. Yet in one conversation with him he spoke of his daughter's attempts to find a partner. The hope he had was that the partner would be a "Christian." No mention of "love" or even "respect" - just "Christian" as if that label ensures all the traits of a good partner.

The assumption in these scenarios is that a broad label like "Christian" can be a universal guarantee of an authentic godly connection. Yet as I walk the streets around my home and my workplace I see godliness flourishing in myriad places. Christianity has something special to bring to that reality by pointing to it and making it known. Yet it is not the only way to make it know, and in some of the ways it is practised, it may even make it harder to see god.

Reactions to my last post in various forums have been interesting. Mostly the assumption has been that I was making a point about the English language and approporaite grammar. My metaphor was obviously a little too subtle. Someone who responded to my thoughts made the comment that as god was a name applied to "the being" God it is appropriate to give him/her a capital. They went on to say "what is the big deal?" and "that's an easy one." I offered the following reflection in response:

Your thoughts and question have helped me reflect more on my own thoughts, which - as always - is a gift. Thank you.

Maybe I can use your thoughts, without undermining them in any way, to offer a little more of the backgound to my thoughts.

a) In your comments you refer to 'proper names,''there is God,''out of respect' and 'Him (Her).'
b) The view that these terms reflect (and don't in any way hear me say this is wrong, as that would defeat my argument) is a theistic view of god. It expresses an understanding of god as "a being"  Not "being"  in a broader sense but "a being" as I might look at you, another person, and understand the term "being."
c) Taking that view of god - a personification of god - means that I can give god a name "God" - that that name is a proper noun and that according to the rules of English, should hence be capitalised.
d) Under these views and assumptions, the answer is, as you say "an easy one."
e)....but....
f) I increasingly speak to people who are energised by the mystery behind Christian faith but who seek a broader definition of "being" or think of God beyond any definition of "being" and are reluctant to apply personifications.
g) So this "capital g/small g" thing is not so much a reflection on capitalisation at all as it is a metaphor (a very bad one, I am sure).
h) Hence what I am concerned about is the argument that takes place like this:
"God is a being named God" (the capital G person)
"I am not sure I see it that way" (the small g person)
"But it just is that way. Our faith demands it"
....and so on....
As such we can become definitive about something which is a mystery. Our finger pointing to the moon becomes our moon .....and our field of vision becomes a little shorter.