The Emerging Christian Way

Index	Ch. 5 - Sallie McFague	Ch. 6 - Matthew Fox.	Synchronicity - Dorothy Reyner
Jock's Summary Notes: Ch 5. Consider the Lilies of the Field: How Should Christians Love Nature?, Sallie McFague
Sallie McFague is a philosopher who understands more than just words. She noticed that words and objectivity did not describe all knowing and and began to understand truth in a more holistic manner. She is a theologian who sees the core ideas of tradition in new ways, and she suggests new models. In this essay she makes much use of the feminist "lens" to see and discuss the ecological lens. It fits well. The key points of her essay include: Paying Attention. She challenges the old way of religion regarding nature as a marvellous creation of God to be sure, but in a taken for granted way that has led to our present calamity. She suggests not an "opposite" way but a "different" way seeing St. Francis as a model. She says "How Christians should love nature is by obeying a simple but very difficult axiom: pay attention to it" and with Simone Weil says "absolute attention is prayer". The Arrogant Eye and The Loving Eye. She looks at the famous picture of the earth rising from the moon and pays such attention. She sees what few have seen. She sees that this image of a jewelled remote and beautiful planet disconnects our concern rather than focusses it - that we see our planet more as our property than our responsibility. This difference was identified by Marilyn Frye as arrogance or love. Arrogance asserts control, simplifies complexity, demands service. Love is relationship - between subjects never objects, a willingness to face facts. Subject-Subjects Model. McFague moves us beyond the arrogant view that sees everything and everyone as "object". In this she observes we do not move from object to subject - for that would be to simplistic. We move rather to consider "subjects", to better acknowledge the messy and beautiful realities of relationship. That there are differences to notice and celebrate. We all are in relationship. She suggests the best model for this is friendship. Rights Ethic or Care Ethic. Our society promotes a "rights ethic" to every human. This perspective is often expanded to include nature. That nature also has "rights". This is however a problematic and poor notion, as various concerns compete for attention. A better model McFague suggests is a "care ethic". "A care ethic, on the other hand, is based on the model of subjects in relationship, although the subjects are not necessarily all human ones and the burden of ethical responsibility can fall unequally. The language of care - interest, concern, respect, nurture, paying attention, empathy, relationality - seems more appropriate for human interaction with the natural world, for engendering helpful attitudes toward the environment, than does the rights language. ... Often there is no easy answer, for it is seldom so clean a matter as one creature's rights over against another's." A care ethic is more identifiably Christian when one considers the clearly counter-cultural notion of loving your enemy and the example of the Good Samaritan. Mapping or Hiking. We need says McFague not to take the "map" of our familiar worldview to other situations, regions and peoples, but to take a "hike" with our attention fully engaged to observe and experience what is new. When we do we discover that the "path" before us presents that particular part of the world which is ours to know and care for. Bill Moyers recently did a program "Is God Green" where he explores these themes as the Christian community is becoming more aware and involved in the green movement. Click HERE for a link to the one hour TV documentary program and its support information.
Wayne's Summary Notes: Ch 6. On Being a Postdenominational Priest in a Postdenominational Era, Matthew Fox
What does it mean to be a priest, pastor or minister among the priesthood of the baptized? That, I believe is the issue behind this chapter. Fox has things to tell us. Some of it is helpful. Some, not. "I am clearly not Catholic or Protestant, "says Fox (118) "or, if you will, I am both." Fox views himself as a priest living at the end of the Roman Catholic and the Protestant eras of church history and into the post-denominaltional era as we know it. (135) "I believe the times call me to be an ecumenical priest - to say yes to all, and also yes to none," he says (105-6). Seeing himself as a modern day Luther, Fox continues: "The Vatican made me a postdenominational priest when it excommunicated me, and I am responding to that reality." "The Vatican tried to isolate me, but I chose to remain within the larger ecumenical community as a priest." Fox was accepted into the Episcopal Church USA. "I left a formal role within one ecclesiastical structure to assume an informal one." Fox is convinced that the future does not lie with denominations, but with what he calls base communities, or local gatherings of believers. We no longer live in the old theological and liturgical boxes of the past. Worship in many local churches is ecumenical, global and interfaith. (109, 113) "Recovering Christians outnumber practicing ones today", he claims. "These are the wounded people from many sad ecclesiastical experiences." 112) The places where we work - our professions - are now more important in terms of the nature of our spirituality, he says. Repeating a Reformation tenet that was never truly followed by most Reformation traditions, Fox quotes Merton and says - We do not need priests. We need a people of priests or - the priesthood of the baptized. (119). Priesthood was not part of the early church. It is not a requirement to be the church, Fox adds. His Planetary Mass (a form of rave experience) is not based on "I think, or I consume - therefore I am." Rather "We are, therefore we celebrate." (125) We need a new priesthood to midwife transcendence in both new and ancient ways (131) In other words, we need spiritual leaders who can help all of us discern divinity in the midst of daily life. Obviously, we do not need ordined people for that. Many of the most spiritually attuned people are laypersons. "The church needs to develop a polity to mirror the inherent democratic spirit of the people," Fox concludes. "We need to take the best of RC and Protestant eras, and leave the rest behind." (135) Holst comments: If we study history, we see that reformers have always surfaced before major changes in the life of the church occurred. The reformations that then ensued were not always of the kind advocated by these prophets of renewal, but reformers did help greatly to bring people to see the importance and need for change. Leaders like Spong and Fox view themselves in this reformation tradition. We need to listen to what they have to say, even if we may not always agree with their prescriptions. Frankly, much of what Fox says about a community of priests and a democratic polity already exists in the United Church of Canada! I think we need to reflect on that reality. What is good, and not so good, about how we do things? _____ In terms of the new ministers we at St. Davids will be calling after our interim ministry process is complete, I suggest the following: We need ministers who are not threatened by the gifts and the initiatives of many of our laity. In many areas of congregational life, laypeople are more educated and informed in a wider range of disciplines than any clergyperson can ever be. The old model of the pastor authority based on education is no longer appropriate. That does not mean, however, that we can function without professionally trained and formally ordained ministry. We clearly need experienced, intelligent and educated - as well as spiritually attuned ministers - whose primary task is to affirm, free up and faciliatate the ministries of the laity among us. Equally important, we need ministers who embody and symbolize the mission of our congregation. They do this by being who they are and in the way they represent us as God's people.
Synchronicity – Devotional - Dorothy Reyner
The topic for our devotional today is “Synchronicity”. Synchronicity occurs when two or more events, seemingly unrelated, converge across time and space to create a new event. This simultaneous occurrence is a special kind of magic and brings with it an unexpected beauty and a joyful awareness of one's place in the universe. During my early years in a one-room school in Nova Scotia I had a teacher who loved poetry. I spent many happy hours memorizing poems because she said “when you find a poem you love, memorize it, so that you can carry it with you, in your heart and recall it when you want.” This love of remembered poems has brought me continued joy over the years. While working on my Ph. D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Alberta, I was preparing for an oral condidacy examination. Myt area of study was “The Self-Concept and Schizophrenia.” I was interested in how mental illness can affect our concept of ourselves and the world around us. My advisor was a young woman in her first job as a professor. She had never supervised a graduate student and was as anxious as I was about the upcoming exam. After several weeks of studying, I told her I was ready to take the esxam. The date was set. My advisor and I were to appear before a panel of four professors for a two-hour test of my expertise. The professors were from the departments of Psychology, Philosophy and Sociology. at the last minute the Head of the English Department, Dr. Henry Breisel, phoned to ask if he could observe the proceedings. Although visitors usually weren't allowed at doctoral exams, we told him he could come. He said he was interested in my area of study and promised to not interrupt the process. We assembled in the designated conference room. For the first half-hour I was able to answer all the questions so far and my advisor and I were beginning to relax a little. Suddenly Dr. Kreisel spoke, “I know I'm not supposed to say anything,” he said, “but I can't contain my curiosity any longer. What can you tell me about the self-concept in the poetry of Gerard Manlay Hopkins” A tense silence fell within the room. My advisor began to slump down in her chair, upset because I had been caught short by a visitor. What she didn't know was that I was rooming with a graduate student that winter, an English major enrolled in a poetry seminar led by Dr. Henry Kreisel, head of the English Department. She showed me his favourite poem, “What I Do Is Me” by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Of course, I set aside my homework and memorized it, because it was another treasure I could carry around in my heart. The selence lengthened in the conference room. I asked Dr. Kreisel, “Are you referring to the poem “What I Do Is Me, For That I Came”? He smiled in delight, “Oh, you're acquainted with it? Yes, that's the one!” I turned to the others and explained that Hopkins was an English priest and poet. The poem expresses his belief that all things, both living and non-living, are here for the purpose of fulfilling their being or their selves. He tells how kingfishers, dragonflies and even stones, bells and violin strings fulfil that being or self which dwells inside every organism. I asked, “Would you like me to recite the poem? They nodded. Here is the first stanza: As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme; As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came. My advisor was now sitting up straight in her chair, proud because her first Ph. D. student was performing so admirably. The second stanza describes how self-fulfilment is expressed in the lines of just and loving human beings. As I began the second stanza, Dr. Kreisel joined in and we recited in unison: Í say móre: the just man justices; Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces; Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is— Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places, Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his To the Father through the features of men’s faces. ‘As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme’, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918. For this, other poetry and his biography: http://www.bartleby.com/people/HopkinsG.html What a magical moment! There was a pause for reflection and then everyone clapped. Needless to say, I passed the exam which became more like a seminar with everyone joining in, asking questins and sharing thoughts about the self-concept. When we finally rose, the chairman stated that he hadn't ever enjoyed an exam so much. My advisor enjoyed herself too. Last but not least, Dr. Kreisel too everyone out to supper. The universe is teeming with potentially synchronistic events, ready to merge over time and place to create magical moments of unexpected beauty. The Navajo Indians understand synchronicity. Let us read responsively the Navajo prayer, “As I walk, as I walk, The universe is walking with me” As I walk, as I walk, THE UNIVERSE IS WALKING WITH ME. Beautifully – it walks before me. BEAUTIFULLY – IT WALKS BEHIND ME. Beautifully – it walks below me. BEAUTIFULLY – IT WALKS ABOVE ME. Beautifully – on every side. AS I WALK – I WALK WITH BEAUTY. My feet are restored to me. MY LEGS ARE RESTORED TO ME. My body is restored to me. MY MIND IS RESTORED TO ME. The dust of my feet is restored to me. MY SPITTLE IS RESTORED TO ME. The hair of my head is restored to me. THE WORLD AROUND ME IS RESTORED IN BEAUTY. All things around me are restored in beauty .... MY VOICE IS RESTORED IN BEAUTY. It is finished in beauty. IT IS FINISHED IN BEAUTY.

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