A Neo-Aboriginal Vision of Pastoral Ministry

Posted on: 11/27/2008 09:13

SUMMARY: A sacred learning Circle is the most basic structure of spiritual community. Within it we are helped to move forward in our journey toward harmony with the Divine Will. This journey begins with locating a conscious sacred Center. It continues through acquiring practical spiritual Know-how. Gradually, through this process, a Sacred Vision evolves, which one recognizes is worthy of devoting his or her life to. Through living such a consecrated life, one becomes able to guide others in their journey.

The above sentences summarize a pastoral vision that has been evolving in my life over several years. It began evolving early on in my life, within the Christian tradition. It continued evolving within the Buddhist tradition, which has guided most of my adult spiritual life. And it continues evolving today in my life and work as a minister of the Church. The above painting, "Waiting for the Believers," suggests to me both the beauty and the tragedy of European Christianity, which, more and more each day, for a variety of reasons, is becoming full of empty buildings. But mostly this painting leaves me with a sense of transcendental hope, the kind of hope in which a necessary type of death is the portal to a new and better life. Because the Mystery we call "God" never stops waiting for us.

Until today I have not attempted to write down this vision that guides and nourishes me, and so this first attempt will be a rough conceptual outline that I hope will continue to evolve and become more clear and helpful over time. Because it is a conceptual outline, it is quite dense, and requires a slower reading than regular prose. It is neither an academic paper nor a sermon nor a guide. It is a personal reflection of how I experience and understand the life of being a pastor at this point in time.

I. Introductory Comments

My experience and understanding of both the Christian and the Buddhist traditions is that they are, in their foundations (not in their institutional forms), Aboriginal religions. They cultivate spirituality not simply as one piece of life's pie, but as the whole pie. They teach a total way of life. These two traditions have become inseparably linked in my life experience. It is through them that I have come to understand the story of my life, which aims at being a spiritual caregiver, pastor, or elder (these words for me have the same meaning). And, over time, as I have reflected on my experience in these two traditions, I have come to believe that the underlying link between them is a shared Aboriginal lineage. In this outline I will develop my evolving sense of what that basic, underlying lineage is, and use it to structure my pastoral vision.
It is important to emphasize from the beginning that no one can enter a spiritual community as an elder or pastor. That one can do so is an illusion created by the institutional shaping of ministry after a professional model. This illusion tends to carry within it the view that it is only in the pastor, and not in the parishioner, that the power to spiritually heal and develop is located. If a pastor is not raised within the Circle of the spiritual community, he or she can only enter it as a friend, one who walks with the community, listens, and learns their vision, their ways of life, their challenges and their needs. It takes time for a community to know what such a friend's vision of life actually is, apart from whatever he or she may say (or write). Gradually, as they get to know one another, the community may offer a deeper pastoral role to such a friend, if he or she comes to be trusted enough to bear that responsibility. Or the community may not offer more than friendship. This is a very subtle process. Even if a person in the community has the formal title of "minister," he or she may not in reality be more than a friend, unless the community, through experience, has discovered that this particular person actually has the vocation to be more to them, to serve as one of their pastors or elders. There are no self-appointed pastors or elders. And, in a very real sense, no one can be a pastor "in general," only within a particular community. These are realities that I am now keeping in mind as I begin to speak about my "pastoral vision." They are integral to the vision itself. And this means that whatever is written down here is not written in stone. It cannot be, because it will inevitably be re-created, and co-created, within a particular community of people, if and when that community discovers that I may indeed be more to them than a friend. I want to emphasize this at the beginning as foundational, because without this kind of active, mutual respect, even a noble vision can become tyrannical.
My pastoral vision is not different from my life vision. I ground it in the life vision of Jesus: "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." And so, it is a vision of harmony between my will and the will of the Divine Mystery I call "God" and others might call by different names, such as Creator or Hashem, Brahman or Nirvana. It is a vision of oneness, where my heart and the heart of God come to beat together in harmony.
This harmony does not arise accidentally. It develops within a sacred Circle of intentional right-relatedness. My first conscious encounter with such a Circle was, I suspect, in my early relationship with my mother. Later, I rediscovered it in the Christian faith of my youth, and later within the Buddhist community, and later still, within the Christian community once again. I understand this Circle now as the underlying process that connects these two wisdom traditions. I see it is a transcendental lineage, a line that has neither beginning nor end, which is why it can never finally be destroyed, and why it is both so profound and so simple.
I see the continual recreating of this disciple-evolving Circle as the practical spiritual purpose of liturgy, whether in Buddhism, the Catholic mass, or the Protestant worship service. I see this as the purpose of pastoral care, and as my personal vocation.
Long before the Buddha and Jesus, Aboriginal elders were building and nurturing such sacred Circles. Over time, institutional forms grew up over them like groundcover. It is my view that whatever spiritual vitality infuses those forms comes from this underlying lineage. Once awareness of that underlying lineage is lost, the forms lose their spiritual vitality.
Jesus, much like the Buddha before him, uncovered the simple, non-institutionalized process lying beneath the religion of his day and embodied it in a sacred learning Circle. Out of that Circle his disciples evolved, and are still evolving today.
This sacred discipleship-evolving Circle can be threatening to institutions precisely because it cannot be assimilated or owned. No one has a patent on it. Try to grasp it and it slips through your fingers. It can only be joined, shared and participated in, not controlled.
In this sense, Jesus, "the stone that the builders rejected," was an Aboriginal stone. Since the crucifixion, there has been an unbroken lineage of followers of Jesus who, if they could not be assimilated into the institutional religious structure, were rejected and, at times, destroyed.
The painting below, entitled "Guilt", is by an Australian Aboriginal follower of Jesus. It describes this tragic tension between religious institutions and the spiritual realities they claim to represent.
Here in Canada the most striking historical example of this kind of reaction is the way in which First Nations peoples have been treated by the institutional church. Although before their domination by Europeans they had no acquaintance with the historical figure of Jesus, it is my view that they, in fact, belonged to the same spiritual lineage. Like him, they were not inclined to allow their Way to be assimilated. And like him, they paid a great price for their resistance.
With that introduction, the question for me as a pastor becomes: "How do we move forward on the sacred journey toward harmony with the Divine?" I want to now reflect on this question in the following five sections. Each section expresses a key principle or insight in my pastoral vision. They build upon one another, and each one only makes sense in terms of what preceded and what follows it.
Ordinarily I rely on language from both the Buddhist and the Christian traditions to describe my religious/spiritual perspective. But, here, I am attempting to express myself in as distinctly an Aboriginal way as possible for someone not native to an Aboriginal culture, because I am finding that this type of language takes me closer to the basic, non-sectarian Way that I experience in both traditions. Except for the painting "Waiting for the Believers," all of the artwork inserted here is by Aboriginal artists in Australia and North America.

II. Before we can move forward on the journey toward harmony with the Divine, our lives must have a conscious sacred Center; that is the starting point of the journey, the divine seed out of which the spiritual life grows.

This means that we must have an awareness of what harmony with the Divine looks and feels like in real life experience. We must know That to which we aspire. In a similar way, we must know that water quenches thirst and nourishes the body before we can aspire to stay well hydrated.
To locate that seed of awareness we need help from our spiritual elders and ancestors. They help us to find that awareness by conveying to us their, and now our, tradition. They do this by inviting us into the sacred learning Circle, which defines their identity as a spiritual community. It is this Circle of right-relatedness, and not just our individual identities, that become for us the soil in which the seed is planted.
Within this Circle, our elders convey to us the tradition by telling us its sacred stories and its philosophy, and also by showing us what the embodiment of the stories and philosophy looks and feels like in real life experience (theirs and ours). In addition to these wisdom practices, we begin to engage in devotional practices (such as prayer, meditation, and sacred rituals.)
Through this kind of transmission, the sacred tradition becomes alive to us. We aquire an awareness of what harmony with the Divine looks and feels like within our own life experience. And this living awareness, irresistibly, becomes our life's Center. It is not simply an intellectual knowledge or an emotional experience; it is a knowing that involves every aspect of our being. It is a knowing that only arises through encounter with the Divine Mystery. It is a transcendental awareness.
And yet this seed is inseparably related to the Circle, to the good soil of the community and its traditions. The seed cannot thrive outside of such a Circle. Though it is spiritually very rich, this soil is not outside of the world. It is the wholesome, generative process that is built-in to the world because the world is the creation of God (Wisdom 1:12-15).
That within us which inwardly responds to this transmission, recognizing its true home as the place of harmony with the Divine, is itself a living spark of Divine Life.
Having acquired this awareness which becomes our life's Center, we begin to understand at the deepest level of our being what it means to flourish as a person. We begin to understand our true nature, the nature that it is our destiny to become. Simultaneously, this center helps us become critically aware of where we need to grow -- those aspects of our lives which are out of harmony with the Divine will. But this critical awareness is not punitive, such as the emotions of guilt and shame may be. (An example of this non-punitive critical awareness within the Christian tradition is "true contrition." In the Buddhist tradition, it is sometimes distinguished from guilt and shame with the term "remorse".)
When the above supports are in place, we naturally develop this conscious sacred Center. But violence of any kind, from the most gross to the most subtle, disrupts this delicate process. Violence is the enemy of harmony with the Divine will. It is to step outside of the world's wholesome, generative process (Wisdom 2:23-24). When violence has interfered, more time and extra supports are needed to help this process get back on its natural, generative track. We see both of these ways -- the natural non-violent way and the unnatural violent way -- and how they create radically different worlds in the cosmologies of Genesis chapter 1 and chapter 3. (Violence is actually quite "natural," in one sense, but in another sense it is absent in our deepest, truest nature, which the spiritual life enables us to progressively discover and embody.)
Depending on where we were born, our elders will rely on different traditions to help us discover what this harmony with the divine looks and feels like in actual experience. For example, they might tell us about that harmony through the sacred stories of Jesus, or through the sacred stories of traditional Aboriginal spirituality, or of the Buddha or the Hebrew prophets. Our spiritual elders can only teach us sacred traditions that have become alive to them. Respecting that limitation is their responsibility.
In my own experience, for example, this Center always affirms the active reality of a divine, unconditioned, or transcendental love. It always engenders a transcendental trust that, at least at the deepest level of who I am, I am o.k., safe and secure. It always transmits a transcendental hope that this inner sense of harmony with the Divine is even right now in the process of being fulfilled. This illustrates to me how profoundly my experience of this Center has been shaped by the Christian tradition into which I was born and raised, where transcendental love, trust, and hope figure so importantly. Although I have come to understand this Center more deeply through Buddhist practice and philosophy, my experience of it always seems to remain indescribable without those Christian terms and the sacred stories behind them. This says something very significant, I believe, about the formative powers of the sacred Circle into which we are born. It also helps me to understand the important role of culture in something so profound as the spiritual Center of my life. At the same time it is both transcultural and culturally created.
And so, this seed of awareness (which is both transcendental and cultural) is the Center that our lives require before we can move forward on the journey of harmony with the Divine. Ironically, this Center of awareness helps us to move forward in our spiritual development by enabling us to remain fully where we are, in the present moment. We come to realize that the seed of where we ultimately want to go is right here within us and within our midst. This saves us from exiting the present reality of our lives and losing ourselves in thoughts about the past and the future.

III. To grow, we need contextual Know-how. We need the practical wisdom that enables us to embody our conscious spiritual Center, to live out of it within the many day to day experiences that make up our lives.

Developing this Know-how requires training from elders in the community -- those who already know how to live out their spiritual Center in their lives, not necessarily perfectly, but well enough. It also requires peers who are developing this Know-how with us. We learn from our peers as well, and we often learn things from them which our elders cannot teach us, because our peers are typically located in an experiential context that is more similar to our own.
Just as the formation of our conscious sacred Center took place within a Circle of our elders and peers, so does the formation of our practical wisdom, our contextual Know-how. The Circle does not abandon us once we become aware of our Center. (In a more mystical sense, the Circle never abandons us. Buddhism describes this in terms of our belonging spiritually to the Sangha of all ages. Christianity describes it in terms of the Communion of Saints.)
To develop our contextual Know-how, it is optimal to remain within the very same Circle of elders and peers where we became aware of our Center. For many reasons, this may not always work out, but it is optimal. The bonds of trust that form in the Circle where we became aware of our Center tend to be very strong, and their support and influence make the work of developing our practical wisdom much easier.
Now we begin to train in additional spiritual practices. We have already been engaging in some practices, such as wisdom practices (like learning and reflecting on the tradition's stories and philosophy) and devotional practices (like prayer, meditation, and sacred rituals). We have already acquired some basic spiritual Know-how in the context of our every day lives. But now a new, more advanced kind of practice is added -- the practice of serving others. Through this practice we begin learning how to be spiritual caregivers ourselves, just like the elders who are now serving us. We are not yet elders ourselves, but it is now time for us to begin the practice of serving others.
In this part of our training, we are only adding new practices related to serving others. None of the practices we have already been engaging in are taken away. We continue with our devotional practices and our wisdom practices, within the same Circle. In fact, these practices develop more deeply now, as we begin learning how to serve others. They become even more vital, because now they are directly helping to nourish the spiritual lives of others, as well as our own. Basic practices are the food that nourishes advanced practices. In the beginning, we only eat and do not work. As we grow stronger, we continue eating, and are able to begin working as well.

IV. The community's sacred Circle is defined by what actually happens inside of it. What happens is a simple, continual process, a cycle of spiritual learning. This cycle is a natural, transformative learning process, through which we gradually come to embody our true nature and so fulfill our destiny, between the points of birth and death.

We begin engaging in this Spiritual Learning Cycle the moment we enter the community's Circle, typically the moment that we are born into this world. As infants our spiritual practice is the most basic -- it is the offering of ourselves to life in absolute need. This is the foundation of all later practices. The following diagram draws on both Buddhist and Christian (Jesuit) sources. It is an attempt to describe how, in my experience, the Spiritual Learning Cycle flows:

V. Out of the Circle, through its Spiritual Learning Cycle, a Sacred Vision is continually evolving. It evolves out of the seed of awareness which is our Center. It is that same Center, in a more mature form.

A Sacred Vision has three interrelated dimensions:

A Sacred Vision contains an understanding of who we are (a spiritual identity) in harmonious relation to God and all of creation.
A Sacred Vision contains an understanding of why we are here (a spiritual vocation).
A Sacred Vision contains an understanding of how to live this particular life which is ours to live (a spiritual ethic and mission).

VI. A consecrated life is a life devoted to a Sacred Vision. The purpose of pastoral relationship is to nurture each person within the community toward the end of living their own consecrated life.

That Sacred Vision becomes the person's inner teacher. As this happens, the person continues to need the ongoing support of the spiritual community, but becomes relatively less dependent on the Circle to live out his or her own Sacred Vision. He or she has a clear, well developed Center, and the contextual Know-how that is necessary to live out, and out of, that Center in daily life.
As a result of this maturing, the person is ready to guide others in a Circle, through the very same process that he or she has gone through. He or she becomes an elder, able to guide others into living a conscrated life, who will eventually become elders themselves.
Elders' capacity to lead depends on their living a consecrated life themselves. Without this, they are not able to lead, because this is precisely what they are leading others to. If they are not living a consecrated life, they cannot embody the stories and the philosophy of the sacred tradition, and this will hinder those they lead from acquiring a Center and the necessary Know-how to live out of that Center. An elder who leads others in this way commits an act of violence; he or she guides others away from harmony with the Divine rather than toward harmony. Sometimes this happens only in certain contexts but not in others. When it happens, before actively serving the community as an elder again, the weakened elder must recover his or her spiritual strength (Center, contextual Know-how, and Sacred vision) through the help of other elders and peers in the Circle. He or she must be re-established by the community in living a consecrated life.
In a general way, we can say that a consecrated life is a life devoted to the single aim: Thy Will be done. The aim of harmony with the Divine Will. But each person needs to discover what that general aim means within his or her own particular life. Each person must have his or her own Sacred Vision. And no one can give it to him or her.
The defining purpose of the community is to assure that every person within it acquires and lives according to his or her own Sacred Vision, so that the entire community fulfills its ultimate destiny. The life of the pastor (elder, spiritual caregiver) is consecrated to this purpose. He or she silently watches and compassionately nurtures as the conscious sacred Center, the starting point of our journey toward harmony with the Divine Will, is formed in each person. He or she works to assure that this seed has all of the right conditions that it needs to grow up into the person's Sacred Vision and fully blossom into a consecrated life. In this way he or she gives birth to future elders who will continue serving the community in these ways.
The context of the natural environment is an important part of this vision. But in my experience, with a few adjustments, it can also work well within cities. One of the challenges of life in the big city is that city cultures can sometimes encourage a way of being with others that is very opposed to the kind of right-relatedness that happens in a sacred Circle. Another challenge, paradoxically, is that there are sometimes many different sacred Circles that one can choose to join. This creates a situation where one has to essentially go "shopping." In my view, pastors' visions of the spiritual life have to be more or less shared by the people with whom they can be in effective, long term pastoral relationship with. And so part of the "shopping" process has to do with discerning how much compatibility there is with the elders or pastors in a particular circle. It would be unwise for a person to enter the Circle with pastors or elders whose life visions did not resonate with his or her own, much less to stay in such pastoral relationships once important differences are discovered. Is this someone whose way of life you actually admire? Are there big gaps between the way he or she "talks" and the way he or she "walks"? A second part of the "shopping" process is to discern how compatible the potential peers within the group are. Is there enough of them that seem to come from reasonably similar contexts, in terms of life experience, as your own? A third part of the "shopping" process is discerning as much as possible if the Circle is actually working. Are people actually growing spiritually? Are parishioners becoming elders themselves?

rishi's blog

Comments

Posted on: 11/27/2008 15:27

I have journeyed through most all the fundamentalist and evangelical churches because i was born into them and my dad was an evangelist who preached in most of them. I saw very early that the things people and churches fight over don't matter. If there was one church where all the people were healthier and kinder than another, maybe I'd sign on to their doctrine. But there's not. In my experience there is no connection between doctrine and conduct. So all that matters to me and I think to God is kindness.

The UC provides a structure for kindness to be our core value, but other considerations often get in the way. My present congregation (Trinity on Hale St) is the only one I've found that is able to deal with the Big 3 issues that are moving United churches into major conflict...accepting all people of good will as equals...accepting the diversity of music and worship gifts of all people of good will...and allowing the responsible use of alcohol at church socials so that the church is not longer paternalistic and hypocrital.

Making the golden rule our only rule (core vaue) provides spiritual safety to people who have been spiritualy beaten up by other churches. At the church I go to we have a Budhist priest and a Pagan who worship with us because our congregation is safe. We have agnostics who are long time members of the UC and who are finally able to say so because they no longer feel judged for not believeing in any doctrine other than the Law of Love.

I believe that no law save love is the pathway of God's future and that it will take us beyond eccuminism to a partnership with all who seek compassion and fairness, whatever their creed or lack of it. Churches that do not get it and resist the radicale hospitality of Jesus are being pruned. Life and growth are relentless....nothing can stand in their way. For me, that is the gospel.

Arminius

Posted on: 11/27/2008 19:05

From what we know of Jesus, he was unconditionally inclusive. Not just "radical hospitality," as pb put it, but also radical inclusion. Jesus "kingdom within" was for everyone, and everyone was unconditionally welcome to his table. I would like the United Church to be as welcoming and inclusive as Jesus.

rishi

Posted on: 11/28/2008 08:38

pb said: "...not believing in any doctrine other than the Law of Love ... I believe that no law save love is the pathway of God's future and that it will take us beyond eccuminism to a partnership with all who seek compassion and fairness, whatever their creed or lack of it. Churches that do not get it and resist the radicale hospitality of Jesus are being pruned. Life and growth are relentless....nothing can stand in their way. For me, that is the gospel."

There is a radical theology that supports what you're saying here. The Body of Christ is healthy. If what's happening in some segments of the institution is not healthy.... then.... the Body of Christ is not happening there... so, where is it happening? Let's find out, go there, and abide in it... because, wherever it's happening, the 'Body of Christ' is healthy. And this 'Body of Christ' is much larger than Christianity... not only are those that resist its life being 'pruned' away .... but others, who in former times have been deemed heretics (you mentioned Buddhist, Pagan, and Agnostic persons, for example), are being comfortably 'grafted' in.

I would challenge you, pb, and suggest that, by focusing on the fruit--on the lived experience of virtue which only grows out of communion with the divine -- you are in fact proclaiming the heart of orthodox Christianity. You are claiming something quite profound about the potential of human nature. And doctrine is not the enemy. Good doctrine, in its place, is only meant to strengthen you in that profound claim and deepen your understanding of it. I would go further and argue that it's precisely by abiding in the lived experience of love as you describe that the true meaning and value of Christian doctrines are revealed. Those who burned pagans and agnostics at the stake had zero understanding of doctrine because their hearts were full of fear and hatred. But it was not "doctrine" that created that degradation.

There is a story of the Buddha, where he described his teachings (doctrines) as being like a snake. Those who pick them up unskillfully, by the tail, end up getting bit. His point was, don't blame the snake. It is the quality of the heart which determines how the teachings are picked up.

Of course, there are malignant doctrines out there... not all doctrines are good. But many are. Many serve the very end of radical love that you are proclaiming.

Jim Kenney

Posted on: 06/19/2009 22:58

Hi rishi,

In your second point, you talk of an emerging vision. I suspect we need to be more attuned to an evolving vision. As a vision gives impetus to action, and action to results, reflection uses those results to refine and develop the vision.

I like the platinum rule -- learn enough about others to treat them as they want to be treated. In my experience equipping people to dare to wake up and look at a vision for themselves and the church is a major challenge. As pastors, our most important work is establishing positive, mutually caring relationships. Until we have a real relationship, most people are not going to trust us to walk with them through the high-risk parts of spiritual growth. In relationship, we will find different people at different places on their spiritual journeys.

I am impressed by your work at establishing a deep, spiritual base for your ministry. I wish you well on your journey and in your ministry.

Jim K

WaterBuoy

Posted on: 06/20/2009 06:10

I liked your early comment about the internal trip ... that sojourn into the inferno of our emotions is one 'elle of an ignorant (dark) journey ... unless we pick up some Light along the way (wah)!

Is light attracted to the darkness , an expansive sojourn? It is all relative which is a word for alchemy ... realting experience ... intangible quality of the sole we stand upon? Even Einstein predicted the bending of Light amidst the condemnation of church that he was a Jew and not religious. Isn't that a sin? Excuse the split tongue placed in both cheeks at once!

I have several ministerial aquaintences that are attempting to shift gears but have difficulty extracting themselves from monotheism. Can we appreicate the injurious nature of unbound passions without Light of the consequences? Such thoughts tend to make Light into a militant sort like a Caesar ... a God-m'n of enlightenment or just something to hammer on to get some sparks going to burn the empire to the ground ... ah, the pall of Rome!

Where there's smoke and ache there is bound to be pyre, even for the blind men amid us! Two Black Forces (unknowns) flint and pyrites ... aboriginal stuff of the fire carrier of old ... aboriginal sign? The understanding of the sign grows ad continuum; the same without. Is it the clash of myth .. same thing going in different directions that causes us to compromise and learn if we are to survive? Does mankind have a Freudian Death wish? Just look around you ... there has to be some kind of limiting factor to a dumb social order that hates socialism in all forms!

Life within the Wahl of the medium of m'n ... like Raehab, warring to escape (red-liner). Then there is the Dan's, 7 times arround the wall ... Jeshua ... aboriginal form of Light in a word. Can a spark of recognizance come out of a creation of a pool of ink? It is said that the story is the essence of the mind. Is the mind the foundation story for words ... wee people's of letters, a foundation stone many fall over? A whole different twist to a superficial fabric that reveals depth in the fall! Naked truth in a word ... running bare down by the reeves ... a twisted connection ... robe din! How else would a physical being describe a soulful, spiritual journey without definition? They couldn't as the journey is early yet! IT has to evolve even at the cost of death to the institutionalized ... setting them free! Cuckoo's Nest ... a false occupation! Gotta make you wonder ...

The authorities say don't go there ... they are afraid you will learn something before they can use it against you ... in tent pinning like Jael ... unnecessary?

rishi

Posted on: 06/20/2009 13:23

There's some important themes raised by some well known Aboriginal theologians in an audio talk at this link:

http://unlearningtheproblem.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/indigenous-theologians-discuss-christianity-and-culture/

If you can't access the link, below are my notes.

Ray Aldred, Ph.D.

When it comes to doing Indigenous theology with Aboriginal people.. We need to go back behind the docrinal statements of different groups who come to our people.... and sort of embrace the gospel story or the canon of scripture.... so that the canon of the scripture is the first thing not a secondary thing.

I think it means, on a real practical level, people actually have to know the stories about Jesus and the story of the Bible the overarching narrative that runs from the beginning to the end. People actually have to know it -- read or interact with large portions of it at a time

I think it also means you have to start again with whatever people or group you have to reach... You have to start again and do the same work... work out the answers in a different setting... instead of coming with a prepackaged thing and saying... "this is the right answer, learn these answers, and your life will make sense." I think that you actually have to bring all of who you are and you have to interact with the gospel story (in the new context). If you want to do it on a more philosophical basis. It's sort of like Gadamer says: the text projects a horizon, and we project a horizon, and somehow those two things interact, and then there's a new understanding. That's what has to happen for people.

Why don't we start with the gospel story and ask a different set of questions -- like 'Does this fit the gospel story, as we have received it from those who have gone before us? Would those who came before us be able to interpret what we're doing as being true to the gospel story? Will our grandchildren have the gospel story after we are gone? Because they will have different circumstances and different situations, and maybe the propositions and the values or the principles that we arrive at, because of the nature of language and how it changes... you see those things might not work (for them). I think there are eternal truths, but we always state them in relative ways, and so we have to restate them. Paul Riceour says, "Just because someone deconstructs our hope statements doesn't mean we should stop making hope statements." We have to do that again and again. We have to go back to the gospel story again and again, to check our propositions.

Rev. Richard Twiss
Co-founder, Wiconi International

Native people are today rediscovering who they are as indigenous people, and as followers of Jesus we are finding too that to follow Jesus in no way puts you at odds with being Native. So, when I come to faith in Jesus, Jesus does not ask me to abandon my sin-stained Indian identity only to embrace someone else's sin-stained identity.

When Jesus walked among the people, he really walked as an Indigenous, as a tribal man. And so in that context, Jesus never was a white man, never was a European, and the gospel story never reflected the values of Europe as sacrosanct. The ways of Europe became so imbued with Christian thought that they actually became Christian in and of themselves --sacrosanct. But they were just the cultural ways of the people who happened to come here. And so our challenge as Native people is how do we sort out the culture from the gospel? How do we really follow Jesus without being forced to follow cultural ways as part of what that means?

So what we would hope is that the church would see us as co-equal participants in the life, work, and mission of the church, not the perpetual mission field of the church, who is constantly in need of the American church to come help us... to bring us old clothes, old food, build schools, and do Vacation Bible School and Easter and Christmas programs, because we're just the needy recipients. We don't have anything really of value to contribute to their experience of Jesus. So what we're looking for is people who really see us through the lens of scripture not through the lens of arrogant American culture, like America has the stronghold on mission and theology and we don't. But as that changes... then out of a sense of mutuality can come a legitimate Christ-honoring partnership and relationship... so that we can say "together... what can we do to advance the understanding of people... what it really means to walk with Jesus in the context of who God created them to be.

Terry LeBlanc
My People International

The embrace by the church of the Roman Empire, or the embrace by the Roman Empire of the church, however you want to look at it... and the organizational structure, and the inculcation of Greek thought and philosophy... which became the foundation upoon which theology begins to be done. And again that foundation, which has a dualistic trajectory... is predicated on a starting point of Genesis chapter 3, as opposed to Genesis 1, where the creation is in shalom, that wholeness, that idea of harmony and balance, and all things being pleasing to God; it's "very good...." So [starting at Genesis 3] it's just natural that it would have taken this path. Typically the church has understood that the spiritual aspects of the universe are in God himself, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus, and in human beings -- the rest of it was of little consequence. And so the physical-material part, which is the other piece, gets either set aside, or abused, or disregarded... with only the focus on the spiritual. And so in our history, as we were at least proclaimed human beings by the pope back some time ago, the objective was then to get us saved and be worried about the spiritual aspect or reality of us... prior to that they didn't need to be worried about that, so they could just kill us wantonly. After we were pronounced human beings, now they had to get us saved and then they could kill us. And I'm not trying to be facetious or judgmental but to say that that whole idea that the physical-material reality was of no consequence to God led to that kind of behavior. They didn't understand the spirituality of the entirety of creation. And so I think the Western church misses it, even as they talk "ecologically," even as they talk "environmentally" about creation. There tends to be more of a utilitarian focus in the language, as opposed to seeing the deep spirituality of the entirety of creation. That because creation proceeds from the Creator and therefore carries the mark of the Creator and because that Creator, as we read in scripture, is Spirit, it carries a sense of spirituality that is missed... So when we continue to divide that in Western thinking, we can't go to the place where we receive the answers to the problem that we bring to the table with a theology that doesn't have a holistic understanding of creation, with a theology that has a dualistic understanding of creation.

I think that if people will give ear to indigenous people who have given thought to and put work into to wrestling with these issues from indigenous worldview perspectives... looking at the text of scripture...like Ray Aldred... if people will give ear to those voices... they will hear some things that will perhaps shock and alarm them, and perhaps even irritate them, but they will challenge them to look at the text of scripture anew. Not to call into question in any way, shape, or form the authority of the text of scripture in informing our life and faith at all, but it will challenge how our life and faith is to be lived. So I would encourage people to look into the voice of Indigenous theologians, and hear the voice of God anew.

rishi

Posted on: 06/20/2009 13:06

Jim Kenney wrote:

As pastors, our most important work is establishing positive, mutually caring relationships. Until we have a real relationship, most people are not going to trust us to walk with them through the high-risk parts of spiritual growth. In relationship, we will find different people at different places on their spiritual journeys.

Thanks, Jim. The way of being in relationship that you're describing here is, I believe, at the heart of that experience of harmony with the divine will. So the 'transmission' going on in the pastoral relationship is not just thought content; it's an actual manifestation of that harmony, relating to the other as God is actually relating to you, as you are, where you're at. This for me is transforming proclamation of the good news, whether words are involved or not. I'd much rather be on the receiving end of this kind of relating, without any God-talk, than get the God-talk without this. How can this be taught in seminary, though, if a person is not used to being related to in this compassionate way? It can sound like you're being told that walking on water is the basic skill you'll need every day in ministry.

rishi

Posted on: 06/21/2009 07:19

Bringing these over from the discussion room:

Querty wrote:

It needs editing. See if you can reduce the thing to 2 pages. Take all the qualifiers, adjectives and adverbs out. Then do an executive summary only one sentence long. Call the executive summary your vision. Call the two pages after it the elaboration of your vision.

For example your vision might well be ...

"To live and grow in sacred harmony with my community through Christian worship and mission."

That, at least is what I think your opening paragraph boils down to. It seems to me that RevJamesMurray has just suggested a very practical way of proceeding to accomplish exactly that.

Simple. Profound. Humble. Practical.

Crazyheart wrote:

I agree with qwerty - way too long and wordy. You want people to read it but they will get bogged down I think.

RevJamesMurray wrote:

My pastoral advice- spend the first year listening to them. Earn their trust. Then start talking about what your vision is together. To go in with a fixed agenda may mean you never get to deal with the things which they want to address.

...

The interesting thing about our First Nations congregations is their diversity. They all have different histories. Some practice Native Spirituality, others are more Methodist. Regardless of who they are, it takes time and Patience to walk with them.

...

Having said all this, I think it is a good exercise to know what is your core values. Just be prepared to be surprised.

What wonderful adventure is God inviting you to participate in next?

As the United Church of Christ (USA) say, "God is still speaking..."

RevJohn wrote:

RevJamesMurray wrote:

Amen.

Help them be what it is that they are called to be not what we wish or hope they have been called to be.

LBMuskoka wrote:

I would echo the esteemed revs.

Your vision is a beautiful one and once you have met your congregation, get to know them, you will be able to share it in the language they speak.

"I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?" Benjamin Disraeli

...

Rishi, the following is one of my favourite quotes regarding community and specifically the aboriginal experience....

Aboriginal activists group, Queensland, 1970s:
"If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."

Often attributed to Lila Watson, who has said she was "not comfortable being credited for something that had been born of a collective process" - the attribution here is the one she accepts. (wisdomquotes.com)

Speaks volumes in a few words.

Arminius wrote:

Three words might suffice, the three words of the ancient Native benison:

ALL MY RELATIONS

JamesK wrote:

Rishi

I think, even for your own purposes, you need a clear statement of what you believe. This might take the form - I believe Jesus ....., I believe God ....., I believe humanity ..... As an example, do you believe in sin, that Jesus died for that, do you believe in multiple lives, what was the core of Jesus' teachings, what about the development of the Bible, is Paul/Saul a reliable source?

In reference to "elders" (I fall into that category), if you are not involved in a First Nations community, the "wisdom of the elders" is just as apt to mean - we aren't going to change a damn thing sonny.

MotherOfFive wrote:

"If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."

WOW!!!

I sure could've used a line (consciousness) like that on a number of difficult religious occasions....

I haven't read this line before either, Rishi. It's very powerful. I find your blog very captivating and yes, I would be most interested in having a minister following The Way. I do think the revs are right about being open to be with a community/congregation in hearing their call and your approach can be a powerful way of allowing that to happen.

My husband has just been commissioned and settled and is engaged in a similar journey. It's a place of growth and learning for me as it unfolds.

I was struck by the amount of caution expressed in many of these comments, and it seems to me a very good thing, especially in light of the kinds of imposition we've so often been guilty of in the church. After reflecting on them I'm left with the impression that perhaps this particular kind of caution you're speaking of is the beginning of pastoral wisdom. Like a waiting on God to speak through the other.

Another thing that occurs to me is that the cautions you raise are likely part of the pastoral vision that your own pastoral experience has taught you. And so they contain a practical wisdom regarding what works and what doesn't work. They remind me of the practical wisdom learned by psychotherapists, when they discover through experience that there really are natural phases in a relationship. If rapport is not developed and trust not earned, then a real working relationship, where constructive change can actually happen, is never reached. New therapists sometimes long to jump into relationship like bulls in a china shop, anxious to fix things and change the person for the better with all of their newfound theories and techniques. Hopefully their supervisors pick up on their intent and bridle them a bit before they convince their clients that therapy is not a safe place to be.

I am also reminded of another caution, shared with me by a friend, a former Baptist, now UCC, minister. The concern he voiced is that the way many of us in the UCC understand our pastoral identities is, in his words, more like chaplaincy than ministry. My sense of what that meant for him was that we only let the parishioner lead us, where he or she wants to go. We see our role as always attempting to "bracket" out our own understanding of life and God, so as to never influence the parishioner in a way that may prove harmful. He saw the latter as essential in forms of spiritual care that, for whatever reason, cannot advance beyond support, but as falling short of the depth of pastoral relationship necessary to help a person in their process of becoming more like Christ. At the time he suggested this to me, I was doing CPE (chaplaincy) training in a Toronto hospital, and I bristled at the suggestion that there could be anything un-pastoral about following the other's lead. "You can't lead a person where they're not ready and willing to go," and all that. But I now suspect he was speaking to something more subtle than I understood at the time, maybe having more to do with the risk of becoming so heavy-handed in our bracketing out our own understandings that we become less than fully present and less than truly helpful. I'll have to have another conversation with him about this in light of the discussion we're having here.

Thanks very much for taking the time and sharing your insights and counsel with me.

WaterBuoy

Posted on: 06/21/2009 07:45

You are touching the surface of a fragile fabric ... the thoughts of God ...

Real people can't get over the aspect of infinite with a Roman basis that had no room for nothing (Love) and Infinite (all encompassing). Yet this train of thought wanted to control the whole a'Dam'd thing ... Wahl'd off from m'n the isolated gift of grace in the fallen ... destined to learn something of the infinite if they can learn to fly float ... whatever that will make them unaffraid of water ... the medium of Love's ole thought .. a small thing in the pool! There are many symbols and signs of the adjoining forces of plasma and watery realm ... depth of relflection ... an echo in terms of canon rote in the veil.

You will not enter Plato's Cave without a wee bit of light to observe where you're going ... why enter the realm of the infinite (unknown) without some Light support? Is there salvation in knowledge ... an old term of Light ... Christ that's IT! Due yah gette ID?

We are a young creations as yet ... if you can get by the stone Wahl of foundations that think nothing changes ...Love can and will be converted into light ... initial WORD: "In the beginning ..."

Are metaphysical forces inverted in the form of creative works as a small example in the whole thing? Are there imperfect jars of light ... to be re worked? Read the story of Gideon again with an open mind of Light entering the vale ... brea in time .. time mach-inations ... the mine'd? Ides quick in some dimensions!

rishi

Posted on: 06/21/2009 20:36

WaterBuoy wrote:

You are touching the surface of a fragile fabric ...

I'll be careful, my friend, and just wait, and let it touch me, when it will, in the wisdom of its own time. Thanks.

rishi

Posted on: 06/22/2009 08:23

Jim Kenney wrote:

Huge difference.... thanks very much for this, Jim, and for your kind words and support.

WaterBuoy

Posted on: 06/22/2009 09:56

Does all light diverge from a point source ... non dimensional?

Compare that to ignorance ... which seems to be the wildest of conspiracies in a social order that grasps secrecy as a God-like figure. Who buried what? Are the opposition to darkness like ... light intelligence that could save a being from fall into a blind hole ... Plate eau and his cave .. the unseen pool of the mind/soul/psyche complex? How does one open it? Just imagine!

Perhaps we are just piscine entities ... a catch for hoo?

kaythecurler

Posted on: 07/01/2009 10:23

My experience of Christians and their religion has taught me that they (like me) are just humans. Some are trustworthy and some are not. Some are comfortable with listening to my soul and some are not. Some enjoy telling me how to get 'fixed' and some do not. Some people in ministerial positions have been incredibly useful to me in my journey. Others drove me away from connection by reducing faith to a list of rules and statements of belief.

My advice to a person embarking on this adventure would be to listen and respond with your heart. Keep in contact with those you sense are seriously seeking added meaning in their life. Be particularly aware of doing this with those who have been injured by previous contact with Christianity.

WaterBuoy

Posted on: 07/01/2009 10:27

Kayth,

Respond with a heart and a wee fire, one has to have some sense where your are going on that sojourn ... some authorities would steal you away ... blind! One has to see a wee bit! Candle in the winds?