I agree.

pkrause

The Subtle God
by Rev. David Hett

The Rev. David Hett, Minister of Religious Life and Learning, explores the many elements that make up the individual and corporate journey into a new way of being in the world.

Like the refrain from an old song that keeps coming into your mind unbidden at the strangest times, I've had a couple of lines from the prophet Isaiah's first "Servant Song" popping up in my mind willy-nilly over the past year: "a bruised reed he will not break…a dimly burning wick he will not quench" (Isaiah 42:3).

These words and others from this "Servant Song" describe the subtle, nonviolent way God works in our lives and in the world, so I’m not surprised they’ve become my internal mantra.

Over the past few years I have been increasingly aware how a certain kind of inward gentleness is required to notice the subtle movement of God's spirit within, and how delicate a flower is this Spirit of the Holy…how quietly attentive I must be to discern its healing flow in and around my heart and soul.

Parker Palmer says that "the soul is shy" and must be gently approached: "If we want to see a wild animal, we know that the last thing we should do is go crashing through the woods yelling for it to come out." So, if we want to catch a glimpse of this wild animal - the soul - we must "walk quietly into the woods, sit patiently at the base of a tree, breathe with the earth, and fade into our surroundings."

We need to create space for our soul - find times when we can quietly and patiently observe the delicate movement within - it's surprising, even in otherwise quiet moments how noisy it is inside our own being…the constant activity of the mind, or the pains and tensions that grab our attention and hold us tightly.

But if we can, occasionally, ignore the ego activity and allow those pains and tensions to relax just a bit, we might begin to glimpse those subtler movements of God's "servant" in our beings; indeed, we then might experience our divine essence, as delicate as a flower beginning to bloom, as gentle as a newborn baby’s unconscious grasp of your finger.

This is the loving touch of God that is present among us even now, that lives and moves and dances in the very core of our beings this moment, and each and every moment of our lives.

Shalom,

David Hett
Minister of Religious Life and Learning

-from a blog at http://www.fcchurch.com

Holiness is on Hard Times
by Dr. Richard Wing, Senior Minister of First Community Church

Holiness is a word we don't like to use. Why? First, it sounds far removed from daily life and unachievable. Secondly, it sounds so goody-goody in the worst sense of the word. So, we don't use the word or aspire to its promised pinnacle.

William J. O'Malley, a teacher at Fordham Prep School in the Bronx, urges us not to give up the word. He suggests it's time to dust it off and discover its true meaning. The season of Lent is a good place to start.

Listen to this guy: "Holy is really a synonym for successful, fulfilled, well-rounded. Each of those words describes what God intended fully evolved human beings to be. We are the only species that is incomplete, whose nature is not an inevitable blueprint but an invitation. Everything else from rhubarb to rabbits fulfills God's intentions without insubordination. They have no choice but to glorify God with an obedience that is, more exactly, helpless conformity. Only we, of all creatures, can choose not to live up to the inner programming that invites us by a quantum leap above even the most intelligent animals."

"Those who rise to the challenges of understanding more and loving more at least seem more alive, more fulfilled as specifically human than those who succumb to the allurements of the beast in us" (pride and other lesser angels).

"This is - or ought to be - the goal of a lifelong education: not merely to make a living but to find out what living is for. With that understanding, it becomes more obvious that holiness, the full evolution of humanity, is not inaccessible to ordinary people, but it is also not commonplace. It takes a lot of effort."

True holiness might be on hard times, but remember, hard times are actually those moments that reveal a holiness within the human family that could not be seen when sleepwalking with prosperity.

Peace to you,

Dr. Richard A. Wing
Senior Minister

-from a blog at http://www.fcchurch.com

Remembering True Reality
-by The Rev. David Hett, Minister of Religious Life and Learning

Next time I get stuck in my insulated self, mired in my own personal concerns and discouraged about the prospects for the world, I have a new mantra to remember, thanks to Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

While waiting for his own arrest at the height of Nazi Germany's power, when any person of conscience and compassion couldn't help but be discouraged, he reminds us that "these realities, myself and the world, are themselves embedded in a wholly other ultimate reality, namely, the reality of God the Creator, Reconciler, and Redeemer."

It's so easy to live in the normal, consensual reality, I constantly need his reminder.

Huston Smith, in his Spiritual Searcher visit, described the three characteristics of "the final nature of reality." "Ultimate reality," he said, is:

1. Unified - we don't normally view it as other than chaotic, if not simply diverse, because "we see it from the wrong side of the tapestry."
2. Better - better, that is, than we normally find our life experience to be. Being on the "wrong side" of the tapestry we too easily miss the richness and beauty, the depth and majesty, and, of course, the wholeness and harmony of life.
3. Mystery - finally, ultimate reality is far more mysterious than our "normal" view. All of our egoic filters are designed to reduce mystery and make life predictable, and therefore manageable and safe, but also drab, stagnant, and lifeless.
"The further we advance in our understanding of Mystery," said this humble mystic, "so it equally recedes from us, like waves going back out into the vast ocean." The more we understand of God, the greater the Mystery grows.

To me, that is the most hopeful quality of an unknowable, ambiguous, unbounded God - the more one tastes this Holy Mystery, the more one recognizes that there are infinite depths to yet be explored. And, all of it - even the dark and painful and terrifying realms - are enveloped in Love.

Or as another Spiritual Searcher, Edwina Gateley, said more simply: "We swim in God."

So, concludes Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Of ultimate importance, then, is not that I become good, or that the condition of the world be improved by my efforts, but that the reality of God show itself everywhere to be the ultimate reality."

Remembering this, I can dive once again into the journey - or at least put in another toe.

Shalom,

David Hett
Minister of Religious Life and Learning

-from a blog at http://www.fcchurch.com

How Can You Help?
by Dr. Richard Wing, Senior Pastor of First Community Church, Dublin-Granville (Columbus), Ohio

"Let us be confident, then, [in approaching God, that we will] find grace when we are in need of help." Hebrews 4:16

Norman Maclean wrote A River Runs Through It, a mostly autobiographical novel. The story surrounds a minister who has two religions: Biblical faith and fly-fishing. The minister has two sons, the younger is alcoholic. There is a great deal of discussion on how to help the younger son and brother, even though he is not looking for help.

"You are too young to help anybody and I am too old," said the father. "Help is giving part of yourself to somebody who comes to accept it willingly and needs it badly."

"So it is," he said, (sounding like a preacher now), "that we can seldom help anybody. Either we don't know what part to give or maybe we don't like to give any part of ourselves. Then, more often than not, the part that is needed is not wanted. And even more often, we do not have the part that is needed. It is like the auto-supply shop across town where they always say, 'Sorry, we are just out of that part.'"

The father concludes, "I try [to help] him. My trouble is that I don't even know whether he needs help. I don’t know - that’s my trouble." After a pause, the father says, "We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed?"

Ram Dass and Paul Gorman in 1986 wrote "How Can I Help?" The book is full of essays dealing with the question. Their conclusion was this: "We can help through all that we do. But at the deepest level, we help through who we are. We work on ourselves, then, in order to help others. And we help others as a vehicle for working on ourselves."

I know of no other words more trustworthy and true in my ministry than these.

Peace to you,

Dr. Richard A. Wing
Senior Minister

-from a blog at http://www.fcchurch.com