Faith in the Darkness

You are a source of strength for those who have lost hope. You are a voice of calm in the midst of chaos. You are a steady light in days of darkness. The time has come to be what you believe. Steven Charleston

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Any authentic priesthood must derive from an inner core of silence, a life hid with Christ in God ...Only those who are at home with silence and darkness will be able to survive in, and minister to, the perplexity and confusion of the modern world. Let us seek that dark silence out of which an authentic ministry and a renewed theology can grow and flourish. Kenneth Leech during the 1988 OA retreat

The first part of this is Mother Erika's reflection in the weekly update from the Church of the Atonement, Chicago. She's given her permission to offer it here.

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I am drowning in words.

Every day I scroll through my news feeds and see words of lament and anger, of frustration and grief. They are words that increasingly reflect the chasmic divisions in our land. The cracks in our society are so deep and so wide that they have caused millions of other, smaller fractures, a spiderweb of brokenness that spreads over everyone and everything. These smaller divisions are what’s showing up on my feed this week as a constant, cocky barrage of criticism. Someone makes a statement about systemic racism, or the actions of our government, or the actions of the Church, or about their feelings, and there is a whole crowd of people waiting in the wings to tear apart whatever they’ve said. Someone expresses outrage, and someone else yells at them for being outraged about the wrong thing. Someone makes a statement of support, and someone else screams that their statement didn’t go far enough, or wasn’t written quickly enough. Someone offers a prayer or a symbol of support, and someone else scoffs that we’re long past the time for prayers and symbols.

I feel like I’m choking on the words.

Now I understand that the kind of criticism I’m talking about is not the same as violence at the hands of racists and racist systems. I understand that my discomfort at watching my friends and colleagues tear each other apart is only that – discomfort. But it is still disheartening, at a time when the unity of the Church and indeed of all faithful people is critical to effect positive change in this nation, to watch the speed at which people are jumping to judge, criticize, and ridicule others from the relative safety of their living rooms as they type ferociously into their phones. Of course, I understand, too, that many of these words are pure reaction, born of fear. It’s hard to be thoughtful and compassionate when your body is pumping with adrenaline and most of your higher-order thinking has been shut down for the night. But that doesn’t diminish the fact that many of the words that are being spoken in our public forums are cloaking the world in more and more darkness.

And then, this morning, I was graced with this sliver of light, written by the Rt. Reverend Steven Charleston, former Bishop of Alaska and former Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School. I pray that when you read this, you, too, will feel the same rush of breath deep into your lungs that I did, that you will feel your heart lift in your chest and the ground suddenly firm under your feet.

Now is the moment for which a lifetime of faith has prepared you. All of those years of prayer and study, all of the worship services, all of the time devoted to a community of faith: it all comes down to this, this sorrowful moment when life seems chaotic and the anarchy of fear haunts the thin borders of reason. Your faith has prepared you for this. It has given you the tools you need to respond: to proclaim justice while standing for peace. Long ago the Spirit called you to commit your life to faith. Now you know why. You are a source of strength for those who have lost hope. You are a voice of calm in the midst of chaos. You are a steady light in days of darkness. The time has come to be what you believe.

My friends, we are not children of the darkness, but children of light. The time has come to be what you believe.

What, beloved, will you be?

Yours in Christ,

The Rev’d Erika L. Takacs, Rector

Further refection  

Any authentic priesthood must derive from an inner core of silence, a life hid with Christ in God ...Only those who are at home with silence and darkness will be able to survive in, and minister to, the perplexity and confusion of the modern world. Let us seek that dark silence out of which an authentic ministry and a renewed theology can grow and flourish. Kenneth Leech during the 1988 OA retreat

Early this morning the Order of the Ascension (OA) met in Chapter (on Zoom of course). We were reviewing an internal survey our Presiding Sister, Michelle Heyne, OA, had sent out.

Later, when I read Erika’s reflection, I was hit with a flood of feelings and connections. It was one of those moments when you can find yourself thinking “we are having the same thoughts.”

Our OA discussion was about the parishioners in our parishes. At one-point Brother Scott send us all a PDF from ERD, “Emotional Lifecycle of a Disaster.” That set off several responses.

Illusion to Prayer

The Order has been exploring offering an on-line class on the spiritual life model in Henri Nouwen’s book Reaching Out.

 

We talked about how the energy of most parishes has been on “gathering.” Both when we first responded to the virus and now whether is talk of “opening up.” And on the sense of sadness, even depression, people have felt in the absence of normal gathering. Someone mentioned how unprepared we were for this. So, we’ve spent a lot of time trying to have a shadow life. Necessary but not really satisfying. Then we noted the connection with Nouwen’s thinking—our parishes had not prepared people for solitude.

Then we looked at what Scott had sent us. In that life cycle people went from Heroic to Honeymoon to Disillusionment.  Then we connected that with Nouwen—as we were not prepared to live this time as one of solitude, once the positive energy of the Honeymoon period ended, would we experience an upswing in Hostility?  Mother Erika’s message seems to point in the same direction, “But it is still disheartening, at a time when the unity of the Church and indeed of all faithful people is critical to effect positive change in this nation, to watch the speed at which people are jumping to judge, criticize, and ridicule others from the relative safety of their living rooms as they type ferociously into their phones.” Hostility rising out of our lack of ability for solitude? 

Conversatio

For stability means that I must not run away from where my battles are being fought, that I have to stand still where the real issues have to be faced. Obedience compels me to re- enact in my own life that submission of Christ himself, even though it may lead to suffering and death, and conversatio, openness, means that I must be ready to pick myself up, and start all over again in a pattern of growth which will not end until the day of my final dying. And all the time the journey is based on that Gospel paradox of losing life and finding it. ..my goal is Christ. Esther deWaal

Someone in the “room” spoke to our Benedictine Promise. We understand conversion of life to include the truth that God is with us in our new life. To what extent during the pandemic, have we said the theologically correct things about God’s presence while acting as though God had left us, and now with re-opening, God was returning? God will return when we open up again. 

And as we experience the continuing limitations on gathering, and the possibility of a virus resurgence, will we engage the new life?  A new life that may call us to find God in the solitude. In the grief. In the sense of absence. Find God in the life we have instead of the life we wish we had. 

Everyone and the apostolic

Then there was brief mention of the need to address this in a two-fold manner. Everyone in the parish needed to hear about these spiritual dynamics. It was a way of understanding and providing perspective on what they where experiencing.  And, we need to provide ways of going deeper with those of apostolic faith and practice. That center of the parish, it’s heartbeat, needed to be strengthened for the sake of the whole Body. Steven Charleston's wisdom for the clergy was also wisdom for the apostolic center in every parish church. 

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