Pie Ministry

Belt-Tightening as Spiritual Practice

2009-02-06T16:57:00.001-07:00

PostIndependent column for Friday, February 6th:

Becoming as thin as this newspaper

Books: December '08 - January '09 Edition

2009-02-03T12:25:00.002-07:00

What I'm reading and thinking about lately:

Nonfiction:

Plenty / Smith and MacKinnon

Alternating firsthand accounts of surviving the early days of the "local food" movement. The authors' hot-n-cold love affair with one other is way juicier than any beets they grow.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid / Bryson

Funny memoir, made accessible because Bryson is so vulnerable and knows what that makes him. Psyched me up to think about Iowa as a place to live, not just a thing on a map.

Transitions / Bridges

Best book I've read in the past 2-3 years. Deep wisdom that sets you up for better understanding your own habituations around times of change.

The Great Emergence / Tickle

Second-best book I've read in the past 2-3 years. Phyllis Tickle nails the changing religio-cultural condition with respect to Christianity with equal parts alacrity, warmth, and hope. Or at least that's how I read it.

Christianity for the Rest of Us / Butler Bass

Everyone's pretty much read this one by now, right?

Made to Stick / Heath and Heath

An extended meditation on how to take a virtuous idea and employ it successfully and memorably.

Fiction:

Shadow of Power / Martini

Compelling law procedural in which race matters, with minor points building nicely together.

Death of a Poison Pen / Death of a Village - Beaton

Yummy trifles.

Why Be Church? Sermon 1/25/09

2009-02-01T14:45:00.004-07:00

SERMON FOR YEAR B, THIRD SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY
MARK 1:14-20
BY TOREY LIGHTCAP
ST. BARNABAS EPISCOPAL CHURCH
JANUARY 25, 2008
“WHY BE CHURCH?”

As we just heard in the reading from Mark,
True faith promises us nothing in the way of superficial ease.
It will not grant us material prosperity;
It will not give us the happy, shiny family we’ve always dreamed of.
True faith doesn’t guarantee much,
Except, as we’ve heard this morning in the song we just sang,
“Strife closed in the sod.”

So why come?
Why stoop and prostrate ourselves before this altar?
Why sacrifice at all?
Why fight the tide? Why buck the trend?
If it costs us so much, Why be church?

Why?
When the slopes and grocery stores are full on Sundays,
And we run from pillar to post with equal haste,
And the concept of Sabbath is all but gone,
Why add just one more thing?
Why? When Sunday-morning’s religious TV and radio programs
Are brimming with either angry shouters
Or bland promises of general goodness bye-and-bye …
We have to ask ourselves,
Why join those ranks?
Really; “Why?”

When Christ and all he represents
Are grotesquely ground down and boiled up and reduced,
So that Jesus equates with Nice, or Rich, or Healthy …
Why participate in that?

If we had the luxury of complete honesty ……. We might choose not to participate.
Because there’s at least a small part of us that looks at the church universal today
And wonders, really wonders, why Simon and Andrew and James and John
Were so anxious to throw down their nets and split up their families
And endanger their fishing businesses –
Businesses that scholars tell us were pretty lucrative.
There’s certainly a nice, quiet sort of piety sewn into this scene,
That these men would stand up and follow a complete stranger
Into the pages of history.

That they would learn from him
And then watch him die and be raised,
And later would counsel together,
And, not too longer after that, be martyred.
It is, as I say, a nice piety, and comfortably removed from us.

But when we put ourselves in their shoes,
On that beach,
And knowing what we know now …
Would we really run as hard after Jesus as they did?

This is a heavy question –
A heavy question, over which we must grieve …
Truly, grieve.

If we are honest, then we can only look, at first, with despairing eyes.
We can only survey this situation
And see at it as did the author of the 80th psalm, when he wrote
That God had fed the people with “the bread of tears,” with “bowls of tears to drink.”
We can only feel as did the author of the 102nd psalm, who sadly intoned
That his “days were passing like smoke,”
That his “heart was stricken and withered like grass,”
That he was “too wasted” even “to eat [his] bread.”

A heavy question.
I have run to this text and back this week many a time,
And have been confronted by it:
By the anxiousness, by the readiness of these men,
To flick away their businesses and families
And to help shape something
That in time would become the thing it is today.

My own weary 21st-century cynicism makes me look at these men
With cold calculation
And, in my own catty way, call them naïve.
It is a sad conceit on my part,
And a tough thing to confess.

Most of the world, my brothers and sisters, has already gone down this road.
Most have decided that the principles of Christ are worth saving from history,
But that enthusiasm for Jesus himself is for the past.
As though the two might be separable.
They read of the eagerness, the willingness, the devotion of these saints;
And it just doesn’t make sense.
They wonder, as we sometimes do:
Can’t we just keep on tending these nets?
Why all this straining forward?

I read these words in Mark myself,
And I recall how, in 1st Kings, the prophet Elijah passes by young Elisha
And throws his mantle on him, the symbol of divine adoption;
How Elisha says he’ll follow Elijah anywhere,
But to wait just a moment so he can say goodbye to his parents;
And how Elijah dismisses the boy for his one instant of hesitation,
Before Elisha irrevocably turns and slaughters his oxen, gives out the meat,
And then runs after Elijah, to learn the Way of God.

I see Elisha – his expectation full, his eyes clear –
As he struggles to catch his breath, sprinting after Elijah to make up the ground –
I see him, and I am cut to the bone with guilt.
When did I stop running? I wonder …
When did the church?
Where did unbridled enthusiasm become lukewarm institutionalism?
Where, exactly, did our passion for God’s reign and for God’s justice
Succumb to something else?

And I grieve.
I grieve because it’s the last and only thing to do.
Grief is our final refuge.
We grieve with our hands open –
The universal gesture of helplessness.
We grieve because we cannot see past our own tiredness, our collective weariness,
Our dread over what is to come.

To us,
To stand over the slowly expanding grave of the church,
This just feels like pain and doubt …
But to the Holy One,
It is, finally, an Opening – not in the ground, but in us.

When we eat the bread of tears today,
We confess that we do not understand where the disciples’ enthusiasm came from
And that we can’t bear to look at where it’s gone.

And if – I say, IF – we make that confession, God finally has room to move
And to revive us – If we are willing to be revived.
If we are not willing, If we do not confess
Then church is nothing more than a funeral for church –
Words on a page, old hymns, ritualistic movements,
Where everything is a memory, and nothing is felt or meant from here forward.

I’ve searched myself beyond the funeral –
I KNOW there’s life –
I’m not here to bury the corpse of this church, and neither are you.
I will not just lay my hope down today;
I will lay my Net down.

For I have grieved over my 21st-century irony;
I have drunk bowls of tears over the deep sarcasm that beats in the chest of my generation;
I have confessed it in my heart before the One who made me,
And am confessing it to you now publicly,
So that with clean and open hands I can stand before you
And offer myself as a presider in a liturgy of Life and Meaning and Purpose,
(If not for ever, then for the little time we still have together):
I offer myself as A Presider in a liturgy
Where enthusiasm is not for the naïve, … but for those who know –
Who’ve been to the edge of the grave, and who know –
Who’ve confessed their weariness and their skepticism –
Who’ve dropped their nets, and are now running after Jesus.

It’s the only kind of church I can be.

For the old Episcopalians in the room, Please note:
I offer myself as A Presider, not as The Celebrant.
There is something old and clubby and irritating about that term,
Because it takes the celebrating away from you.

It is for you, to the great glory of God,
To celebrate, to exult, to brim.
Believe these words, for they are more than words.

The same nerve, the same love, the same energy and zeal of the disciples …
If it were only for them, then church would rightly be some bizarre artifact of history .
But those things were not just for them – They are for you.

It is for you to come together that this sanctuary was hewn;
For you, that this altar is spread;
For you, that songs are prepared to sing;
For you, that the Word is cracked open and put back together;
For you, that confession is made accessible in its hour of greatest need;
For you, that grief and moving beyond grief are possible.

All this …
For you, and to the glory of God.

All for you; all ready for you.
All awaiting your choice,
And I’ve already told you mine.

I choose Jesus Christ.

Vote + Pray = Gripe?

2009-02-01T14:40:00.002-07:00

PostIndependent article for Friday, January 23, 2009:

An honest prayer for our leaders should offer hope for humankind

I Say Again, Pie Matters

2009-02-01T14:39:00.002-07:00

PostIndependent article for Friday, January 9, 2009:

A slice of pie is one thing everyone can agree upon

Pulling on Boxing Gloves Before Taking Communion?

2009-02-01T14:37:00.002-07:00

PostIndependent article for Friday, December 12, 2008:

Episcopalians care more about worshipping than controversies

Why Shopping Does, and Doesn't Matter

2009-02-01T14:35:00.001-07:00

PostIndependent article for Friday, November 28:

Black Friday lays bare our cultural sickness

Kids Reveal the Face of the Divine

2009-02-01T14:33:00.002-07:00

PostIndependent article for Friday, November 14th:

Two beings so different yet so complementary

'Out' Is No Antidote to Financial Crisis

2008-10-28T10:42:00.001-06:00

PostIndependent column for Friday, October 17:

Your value as a human being far surpasses the money you have saved

Loving, Like, Totally

2008-10-28T10:36:00.001-06:00

Sermon for Sunday, October 26:

Unless the Lord Build It

Party Manners

2008-10-13T22:00:00.001-06:00

Sermon for Sunday, October 12:

What a Party

Eat This Bread, Drink This Cup

2008-10-07T12:17:00.002-06:00

Sermon for Sunday, October 5th:

A People Who Bear Fruit

On the Phenomenon of "Spiritual But Not Religious"

2008-10-06T11:39:00.003-06:00

A new PostIndependent article for Friday, October 3rd, explores that handy shorthand self-descriptor. The paper got the headline wrong because they muddied the editing in the story, so I won't repeat it this time. I'll just say

Take Me There

The Shyamalan Shell Game

2008-10-06T11:34:00.002-06:00

New explorefaith blog entry on "The Village."

Why the Book of Jonah Rocks

2008-09-23T12:12:00.001-06:00

...for one thing, there's no time for self-righteous indignation! Sermon for Sunday, Sept. 21:

Grateful for Justice and Mercy Given for All

The Sustenance and the Meal

2008-09-19T22:24:00.002-06:00

New PostIndependent article for Friday, September 12:

Finding God in the eucharist

Oh, Porter...

2008-09-16T21:25:00.001-06:00

A new explorefaith film blog post get us tracking on a film worth re/viewing: 1964's "The Train."

All Shall Be Well

2008-09-16T21:16:00.001-06:00

Sermon for Sunday, September 14th:

All Shall Be Well

Redeeming the Violent?

2008-09-08T21:27:00.003-06:00

I get the explorefaith film blog started with a look at the present state of futility with regard to the use of violence in cinema.

Violent Duds

Still Sitting in the Dark

2008-09-08T21:24:00.002-06:00

A new Explorefaith article explores a deeper masculine spirituality captured on film than most of the current summer offerings imagine. Included are explorations of "Reign Over Me," "Shadow of a Doubt," and "Citizen Kane."

Dark Men Brooding

'The Dark Knight' of the Soul

2008-09-08T21:22:00.001-06:00

Post Independent article for Friday, August 8th:

'Batman' helps us to imagine possibilities beyond fatalism

Hey, Hacksaw, What'cha Gone Do With That 2"x4"?

2008-09-08T21:17:00.004-06:00

Post Independent article for Friday, August 22:

Grappling with masculinity, pro wrestling, and change

A Host of Angels

2008-09-08T21:14:00.002-06:00

Post Independent article for Friday, September 5th:

Behind every act is a support staff

Clearing the Air, Muddying the Waters

2008-03-16T14:34:00.004-06:00

Information isn't used in a purely objective fashion, of course. Never is: it's slung about to prove points, make points, drive points home. Data serve agendas. Sometimes such usage is so egregious as to make one cringe.

A smallish case in point. Last week or so my TiVo started wanting to show me a piece of cinema from an outfit called Shell Films titled "Clearing the Air." This slickly produced, glassy-eyed short straight from Shell's corporate boardroom propounds the doctrine that large companies aren't all that interested in profit, but rather with staffing themselves up with prophetic voices - characters determined to change the system from the inside, while wasting scads of cash, for the general benefit of humanity and the planet. I suppose the logic here is that with enough chutzpah anyone can make a dent in the larger pattern of corporate avarice, and that if you're one such person, your employer will stand by and let you do it.

Really? Can you still get dental?

Many folks are sufficiently attuned to this sort of hogwash and have an internal light that goes off, warning them not to give much energy to the consumption of such enterprises. To the rest, woe betide.

Such corporate prattle is no big deal, we think. We just allow it to pass as a one-off instance of self-congratulation - that they had money to spend on PR last year and by golly they spent it. That may be, but only in the smaller sense. You also have to stand back, look at patterns and contexts, see how things play over time.

And just what happens when you stop and add it up over the long haul? McDonald's becomes a major benefactor of NPR in the wake of "Super Size Me," and part of the critical machinery goes away. Coca-Cola generates an incredible quantity of logo impressions per half-hour in its "Screen Play" sponsorship of trivia games running in theaters prior to movies (which are themselves playing to Coke's massively coveted teen demographics, who are paying to receive such ad impressions!). Today it's "Shell Films presents..." In a decade, it'll be "Shell Films Presents, For Your Consideration..." Unless we ask for better.

I suppose it's not inherently evil for big money to attach itself to decent artifice (as opposed to outright propaganda). Disney's umbrella logo has been riding on Pixar's coattails for a good decade now, and without Starbucks, "Akelah and the Bee" may have lain fallow, which would have been a real shame. Heck, for that matter, would Michaelangelo even be in our art books if he hadn't had an underwriting pope? Yet in the long run, end and mean, messenger and message, are becoming so much more easily confused and comingled. Information, however spuriously cobbled together, is simply used to the benefit of those who wield it.

Although ... has it ever really been any different? Consider Jesus. On what we call Palm Sunday, he rode into Jerusalem and checked out the Temple. The next day he came back there and made a religio-political demonstration against the trade he found. It was the first of many stinging barbs of truth he handed out that week, and it wasn't just a hissy. It was an apt argument founded on the propositions of his faith. But I'll bet to a lot of people it came as a total shock.

It's just so easy to inure oneself to this ethos. The company no longer merely backs or approves the message; the company is the message, and you're going to take it. You're going to take it because they know where the line is and how far they can push it; they know where your breaking point is, and they'll probably never cross it. Isn't that alone enough cause for alarm?

Be smart, people. Don't let the corporations do your thinking for you.

[P.S. - You can read about using film for multiple high-end commercial purposes in the March 17th New York Times.]

Pastoral Ministry and SecondLife - What's reality got to do with it?

2007-12-29T22:45:00.000-07:00

For those who frequent and hope to minister in SecondLife, one of the underlying questions is about reality itself – how “realities” intersect and overlap, whether in a continuous or discontinuous manner. This is not a flippant question, for it has to do with how we minister.

One problem or opportunity arises when attempting to define reality, especially a physical reality vis-a-vis a computer-mediated one. (Not least among these problems is the simple experience of language, since, in American English at least, “reality” is a word that generally points to physical actuality.)

As I see it, one of the most accessible metaphors for this special problem can be described as a meeting of certain elements of two commonly-known films.

In the first film, The Matrix, the actual, physical world is one that very few human beings ever live to see, although they surely do inhabit it. They are grown, helpless, with their minds wired into a mediated reality – a highly detailed computer program that provides them with a wide, if controlled, range of experiences, emotions, and so on: enough to meet at least the most basic needs of the majority populace, but only so that the needs of the physical world (power supply for a machine-based collective) can continue to be sufficiently addressed. The human being in the virtual and supplied world of the computer overlay/program is a functional member of a collectively imagined society (you might say an intended mass hallucination), when in the world of physical reality, he is just a widget and a producer of energy.

In the second film, Being John Malkovich, the main character (a master puppeteer) discovers a hidden portal that allows him to temporarily inhabit the consciousness of another person, including all that that person feels, hears, or sees. By taking repeated trips on “the Malkovich ride,” the main character learns how not to be ejected from the experience, so that he may permanently inhabit the person; and, because of his special skills as a wirepuller, he also learns how to manipulate his host just as he would any other object at the end of his strings. The subject involuntarily speaks his words and otherwise acts as commanded.

So in the first film, physical reality is overlaid with and obscured by virtual reality, while in the second film one physical reality is abandoned for the purposes of living in another one. SecondLife and other “massively multiplayer” online experiences are a marriage of these two films in that a person occupying a physically real time and place inserts himself into a computer-mediated reality using the virtual equivalent of a marionette.

(We’d be tempted to use more of these films than we need to for the purposes of constructing our metaphor – for example, much could be made of the difference between voluntarily and involuntarily entering into a virtual world. Or that the purpose of a SecondLife type program is wildly different from the purpose of a Matrix. Or that Mr. Malkovich’s reality is still a physical one, and that being in his consciousness is merely a window into another’s actual existence. Or that Mr. Malkovich, a genuine person in himself, suffers the sublimation of his own reality for another’s, and that there are surely moral implications to that. All true. But we need some kind of an opening metaphor – a basic construct for naming intersecting realities – and hopefully this simple illustration suffices.)

Now, what might be some of the pastoral concerns for ministering in an environment where real people living in real times and places inhabit virtual puppets and interact in a computer-mediated environment?

First, there are the questions of logistics: of technology and of the interface itself. Bandwidth, lag time, and the control panes (the “strings”) are all factors that demand Christians exercise the basic virtue of patience, especially when opportunities arise to listen and understand the life of another, and possibly do or say something to positively affect a situation as the Spirit may lead us to do. Part of the irony of SecondLife is that although it directs massive amounts of information to us, we tend to be impatient with it and with others whom we meet within it. Patience increases with prayer and experience.

Second, there is moral agency and shape-shifting. The possibilities for what my avatar (“puppet”) might look like, including very basic demographics like gender, are theoretically endless and may be traded upon instantly. Attendant identities about what is “fair” or “right” may fluidly shift along with the characteristics of virtual personhood. If you’re ministering to someone who is a person in one instant and a dog in the next, can you make the fluid connections about how to compassionately continue to minister in light of those changes, yet not compromise your own sense of integrity and self?

Third, there is the question of what’s happening “on the other end.” We must always remember that an avatar is a window into another person’s real life; that no matter how hard all of us try, there’s really no way we can cover up who we are. Pure anonymity is an abstract idea and for some a goal to strive toward, just as pure objectivity might be for a journalist. But that doesn’t make it a possibility. Everything I make public about my avatar – its groups, its friends, its clothes, its hangouts – is information about me. At one level this is totally obvious, and yet there are many who choose environments such as SecondLife so that they can forget about “real life” for a while – you know, go off and fly around somewhere. The wise pastor will see the avatar and remember the reality and complexity and humanity that’s driving it.

Fourth, virtual environments call for the highest degree of self-knowledge and congruence. One fancying him- or herself a minister of the Gospel of Christ is bound by the fundamentals of that gospel narrative, which is why knowing the fundamentals is so important. If, for example, the good Lord would not have us participate in activities that test the limits of our marriage vows in the tangible world, then how could a virtual environment create conditions where it would be possible to suspend or break those same vows? It couldn’t, not even if the rules or norms of that virtual environment allow or even encourage such behaviors, because the gold standard is found in a narrative that’s already been set down.

Fifth, and finally, the overlap of the actual and the virtual demands that we see evangelism not as the simple, one-way imparting of our knowledge about the divine life and energy, but rather as capitalizing on the opportunity to partake in mutual transformation in the name of God, that the causes of God may move forward. This is true wherever you go, be it computer-mediated or physically real. Real relationships and our ability to exercise compassion and love within them are the essence of the work.

I would love to read your thoughts.

Seven Questions: The Sacraments and SecondLife

2007-11-23T20:45:00.000-07:00

I've been giving some thought lately to the sacraments and SL. It was all kicked off by a comment I read somewhere else, by someone else, to the effect of, "If anyone ends up trying to administer sacraments in SL, it'll probably be the Episcopalians who do it first." Which I took as both a badge of honor and a hex sign all at the same time!

Specifically:

1. What would be the efficacy of a sacrament administered through SL? Beyond that, what would be the benefit? (I'm using "efficacy" in the sense of how theologians use it, and "benefit" in the sense of how everyone else uses that term.)

2. What are the pastoral implications?

3. Do virtual environments change our way of thinking about the doctrine of "real presence"?

4. What if anything does this mean for Anglicans in particular - a way of being Christian that encompasses such a wide diversity of opinion about sacramentality?

5. Are there some sacraments that should never attempt to be realized in a virtual environment?

6. What's the difference between, say, genuflecting through a SL gesture and doing it in real life? What role does embodiment play?

7. What's the difference between, say, being told of your absolution through an electronic exchange versus being in the presence of another actual person who pronounces it using means that are immediately perceptible and filled with a million nonverbal cues?

Anyone else interested in this topic?

Every Minute Is Your Life

2006-12-19T09:17:00.000-07:00

In Walk the Line, the recent biographical film concerning the stormy relationship between Johnny and June Carter Cash, the character of Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) is busily trying to sell a music producer on his talent. It is still quite early in an as-yet undefined career.

Cash’s iconic, oily warble and strut have not yet shown up in his vocals, and his lyrics are those of an automaton – someone cautiously trying to find a way to score big on old gospel standards without risking anything artistically in the process. His backup men may as well be playing wet noodles.

So he auditions and, at first, miserably falters. Then the owner of the record company gives him some advice we all could benefit from hearing. He tells Cash to imagine that he has just been struck by a truck and now lies dying with only a few minutes remaining in which to sing one last song. What, then, would he sing?

Cash hesitates, and for a moment his eyes catch fire. Then he lets fly with an original tune: “I hear a train a-comin’ / it’s rolling ’round the bend / and I ain’t seen the sunshine / since I don’t know when / I’m stuck in Folsom Prison…”

You may argue, and rightly, about whether Cash’s life provides us with the gold moral standard of behavior. Yet there is something about this one scene that consistently gets to the heart of the matter of how he lived. It wasn’t only “Folsom Prison” knocking around in his head that he needed to get out in his fantasy about laying on the side of the road near death. Rather, he must surely have taken the record executive’s advice and decided to live out the rest of his days as though every minute were his last – as though the words of any song he happened to be singing would be the final thing to ever cross his lips.

Make a similar decision for yourself, and instantly your life has more meaning – or, possibly for the first time ever, has any meaning at all.

Many religions, faith systems, and philosophies are pushing us to make such a decision. Buddhism ingrains it through meditation and the practice of mindfulness. Judaism does it by promoting an intense realization of the world’s suffering. Hinduism imparts it in the notions of healthy detachment and lucidity. The Muslim tradition brings it to consciousness through consistent discipline.

In my own tradition of Christianity it remains a constant theme of Scripture and is well encapsulated in the words of Jesus preserved in the Gospel According to Luke: “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” There is, for Christians, a beautiful paradox expressed by two common phrases: “Live every day as if it were your last,” (death) and “Today is the first day of the rest of your life” (resurrection). Neither one cancels the other out; rather, the one makes the other a stronger truth.

The secret to happiness in life is twofold. First – and let’s hope this doesn’t sound too morbid – admit the fact that death is not only a possibility but a fact; that we’re all in some state of a terminal condition. Second, let’s also live now, in this moment, which is the only place where reality ever happens.

Have a good week.

The Rev. Torey Lightcap is Priest-In-Charge of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Glenwood Springs.

...And What Do You Do?

2006-11-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

Suppose there’s a CPA who’s darned good at what he does, but maybe what he really wants to be is a scratch golfer. Or you have a lawyer – a hard-driving litigator by day who harbors a secret passion for karaoke by night. Or a taxidermist studying natural health and healing methodologies in his spare time.

They’re all over the place: politicians who just want to cook, meter readers who just want to kayak, seamstresses who just want to learn Italian. Their day jobs and their real passions could be so seemingly disconnected that they might never confess their true hearts’ desires and avocations to their professional colleagues.

I absolutely love the work I do. Still, out of the wealth of all my passions I know could do more. I could be an Episcopal priest / B&B owner-operator / film script reviewer / Gen-X theology writer / pie taster / fez collector. (If only there were money to be made in fezzes.)

Is it naturally disconcerting, this business of a “day job,” the thing you do for money? Is every time we go to work another chance to sell out just a little bit more? Of course not!

Yet somewhere there’s a tiny voice crying out, a splinter in our minds – “I could do this all day if only it paid, and I’d never get tired of it.”

Truth is, it does pay. It pays many rich dividends as it brings you life and energy, and it’s nothing at all to be ashamed of.

Here’s a stretch for you. Imitate the old pyramid-scheme marketers by making a sign that says “Ask me about (blank),” where the blank is the shorthand name for your deepest passion. Adorn it with photos of you taking part in your favorite activity, or with inspirational quotes from that field. Then take that sign to your place of work and post it prominently.

As people come in and out of your work space, they will ask. Although it might be embarrassing at first, you will eventually find yourself swelling with insight and happiness as you lay out the whys and wherefores of woodcarving, candle-making, or 18th-Century English literature.

Now here’s the big lift: your reputation will change. Instead of being known as the Copier Guy, Close-Talker, or Mr. Bad Breath, you will become known as Karaoke Man, Surf Dude, Master of the Scrapbook, Señorita Stamp. There will still be a new stereotype for you to overcome, but you at least will have exposed the old stereotype as boring on your way to telling people more about who you really are.

This is wholly in keeping with the life of faith, where we are asked to bring our entire selves, unashamedly, into everything we do. What a liberating possibility.

Have a good week.

The Rev. Torey Lightcap is Priest-In-Charge of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Glenwood Springs.

Sangha

2006-11-16T22:15:00.000-07:00

Haunting the coffee shops around these parts while wearing the familiar white collar and black shirt of a priest, I often find myself hearing confessions before I even know what’s happening.

Since these aren’t your typical knot-in-the-throat confessions that take place in the church proper, and since the participants are all pretty much saying the same thing, I feel safe in giving you the general gist of what I’m hearing these days.

“Everything is unified, is all one,” goes the usual opening gambit, and how could anyone argue. “I have known it from a very young age, that the divisions we make for ourselves are just illusions to make us feel better. Everything is deeply connected.”

Here there is a pause for a swig of latte. I nod. All is well.

“I do believe in God, and I used to go to church. But now I just feel like the church is full of hypocrites” (those last three words being interchangeable with “too hot in the summer,” “way outdated,” and “not paying attention to my needs”).

I nod again. These may or may not be prejudicial considerations, but heck, why can’t they be valid in the experience of the complainant?

“Nature is my church. When I go out walking/jogging/climbing/biking, I can sense divine presence just by being out of doors. Sundays are my day. That’s why I haven’t been at church for the past ten years.”

And so a friendly chat becomes an opportunity either to seek absolution for neglecting church or a platform for dismissing church altogether.

All of this has become weirdly rote. The first several times I heard it, I just let it be. Now, though, because of the persistence of this logic, I have a new tack.

First, I don’t much argue. The church does have its hypocrites, for example, and I’m one of them, so you can have that point. (Thank heaven we get to say a confession each week!) I believe, too, that all the constituent parts of the universe are deeply and radically interconnected, so why go looking for a fight there. Finally, nature is an incredible teacher and makes herself a fine place in which to worship. Why not affirm what is patently true?

What I do is simply create a little challenge for my conversation partner. I ask: “If your spiritual life is really being enriched by your experiences, why in the world wouldn’t you want to share that?”

Anyone on a spiritual path needs – indeed, I think, even privately craves – to be in a community of fellow pilgrims walking on a similar journey. Members of healthy faith communities know how to love, support, challenge, uphold, and care for one another. When we neglect this part of our seeking and growth, we allow sensitive and important parts of ourselves to atrophy. Without the check provided by others, our own pious and religious sensibilities can become grossly skewed until they merely support what we desire to be true, rather than what might actually be happening.

It is certainly true that to some degree, all faith communities have their share of neurosis, heartache, and gossip. You just have to decide whether it’s worth all that to have a family of faith in your life.

If you have a tribe of folks whom you think of when the word “church” comes to mind, give thanks for them, and stop to tell them how glad you are for their presence. If you don’t yet have a tribe, give it a good think, weigh your options, and give it a try.

Have a good week.

The Rev. Torey Lightcap is Priest-In-Charge of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Glenwood Springs.

Judge Not

2006-11-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

“Deliver us from presumption.” That’s the prayer I once scribbled onto a sticky note and posted directly above my computer monitor. It was a late-night “arrow prayer” inspired by the texts I’d been reading in seminary.

In the ensuing years I’ve come to appreciate this unadulterated wisdom prayer for what it is – simple and straightforward. I appreciate it so much because I find it so hard to live by. I’m shooting this little prayer quite a bit these days.

As life brought me into my thirties, I became increasingly aware of my need to judge, to categorize, to create little silos into which I could put people and ideas. It was and is a kind of shorthand – an excuse for not really getting to know people, which when you think about it is no way to live.

Stop for a moment and just consider: how many judgments and critiques do you make in the course of a day, or even an hour? A few might be based on sound principles of business or the need for survival, but I’ll bet the majority of them are useless to your everyday existence. Yet it is so easy to do whether it occurs at the coffee shop, the grocery store, the library, or even (and sometimes especially) the church community.

Presumption about others is a warm and protective blanket that keeps us in the right at all costs. It fuels hatred, misunderstanding, lack of conversation, and calcification in the righteousness of our own beliefs. It keeps the status quo and protects the majority view. It promotes a false happiness based on the uninformed lies we tell ourselves.

How boring. And dangerous.

Isn’t there some other way of living our lives? What if we didn’t have to hide behind the walls of our egos? What if we could become rooted in a real happiness – the kind that sees the world more like it actually is, and doesn’t depend on presumption, judgment, and mischaracterization?

There is a way, of course. It is to look and listen: to see and hear with all of one’s senses, and always at the deepest possible level. Become a watcher, a listener. Cultivate the habit. Work hard at it. Watch the world change in front of your eyes.

People will become more interesting to you. They won’t be as greedy or as dumb as you might have originally thought. Their true motives for acting in the world will become clearer, as will your own. You will find yourself more equipped to help and be a friend, less inclined to walk away from a potential relationship.

History’s greatest spiritual teachers have sounded in on the need for avoiding presumption and striving to see conditions and people as they are. Make the stretch to be there, and you’ll be in good company.

If “Deliver us from presumption” is the little arrow prayer, then the response is to exercise compassion. To borrow a phrase, compassion starts when we stop, look, and listen.

Have a good week.

The Rev. Torey Lightcap is Priest-In-Charge of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Glenwood Springs.

Knowing You Don't Know, and Loving It Anyway

2006-10-31T11:55:00.000-07:00

In my middle-school years, there used to be a kids’ show on Nickelodeon called “You Can’t Do That on Television.” This was a program whose goal was to break into the tedium and terror of being a pre-teen by confronting all the crazy issues of the day using an often broad and body-based humor.

The show made much of the travails of being a kid, in particular the fact that there are many excruciating questions that arise during the process of growing up – questions without clear-cut answers or even any answers at all. And indeed, at least one time per episode, some unlucky character would be forced to respond to someone else’s question by answering, “I don’t know.”

Without fail, at the utterance of these three words a fantastic amount of lumpy, green slime would be poured on top of the actor’s head by an unseen hand standing somewhere above the stage. The actor would just have to sit there and take it, and then go shower.

So far as I know this practice explains the origins of green slime on Nickelodeon, a prolific trait of that network over the past many years. Which is fine. Yet it also highlights a basic truth in a graphic fashion: that deep down, we feel we should be afraid of what we don’t know, and that unless we have the answers we might suffer some pretty terrible consequences.

This, at least, is how we tend to think things are, and at the most basic level there’s little reason to suggest things aren’t that way. For every moment we find ourselves in some situation without an immediate and clear response, there is often a penalty to be paid: not necessarily green slime falling from the sky, but a price nevertheless. For every utterance of “I don’t know,” we seem to put things at risk. This is in the hard-wired teaching of our culture, and you can witness it at work in schools, jobs, and relationships, where those who know the answers (or are good at making out like they do) often receive preference.

In only a few years of ministry thus far, I have come into contact with a good number of people who are perplexed by any number of questions be they dogmatic, philosophical, or relational. Across many hours of conversation I have often had to be the one to listen carefully to a concern and begin by responding, “I don’t know.”

Such words tend to have a threefold effect. First, I look up to see if there’s green slime coming! Second, my conversation partner, who may consider me some sort of expert after a fashion, is stopped cold by my response. Third, there is a realization on both our parts that it’s okay for us to admit the limitations of our knowledge.

Being willing to make this admission is a good first step; it clears the air and resets the problem. Then we can tackle it in some fresh new way.

In the four gospel accounts of the Christian tradition, Jesus is asked many, many questions by people with all manner of motivation. Some want to trick him or get power over him; some are looking to advance in their careers; others are simply burning up with the desire to have an answer. Yet you could count on one hand the number of times that Jesus gives a direct answer. The rest of the time he directs their attention to some course of action, or to some piece of scripture, or to some mind-bending parable. Even if he does know the answer, he’s willing to admit that life is complicated.

It’s okay not to know. There’s a lot less slime up there than you think.

Have a good week.

The Rev. Torey Lightcap is Priest-In-Charge of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Glenwood Springs.