Stairway to Heaven

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dream, Genesis, Jacob, love, prom, pulse, sense of wonder, spiritual seekers, stairway to heaven, synergy, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, the spiritual center

I smiled to myself just now while reading the story of Jacob’s dream of a stairway to heaven in chapter 28 of Genesis. When he awoke from sleep, he proclaimed, “Truly the Lord is in this spot although I didn’t know it!…it is the abode of God…the gateway to heaven!” My smile was evoked by long ago memories of junior proms (my own and those of classes when I was teaching) when school gyms were transformed into fairylands with themes like “Stairway to Heaven” – the most popular song of one of those years. Things were simpler “way back when” – in the days when parents were chauffeurs instead of the present-day need for limousines and “after prom parties” consisted of breakfast at Denny’s or just going home to dream of the event that had just taken place. Ah, for the simple life!

Juxtaposed with those images was the deeper sense of wonder at the weekend workshop just concluded at the Spiritual Center. Our land was blessed once again with a group of spiritual seekers who added their participatory energy to the peace that abides here to create an event that could rightly be called a little bit of heaven.

It seems silly, perhaps, to compare those two events but as I ponder the connection I can easily see that it is the energy of the people involved – individually and together – that makes the magic. For teenagers seeking a peak experience of their high school years, prom can be that as long as the goal lies in the pure joy of good relationships (which seems more difficult to achieve sometimes these days). Surely what happens in a weekend such as we just experienced here at our Center is quite different than the rush of teenage partying, but the depth of experience is dependent not only on what is offered to participants but also on the reception by them and the synergy among them in response to what is given. Love is the pulse of it all.

Jacob was so moved by what he knew upon awakening from his dream that he vowed to be faithful to the God he had met there and to make that place his home. May we all be blessed with such experiences of relatedness and a sense of “home” as we journey and recognize God’s presence in all the places where God can truly be found.

 

 

 

 

 

A Graced Moment

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angel, blessing, book study, conversation, divisiveness, Don Postema, election, Jacob, persepctives, point of view, respect, Space for God, Thanksgiving, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, understanding, violence

Last evening I had a graced conversation with four other women. Our sharing began a couple of years ago in a book study that was scheduled to last five or six weeks. At the end of that time, it was clear that no one wanted to terminate the conversation so we decided to meet once a month and delegated the facilitator of the book group to find texts – either a short passage for one gathering or a book that would serve us for several meetings. Last night only five of us gathered for the conclusion of our consideration of a very meaningful book called Space for God by Don Postema. The last three chapters are entitled Wrestling with God, Prayer and Justice/Compassion and The Goal Is Glory. Right away we were faced with a bit of the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel and our conversation moved – not surprisingly – to the state of our post-election nation. The wonder of it all, however, was that although all of us were not of the same mind about the result and had not voted in the same way for president we managed to talk about the issues rather than personalities of the candidates. We talked about perspectives and the difficulty of understanding one another’s point of view. We lamented the divisiveness and violence that is present now in the populace. In the end, we were most grateful for a safe place to talk about our differences and we moved from a place of struggle to the desire not only for the reign of justice but also of compassion. We recognized that an acceptance of difference made it possible to participate in praise of what God has done in our lives and voiced a desire to hold the tensions that exist, praying that peace will be the outcome of our willingness to create it.

Honest conversation is not an easy thing to achieve if we are most interested in not “upsetting the apple cart.”  If we are able to trust our companions and engage those with whom we differ, enough to speak of what is really important without blaming (something that did not seem to happen even locally during this election cycle), I believe the blessing will be deeper and stronger relationship among us. We agreed to disagree last evening and came away with deeper respect and admiration for one another. As the Thanksgiving holiday dawns, we are hoping that many families will have this same experience, knowing that it will take some preparatory prayer to achieve that outcome. Let that be our commitment for the next several days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wrestling

Tags

Genesis, God, Israel, Jacob, Jesus, Matthew, struggle, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wrestling

This morning’s readings are about struggle: internal and external struggle. The Genesis story (GN 32:23-33) of Jacob wrestling with what first appeared to be a human, then an angel and, in the end, the one of whom Jacob said, “I have seen God face to face” is a familiar one. Jacob struggles all night with God and in the end is blessed with a new name that foretells his destiny; he was called Israel. The story is told as an external wrestling match but is most likely significant of the struggle that is often part of our life with God. If we are truthful, we all probably have some difficulty living in this world and wondering why God allows all the suffering and need – our own and/or that of the wider world.

In today’s gospel (MT 9:32-38) even Jesus seems to be overwhelmed a bit. He’s going from place to place, “to all the towns and villages, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom and curing every disease and illness…moved with pity for the crowds” who seem so troubled and abandoned. I can just picture him looking around at all there is to do for so many people and wondering how he can possibly manage to change the world for the better – wrestling with God about the difficulty of the task. I see him slumping down – probably on a rock – covering his face with his hands and then looking up to say to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out more laborers for his harvest.”

Wrestling (I learned as a high school teacher attending wrestling matches) isn’t just about rolling around on the floor trying to pin your opponent. It is a well-developed skill. I think we’re being asked to continue wrestling with the big questions in order to stay on track toward the manifestation of the Kingdom of God. We need to continue to ask God’s blessing for the work of transformation – of ourselves and the world – and get about developing our muscles for the long haul.