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Uncle Sam’s Racism

August 22, 2016

“You know what encourages this?” said Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin in his explanation of the cause of riots in Milwaukee and other cities, “The growth of the welfare state. These are underclass behaviors. Seventy percent of the kids born in Milwaukee…are born without an engaged father in their life.”

“So I look at the progressive policies that have marginalized black dads. They push them to the side and say ‘you’re not needed.’ Uncle Sam is going to be his dad, he’s going to provide for these kids, he’s going to feed the kids. Uncle Sam has been a terrible father. Uncle Sam does not love these kids. He might keep a little food in their mouths and that is about it. But we all know the importance of an intact family, what it can do to shape the behavior of kids.”

Sheriff Clarke is African American.

That very fact caused me to look even more closely at his interview and I found much to agree with. Surely, the decline of intact families in the African American community has done much to foster poverty, hopelessness and crime. It would indeed be a good thing for the black community to do more self-examination, and even self-criticism, about some of the life style choices many have made which have been destructive.

But I refuse to believe that the welfare system, as flawed as it is and as much in need of reform as it may be, is the cause of the problems which beset the African American community in this country and which leads to frustration, anger, and sometimes even violence.

The cause of these problems in white racism. Pure and simple.

Poor educational opportunities, segregated housing (in fact, if not in law), the incarceration of thousands and thousands of young black men (and women) for trivial drug offenses white suburbanites walk away from every day, a skewed justice system from the cop on the beat to the judges on the bench — all these have led to the problems which erupt all too often in black communities.

Uncle Sam was never intended to replace “dad” in the African American household. I find it very difficult to believe that those fathers who have shirked their responsibilities as parents did so because they were so sure “Uncle Sam” would put food in their kids’ little mouths. Or that they would come rushing home to coach Little League if this country decides to take back that little scrap of food we have shared through our admittedly less-than-effective welfare system.

So, let’s continue to work on reforming the welfare system so that it provides assistance to those who really need it and weed out some who may indeed take advantage of it and provide support and training for those who may have, intentionally or not, become dependent upon it over time.

But our primary work needs to be the hard one of healing our land of the individual and systemic racism which pervades America and which, alone, is the root cause of all that Sheriff Clarke so rightly laments. I am amazed that a responsible African American citizen like him does not see this more clearly.

Even more amazed that he would allow himself to be used by agreeing to an interview by Fox News. Which was in turn cited by that bastion of equality and justice in our land, Cal Thomas, in this morning’s Chicago Tribune.

No, Sheriff Clarke, Uncle Sam’s welfare system is not the cause of black rage. Uncle Sam’s racism is.

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Saint Of The Darkness

August 21, 2016

The smiling visage of Mother Teresa of Calcutta graces the cover of the most recent edition of the Jesuit magazine, America, to which I subscribe and take pleasure in reading every month. In this edition James Martin interviews Brian Kolodiejchuk who is a Canadian member of the Missionaries of Charity and was the official “postulator” for the canonization of Teresa which is scheduled for next month of the 4th of September.

Brian has also written a number of articles and books on Teresa so I ordered one entitled Come Be My Light which is a compilation of the private writings of this contemporary saint, as controversial as she has become since her death. There are some legitimate reasons to question some of the rather primitive methods and even motives she used in treating and ministering to “the poorest of the poor” even when her Order had received more than enough financial support to do things differently, and perhaps better.

Room to wonder about whether or not she glorified poverty for poverty’s own sake in the lives of those for whom she cared and had no choice about their poverty and not just in her own life and the life of her Sisters which was voluntarily chosen. But one thing which has caused consternation in the minds of many of her followers and which is clearly revealed in her letters is the deep darkness which plagued her for many years and the nearly absent sense of the presence of God throughout most of her active ministry.

So many today throw about the term “dark night of the soul” to describe periods of doubt and spiritual dryness we all go through from time to time. But experienced spiritual directors recognize that this is a trivialization of the phase (made famous by St. John of the Cross).

Rather than seeing such an experience of darkness as something to be “fixed” or lived through, we need to recognize that this may be the final stage of growth in holiness when physical, mental, or even spiritual “consolations” (experiences of the Divine) seem withdrawn but are actually no longer necessary because the one growing in holiness is virtually in the Presence of God all the time with no need for “reminders” or “glimpses” of the Holy One which the rest of us need simply to carry on.

This is not to minimize the pain that this darkness can cause for those who experience it. Often, they long for the “simpler” times in which they seemed to experience God more closely and predictably. But those, like Mother Teresa, who persevere in their spiritual disciplines and in carrying out their active ministries, even with no such consolations, are models for us all to “keep on keeping on” even when the life of faith becomes rough.

Far from disqualifying her for sainthood, the Roman Catholic Church has recognized that the anguish expressed in her letters and other private writings to spiritual directors and confessors was simply testimony to how closely she walked with Jesus who himself knew desolation and darkness even on the day of his death. “My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?”

Few have understood that cry better than the one who will soon be known as “Saint Teresa of Calcutta.”

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“Old Florida:” Just About Gone

August 17, 2016

I sometimes feel like Carl Hiaasen when I drive around my home state of Florida. Carl is, of course, the wildly funny and wickedly perceptive columnist for the Miami Herald who also writes satirical novels about the rape and exploitation of the state we both love. I think he lives somewhere in the Keys now, but was born in Plantation, Florida when it was still a rural suburb of Fort Lauderdale.

Both he and I know something of how beautiful this state was before it was ruined. Hiaasen went to Emory University (where I was first accepted into a college) but graduated from the University of Florida (where I actually went…and graduated!). He even once wrote for Cocoa Today, the local newspaper in the town where I served as parish priest in for nine years in the Eighties. So, we have a lot in common, except that he is a much more successful writer than I am!

But we both share a love/hate relationship with this maddening state. As Susanne and I drove west on Interstate 4 this week, from Daytona to Sarasota, we found ourselves in bumper to bumper traffic through Orlando (to say nothing of massive road construction and a tropical thunderstorm like I haven’t experienced since I lived here!). The traffic congestion stretched from Altamonte Springs to just southwest of the Disney project (for those who know the area). And it happened almost exactly the same coming back east as when we drove west two days earlier!

But it’s not just the growth and development. It’s how that growth and development have happened. Little or no regard to the environmental consequences of such massive building efforts (about which Hiaasen writes so scathingly). And, of course, with millions of retired folks who moved here at least partially because there is no state income tax and who vote repeatedly against raising any kind of taxes at all, there is no way to build adequate infrastructure to handle the huge population. They are way behind and trying to play catch-up.

So, there are road problems, water problems, rampant destruction of coastal dune lines and natural barriers to the surging tides. All this to make way for the massive condominiums which block access to, and even the view of, the Ocean or Gulf — it doesn’t much matter which side of the state you’re on. The story is pretty much the same. It is only sheer chance (or maybe complicated factors related to climate change) that has kept Florida out of the cross-hairs of a massive hurricane in recent years.

When that, inevitably, happens lots of those condos will disappear from the beaches and, as an old salt once put it, “It will look like barnacles being scraped off a piece of driftwood by a sharp knife!” Poetic, don’t you think? However, in my worst moments, I must confess to a petulant “It’ll serve them right” attitude. (Of course, I hope these wealthy residents will heed the calls for evacuation first!)

So, why do I still hope to have a place back down here some day? I suppose mostly because of happy memories growing up here and of what it was like to live even in Orlando before the days of Disney. A middle sized town dotted with scores of fresh water lakes good for swimming, boating and fishing. Rows and rows of citrus trees — grapefruit, orange, and tangerine — stretching over the hills west of the city (now, of course, replaced with rolling hills of tacky little houses, most of which look just like one another). An Episcopal diocese which used to be one of the healthiest in the South and which I was proud to serve.

So, I ask again, why do I still hope to have a place back down here some day? Besides the nostalgia, there are still moments beside and within the pounding surf; the comforting sight of a typical Florida forest (or yard) combining palm trees, live oaks, azaleas and poinsettias; fresh grouper that will melt in your mouth (whether or not it is stuffed with crab!); and the discovery, every so often, of “old Florida” where once simple people of little or no means lived and enjoyed a tropical paradise, hoping that tourists would keep coming and leave their money — but would just as quickly head back up North and leave the care and management of the state to those of us who actually cared.

Of course, they didn’t. They moved here — at one point to the tune of 1,000 persons a day, moving into the state to LIVE, not simply visit — and now they are in charge. They own the corrupt politicians in Tallahassee and see absolutely no reason to take on Big Sugar or Big Construction or Big Drugs all of which are destroying the very environment they claim to desire.

Maybe if I ever do get a place back down here some day, I can get involved with folks like Carl Hiaasen, environmental groups, and responsible politicians who are calling attention to, and combating, these corrosive elements in Florida society.

At least we can go down fighting.

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Dad’s Birthday

August 13, 2016

Well, he’s 95 so I expect some slowing of speech and forgetfulness and repeating things I’ve heard many, many times before is to be expected. He is actually amazing, living independently although in a retirement center near our adopted hometown of Daytona Beach. Up until a recent fall, he was still driving and he still hasn’t given up hope of regaining that privilege once the fractured hip heals.

Like so many fathers and sons, we had a complicated relationship over the years. The “greatest generation,” at least the men, just never quite learned how to show affection to their sons. And I’m not sure the World War II B-24 bomber pilot ever quite forgave his son for opposing, and opting out of, the Viet Nam war. (Although he categorizes all war as “stupid” these days!).

He’s become much more demonstrative in his old age. Hugs and even the occasional kiss are becoming easier for him and it’s good to hear “I love you” even though it took a lot of years to get there. He misses his beloved “Maggie” desperately and frequently says that no one should live to his ripe old age. “Twenty years to grow up and get educated; twenty years to climb to the top of your ability professionally; twenty years to enjoy it; twenty years of retirement. That should be it! Die at 80. Eighty-five tops!”

I tend to agree with him (after all, the Psalmist says “Three score years and ten; perhaps in strength even eighty”) but as I often remind him: It’s not up to us. Of course, I hope he won’t linger for too long once those amazing powers of determination and grit start to fade away. But, I must say, the last decade or so has brought some much-needed tenderness to a relationship which lacked that for too many years.

It was good for us to be here for his birthday. Don’t know how many more there’ll be (though I’m pretty sure there will be some). I’m thankful for all that he gave me. And, whether he fully appreciates it or not — he’s still giving.

Posted in Blogroll, Church Life, Ecumenical, Emergent Church, Interfaith, Justice and Peace, Politics, Politics, Religion, Scripture, The Episcopal Church, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

The Son of Man is Coming at an Unexpected Hour!

August 7, 2016

One of the great privileges I have had in my ministry has been the opportunity to visit several Anglican dioceses in Africa. During my time as Bishop of Iowa, of course, I visited our companion Diocese of Swaziland several times. When I was the ecumenical officer for the Episcopal Church, I was able to travel to the Diocese of Cape Town, South Africa, and once accompanied the Presiding Bishop to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

I had, of course, heard of the rapid growth of Christianity in Africa and of the vibrancy of these new Christians’ faith, even in the face of war and persecution. Now that the Diocese of Iowa also has a companion link in South Sudan, we are even more aware of the terrible events in that new nation and share their sadness and deep concern – for our friend, Bishop Samuel Peni and for so many others there.

Of course, one of the reasons for the vibrancy of the Christian faith in parts of Africa is that it is so new to so many. While European missionary work has been going on in Africa since the 19^th century and, of course, northern Africa has an indigenous Christianity which stretches back to the earliest days of the church’s life, nonetheless millions have been converted to Christ in the last few decades.

So, when you experience the church in Africa, it’s as though the Christians there are actually living The Acts of the Apostles, complete with massive conversions, reports of healings and exorcisms and, of course, the persecution which looks for all the world like what the early Christians went through at the hands of the Roman Empire! And one thing you can’t help but be impressed with is the excitement and even the urgency with which they practice the Faith.

I was reminded of that when I read today’s Gospel…where Jesus says, “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet…blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes. (And) know this: if the owner of a house had known at what hour a thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” (Luke 12 passim)

We have here two ways of describing how Christians should remain on the alert for what we call “the Second Coming” of Christ or “Judgment Day.” The first: how servants should behave when their boss is away – they should keep working, be good stewards of what has been entrusted to them, and be ready for the master’s return. The second image: how a homeowner should remain vigilant all night long, lest his house be broken into – since burglars don’t usually call for an appointment before they show up! You have to be alert!

Jesus’ point here, of course, is that we only have so much time to get our work done here on earth. That argument was particularly compelling in the first century when Christians expected the Second Coming of Christ to happen very soon. From what we know of the early church, some Christians used this as an excuse not to work at all. I mean, why bother if Jesus is going to show up tomorrow.

St. Paul, in his letters to the Thessalonians, and Luke in sharing Jesus’ metaphors in this Gospel, take the opposite view. If he’s coming back soon, get busy! New Christians, like those I met in Africa, often have that same sense of urgency because they (like the Seventh Day Adventists and the Jehovah’s Witnesses and some Pentecostal groups) still look for Jesus to return at any moment.

It’s harder for Western Christians, like ourselves, who have long since made peace with the fact that it may be a long time until Christ’s Return, harder for us to keep that sense of urgency. But let me tell you, my beloved, as one who lost his first wife to an unexpected heart attack at the age of 54; and as one now married to a woman who lost her eldest son during his first days in college in a tragic climbing accident, I can tell you for a fact: We never DO know the day or the hour! God might not yet be ready to judge the earth. But you and I might meet our Maker on the way home from church this morning!

You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour! We still need to have the urgency and the sense of purpose those early Christians had, as our sisters and brothers in Africa still have! For it is our hope and our expectation that Jesus Christ will one day judge both the living and the dead – as we say every Sunday in the Nicene Creed — so let’s be good stewards of whatever time we have left! Let’s get busy! Busy doing what? Our Lessons from Scripture today tell us:

From Isaiah: Get busy and cease to do evil, get busy learning to do good; get busy seeking justice, get busy rescuing the oppressed, defending the orphan, pleading for the widow. Come now, let us argue it out, says the Lord.” (Isaiah 1)

From the Psalmist: “I do not accuse you because of your sacrifices, your offerings are always before me…Whoever offers me the sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me, but those who keep in my way will I show the salvation of God.” (Psalm 50)

And, from the book of Hebrews: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. ” (Hebrews 11:1)

In other words, as we live our lives day by day, as we await the Coming of Christ or even the completion of our own journeys here on earth, we are to (as the Methodist founder John Wesley is reported to have said) “do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, for as long as you ever can.”

So, we are not only to offer God the sacrifice of thanksgiving here in the Eucharist each Sunday but to offer sacrifice by walking in God’s ways every, single day. And we are to keep the Faith, like our ancestors did, no matter how bleak things may appear or what challenges we may face.

Be dressed for action, dear friends, and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return…You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour!

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The Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ

August 6, 2016

Jesus, Peter, James, and John were enjoying a cool, clear Sabbath day with a time of silence, rest, and reflection aided by a beautiful and expansive view of the lush, agricultural region of northern Palestine. The crops were nearly ready for the harvest from their rich soil and the land below the hills was alive with color. Peter had been drowsing under a tree and, as he opened his eyes, he saw the two brothers quite literally with their mouths open, staring past him toward the top of the hill.

There was Jesus standing in prayer and he seemed bathed in the brightest light Peter had ever seen! It was as though the brilliance of the noonday sun was being supplemented by a luminosity from within Jesus’ own person. So deep was his communion with his “Abba” in prayer that his very appearance was changed.

Never had Peter, James, and John experienced the holiness of their teacher as powerfully as in that moment. The memory of other such holy ones from their people’s history washed over them: Moses coming down for the second time from Mount Sinai with the ten words of the covenant and his face veiled for the skin shone because he had been talking with God; Elijah on Mount Horeb, like Jesus here, experiencing union with God not in the wind, earthquake, or fire but in the sound of a sheer and profound silence.

A cloud moved over the face of the sun but, for Peter, it was a cloud like the one which had covered Mount Sinai. And he experienced the same truth Jesus had at his baptism in the River Jordan –this is the child of God; listen to him. The moment passed as quickly as it had come, but Peter was unwilling to let it go:

“Rabbi, let’s stay and build our booths for the feast of tabernacles right here. Three of them –one for Moses, one for Elijah, and one for you. The law …the prophets …and their fulfillment –in you, the anointed one!” He was positively babbling with excitement, fear, and joy. Slowly, Jesus opened his eyes and lowered his hands. It seemed to take a moment for him to realize exactly where he was. Then, without a word, he started down the mountain. They clambered their way down the steep path in silence for a while until James and John could contain themselves no longer:

“Jesus, do you not know what we just experienced?” “Not exactly,” he smiled, “What?” They recounted what they had witnessed to him as best they could with all the similarities and differences each of them had experienced. And then, according to Peter, Jesus gave them a strange charge: “Do not tell anyone about this until after my death and the resurrection. ”

(From John Mark: a gospel novel by Christopher Epting…order at Amazon.com)

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World Vision And Hamas?

August 5, 2016

However this story turns out, it will be a tragedy. A Palestinian man named Mohammed El Halabi, manager at the Gaza branch of the Christian aid organization World Vision, has been accused by Israeli prosecutors of infiltrating the organization years ago and of channeling as much as $43 million dollars from World Vision contributions to the military wing of Hamas.

Hamas is, of course, considered by Israel and the U.S. as a terrorist organization. And it does have a military wing even though it also provides social services and has a good bit of support along the Gaza strip. In fact, once when traveling with the Presiding Bishop to visit the Arab hospital in Gaza and deliver a generator for their use, unbeknownst to us, we were provided with a Hamas security guard lest Israeli airstrikes mistakenly target us on our way!

Nonetheless, Hamas is certainly involved in military-style activity against Israel including building cross border tunnels in order to carry out attacks on Israeli territory. The charges are that El Halabi may have transferred sixty percent of World Vision’s annual budget for Gaza to Hamas. This would include the building of those tunnels and transferring some 2500 food packages meant for needy families in Gaza to Hamas battalions.

If these allegations prove true, it will reinforce long-held Israeli suspicions that Palestinian employees of aid organizations and other N.G.O.s are Hamas sympathizers and perhaps forever limit the freedom of such organizations to function in humanitarian ways in Gaza and on the West Bank. If the allegations turn out to be false — as Hamas claims, suspecting false stories being circulated by Israeli intelligence — it will reinforce Palestinian suspicions that their Israeli neighbors cannot be trusted and remain a hostile “occupying power” in Palestinian territory.

Fortunately, no one is suggesting that World Vision, as an organization, is implicated which is a good thing since, according to The New York Times, they sponsor 4.1 million children around the world each year and provide $1.2 billion in relief funds. Approximately 40,000 Palestinians receive assistance on the West Bank and Gaza. It would be devastating to the organization and to those persons provided assistance if donations were to fall off drastically because of suspicions raised by this incident.

Let us hope for appropriate investigation, an unbiased process, and if necessary a fair trial with complete transparency lest this unfortunate situation escalate into something worse and severely damage a well-respected Christian aid organization from doing its important work. “I was hungry and you gave me food.”

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Conflicted But Not Ashamed

August 3, 2016

Ted Gup’s op ed piece in today’s New York Times stirred up some old emotions in me. Entitled “Why Trump Is Not Like Other Draft Dodgers” (and subtitled “Men like me who didn’t fight owe a debt to those who did”) the article tells Gup’s story of paying a psychiatrist to diagnose him as having “delusions of grandeur” so he could avoid responding to his number-one-in-the-draft-lottery-status in 1969 and so skip being shipped off to Viet Nam.

I remember the night of that lottery very well. My number was a very high one, but I had already been granted an exemption because I was to attend seminary that fall and, since the Civil War, clergy (and, by implication, divinity school students) have been eligible for such exemptions. I had agonized over the decision to avoid military service. My father had been a B-24 bomber pilot in WW II, my grandfather a balloon surveillance officer in WW I. I had done two years of ROTC at the University of Florida and always assumed I would follow my family tradition of military service.

But this was Viet Nam and I was on a campus during the turbulent 1960s. I had come to believe that the Viet Nam enterprise was not only foolish, but morally bankrupt and was not worthy of our nations’s involvement or the loss of one young life. Mr. Gup has always felt guilty for not serving, believing his actions to avoid the draft were motivated by cowardice and careerism.

I am not a coward and my “career” was not advanced by choosing not to serve in the military. I was not afraid of going to Viet Nam. I was not even afraid of facing possible death. I was morally opposed to the war. Not to all wars for I am not a pacifist. Sometimes military interventions are for the purposes of genuine national defense or to protect innocent victims of some tyrant’s brutality. Viet Nam was neither of these.

Those of us who protested that war never blamed the soldiers on the ground. We knew that they were doing their duty, that many of them behaved heroically, and we knew far too many of them as friends and lovers who never came back. We honored then, and honor now, their service. Our beef was with the government and decisions that were made which got us into that war in the first place, stretching back decades.

Since I had worked in hospitals over the years, I briefly considered going into the Army as a medic, but finally decided that any involvement in the military in those days would be tacit support for the war. And I could not do that. I finally reconciled myself to the decision by committing myself to serve my family, community, nation, and world as best I could by the dedicated life of an Episcopal priest.

Have I felt guilty about that decision? Well, I am guilty of it. Guilt is not a feeling; it is a state of being. Either you are guilty of something or you are not. Have I felt ashamed or sorrowful about it? More “conflicted,” I think, than ashamed. I remember reading of Bill Clinton’s wrestling with this same issue and coming out on the side of avoiding military service. I expect he feels as conflicted about that decision today as I do.

I wish the idea of “alternative service” to the nation had been as well developed in those days as it is becoming today. I believe that every young person would benefit, and so would the country at large, from a couple of years of compulsory service in education, health care, infrastructure development, or other forms of national service.

Some, perhaps many, would consider me a draft dodger of the same ilk as Ted Gup and those who fled to Canada or otherwise went “underground” rather than fight in Viet Nam in those years. Clearly, I used my privilege to avoid military service. Many others were not so fortunate. I hope my life has been of some service to this country and its people as well as to my church and its members.

I still believe Viet Nam was wrong (as have been a number of wars since then). I am glad I did not support it or become involved in it. But I grieve for those who did…and for those who died. I would make the same decision today. And would probably be as conflicted about it as I was then.

I hope we all learned some lessons from those years.

But I’m not sure we did.

Posted in Blogroll, Church Life, Ecumenical, Emergent Church, Interfaith, Justice and Peace, Politics, Politics, Religion, The Episcopal Church, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Spirituality Is Jazz!

August 1, 2016

The last weekend of July each year in the “Quad Cities” (Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa; Moline and Rock Island, Illinois) is Bix Weekend! This celebration consists of the Bix 7, a seven mile road race up and down a hilly route near the Mississippi River, and a Jazz Festival in honor of Bix Beiderbecke, the American jazz cornetist, pianist, and composer who was born in Davenport and died (of alcoholism) at the tender age of 29 in 1931.

There’s a lot of great jazz to listen to in various venues around the cities from night clubs to concert halls to the wonderful band shell in Le Claire Park on the river. A number of local churches, including Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, incorporate jazz music into their worship services on that Sunday. This year was no exception with music provided by the Edgar Crockett Jazz Ensemble.

As I listened to their jazz selections as introit, offertory and postlude (in addition to lively renditions of the hymns like “Just A Closer Walk with Thee” and “Down By the Riverside”) I thought once again how Christian spirituality can be compared to jazz. Most jazz musicians I know were classically trained before they ever launched into the improvisational world of jazz.

Because they have practiced with and mastered their instruments, understand music theory, chord changes and rhythm, they can improvise with polyrhythms, syncopation and swing notes and yet always end up “on the same page” bringing their selections to an integrated conclusion with everyone ending up in the right place at the right time.

Today, many people (and not only young people) claim to be “spiritual but not religious.” In other words, they believe in God, perhaps even angels, eternal life, and prayer but are not persuaded that the so-called “institutional church” is necessary and do not feel the need to be part of a worshiping community even though they may, or may not, engage in the classical spiritual disciples of daily prayer and Bible study and weekly Eucharist/worship.

I know lots of these folks. And I understand their frustrations with the church, their distrust of the impossibly-patriarchal and “outdated” Bible and creeds, and their boredom with what passes for worship in most of our churches today. My concern is that trying to be spiritual but not religious is sort of like trying to play jazz music without ever having learned the instrument in the first place or expecting to perform well without rehearsing with the band or practicing those damnable daily scales and chords.

Most Christian mystics (and mystics of other traditions would follow this pattern) remain grounded in the basics of Bible and Liturgy even while following the Spirit’s promptings to greater heights (or depths, depending on your metaphor) in prayer and meditation, theological sophistication and critical analysis of their faith.

“Religion” binds us together and grounds us in the experience of those who have gone before us. “Spirituality” is the endless journey into God which often shapes us differently as individuals.

“Religion” may be seen as the deep root system of a tree. “Spirituality” may be seen as the rich and fruitful branches which can bend and sway in the wind precisely because they are grounded at the roots.

“Religion” is classical music. “Spirituality” is jazz!

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