Thanksgivings

As we huddle in our homes, alone or with immediate family and/or pets, fearful of the usual gatherings that Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s bring because of the coronavirus, it may be more of a challenge to feel gratitude this year.

Whenever I feel cause to complain, as happened in the calamity described in last week’s post, I immediately think of all those people who have far more to complain about throughout the world. It makes me feel that I have no right even to mention my “suffering,” as if I am whining like a child in a grocery store denied a treat.

The spiritual writer Henri Nouwen declared that we should not compare sufferings, saying, “Your suffering is your own.” I am not so sure, but in the moment of loss and deprivation and pain, the focus is on your suffering or my suffering or the suffering we witness daily in the news. Our individual experience of suffering opens us to understanding the suffering of others.

Many of us believe that to be a spiritual person is to practice compassion, literally “suffering with” one another. It is a practice, not always a feeling, though the practice may lead to feelings as well as actions to assuage the suffering.

Jesus was the first spiritual founder to teach me this. But it’s also true of the Talmud and the Buddha and the Quran and the Vedas, to mention a few spiritual paths that sensitively deal with suffering.

Our sufferings could be, as I’ve written in other contexts, our “wounds with a view,” our opportunities to be thankful for the people and things, events and opportunities we are missing for now as well as our window onto others’ suffering.

Some of us are missing people who will never return, but we can yet be grateful that they have touched our lives, our bodies, our dreams, our hopes. I am the sum of all who have touched me, and I celebrate them whenever I think of them with love and joy and gratitude and whenever I touch others with love and joy and gratitude.

Despite our loss of five wondrous trees at the end of October, two from our neighbors’ yards and three from our own, the month began rather well observing Wade’s and my birthdays, our anniversary, and the anniversary of my lifelong-sought-for ordination. Our pastor Jenelle and her husband Chris (also a pastor) secretly hung the banner above on our front porch as a surprise from our Ormewood Church friends. (Their daughter tried to help, but she kept giggling, I am told.)

Our friends and neighbors Sonja and Jody and Cathie and CJ gathered with us for a socially-distanced outdoor dinner celebration under colorful parasols in Sonja and Jody’s yard. People driving by thought it was a fabulously festive new restaurant opening. (See photo below.) They also rescued us and Wade’s chili when we lost power on Halloween.

We received cards and calls and messages from family and friends. For all our “cloistered” experience, we never felt absolutely alone. And in a day and age of cellphones and flatscreens and tablets and laptops, we had Zoom church and conversations and plenty of programs to watch. Think of historic pandemics with none of these outlets (or maybe I should call them “inlets”)!

I had my blog to write and readers to correspond with while Wade worked online from home. I also led an online retreat on Henri Nouwen for Columbia Seminary’s Spirituality Program, synchronistically based on his book Reaching Out.

And God was always to be found as I daily prayed for humanity’s deliverance from this virus as well as for the election of compassionate leaders.

My hope is that we all make the most of our Thanksgivings!

That's Wade to the right.

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Copyright © 2020 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

Thanks Be to God for All Who Made You!

Mystery of Faith, Ruby Swinney, South Africa.

Earlier this month my sister and brother and I remembered the 80^th anniversary of our parents’ wedding! It reminded me of my 2012 post, “The Making of You”  and its gratitude for ways my parents shaped my character, attitudes, compassion, and interests.

As we approach the American observance of Thanksgiving this year, it occurred to me to present again a part of that reflection to encourage you to consider all who shaped you. At the end I encourage your participation, inviting you to share on this blog the kinds of people who made you into who you are today.

Here’s the excerpt and invitation from the earlier post:

During my morning prayers I thanked my parents and I thanked God for their having me, caring for me, nurturing me, and encouraging my independence. In my book, The Final Deadline: What Death Has Taught Me about Life, I pointed out that, despite their deaths decades ago, they continue to teach me. Some new experience or wisdom will come my way, and the proverbial light bulb will go on over my head, “Oh, that’s what Mom meant! Or that’s what Dad felt!” Many readers recognized that experience in their own lives.

I used to send Mom flowers on my birthday, following the practice I learned from a friend. After all, she was the one who did the labor that made it possible!

On my own birthday last fall, I began thanking God for my parents, siblings, cousins, nephews, grandparents, aunts and uncles, Jesus, God, faith, and so on, and then I continued, thinking of all the people who had shaped me—lovers, friends, neighbors, church members, clergy, political leaders, communities, movements, environments, etc. A morning meditation became a day-long and then week-long reverie remembering all who touched my life in meaningful ways. The list became REALLY long when I began naming teachers! And then, authors!

I can never claim to be a self-made man, thanks be to God!

Who all made you?

[To respond, click on “comments” on the blogsite and you’ll be given options of methods for doing so. For those of you wary of safely registering with Google you may simply respond as “anonymous.” For subscribers who receive this post in your e-mailbox, you would need to go first to the November 20, 2019 post on the blogsite, www.chrisglaser.blogspot.com.]

This Sunday, November 24, 2019 I’ve been invited to speak to Atlanta’s First Existentialist Congregation (UU) in the nearby neighborhood of Candler Park on something preparatory of Thanksgiving, November 28. I chose as my topic “Considering Gratitude for Things that Don’t Make us ‘Feel’ Grateful,” suggesting the value of setbacks, failures, losses, and opposition in our lives. I will offer an excerpt of that talk as next week’s post the day before Thanksgiving, encouraging similar feedback.

The Amazon link for The Final Deadline:

https://www.amazon.com/Final-Deadline-Death-Taught-About/dp/0819223786/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329207139&sr=1-1

Progressive Christian Reflections is entirely supported by reader donations. To support this blog: https://mccchurch.org/ministries/progressive-christian-reflections/

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Copyright © 2012 and 2019 by Chris R. Glaser. All rights reserved. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite.

Spiritual Community

Church is not for everyone. Even for those who like it, there are as many distractions as attractions to the spiritual life there. I thought of entitling this post “spirituality for loners” because I want to suggest eight ways of experiencing spiritual community outside of church!

Read. I enjoy the most diverse, stimulating, informed, and wise spiritual community on my bookshelves! Fiction and non-fiction, sacred and profane, fantasy and factual—you name it, all connect me to other people, places, and things with whom and with which I may feel a spiritual kinship. Newspaper and magazine human interest stories, op-eds, obits, and news stories also open me to relationships often more spiritually intimate than possible in ordinary life. All are opportunities for witnessing spirituality at work for those who have eyes to see, fingers to feel Braille, or ears to hear recorded versions.

Pray. Immediately, praying puts us into a global and probably universal community of those lifting their hearts and their loved ones and even unloved ones to God, the eternal, the sacred, knitting our hearts with those with whom and for whom we pray. Prayer, meditation, and reflection make us more attentive to those we care about or want to care about, welcoming their presence in deeper ways.

Watch. Being mindful of surroundings wherever we are with all of our senses puts us in community with the material world. Matter matters. The touch of a fabric, the fragrance of a plant, the sound of rain, the vibration of a machine, the breath of  a lover, the view from your favorite chair or mountain ridge—all remind us, in Madonna’s lyrics, that “we are material girls” and boys. And watching films and documentaries can take us to people and places and events we otherwise might never meet or visit or experience.

Walk and Roll. I was asked this week what I would do if I knew I only had 24 hours to live. Promptly I replied, “I’d go walk in the park.” A leisurely stroll or roll on foot or wheelchair through parks, forests, beaches, neighborhoods, downtowns, and more give us an opportunity to relax and be part of something greater than ourselves. An acquaintance gave up city life and lights to work remotely in the countryside just to be able to spend time gazing at the planets, stars, and galaxies each night as earth strolls through the universe.

Communicate. Writing letters or blogs, sketching or painting, playing instruments or sharing CD’s, making videos or recordings, performing or cooking or phoning—finding ways to tell our stories, proclaim our “gospel,” give our viewpoints, share our talents—these are some of the diverse ways we may offer ourselves to spiritual community.

Volunteer or Vocation. Giving time, energy, talent, money, and possessions for a cause,  concern, or a calling connects us to other volunteers or coworkers but also to those for whom we do what we do, whether a movement, a non-profit, a community in need, or the environment.

Receive. It may be more blessed to give than receive, as Paul quoted Jesus in Acts, but being receptive is also a gift to those who want to offer us something of themselves, from company to caregiving. Gratitude “in all circumstances” may open us serendipitously to community.

Breathe. Breathing slowly and deeply and consciously is a common way to begin meditation. Spirit is in the very air we breathe if we are paying attention, if we imagine it, if we believe it. We take in the molecules ancestors breathed, brothers and sisters breathe, posterity will breathe. Every breath connects us with them.

No one should beat themselves up for not going to church, not joining a monastic community, or not belonging to a religion or religious organization. Spiritual community is to be discovered simply by attending to the spiritual life, that which connects us to all.

Copyright © 2013 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. Check out past posts in the right rail on the blogsite.

This blog is entirely supported by your donations. Thank you!

Chris will be leading a free public workshop on Just Love entitled “Body Boundaries and the Question of Consent” Saturday, April 27, 2013, from 10 a.m.-1:00 p.m. (free lunch follows) at St. Francis Episcopal Church, Macon, Georgia. It will explore the spiritual dimension of physical encounters.

Posts you may have missed:

On the Threshold of the Church

Interrupted Lives

"Judas Kiss"

A week ago today during prayers I suddenly felt grateful for embodiment. First, for my own body. Even when it feels pain, I realize it’s the body’s alarm system that something has gone wrong. And when it feels pleasure, ecstasy lifts me onto a different plane of reality, and I know what’s good and true and beautiful.

I did not stop at thanking God for my own body, but began a stream of “thank you’s” for the embodiment of others. For my parents: my mother’s body growing me, my father’s body making love with my mom, together conceiving me. Then the bodies of my partner, family, friends, pets, as well as lovers of times past. And nature and community and the cosmos. It was becoming an American-Psalmist-Walt-Whitman-style song of praise. I thanked God for their touch, their warmth, their holding me, their smiling at me, their crying with me.

But as quickly as gratitude flooded my thoughts, a stream of confessions followed: times when I mishandled or demanded or exploited or ignored or judged or passed by bodies,  including the earth’s body, the Body of Christ, and my own body.  The elevation of Paradise is never far from the Fall of human mismanagement.

Then I remembered Becki Jayne Harrelson’s painting, Judas Kiss, and its discomfiting, tender, and sensuous depiction of Judas handing over a nearly naked and thus vulnerable Jesus to suffering with a kiss. We most often hurt those we love, and they us. Many of us have been “handed over to suffering” by a kiss in various expressions, from the kiss of baptismal waters, to the kiss of  the laying on of hands, to the kiss of promising relationships. And our own bodies have handed us over to suffering through artificial pleasures that seemed good and true and beautiful at the time.

The eroticism of Becki Jayne’s painting cannot be missed, the eros that impels us both to another’s body and to another’s spirit, and to God’s body and Spirit. (For more about the artist and painting, see below.)

The day after these revelations, I found myself praying that I wish I could see God, who evolved a wondrous world and whose creative work also evolved you and me. I opened my eyes as another realization came—I was seeing God. Pictures of family and friends and ancestors on the credenza, the tree outside the window holding a nest of baby birds, the fuchsia-colored orchid flowering in the other room after a long dormancy, our dog Hobbes snoring on the sofa, the furniture and rugs and the people who crafted them, my own arms and legs. And again my gratitude was followed by confession: for betraying, denying, abandoning, and doubting this face of God.

As if that were not enough, the next day on the front page of the newspaper appeared an image of the cosmos as it looked 370,000 years after the Big Bang, looking like an elongated speckled Easter egg in blue, red, orange, and yellow. Inside the paper I read the article associated with the picture, reporting that the age of the universe has been upgraded to 13.8 billion years old. As I turned back to the front page, the unfolded paper revealed again the colorful cosmos, but this time juxtaposed by a full page ad on the back page featuring a model—and all I could think of in that moment was, “from this (the universe) to this (the human being).” God’s countenance is constantly lifted upon us, no matter how much we look away, turn away, are blinded by tears, have doubts, or simply fail to see.

“Judas Kiss” image Copyright © 1993 by Becki Jayne Harrelson. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

“Judas Kiss” words Copyright © 2013 by Chris R. Glaser. All rights reserved. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Suggested uses: personal reflection, contemporary readings in worship, conversation starters in classes. Past posts are available in the archive in the right rail on the blogsite.

This ministry is solely supported by your donations. Click here to make a tax-deductible gift. Thank you!

Becki Jayne Harrelson painted “Judas Kiss” during Lent and Easter 1993 “in response to the verbal gay bashing that Congress was doing” over then President Clinton’s attempt to rescind the ban against gays and lesbians serving in the military. It is part of a series of Christian iconography intended to serve as “a narrative about sexuality in harmony with spirituality.” For further explanation, click here.

See another in her series in the post, “Faggot” Jesus.

A post you may have missed: Where is God?