tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13588207480705843632024-02-20T07:11:38.615-08:00The Gospel of Letting GoExploring my Life as an Ordained Christian Priest and a practicing Zen Buddhist.rev. Scott Elliott, lchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14499407952499061161noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1358820748070584363.post-56054286178949751992015-03-07T10:59:00.000-08:002015-03-07T18:38:25.981-08:00<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong>Kindly LET GO of your "<em>ISM"...</em></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Recently, National Public Radio (NPR) broadcast Kelly
McEvers’ interview with <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Maajid Nawaz.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to McEvers, Maajid Nawaz is “a
British citizen of Pakistani descent who himself joined an Islamist group when
he was a teenager. He recruited for the group, spent four years in prison in
Egypt, and then later renounced the group. Nawaz wrote a book about the
experience and is the co-founder of Quilliam. That's a British think tank that
focuses on countering extremist beliefs.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the interview,
Nawaz described his journey into “radicalized Islam” and described what he
perceives as some factors that lead men and women like himself down that
particular religious path.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He describes
how extremists groups take advantage of youthful feelings of frustration, anger,
injustice which they exploit, concretize, and use as a bridge to radicalized
ideology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What attracted my attention
most in the interview was Nawaz’s description of the difference between the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">religion</i> of Islam and what he says is the
distorted practice he calls “Islam-ism”…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Here is an excerpt of the interview:<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">NAWAZ: “So the
grievances - you know, you'd expect somebody who's a teenager to be quite angry
at the various injustices of the world, but you wouldn't expect someone in
their 20s to continue using those grievances as an excuse for the most
unjustifiable acts. And that's the bridge. The bridge there is that what the
ideology provides. It fossilizes an anger that someone once felt, and then, you
know, it becomes the justification for all sorts of atrocities that are then
committed by the ideologue.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">MCEVERS: “Yeah,
it's that final step from the ideas to the acts.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">NAWAZ: “Indeed,
it is, yeah. And actually, the ideology, what I call the Islamist ideology -
the desire to impose any version of Islam over society anywhere - that's
Islamism as opposed to Islam, which is a religion.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(A full transcript of the interview can be
found at NPR.org.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I want to observe
that this phenomenon of “fossilized” feelings of injustice being used to
support religious ideology isn’t exclusive to Islam…indeed it is an endemic
problem of all major religious traditions, Christianity and Judaism
included.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the New
Testament of the Christian Bible, Jesus observes the frustrations of an
occupied people, oppressed not only by the Empire of Rome, but also by the religious
authorities of his time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We read of
Jesus speaking out publicly against this authority to offer a message of
religious/spiritual liberation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was,
after all, his subversive spiritual message which led directly to his arrest
and execution for religious heresy and political sedition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather than fixating on ideology and strict
observance of revealed law, Jesus offered a simple spiritual practice of
forgiveness and love of one’s neighbor.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Centuries
earlier, Gautama Buddha delivered a similar message of spiritual liberation
after observing the suffering of people in his community and the inability of the
religious ideologues of his day and time to address this suffering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Looking deeply at the nature of reality and
the processes of the human mind and heart, Gautama Buddha recognized that
clinging to anything: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>existence,
material wealth, religious ideology, only leads to suffering for self and
others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In response, he offered a
practice of “letting go” of certainties and ideology for the sake of practicing
compassion and loving kindness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In more recent
times, theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed the fossilization of frustration
and anger by extremist groups in post-war Germany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This fossilization of fear, anger, and
xenophobia created a religious and political ideology in Germany which led to the
radicalization of his country’s government and state-controlled church; the
result of which ended in the horrendous extermination of 6 million human
beings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his personal struggles to
make sense of what was happening, of how the “Christian” citizens of Germany
could remain silent (and in many instances complicit) in genocide, Bonhoeffer
began to conceptualize a “religion-less” Christianity; a Christianity in which
the basic virtues Jesus expressed in the Sermon on the Mount could really be
lived out and God’s reign of peace, love, and compassion could be made
manifest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bonhoeffer’s invitation to
practice a “religion-less Christianity” through a “new form of monasticism” is,
I think, his contribution for guarding against the trap of fossilized fear and
anger, and radicalized religious and political ideology. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Which brings us
back to our present period of extreme political and religious ideology and the
violence it generates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One only need
turn on the radio, television, or internet and see the effects of fossilized
anger and radicalized, religious ideology; not only Islamic radicalization, but
Christian radicalization, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Western
Christians may like to hide behind a veil of self-righteousness and modern
“civilization” and point out that Christians aren’t the ones beheading
innocents; but historically and culturally, Christians, Jews, and Muslims all
have blood on their hands form centuries of violence perpetuated in the name of
their faiths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It should be pointed out that throughout
history, scripture has been used by religious groups to justify slavery, war, genocide,
child abuse, sexual exploitation, oppression, and other injustices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The vitriol and hate shouted out by groups
like the Westboro Baptist Church (and other harshly fundamentalist
“Christians”) and the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIL) is not only
identical, but arises from the same seed of suffering in each human heart.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I should stop at
this point and offer clarification that not ALL Christians are xenophobic fundamentalists;
not all Muslims are radical extremists, not all Jews are militant
Zionists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And groups like the Westboro
Baptist Church and ISIL do not speak for nor represent the totality of the
faith traditions from which they grow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But that is part of the point I wish to make.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What sets these violent and dangerous groups
apart is their perversion of faith and embrace of hate-filled radicalization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These groups fossilize their sense of
injustice, hatred and anger into a particular xenophobic, hateful, angry, radicalized
ideology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The “problem” isn’t
Christianity, Judaism, or Islam per se.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
problem is the distortion and perversion of compassion-based faith into an
ideological excuse for hatred, anger, violence, oppression, rape, slaughter,
genocide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fierce attachment to
religious ideology perverts the practice religious <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">faith</i> into a distorted practice of religious-<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ism</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The problem is NOT Christianity,
it is that fearful, angry people calling themselves “Christian” are actually practicing
Christian-<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ism</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The problem is NOT Islam, it is that fearful,
angry people who call themselves “Muslim” are practicing Islam-<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ism</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The problem is that true justice has not been actualized, negative
feelings have not been healed, and pain has been fossilized into radicalized
ideology to which people become fiercely attached. In doing so, faith is twisted
and distorted, and so what was once supposed to be the solution to injustice
then becomes the cause of only more injustice and suffering for everyone. </span></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As a Christian
priest, one solution I hope to inspire people to return to is Bohoeffer’s idea
of a “religion-less” Christianity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In so
doing, I hope we can finally release our institutional death-grip on Christian
dogma and ideology, stop practicing Christian-<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ism, </i>and start practicing the compassionate expression of faith
that Jesus inspired us to live out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When Dietrich
Bonhoeffer was organizing his Finkenwalde seminary in 1935, living in prayerful
community with participants in the underground seminary, he began to develop
his ideas of what came to be called a “new monasticism”…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">"The restoration
of the church will surely come from a new kind of monasticism, which will have
nothing in common with the old but a life of uncompromising adherence to the
Sermon on the Mount in imitation of Christ. I believe the time has come to
rally people together for this." ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In a religionless
Christianity, I Bonhoeffer is calling for a genuine expression and practice of spiritual
faith as taught by Jesus of Nazareth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What
Jesus taught in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is spiritual practice in
in simplest and truest form.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this
teaching, Jesus is pointing beyond the fossilized injustice and ideology of the
established religious authorities of his time and ours, and inviting everyday
people (including people like you and me) to let go of attachment to dogmatic religion-<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ism</i>, and live more fully into a practice
of faith and compassion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his time, Jesus
invited people to let go of their Juda<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ism</i>,
and simply be a compassionate, Godly people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In a religionless Christianity, Bonhoeffer is inviting us to do the
same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bonhoeffer is inviting us to let
go of Christian-<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ism</i> and practice
being a compassionate, Godly people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
our current times, theologians like Franciscan priest and teacher Richard Rohr
are (thankfully!) leading us in the same direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">My own belief is
that if circumstances been different, had Bonhoeffer not been arrested and
executed, had he been able to continue his work and exploration of
religion-less Christianity, had he been fortunate (as we are) to live in a
world of communication and connectivity, had he (like the beloved Trappist monk
and author Thomas Merton) been able to encounter Buddhist monastic practice and
its teachings of non-attachment, Bonhoeffer may have appreciated an integration
of his “religionless Christianity” and Zen Buddhist practices of non-attachment
and compassion, a practice I call “Mindful Christianity”.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">To learn more about Mindful Christianity,
visit New Seeds Priory at:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><a href="http://www.newseedspriory.org/"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">www.newseedspriory.org</span></span></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p>fr. Scott+</o:p></span></div>
rev. Scott Elliott, lchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14499407952499061161noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1358820748070584363.post-77525985313876921492013-06-02T14:32:00.002-07:002013-06-03T08:03:25.767-07:00Call me a tree hugger....please!<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Two Zen masters, friends for many
years, visited one another in the monastery garden.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They strolled together among the stones,
ponds, and trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They sat together in
silence for several hours with no need for words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Suddenly, one Zen master broke the conversation
of silence as he began to chuckle softly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He pointed towards the blossoming form before them and remarked with
simple insight to his friend: “They call that a tree”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I heard this story a long time
ago, but I can’t recall the source.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
stuck with me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And something also stuck with me
that I heard at a dharma discussion I participate in at a Zen Center:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“There is a difference between the map and
the terrain.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was given in response
to a question regarding how much “truth” or “authority” to we (as Zen students)
should ascribe to Zen writings, commentaries, and koans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Zen training, what is more important is
our direct experience, not how well we can intellectualize the scriptures.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I assert that the same is true of
Christianity and our practice as followers of Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Scripture is one thing, experience is
another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bible is a map, not the
terrain itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is important not to
confuse the two.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is equally important
not to elevate the scripture above the level of that to which the scripture
describes or points.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our Christian
injunction is to follow; to love and to serve; to walk the spiritual path, not
to get lost in over intellectualizing the details of the map.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the teaching implicit in the parable
of the “Good Samaritan.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So I sometimes share with people
that there is just as much to learn from a flower, a beetle, a blade of grass,
or a tree as there is from any religious scripture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(This, after all, is how the tradition of
Ch’an or Zen Buddhism came to be!).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
trick is to practice our spirituality in such a way that we are open and
receptive to what a tree has to tell us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is what I learned from an Oak
tree once…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Most people are afraid of
change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some people seem to be afraid of
diversity and think of seemingly perpetual differentiation as a worrisome or
problematic trend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And most people seem
to be oblivious or resistant to the real and natural processes of life and
death…they are afraid of impermanence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Part of what makes an oak tree an
oak tree is the magnificence of its beautifully fractillated, ever-branching
complexity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Germinating from a single
acorn, this tree spends decades growing and branching into its unique
form.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This form is determined by both
genetics as well as by external events such as weather, disease, animals, and
other natural and un-natural events.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
throughout this growth process, the oak tree naturally continues to branch in
every available direction, each branch sprouting and budding left, right, up and
down, in an almost endless process of bifurcation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New acorns are produced and given to the
earth, each containing its own explosive potential to become a fully grown oak
tree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mature oak tree provides shade
and habitat for other life forms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
gives of itself, never questioning its truth, but always demonstrating its
abundance and inherent oak-tree-ness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And it never tries to be anything other than a fully bifurcated, magnificent
oak tree, leaves of each branch lovingly supporting the life of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">whole</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At the end of its life, the oak tree, like all living things, succumbs
to the natural events of death and decay and surrenders its form to the earth
from which it came.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What worries me is the way persons
who are unable to hear or perceive what an oak tree has to say or who have failed
to integrated these lessons, seem to insist on a world-view in which diversity
is resisted, inclusivity is spurned, the reality of life and death is
denied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As if somehow they hold the
secret “truth” that diversity, inclusivity, and impermanence are "wrong"; that what is best for the oak tree is to become a comparatively monolithic,
eternally static cactus….without too much diversity, without deciduous change; for the oak tree to revert to a "simpler" form that is eternal and unmoving, upright and unbending.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I believe the religious term for this is “fundamentalism”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Diversity is natural and good. An oak tree by it's very nature is diverse. It is impossible for an oak tree to be fundamentalist.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Cacti have spines…I’d much rather hug
an oak tree.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">fr. Scott+<o:p></o:p></span></div>
rev. Scott Elliott, lchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14499407952499061161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1358820748070584363.post-7818327899987506962013-05-27T17:45:00.003-07:002013-05-28T14:48:09.597-07:00New Seeds Priory...in a nutshell.<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This past Sunday at New
Seeds Priory, we were visited by two gentlemen (a couple), who stayed after the
conclusion of our Contemplative Celtic Eucharist service and shared some
conversation with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had met one
member of this couple when I stopped by a local dharma center to introduce
myself and share information about the Priory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After visiting the Priory website, he and his partner decided to join us
for services.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During our after-Eucharist
conversation, the second member of this couple asked some very weighty,
insightful questions…I felt a little as if I were being interrogated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I took it all as an opportunity to
clarify and articulate just what it is this New Seeds Priory is all about with
someone who was perhaps genuinely seeking a meaningful community in which to
participate and find place and have a voice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
was a good conversation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t until
the end of this conversation that this fellow revealed himself to be a retired
episcopal priest!</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He emailed me today to
thank me for sharing service and for entertaining his salvo of questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I think I passed the test!)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What follows is an
excerpt from my email reply to this retired priest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I share it with you because it offers what I
hope is a clear and concise explanation of what I want New Seeds Priory to be
about…</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“One thing I would like
to share with you about my Christian-Buddhist practice that didn’t segue into
our conversation is my understanding of the Diamond Sutra, or at least one
portion of the Diamond Sutra. The sutra is a dialogue of question and
responses between Buddha and the disciple Subhuti (much like our exchange on
Sunday!). In one exchange, Buddha explains to Subhuti, ‘That which you
call the Highest Truth, may not be the Highest Truth. It is only what you
<i>conceive</i> of as the Highest Truth, therefore you call it the Highest
Truth.’</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“In a nutshell, I take
this to mean that no matter what we think of as the highest truth, it is still
only our <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">conceptualization</i> of what
the highest truth is. As a Christian, I see that this teaching is true of
almost everything the Church has offered me as “the truth”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Christians, we have a two thousand year
inheritance of other people’s conceptualization of “the highest truth”, from
Paul to the Gospel Authors all the way to today, with each author or
commentator interjecting their own political, theological, or societal agendas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve come to see that no matter how much
authoritative weight one wishes to throw behind biblical scripture, it’s still
just someone else’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">conceptualization</i>
of God and of the teachings of Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
I’ve learned anything in my few years of study and experiment, it is that God
is ineffable and well beyond my finite conceptualization, and that my conceptualizations
are a means of putting God in a neat little box.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How can God fit in my box or anyone else’s
box?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(For our sharing on Easter Sunday
here at the Priory, I offered my point of view on the Easter story as an
allegory for how God, no matter how we may try to conceptualize God, will not
be contained by our boxes!)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“The practice of
Buddhism, Zen in particular, is to have an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">experience;
</i>a direct, clear, awake, experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Mindfulness training is about becoming fully awake and fully present
with the reality of each moment, without conceptualization, without agenda,
without a preconceived meaning or outcome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In this regard, the practice of Zen is not a ‘religion’, but rather a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">practice</i> of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">empirical</i> spirituality.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“So what I hope I’m
doing is creating a space at the Priory where people can feel free and
comfortable in letting go of their theological boxes and move beyond the
theological conceptualization they were given by ‘the church’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want people to feel free to drop their
doctrinal conditioning and engage in an experiment and have their own direct,
empirical experience of ‘the highest truth’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To do this, I hope to open a door for people to participate with
Christianity not as a list of doctrinal ‘beliefs’, but as a <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">spiritual
practice</i></b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A practice grounded in
humility, love, service, forgiveness, and mercy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I like to think that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was headed
in this direction when he speaks of ‘New Monasticism’ and ‘Religion-less
Christianity’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Participating as a ‘New
Monastic’ with the Lindisfarne Community is my way of experimenting and hopefully
making a small contribution to continuing some of his work.”</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I am wishing you a
pleasant and cool evening,</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">fr. Scott+</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNyv8IPV6K4YiCzaoomwz6KtbYOitjzeoc9XM2ru6Wh2tYke0WyPzvYm_cbX_dtUoEXRa8UeIMBqsLxQXr_zh53UE4o7jms5yN0BqvctGvAv0GepEqkQrOMragf8RlfZLmKT41zv0PJ0Kw/s1600/Ideas+about+God+by+Merton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNyv8IPV6K4YiCzaoomwz6KtbYOitjzeoc9XM2ru6Wh2tYke0WyPzvYm_cbX_dtUoEXRa8UeIMBqsLxQXr_zh53UE4o7jms5yN0BqvctGvAv0GepEqkQrOMragf8RlfZLmKT41zv0PJ0Kw/s320/Ideas+about+God+by+Merton.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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rev. Scott Elliott, lchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14499407952499061161noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1358820748070584363.post-25335082564583325622013-05-23T08:28:00.001-07:002013-05-23T17:45:15.778-07:00Reeboot: May 2013<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s certainly been a while since I last posted a blog…but I
have gone through some good changes lately that have opened up some time for me
to get back into the habit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So starting
today I begin cultivating a discipline of making regular entries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So let me begin by briefly getting you updated on current
goings-on…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I met a wonderful woman to share my life with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her name is Emma Churchman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is a Quaker by tradition of origin and
continues to practice in that community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She very happily graduated from seminary in May of this year with her
M.Div. from Earlham School of Religion, a Quaker seminary in Indiana.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She completed her first unit of CPE at
Rutherford Hospital and is now in her first leg of a CPE Chaplain Residency at
the hospital in Johnson City, TN.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Emma
is also a <em>Shaman</em>, and works with clients and groups in spiritual direction as
“the Quaker Shaman”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Emma is awesome and
I am happy to share life together with her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We have a small farm cottage in Black Mountain, NC where we
care for our two dogs: Noah, Emma’s older Black Lab/Rottweiler mix, and our
young rascal Eadmünd, who is half Dachshund half bunny rabbit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Very cute, but very obstinate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We are trying our hand a gardening this year for the first
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s still early to report on, but
the radishes seem to be doing very well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As for myself, I am very, very happy and content.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I bailed on that chaplain residency in
Spartanburg, SC.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being a chaplain in the
rural south just isn’t a paradigm in which I feel supported or empowered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had a really hard time in Spartanburg
trying to orient myself and discover my pastoral identity in that
community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ultimately, because I am
neither Baptist nor Pentecostal, I could not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So I left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which was a difficult
decision to make, breaking a commitment, abandoning my 3 other residents; but
the experience there was really sucking the life out of me (financially and
spiritually), and I felt it was necessary for my personal, emotional and
spiritual survival that I extricate myself form the environment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the end, the decision was a good one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I left the hospital and took a job at a doctor’s office
starting off as a phlebotomist and winding up as the Clinical Coordinator for
the practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I like it…I’m relied upon,
I’m respected, I like the work that I do, and the best part is I’m only there
three days per week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dropping to part
time was another good decision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only
bad part was the significant decrease in take-home pay which give cause for
some creative budgeting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I am
significantly less stressed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I rest well,
I have time to do more self-care and maintain our country cottage and
property.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But most importantly, I have
adequate time for ministry…meditating, networking, reading, blogging (as you
can see), and specifically the ministry of cultivating a Christian-Buddhist
contemplative practice community, the seeds of which I planted last year with
my Abbot +Andy at my Lindisfarne Community retreat in June 2012.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I call the community “New Seeds Priory” in homage to Thomas
Merton, my monastic hero.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are just
getting started.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have been slowly
spreading the word about the community with flyers, word-of-mouth, free ads in
community newspapers, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Earlier this
week I gave an interview on a local independent radio station for a program
about spirituality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I am stepping up
efforts at networking with local Episcopal clergy, exploring opportunities to
lead retreats or workshops, or just let folks know I exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is slow work, and the challenge is to
resist the natural feelings of discouragement and simply keep practicing and
letting go of conceptualizations of how things “ought” to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">New Seeds Priory has a website:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><a href="http://www.newseedspriory.weebly.com/"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri;">www.newseedspriory.weebly.com</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Please visit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And please do me a favor and help spread the word if you
know anyone who is interested.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One last important thing to share is my “official” transition
to practicing Zen as my primary meditation & spiritual practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just before the Lindisfarne Retreat I
mentioned earlier, I paid a visit to my Tibetan Buddhist teacher and explained
to him what was going on in my life and how I had discovered that Zen Buddhist
training was a much better practice for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He agreed and encouraged me to take up the practice of Zen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My Spiritual Director, himself a former
Carthusian Monastic and also a Zen teacher encouraged me in the same way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am happy to have found Jules Shuzen Harris
Sensei, director of Soji Zen Center in Lansdowne, PA, and he has taken me as a
formal student.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am engaging in Koan
study and making trips to visit Shuzen sensei and the Soji Sangha as often as I
can.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This practice is good for me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So that’s about it for today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just wanted to get the world updated to the
goings-on of ol’ Scott Elliott.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I will be posting more in the near future and hope a few
people will be interested in tuning in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Be well,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Scott+<o:p></o:p></span></div>
rev. Scott Elliott, lchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14499407952499061161noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1358820748070584363.post-87405530354895443802011-07-30T10:13:00.001-07:002011-07-31T04:45:33.624-07:00At the crossroads.<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Some of you may know that I am engaged in a Chaplain Residency at a large regional hospital…and in addition to visiting patients and families, my fellow residents and interns and I have lots of class-work, reading, paperwork, and group sharing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The whole thing is a tremendous opportunity to encounter suffering (the suffering of others and one’s own suffering) and to learn about one’s self in the midst of all that.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anyway, in a recent class discussion on a book we’re all reading called “God & Human Suffering”, I was invited to comment on my experience of the intersection of my Christian practice and my Buddhist practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the time, I was exhausted; I had been on call for 24 hours and hadn’t had any sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I really couldn’t put two sentences together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But after I was able to go home and get some sleep, I came back the next day and shared this with the group…<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What I’ve come to experience in Christianity, at least in its “traditional” expressions, is a spiritual system that primarily keeps its focus on how things “should” be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Traditional church systems do a good job of teaching people what to believe…about God, about Jesus, about “the kingdom”, about how the world is “supposed” to work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This traditional expression of Christianity provides us with an “ideology” to believe in and attach to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what I’d like to point out is that the root of the word “ideology” is “idea”…that is, what we have been taught as Christians to believe in is just that: a bit of a fantasy, a construct of our imaginations, an IDEA.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, I’m not saying that having ideas or living out a life of “faith” is wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if I sound critical, I really don’t mean to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m simply pointing out something I observe to be kind of true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our invitation as Christians, at least as far as I can remember about what I’ve been taught, is to live out a life of “faith”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, having ideas or “beliefs” isn’t inherently wrong or bad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It just is what it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> It's good to have faith and hope, especially if our faith and hope is something that helps us function in the world and put one foot in front of the other. </span>Where I think we get into trouble, though, is when we become attached to those beliefs and when we confuse our <em>ideas</em> with <em>reality</em>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our egos fool us into thinking that because things “should” be a certain way, that they are that way. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> And I've encountered some Christians who have been taught that if we have enough "faith" or if we believe in something strongly enough, it will become true...as if God were Jiminy Cricket telling us that if we just did the right things and believed hard enough or had enough faith we could someday turn into "real" boys and girls. </span>And that is simply not the case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">But </span>I’ve come to understand that we all do this to some degree, we all create narratives for ourselves about who we are and what we believe; and that we all do it for a similar reason…to protect ourselves from overwhelming emotions like fear, anger or pain; or on a deeper level, clinging to our ideology protects us from facing the biggest fear of all: our own mortality and impermanence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Living in our ideology provides us with a welcome escape from the unbearable suffering in the world and inside of us and from a world that is constantly changing and finite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But constantly living in a state of denial about reality, or living in a world entirely composed of our ideas, can bring us into conflict with how the world actually is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which sets us up for all kinds of trouble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe the psychological term for this is “psychosis”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hate to say it, but a Christianity that is focused solely on adherence to an ideology at the expense of reality creates a kind of psychosis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hhhmm…I'd better be careful, I'm one step away from calling Christianity psychotic. Luckily, this is where my Buddhist practice steps in…<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The invitation of the Buddha's teachings, that is the “practice” of Buddhism, is to let go of these fantasies, let go of these ideologies, and awaken to “reality”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Buddha invites us to simply sit and conduct the experiment of observation and analysis of what is “real” and “not real”...internally as well as externally. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Zen Master Dogen was able to ofer a most profound summary of the entirety of the Buddha's Teaching in just three simple words: "Not Always So".</span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When I sit on my meditation cushion and focus on my breath and settle into a gentle, focused awareness, things come up: anger, pain, sadness, joy, fear, lust, rejection, attraction, loneliness, inclusion…all kinds of things come up into my consciousness for me to look at, feel, and investigate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I dialogue with these things and ask them, “where did you come from”?, “where are you going”?, “what are you all about?”, “what are you teaching me”?,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“what do you need from me”?, “what do you have to say about me”?, “what do you have to say about reality”? And as these things come up, fear, anger, pain, joy, etc., I invite myself to remain present with them and not turn away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I spend time with my fear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I spend time with my anger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I spend time with my sadness and my joy, and I allow them to become familiar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As they become familiar parts of me, I learn that they arise from within me and that they do not come from outside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And as they become familiar, I see that they lose their power to control me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I learn to differentiate these conditioned states of emotion and thought from any external reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am liberated from my own ideology and the ideology of others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I learn that there is a big difference between ideology and reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I learn to live in a world that is constantly changing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I learn to bravely accept the reality of impermanence without retreating to a fantasy about “eternal life”, because there is no such thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And this is where I see the beautiful intersection of these traditions…right in the spot where my hope for a better world meets the reality of the world we have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve been a Christian all of my life, and I’ve been thoroughly steeped in its mythology and its ideology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But by sitting on my cushion and cultivating a brave but gentle practice of really examining the nature of myself and reality, I have been able to discover a beautiful, meaningful practice of Christianity based not on fantasy and ideology, but on reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve slowly been able to extricate Christ from Christianity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I mean is, by trying to understand this Jesus dude outside of the ideology and mythology of things like the immaculate conception, royal Davidic lineage, walking on water, “miracles” and even the resurrection, and letting go of those things that for most people define their Christianity, I’ve discovered something I feel is truer, more authentic, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>more healing and more empowering (for me, anyway).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve tried to look beyond the ideology and the mythology and look directly at the life and teachings of this man called Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I see is a man with a deep understanding and appreciation for the transcendent divine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I see a guy who understood both the spiritual and religious life of his people and the role that spirituality and religion played in their lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I think he also understood the reality of a brutal life in first century Palestine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He understood the crushing poverty, brutality and oppression of life under Roman occupation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He understood the corrupt, inhumane governance of Herrodian rule.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he understood the hypocrisy and impotence of strict religious life under the Pharisees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he was pissed off about it!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He taught empowering lessons of a different, compassionate spiritual life in relationship with a loving compassionate God and lived out a life of selfless care of the poor, the sick, the homeless and the oppressed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He never really required people to “believe” in him, he asked people to “follow” him and to love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Jesus, as a true spiritual master, gave us his own summary of the spiritual laws of his own time and culture: "Love God, Love your Neighbor as Yourself". But I think more importantly, Jesus </span>gave us an example…an example of how to practice loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He gave us something more powerful than ideology and more powerful that beliefs, He gave us a practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha saw the same things in his world and gave us the same thing: a practice of seeing reality and generating compassion for and in that reality.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I can hope for a better world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can believe that things should be different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But hope doesn’t change anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My hope doesn’t change the reality of a suffering world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I still have to do something about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I want a better world, I have to make it happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I want the “kingdom of heaven”, I have to make it here and now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My hope doesn’t absolve me of my responsibility to love and to do the work required of loving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the world of suffering, at the intersection of Christianity and Buddhism I discover a powerful practice...a practice of compassion in the midst of a reality of suffering and of joy.</span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And so this is where I try to abide and work and discover the kingdom, at the intersection of hope and reality...at the crossroads of "Love Your Neighbor" and "Not Always So".<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Scott+<o:p></o:p></span></div>rev. Scott Elliott, lchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14499407952499061161noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1358820748070584363.post-16708831826034892542011-06-30T18:20:00.000-07:002013-05-23T08:30:29.142-07:00Imagine<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In June of this year, I began a year-long residency as a Chaplain at a regional hospital. My peer group of fellow residents, chaplain interns, as well as my supervisors, is composed of “Christians”…specifically “Baptist” Christians. In some ways, I am the “token Buddhist”…I have experienced so far that I can be both a novel curiosity and a threat to my peers. And in an effort to respond to a recent Facebook note I posted about my confusion about what it means to be “Baptist”, I hope, as one of my learning objectives, to figure that out. “What is a Baptist”? But that is another blog post for another day…</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But today’s question is a little broader: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is a CHRISTIAN?</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Well…I don’t really know. I know I’ve been told what a Christian is, what a Christian does. And I’ve mostly been told that being a Christian means that I’ve accepted a set of “beliefs” about God, about this Jesus fella. And I know that a lot, if not most of that meaning of Christianity has been handed to us for centuries by the “church” and its authorities…as part of our “tradition”. I also know that most of that tradition is founded on the writings of Paul and the narratives of the gospel writers…our “scripture”. But my experience is that what we have inherited, as both tradition and scripture, is just that… “narratives” – narratives of other people in a specific historical geo-political context, narratives with specific political and theological agendas to advance, narratives to be understood by those people in those times. But why do those narratives have to be MY narrative(s)? </span><br />
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<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It’s clear that belief in the Resurrection was important to Paul; but does it have to be just as important to me? It’s clear in the first chapter of Matthew that establishing Jesus’ Davidic lineage was important to the author(s) of that gospel…he(?) was writing a persuasive story to a mostly Jewish audience. But does Jesus’ Davidic lineage have to be important to me? The author of Mark emphasizes Jesus’ role as prophet as a fulfillment and continuation of Jewish Midrashic narratives. John seeks to establish Jesus’ divinity. But these are the narratives of and for a specific community authored by specific individuals with their own specific personal narratives. Why do they have to be MY narratives? Can I not have the freedom to experience my own narrative?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope you get my point. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: black;">What worries me is that “belief” in these narratives (or adoption of these narratives as one’s own), has reduced Christianity to a meaningless, lifeless, rote repetition of creeds and doctrines. I feel that people who have chosen to live out a Christianity based solely on “beliefs” have abdicated their courage and responsibly to live authentic spiritual lives in exchange for the leisureliness of going to church on Sunday, going through some liturgical motions, and leaving it at that. I am ashamed that the simple recitation of a “belief” in Jesus has supplanted the PRACTICE of Christianity as the valid definition of what it means to be a Christian. To me, such a reduction is offensive; it is weak, fraudulent, cowardly, vapid and lifeless. Reducing Christianity to nothing more than a formulary of doctrinal “beliefs” renders it impotent. Such a lifeless Christianity is a slap in the face to what I feel Jesus was trying to teach and do. </span><a href="http://johnshelbyspong.com/"><span style="color: black;">Bishop John Shelby Spong</span></a><span style="color: black;"> has written: “Why Christianity Must Change or Die”. Let me be the first (although I doubt that I am), to pronounce that Christianity is, in deed, dead. That is, so long as it requires nothing more than a simple profession of “faith” and belief in a bunch of other people’s narratives. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What I want to ask is this: Is it possible to re-define Christianity as a PRACTICE, rather than a “faith”? Is there such a thing as a “faithless” Christian? </span><span style="color: #333333; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">(The German theologian <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer">Deitrich Bonhoeffer</a> has invited us to share his idea of a “religion-less Christianity”; maybe this is like that). </span><span style="color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Can I still call myself a Christian if I’ve let go of the narratives that seem to define it for other people? </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Well, it better be possible, ‘cause that’s what I am determined to do.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What inspired this blog (wandering diatribe), is this little poem that was shared by a fellow chaplain in our morning group/devotional: </span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“What does your Master teach”? asked a visitor.<br />
“Nothing”, said the disciple.<br />
“Then why does he give discourses”?<br />
“He only points the way, he teaches nothing”.<br />
The visitor couldn’t make sense of this, so the disciple made it clearer…<br />
“If the Master were to teach, we would make beliefs out of his teachings. The Master is not concerned with what we believe, only with what we see.”</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So what I want others to stop and consider is this…What if we took this little dialogue/exchange and applied it to Christianity? What would happen if we stopped “believing” everything the bible says, or the church says, or the tradition says, and just tried to practice what this dude Jesus asked us to practice: “Love God; Love your Neighbor as yourself”. Isn’t that the essence of what He was trying to teach in the first place...That despite what the Pharisees and the Temple/Church authorities try to tell us to do or do "to us", or no matter what they tell us to "believe", that it’s more important to love and serve than to follow the script or believe the “right” thing? Isn't LOVE and the PRACTICE of LOVE the most important thing? Isn't LOVE and the PRACTICE of LOVE more important than "orthodoxy"?</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I want to try and see what happens!</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Now let’s hold hands and sing a song… </span><br />
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<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Imagine there's no Heaven <br />
It's easy if you try <br />
No hell below us <br />
Above us only sky <br />
Imagine all the people <br />
Living for today <br />
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Imagine there's no countries <br />
It isn't hard to do <br />
Nothing to kill or die for <br />
And no religion too <br />
Imagine all the people <br />
Living life in peace <br />
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You may say that I'm a dreamer <br />
But I'm not the only one <br />
I hope someday you'll join us <br />
And the world will be as one <br />
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Imagine no possessions <br />
I wonder if you can <br />
No need for greed or hunger <br />
A brotherhood of man <br />
Imagine all the people <br />
Sharing all the world <br />
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You may say that I'm a dreamer <br />
But I'm not the only one <br />
I hope someday you'll join us <br />
And the world will live as one </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">John Lennon</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></span><br />rev. Scott Elliott, lchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14499407952499061161noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1358820748070584363.post-63192098680242441452011-06-30T17:57:00.000-07:002011-06-30T18:45:35.048-07:00A little context and introduction<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">At the urgings of a few individuals very close to me, I have finally put up this blog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this blog, I will attempt to explore what it means to be a human being in the context of practicing some kind of meaningful Christianity and some kind of Engaged Buddhism…<o:p></o:p></div><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Briefly, so that you may have some context in which to appreciate my spiritual efforts, I will share that I was raised in the Episcopal Church and first felt a call to the Priesthood at the age of 8.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My childhood was violent, chaotic and unstable, and the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Eucharist (Communion) were extremely important to me in maintaining my sanity and experiencing at least one stable, unconditional source of love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These Sacraments remain just as important to me today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I came to the practice of Buddhism first through my own readings and exploration of Zen Buddhist writings as a teen-ager and later, as a young adult, through an invitation from a friend to experience a retreat with his Tibetan Buddhist teachers 1995.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I took refuge in the Buddhist practice on that retreat and maintained my study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism for 12 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in 2007 I encountered the teaching and practice of Zen Buddhism through the writings of Claude AnShin Thomas and his book: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">At Hell’s Gate: A Soldier’s Story from War to Peace</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Eight Gates of Zen: A Program of Zen Training</i> by John Daido Loori Roshi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My encounters with Claude AnShin and my resonance with Daido Roshi’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Eight Gates</i> returned me to a sincere and committed engagement with Zen Buddhist Practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And lastly, in my years of processing, healing and growth, I have had the tremendous fortune to become a professed member of a New-Monastic Community that encourages and strengthens my ongoing practice of Christianity and Buddhism…the <a href="http://www.icmi.org/">Lindisfarne Community</a>, a Celtic-inspired community of deeply spiritual individuals journeying together and exploring a modern-day expression of monasticism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was ordained to the Priesthood by the Lindisfarne Community in 2008.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For this community’s witness and encouragement and inclusion, I am deeply and forever grateful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this community, I am free to be both a practicing Zen Buddhist and a Christian Priest…and to explore this Priesthood “Ontologically”, that is: through my total <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">being</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p> </o:p></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">And this blog is meant to be part of that exploration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p> </o:p></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">So here we go…<o:p></o:p></div>rev. Scott Elliott, lchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14499407952499061161noreply@blogger.com0