Monthly Archives: August 2012
Does Landmark Forum Do Hospital Calls?
I am noticing something “fascinating-to-me.” I have no idea how to interpret it, but I am sure the wonderful S-pacebook community will have some brilliant thoughts on it. I hope so.
I notice that the wave has been, of late, for the skills of the minister to be deconstructed for hire. It is so interesting to me, as I was trained to be a Pastor…to create a place where people commit to getting to k
This may be like learning to construct the perfect record player for 45 rpm discs…ie: not what people are looking for anymore… But I was trained to see the whole of the work as part of the life of a community of faith…not as a la carte selections from a menu of possible services.
So the components of this thing called spiritual community have become increasingly commodified.
A list of services might be:
Delivering inspiring and entertaining lectures with a self help, upbeat and not too thought provoking bent..hopefully with great music attached.
Conducting “sacred rituals or ceremonies” for marriages, house blessings, etc.
Providing a good reading list for self study of those who may enjoy item number one.
Offering classes which may or may not connect to the larger program of any center or community…largely for the purpose of personal growth or self help.
Offering “simple”, sound bite type solutions to complex issues couched in simple and digestible portions to “solve” immediate crises.
Creating opportunities for people with a desire to sell their packaged “enlightenment services” ranging from Reiki, to get rich quick schemes to meditation for dummies, to colonics for success on Broadway, to…well you get my drift…
I am not sure I have any interest in this kind of thing.
No, I am sure I don’t.
I do love the idea of a community center for renewal and research and deeper learning and community.
I sure love having somebody to call to pray for me if I am going under the knife. I don’t know if Landmark Forum does pastoral hospital calls
I think places like the Open Center do the learning and workshop part so well, and AA does the ‘community to support deeper mature search/self help” so well…and I think they should continue to do it!
So what is the purpose of a spiritual community in this age?
I do think this a la carte thing is the move of the culture
Weird to have all of these skills for something which may be dying off like the buggy whip …
My grandmother watched the horse and buggy and gas lights be replaced by…
Yikes…I got a $375.00 Con Ed bill this month.
I love the possibility of something integral and integrated which I feel emerging through Sanctuary nyc…
But these questions just won’t stop coming…
Is there any desire in the general world out there- outside of Academia and the Episcopalian church- for the deeper, non oppressive learning about various topics like the wisdom of the Nag Hammadi Scrolls and a critical analysis of comparative texts?
Is there a place where critical refinement of artistic expression combines with a community experience which sees as its’ goal to both love and serve?
Beyond this? Starbucks here I come!!!
I am looking for investors to buy a franchise…Maybe we could have a gospel brunch there and do away with the whole idea of programs and just do menus instead.
The kids can go to the kids gym, the dogs to doggie playgroup, the parents can do the gospel brunch and the collection can go to help the homeless people who have been displaced from the neighborhood where the Starbucks moved in.
If you want to get married, the chiropractor has a sacred ceremonies license from Universal Life church, if you get really sick or die or lose a loved one…..hmmm not sure where you buy that part…Stay tuned.
I just hope I can learn how to make those pretty leaf designs out of foam.
Powerful Women For Whom I am Grateful (and the men who love them)
Dear Sanctuary NYC Friends,
This month we have been entertaining the powerful duo of Forgiveness and Gratitude. In the five minute teaching section of the service, we have heard from Revs. Carol Napier, Jeffrey Lepinske and Nancy Napier on the topic of Forgiveness. I have then woven their powerful reflections into the message on Gratitude, and the music has brought all the threads together with a beauty that only music can provide.
As we approach the last Sunday of August, we are looking forward to our guest speaker, the womanist theologian, poet, preacher Rev. Raedorah C. Stewart. In her honor, I would like to use this piece this week to share some of my own profound feelings of gratitude for the many extraordinary women in my life.
When I moved to NYC in 1970, I was a “baby feminist.” I looked up to my elders including the glamorous and brilliant Gloria Steinem, who seemed almost too perfect in her embodiment of smarts and style and courage. I admired Angela Davis for her bravery and searing cultural and intellectual critique. I learned from a wonderful pioneer named Flo Kennedy, and loved the writings of Alice Walker and the raw revelations of the woman’s heart from Ntozake Shange. The artist-activists June Jordan, Marlo Thomas, Jane Fonda and others powerfully shaped my understanding of a life that might be possible for me.
I came of age just at the end of a time when women were taught to compete with one another for men, for popularity, for position. It never felt good to me. I loved the emerging feminist understanding of honoring one another’s contributions academically and socially. It used to be assumed that you would break any plans you had with another woman if a man asked you out and no explanation necessary. I didn’t like that either! These were some of the practical and radical changes the women’s movement addressed.
Of course the fact that women held either pink collar or no collar jobs, and were paid less than men, that their bodies were considered the property of men, these were the deeper areas of inequality. And many women were afraid to even speak of that.
While I was coming of age in NYC, there were movements in academia that were separating out the issues of separateness between African American and Euro American women, of lesbian women and straight women. The womanist movement grew in this time, and was defined initially by a writing of Alice Walker in which she defined a woman of color who was also community affirming, who may or may not be same gender loving etc. And so divisions began to be defined. Separatists exist in every new movement. There were feminist separatists and womanist separatists and still are.
But the women I admire, like the womanist scholar Rev. Raedorah, and the African American feminist writer bell hooks, are speaking to the larger human condition beyond the divisions that separate us.These women are looking for the things that connect us at the level of our humanity. And this is what I aspire to do as well.
I give thanks for the women who have shaped me. I give thanks for a mother who was brave enough to walk out of an abusive marriage and take me with her. I am grateful for a grandmother who stood strongly in her faith in G-d and passed it on, even as the world changed radically from the horse and buggy to space ships. I am grateful for my sister Judith who is a warrior for human equity working with the mayor’s office in Portland, Oregon.
I give thanks for the two women who have stepped into the leadership of Sanctuary NYC with me, Revs Ingrid Scott and Karen Osit, for the women on the Ministry team who embody a desire to manifest an integrated model of communication and of leadership.
I give thanks for the men who are strong enough and sensitive enough to want to work in a model with strong female leadership, and who represent the truly evolving ideal of strong and loving male-ness. I give thanks for the women who are leading communities to birth a new age with a transformed value system: for Revs. Diane Berke, Jennifer Berkeley, Francine Brookins, Marianne Williamson and the whole younger generation of soul sisters who are doing inspiring online ministry.
I give thanks for Donna Redwing, and for Oprah Winfrey. I believe that we benefit more from supporting one another, and from looking for the places where we are One. The model I grew up with of squaring off against one another is falling away. It must fall away for a new age to dawn. I know that as each of us truly embodies the uniqueness within, as we allow ourselves to truly listen for the guidance that is uniquely ours, a new model of how the world can be is emerging. It has the power to transform the way we communicate, the way we lead, the way we live.
And I am grateful to be alive to be part of how it comes forth.
This Sunday we will hear from Rev. Raedorah, form Nancy Napier and of course, I will be there to do the announcements. LOL. After the service, join us for a talk on Food and Food Equity in the chapel, where we will also have refreshments and fellowship.
This is also Auto Tithe Sunday! So you will all have a chance to sign up for that too!
WE LOVE TO SEE YOUR FACE!!
Have a great rest of the week,
See you Sunday at 2 pm on the corner of Amsterdam and 86th!
I am grateful for YOU.
With love,
Rev. Jane
It’s ALL A Gift
Where To Look For The Key- Hint- (inside)
Dear Sanctuary NYC Friends,
Gratitude and Forgiveness are two spiritual practices that are intertwined. These two themes are our focus for the month of August. One of our greatest teachers, Jesus of Nazareth, taught the wisdom path that directs our spiritual search to “the Kingdom of G-d within.” This is a radical and revolutionary teaching.
Many interpreters have obscured the profound wisdom and power of this teaching. Yet through the process of reconnecting to the deep Spirit within, we are able to access the experience of connection to Source, which needs no interpretation. It speaks for itself. We become truly powerful by connecting to the Source of the power. And the way to find Source is to go within.
Gratitude and forgiveness are both tools that open the path inward so that we may access the deeper wisdom and The Kingdom of G-d. Resentment and fear clog the pathway. In order to travel the path to the inner Source, a daily practice of saying thank you is an invaluable tool. Jesus teaches that if you are on your way to the altar to give your “gift”, and realize on your way there that you hold a grudge against your sister or brother, you should first go to that person and make the amend and then make your offering.
Our offerings come in many forms. The easiest way to understand this is to know that the way we come to any situation makes all the difference. Motive is everything. Our relationships, according to A Course In Miracles, all of our relationships, are assignments, which are focused upon teaching us to see one another as love. It would be very difficult to live in a world where every single relationship presented a troublesome challenge, but the teaching of wise ones from many paths indicate that these are our deepest teachers.
Today I am grateful for the continual teaching of nature. I am grateful for the planet that shows me it is leaning toward Source by seeking the sun. I am grateful for the lesson that some plants are designed to flourish in many different climates and that some thrive only in very specific settings. I am grateful for the teachers who have come in the form of challenging relationships, of seeming betrayals and of losses. I am grateful that by exercising radical self-forgiveness first, I can see these teachers through the lens of love. I am grateful for the gentle move forward that reminds me everything changes. Everything evolves. Only I stay stuck if I hold on to a resentment. Life has already moved on.
Today I see each of us in the Light of this Truth. The Kingdom of G-d is within.
I am grateful for YOU.
See you Sunday.
Namaste’,
Rev. Jane
What’s Really …
Aside
What’s Really Real
Dear Sanctuary NYC Friends,
This month we are going to look at two topics together: Gratitude and Forgiveness. They really go together. We are also going to mix our service up a little and have five minute talks offered by each member of the Sanctuary NYC Ministry Team, on the topic of Forgiveness. I wanted to tell you a little bit about the process we have developed at Sanctuary NYC, which is designed to empower the gifts of those who serve closely to bring you the Sunday service.
After 9/11, there was a real quickening in New York City, in people of conscience and purpose, toward preparation for ministry through several different schools offering spiritual development programs. I have had the privilege of working with a team of deeply thoughtful, service oriented people, all of whom have primary professions in a variety of areas ranging from school counseling to psychotherapy to making reservations for news people to travel to hot spots around the globe. Along with their diverse primary professions, a core group of these people have worked along with me to develop and execute the Sunday service for you each week, as a part of their ministries.
You would never be able to tell this today, but a couple of the cornerstones of our Ministry Team, as it has come to be known, were nervous about leading public prayer or meditation when we started out. Now they are deeply connected practitioners of these spiritual arts, and it has been my great pleasure to work with them as their gifts have matured and blossomed.
Several months ago, I suggested to the team that I would like for us to use the month of August for them to offer five minute inspirational contributions to the service. I am happy to share with you that it is August and we are embarking upon this wonderful experiment this Sunday! Rev. Carol Napier will be starting off the rotation. You won’t want to miss it.
I have been asking the question a lot lately about what pastoral ministry means in this age. I have discovered that there is a huge crisis of faith among liberal mainline denominational clergy, and the personality driven mega TV evangelists who tell us we are going to hell for one reason or another are hard to take. I am not convinced however, that the self-styled, entrepreneurial, personality-based ministries that proliferate in the New Thought arena are a good replacement for what is clearly an outmoded religious authoritarian paradigm. If the ministry is about the person and not the content, I wonder what it is we are ultimately supposed to take away from the experience of hearing them.
The quote I most love in this regard comes from the Baha’i tradition and is this: “Worship the Light, not the Lamp.” One of the deepest spiritual qualities that I see present in the avatars of the ages is that of humility. In the center of the heart chakra of these simple people, glows the Light. They are humble lamps, glowing with the Light of the Divine.
The wisdom teachers whom I most admire spoke to the excesses of their respective ages. Gautama Buddha was raised in luxury as a prince, but when he finally got out among the people and saw suffering, he dedicated his life, and subsequent lives, to healing that suffering. Much as the current unholy alliance between Putin and the newly resurrected Russian orthodox clerics is responsible for the trial of the young punk group in Russia, the temple elite in the time of Jesus were tools of Roman tyranny. Archaeological excavations have discovered palatial apartments belonging to the priestly class. Jesus of Nazareth was ultimately killed in a political murder for challenging the tyranny of the Roman Empire that was in collusion with religious leaders in an oppressive system that squeezed the 99% while enjoying privilege. Hmmm, sound familiar?
During this coming month, I would like to ask you to focus on what you are truly grateful for. I have worked in hospice and have been blessed to accompany numerous people on that journey we all will take. I got right up to the door with them, and what I can tell you for sure is that no matter how much money they had, or didn’t have, everybody was focused on the quality of their journey at that moment. I am grateful for them, and for each of you. I know that “what is really real” lasts beyond that doorway, and that this is maybe the best gift I can share with you. I know it to be true.
Have a wonderful week. I am so looking forward to hearing our Ministry Team, and to singing our new closing song together this Sunday.
Love each other,
Many blessings,
Rev. Jane
What’s Really …
Aside
What’s Really Real
Dear Sanctuary NYC Friends,
This month we are going to look at two topics together: Gratitude and Forgiveness. They really go together. We are also going to mix our service up a little and have five minute talks offered by each member of the Sanctuary NYC Ministry Team, on the topic of Forgiveness. I wanted to tell you a little bit about the process we have developed at Sanctuary NYC, which is designed to empower the gifts of those who serve closely to bring you the Sunday service.
After 9/11, there was a real quickening in New York City, in people of conscience and purpose, toward preparation for ministry through several different schools offering spiritual development programs. I have had the privilege of working with a team of deeply thoughtful, service oriented people, all of whom have primary professions in a variety of areas ranging from school counseling to psychotherapy to making reservations for news people to travel to hot spots around the globe. Along with their diverse primary professions, a core group of these people have worked along with me to develop and execute the Sunday service for you each week, as a part of their ministries.
You would never be able to tell this today, but a couple of the cornerstones of our Ministry Team, as it has come to be known, were nervous about leading public prayer or meditation when we started out. Now they are deeply connected practitioners of these spiritual arts, and it has been my great pleasure to work with them as their gifts have matured and blossomed.
Several months ago, I suggested to the team that I would like for us to use the month of August for them to offer five minute inspirational contributions to the service. I am happy to share with you that it is August and we are embarking upon this wonderful experiment this Sunday! Rev. Carol Napier will be starting off the rotation. You won’t want to miss it.
I have been asking the question a lot lately about what pastoral ministry means in this age. I have discovered that there is a huge crisis of faith among liberal mainline denominational clergy, and the personality driven mega TV evangelists who tell us we are going to hell for one reason or another are hard to take. I am not convinced however, that the self-styled, entrepreneurial, personality-based ministries that proliferate in the New Thought arena are a good replacement for what is clearly an outmoded religious authoritarian paradigm. If the ministry is about the person and not the content, I wonder what it is we are ultimately supposed to take away from the experience of hearing them.
The quote I most love in this regard comes from the Baha’i tradition and is this: “Worship the Light, not the Lamp.” One of the deepest spiritual qualities that I see present in the avatars of the ages is that of humility. In the center of the heart chakra of these simple people, glows the Light. They are humble lamps, glowing with the Light of the Divine.
The wisdom teachers whom I most admire spoke to the excesses of their respective ages. Gautama Buddha was raised in luxury as a prince, but when he finally got out among the people and saw suffering, he dedicated his life, and subsequent lives, to healing that suffering. Much as the current unholy alliance between Putin and the newly resurrected Russian orthodox clerics is responsible for the trial of the young punk group in Russia, the temple elite in the time of Jesus were tools of Roman tyranny. Archaeological excavations have discovered palatial apartments belonging to the priestly class. Jesus of Nazareth was ultimately killed in a political murder for challenging the tyranny of the Roman Empire that was in collusion with religious leaders in an oppressive system that squeezed the 99% while enjoying privilege. Hmmm, sound familiar?
During this coming month, I would like to ask you to focus on what you are truly grateful for. I have worked in hospice and have been blessed to accompany numerous people on that journey we all will take. I got right up to the door with them, and what I can tell you for sure is that no matter how much money they had, or didn’t have, everybody was focused on the quality of their journey at that moment. I am grateful for them, and for each of you. I know that “what is really real” lasts beyond that doorway, and that this is maybe the best gift I can share with you. I know it to be true.
Have a wonderful week. I am so looking forward to hearing our Ministry Team, and to singing our new closing song together this Sunday.
Love each other,
Many blessings,
Rev. Jane