Greetings from St. Simon’s Island where I’ve been hosting Southern Lights with Brian McLaren. We’ve had a wonderful weekend with poet Pádraig Ó Tuama, Christian ethicist Reggie Williams, and theologian and scientist Ilia Delio — as well as our podcasting friends Tripp Fuller and Grace Ji-Sun Kim.
But Sunday still comes and invites us into reflection and rest — and Sunday Musings!
Today, I’m sending you a lecture I gave last October at Theology Beer Camp. Tripp Fuller, host of TBC, asked a dozen of his friends to reflect on the theme of “Experiencing God.”
In this 21-minute talk, I share some personal experiences of God in my childhood Methodist church and many year later in a Quaker meeting house.
I hope you’ll enjoy this unusual Sunday Musing. And I also hope it will spark your own memories of God showing up in the unexpected places of your life.
INSPIRATION
When we feel alone,
we belong to the grand communion
of those who sometimes feel alone —
we are the dust, the dust that hopes,
a rising of dust, a thrill of dust,
the dust that dances in the light
with all other dust, the dust
that makes the world.
— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, from “Belonging,” please read the entire poem HERE
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu
Buddhist, Sufi, or zen. Not any religion
or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up
from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,
am not an entity in this world or in the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any
origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.
— Rumi
Surprise is the seed of gratefulness.
Become aware of surprises. Relish surprise as life’s gift.
— Br. David Steindl-Rast
JANUARY Online Cottage Gatherings:
Those who are part of the PAID SUBSCRIBER community, mark your calendars for TWO Zoom events this January. Reminders and links will be sent out shortly before the events.
January 19 at 8PM Eastern: Third Thursday with Simran Jeet Singh
Simran Jeet Singh is the Executive Director of the Religion & Society Program at The Aspen Institute. We’ll be talking about his bestselling book, The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life, and the idea of “light” in Christianity (since it will be the season of Epiphany) and Sikhism.
January 26 at 7PM Eastern: Special Book Discussion with Otis Moss
Otis Moss III is the senior pastor of Trinity UCC in Chicago. He’ll be sharing his new book, Dancing in the Darkness: Spiritual Lessons for Thriving in Turbulent Times.
An invitation from Tripp Fuller for the entire Cottage community:
Today’s “Experiencing God” talk was recorded at Theology Beer Camp in October 2022 — and was just one of an amazing collection of reflections by scholars and writers on the topic of religious experience. Tripp Fuller turned the lectures into an open, online class: Experiencing God: Discerning the Divine in Human Experience. You are invited to join in! CLICK HERE for more information.
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. DAY IS JANUARY 16
A few paragraphs from King’s 1964 Nobel Prize lecture to read and consider on this holiday.
. . . Mankind’s survival is dependent upon man’s ability to solve the problems of racial injustice, poverty, and war; the solution of these problems is in turn dependent upon man squaring his moral progress with his scientific progress, and learning the practical art of living in harmony. Some years ago a famous novelist died. Among his papers was found a list of suggested story plots for future stories, the most prominently underscored being this one: “A widely separated family inherits a house in which they have to live together.” This is the great new problem of mankind. We have inherited a big house, a great “world house” in which we have to live together – black and white, Easterners and Westerners, Gentiles and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Moslem and Hindu, a family unduly separated in ideas, culture, and interests who, because we can never again live without each other, must learn, somehow, in this one big world, to live with each other.
This means that more and more our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. We must now give an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in our individual societies.
This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response which is little more than emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the First Epistle of Saint John:
Let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone
that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His
love is perfected in us.
Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.
This was absolutely beautiful.... it validates my own experience.... makes me look and listen to my own story, thank you
"My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul...."
Every line in Rumi is worth doing a whole lectio on it :-) Thank you!