NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

’ Faith is as powerful a force as science...but far more dangerous’ - I was struck by the above comment as I was reading ‘Voyager’, one of the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. It was slide so innocuously into the text, that you could very easily let your eyes slide right over it. I had done exactly that and had to reread what I had just read in order to see it REALLY said what I thought it had! Claire who had travelled in time   from the 1960s in Boston to a homestead in North Carolina just prior to the American Revolution, was commenting on the variety of faiths she found there and the dissension caused between them: Anglicans, Catholics, Puritans and Dissenters. It was a time of strong religious beliefs and loyalties, a time when what you believed was more important than life itself and when belonging to the wrong Protestant sect was almost as bad as being a papist in the early colonies. She was, of course, comparing this faith in her own mind with the power of scienc...

The fact is "in the beginning" is no more precise than "once upon a time".  Nancy Ellen Abrams Over the last number of years I have become more and more firmly convinced that our concept of God is a human construct. It is the result of people over the ages from many different culture’s trying to explain their spiritual experiences with only the words and understanding   that were currently at their disposal to help them. The last few months I have found myself deleting unread most of the computer mailings that come from progressive Christianity sites as being uninteresting or not speaking to me. They no longer talk about my concept of God. Instead they talk about a concept that while it was once more less mine, is no longer. I realize that this is a sign of change. Not change within the blogs which I am sure are still sending out the same type of material but rather of a change within myself.  I can no longer read articles that talk about God as a be...

‘By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ Genesis 3:19 Most scholars agree that the texts found in Genesis began to be written down sometime in the 10th century BCE and were based on oral and written traditions. It is this verse that is referenced in the Book of Alternative Services during the Ash Wednesday service, ‘Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return’. A few years ago now we attended an Ash Wednesday Service where the words had morphed to ‘Remember that you are stardust and to stardust you shall return’ moving into the cosmology of the 21st century, connecting our bodies with the whole universe. These express the beliefs of a different world view. They both call us to remember that life on this earth is impermanent and fleeting. They call us to pause and to ponder our lives. Which one resonates with you doesn’t matter. What does matter is that...

“Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children to the third and fourth generation” Exodus 34.7 NRSV I have always found this one of the more disturbing verses from the Bible! Growing up it didn’t seem fair to me that I should be somehow still responsible for the sins of past generations.   As I grew older and my outlook matured somewhat I began to see it as being the dictates of a vengeful god, a god who refused to let any sin disappear but instead took it out on those in the future who were not responsible for whatever had happened. Perhaps this was to discourage parents from sinning, I didn’t really know, but knew that a god who would do this was not a nice god. And perhaps this was the real beginning of my life’s journey. I’m sure there isn’t one person reading this who hasn’t heard of Global Warming. Whether they believe it to be true or ‘false ...

“Sensitivity and the acuity of non-indifference”   As the readers of this blog know, I like words, especially the sound and rhythm of them. And so this phrase  from ’ Putting God Second' by Rabbi David Hartman   caught my attention and demanded that I figuratively roll my tongue around it over and over in my head. But as I did this, I began to consider just exactly what this phrase was saying to me. In effect it raises the ante for me of the Golden Rule [Luke 6:31], which simply asks that you treat others as you would want to be treated. Hartman goes just that little bit farther. He posits that we should be aware what the other needs before those needs are visible or voiced, perhaps even before they are realized by the other. We should not be indifferent to others, but both sensitive to what they need, with the sharpness of compassion. How many times have you wondered why you have had to tell someone else what you needed or have felt like the ‘Littl...

He who has ears, let him hear.  [Matthew 11:15]   Over my lifetime in the the church, I had been part of a number of baptisms and present at many more. But it had been at least 5 years since the last one. Then one Sunday, not that long ago, I inadvertently ended up at a church service where baptisms were being celebrated. Had I known in advance, I might not have been there. I didn’t know the families and wasn’t even a regular attendee at the church. Following the act of baptism, the priest prayed over the newly baptized just before passing over the lit candle that represents the light of Christ. It was at the point that things got very unfamiliar to me. I had heard this prayer many times before, but I had never heard this prayer! Apparently I had never had ‘ears’ before at this place in the liturgy, because I was surprised by what that prayer asked. In part it says of the newly baptized: “Give them an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persev...

Why? I ask myself. What difference does it make that no one is watching? I answer the phone and after a short conversation where my advice is solicited, the voice on the other end of the line says. ‘ But I don’t have your personality.’ No, I think, you don’t. But what does that have to do with anything? In future conversations, this same person keeps referring to the opinion I had offered previously saying, ‘I’m trying hard to follow your advice, but I don’t have your personality.’ Really, I think. I guess nothing has changed there. In the middle of a discussion in a small groups setting, one of the participants said, ‘ Jesus can’t expect us to do what he says because he was different than we are.’ And just what does that prove, I wondered?   Yes, we are all different from each other - but that is no an excuse!   What strikes me looking back at these three responses that span several years, is the thread in them all. Apparently one can only elect to do the...