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Staying Put to Get Somewhere

Staying Put to Get Somewhere by DAVID BUNKER

I believed the story. Go to school, study hard, get a job, work hard and you will be rewarded. On some fundamental level this is not a lie. However, like all truths, they sit contextually in time and space and this work/job narrative is not merely under attack but has probably not been true for at least a couple decades if ever.

As a boomer these kinds of stories die hard. “Be it Leave it to Beaver” or “Father’s Knows Best”, my early years of TV were the myths poured into a highly porous child’s soul. Years later I can be naively optimistic even to the point where I am abused and taken advantage of. I am a hopeless romantic and yet a practiced pragmatist to my core.

Doctor Phil’s mantra, “Is that working for you?” humorously reflects how my generation thinks about life;

Are you happy?

Are you fulfilled?

Is life working to your advantage?

Are your relationships adding something of value to you and your dreams?

This may not be all that Dr. Phil means in that question but the end result for me goes to the bottom-line.

Why am I here doing what I am doing?

Is it serving my ultimate goals, my ultimate direction in life?

Is this bringing clarity to the journey upon which I have pointed my life?

Oh, that life were so malleable that all one had to do is ask the right questions. Oh, that life was cooperative with us such that all our dreams and aspirations were in collusion with the universe and God was indeed our private concierge, life coach, or personal shopper. We may recoil at those statements attached to God but indeed we do come into the cosmic conversation with some highly untested assumptions about what we “want” out of life.

The past few decades have seen a rise in the Protestant interest in monastic orders. I, for one have been deeply interested in the lives of men and women like Thomas Merton and Mother Teresa but upon a more in-depth study of these individuals one finds an entirely different world beneath the biographies offered in the common parlance of the media and press. These people were not merely great individuals but people formed by commitments and vows. They were highly submitted believers to a rule that for most today would be repressive and indeed absurd and confining.

The paradoxical sense of these individuals’ lives reveals something about mine. Why would a vow of poverty, chastity and obedience seem so alien to me? Why would a lifelong commitment to one place seem not merely odd but dangerous and even wrong?

Once again I ask myself those same seemingly pragmatic questions;

Where am I going?

How do I intend to get there?

And….what is the road I must travel upon to arrive at this destination?

In Dennis Okholm’s most recent work “Monk Habits for Everyday People,” he explores the vow of stability in the lives of Benedictine monks. Okholm, a professor at Azusa Pacific University, teaches a course on spiritual formation and explores with his students the lives of monastic orders. Benedict is an interesting character who preceded the Reformation by a millennium. What is highly interesting to Okholm and to many who are now sensing this renewed interest in monastic orders is the similarity in cultural and historical happenings between then and now.

Okholm goes on to say, “….He was heir to the deteriorating political environment of the Roman Empire’s last days. The fifth century into which he had been born had in common with our twenty first a struggle to make sense of the troubled and torn world that people were experiencing. Rome had fallen and had been sacked several times, by the Goths, Vandals, and Lombards. The dismembered Western Empire, once ruled by the “eternal city,” was not only in political chaos but troubled by ecclesiastical dirty dealings and underhanded ploys to win theological battles over the crucial issues of grace and the divine nature of Christ.”

How much our times were like those times is always a projection but it is clear that Benedict and the monks of his age felt a need to withdraw and a need to preserve. They sensed that the times demanded a much more diligent and severe commitment to the call of Christ and were not convinced that the Church was carrying that call with clarity and power. Sound familiar?

There are many differing groups and contingencies that are engaged in a discussion about where the Church is headed. I would contend that we very well might be much worse off than we naively optimistic baby boomers can tolerate. We want to soften the blow, lessen the pain, and give it to people slowly. It may be that drastic times need drastic measures.

The title of this article was borrowed from a phrase Okholm used in his book on Benedict in which the issue of “remaining in a community” impacted one’s ability to receive and know the full depth’s of Christ’s call on one’s life. How can I grow into the character of Christ when I am always on the move, always looking for that place in which I can spread my wings? Maybe my wings need to be clipped. We have a saying in our community that the “self is communally constructed.”

We are a person comprised of varied peoples. Each day I walk with the same people is one more day I begin to know their hearts. That means I know the shadow as well as the light, the sorrow as well as the joy.
This tendency to run and avoid commitment seems to be a part of our age. It appears that the constant moving not only allows for the devout mask to remain but makes the removal nigh unto impossible. Rowan Williams puts it this way when he says, “The barriers of egoistic fantasy are broken by the sheer brute presence of other persons.” I am only conformed to the likeness of our Lord when I am in relationship with others and the reality of my sin and the beauty of my glory dawn upon my deepest parts. This is real conversion.

The constant search for fresh stimulation is the way a consumer society forms me. I want more. Be it actual goods or even spiritual experiences. Give me more and give me more when I want it. Being steadfast is a concept that is foreign to most of us today. What might it look like for me to remain? To stand firm, to stand beyond fear? To walk truly in faith when my sight is blinded by suffering and sacrifice?

Okholm offers us this pithy insight when he says, “We will discover our true selves as we patiently simmer in communities and relationships to which God has called us. And we will find God there as well, because if we cannot find God where we are, we will not find him elsewhere.”

Okholm says it well, “…the irony is that we must stay in the same community in order not to stay in the same relationship with God.”

As John Henry Newman wisely discerned, “In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”
Here’s to staying put to get somewhere!!!!!

 

The Josiah Community

The Josiah Community is a co-housing community we’ve been considering if we move back to Chicago.  It pretty much encompasses EVERYTHING we have ever dreamt about in how we’d like to live.  We struggle about whether or not we are meant to be the catalyst for a community like this or merely participants at this point in our lives.  Perhaps it really does make more sense to come alongside a group of people who already have something going rather than attempting to convince people down here to help plant this in East Nashville.

It is a worthy endeavor.

check it out:

 

Bunker-isms for a parched land…

I am working on getting this David Bunker to write a book.  You see, what you read here today are basically chapter titles as far as I’m concerned.  If you sit in a room with him he can and will elaborate on each one of these.  He will breathe life into them until you feel as though they are sitting next to you sipping a glass of wine and asking you to pass the crackers.  One day, when you sit in a room with David Bunker just ask him about any one of these.  If you don’t get that chance then write him a note and tell him to write the book, yes?

-Replace your career with your life
-Make community the center
-Believe only the submitted and the obedient
-Practice Discernment Constantly
-Serve the stranger not as a strategy but as an act of love
-Losses are rights and entitlements in servanthood
-Let your sacrifice be wise and intentional rather than blind and passive
-Dispute the claims of pathological individualism
-The demands of the market & the ruthless pursuit of profit are not the same as gravity
-Competition generates a vision of massive disorder
-Moral obligation is not a lifestyle choice
-Success is not a moral demand
-The ever deepening cost of success is the annihilation of the self
-Imagine a future that is ambitiously modest
-Launch your criticism from a position of mutual searching
-Find direction in the needs of others
-Rejoice in your sense of inadequacy
-Favor ethics over creativity
-Consciously put on the exclusion of the silenced other
-Make room for regret
-View information as capital
-Regard technology as a principality
-Design your world as if it mattered
-Consider what cynicism excludes
-Morph into a gift
-Abandon yourself at least once to the rules of community and notice your perspective
-Exploit nothing
-Regard encyclopedic mastery as diversion from the essential
-Kill the urge to be mobile
-Resist incessant reassessment
-Beware of philosophical discussions given by non-practitioners
-Negotiate ways of loving better
-Distrust the posture of arrogant certainty
-Suspect your rhetoric

 

The Nurture Corner

Several years ago I attended a weekend “retreat” of sorts for women. It was not so much a retreat as it was a rite of initiation. It was called the “Woman Within” and it was a formative time for me. While not “christian” by design many of the principles were right in line with my faith and that was important. At the same time I was also moved by a number of the principles which were not strictly “christian.” I’ve long been drawn to Native American thought lines and this weekend borrowed strongly from this at times. I didn’t feel that it was against my religion to listen for God in the middle of this. It felt right. It was a safe place and I did some very good, strong and deep “work” there. God led me to that place and it’s set the stage, honestly for the deep moments of joy I have shared with Him since that time. It has made me a stronger follower of Jesus and for that I am eternally grateful.

The hard part came after the work. I was led to a soft, warm place where a very nice woman awaited. I had just gone through a very tough piece of soul work and this was a place apart from the “carpet work” room where I was meant to just…I dunno…emote, I guess. It was called the Nurture Corner although it wasn’t in a corner at all…more like a hallway. It was laden with soft comforters and tissues and bottled water and this nice mature lady presided over it all. It was all very….um, nurturing. Sadly, I was not able to really engage this part of me. I had not yet discovered this very good truth that to be vulnerable in safe places meant that I was restored, rather than humiliated. I didn’t know what “nurturing” in it’s very best context meant.

I did know that I could not be coerced into being nurtured. I had to actually allow that to happen. I had to submit to it. At that moment, I chose not to submit. I just sat there in the near dark with this nice person I did not know and waited til it seemed as though it had been “long enough” to be nurtured. Then I high tailed it out of there and moved on to the next thing.

When I returned home I felt some regret for this. I felt that I really ought to have given my full attention to that process and given myself over to it. In retrospect though, now 14 years later I understand this more deeply. I know now that my choice was probably a good one. It was the right choice at that moment.

As a mother of 4 now, I’m faced with this again, daily. What does it mean to be nurtured and to nurture. I muddle through. I think I do alright but there does seem to always be this sort of wall made of jello that comes between me and whomever I come into contact with. I press through and it presses back. I think, I am still not aware to the feminine, nurturing face of God. I’m always shocked at how adverse we Western Christians are to this idea…the idea that God is not “male” by default but rather a perfect mix of both masculine and feminine.

When I have spoken of this to fellow travelers on this Jesus road, especially FEMALE travelers from my era or earlier I am greeted with a lot of quizzical looks and downright suspicion. I wonder why it is that we cannot embrace the nurturing feminine from God? I suppose centuries of the male dominated mindset will do that to us but still, it is a shame that I feel so outside the circle and so unable to find mentoring in this.

Ironically, I hear the best stuff about this from a couple of male, theologian type friends of mine. This is comforting (read: nurturing) to me and at the same time it brings me sadness. I have prayed for many many years for God to bring a strong woman of God who sees things from all sides to mentor me and so far, I have not recognized anyone. I say, recognized because it is entirely possible that she stands before me and I have not had eyes to see or ears to hear. So, recently I’ve changed the prayer to my being ready and able to submit to this mentoring. In this way, perhaps I will see this tremendous woman when I meet her and I will recognize her through the dust when she opens Scriptures to me as on the road to Emmaus.

 

Search String Poetry

I have found that I get the most interesting search string phrases for The Wellspring so in light of that I have decided to compose poetry based upon this. I have added only punctuation and perhaps a line break here and again.

—————

the search string: week 1

what did ponce de leon

find in his journey?

the gift of being yourself

the story of the golden thread

the soul has moments

of escape

the Jonah complex

 

Vision

“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” Prov 29:18 King James Translation

As we enter the New Year Dave and I are thinking quite a lot about Vision. Obviously, this verse came to me straight away when I pondered the subject so I did the google thing to find the exact quote. I was suprised to find that my memory of the verse is from the KJV but my current favorite translation, NASB comes out sounding a little different to me:

“Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained: but happy is he who keeps the law.” NASB

I probably have a gazillion really good insights into this and ought to put them out here because this is, after all, the function of a blog so I’m told.  But for some reason today it feels right to just let things stand right here.  See where it leads you.

 

Advent: Openness

This second sunday in Advent is often focused in traditional liturgy on the Word of God.  Some refer to it as “Bible Sunday.”  This reference comes from the Collect from the Book of Common Prayer:

Blessed Lord,
who caused all holy Scriptures
to be written for our learning:
help us so to hear them,
to read, mark, learn,
and inwardly digest them,
that, through patience,
and the comfort of your holy word,
we may embrace and for ever hold fast
the hope of everlasting life,
which you have given us
in our Saviour Jesus Christ.

During the first week of Advent we spent time focusing on finding our stories, finding our voices weaved throughout the History of God’s love for us.  This week we take a giant step back from the story.  It seems odd to move from looking for “ourselves” in the picture to moving back to see the Photo Album as a whole but this is our focus this week at any rate.  And yet, it makes sense.  Whenever we view an album that we know we have a place within what most of us do first is look for ourself,  yes?  We WANT and we NEED to know that we are included.  Knowing this, it is possible this week for us to take a renewed interest in our family album;  the color of the binding, the feel of the pages, the cool movement of the paper between our fingertips and the crispness in it’s sound and texture.

The key here, I believe is that we have an openness to seeing the overarching story that folds itself around us like a family quilt handed down from age to age.  We have to WANT to know more…we have to NEED to be wrapped within it, knowing that our story is a part of the whole of life, the history of the world, the promise of something bigger and more grand than the sum of our part in it.

This week, look wider…at the world around you…at the Story told with billions of voices and know that you belong.

 

I love this…

This is a very cool site.  For a long time I have HATED church signs.  I mean actual, literal, goofy slogan spouting, church signs.  I don’t know WHY the “church” has to engage in marketing.  I always figured that the power of what we DO there should be enough to draw people in.  Maybe that’s short sighted, I don’t know…I just know that if I had a church sign outside The WellSpring it would probably say something like this:   

 

Proper context

I’m going to give you two quotes today from “Everything Belongs” by Richard Rohr. As I pour over this book, less than 200 pages…a quick read it would seem, I keep having to stop and back up. I keep having to read it again and again. Now I wish I lived next door to Richard Rohr and could borrow a cup of sugar every day so that I know there are other people in the world who think like this…it’s comforting in a weird way.

Here is your brain/soul shot for the day:

“The Gospel is not a competing idea. It’s that by which we see all ideas in proper context.”

and this one…chew this one well:

” Healthy religion is an enthusiasm about what is, not an anger about what isn’t.”

I have always thought that The Wellspring will only truly begin when we get to THIS point. That is, when we get to the point when our actions are born out of love and a desire to serve, to live together in authentic being rather than being a reaction AGAINST that which we despise. The Wellspring cannot be a “protest” against something else…it must be an exercise in love, only then will it reflect it’s given name.