IS GOD A FACEBOOK HOAX?

If there is one thing we Christians excel at it’s shaping God to our own purposes. 

We did it in the Crusades as we pillaged Asian cities, massacred Jews and Muslims and appropriated foreign property. We did it when we colonised ‘heathen’ lands, carrying a bible in one hand and a gun in the other. We did it when we kept quiet as our Jewish friends were sent to concentration camps and we did it when racial discrimination was legalised in South Africa.  

We manufacture a God who sees it all from our point of view and, when everything goes pear-shaped, we remould him, assuming our right to redemption and forgiveness. But we seldom make amends. 

I suspect that the worst shaping of God is not in cataclysmic historical events but in the daily detail of our lives. In what the nuns used to call our “besetting sins.”  It is also in the way we use religion.

Looking back on my previous blogs I realise I seem to have hurtled down the Anglican path at a great and fairly uncomplicated pace. Alpha, a spiritual director, an Open Door Retreat, Eucharist on Wednesdays and Sundays, two modules towards a theology degree, new Christian friends. (There must be a Brownie badge for all this). 

They should have put me on a TV so I could declare “I’ve found Jesus.” 

Fact is, I hadn’t really.

As an A type personality I am very competitive and self-critical. I’m always setting goals, my life lacks balance and I have to watch my blood pressure. Besides, you may remember, I’d emerged as an ENTJ on the Enneagram scale – a not so likeable ‘Commander’.

What I was doing, to a large extent, was jumping though the hoops and revelling in the spiritual and intellectual exercises - striving for A’s in my assignments.  I was also finding comfort in the close to Catholic ritual – my childhood comfort blanket and the God I was shaping was a mirror image of me and my opinions.

There was also my other life: my clients as well as a social and family circle that just wasn’t into religion.

There must have been a whole choir of angels groaning on my behalf.

Yes, I’d incorporated a spiritual dimension into my life. Much as I would have had I taken yoga seriously but I kid you and myself if I lay claim to a personal relationship with God at that stage. I was far more tuned into the adage “God helps those who help themselves”, than to total submission.

I still thank God for my exceptional Spiritual Director.  Trained by Fr Gerard Hughes, author of God of Surprises, she, never criticised, always gently questioned and very wisely suggested a three day retreat at a local Anglican Convent.  

My retreat director was a wonderful monk, Father Andrew Norton. He belonged to the Community of the Resurrection monastery across the road. 

Besides being wise and practical, he was a diabetic who loved to gobble the fluffy jam scones the sisters served for tea.

Deeply committed to the training and the supervision of Spiritual Directors, he was also responsible for introducing the Open Door Retreat in South African Anglican circles.  He was just what I needed at that stage.  Instead of gentle encouraging pats on the back he got me to take a long hard look at myself and at the Church. Fr Andrew was a realist not a romantic.  It was he who warned how deeply Church can hurt. He was right.

One of the exercises he gave me is one I still value and slip into today. I was directed to slowly walk around the beautiful convent garden five times. Each time focusing on one of my five senses – sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste.  Thanking God for what they had meant to me since birth and using them to appreciate the garden. It is a great way to meditate on the Creator and Creation.

The gateway to the beautiful convent garden

My Damascus Road moment was my meditation on my sense of sight – what it had meant to me since birth. On the walk I inspected an old tree, its shape, its leaves rustling in the breeze. Becoming aware of birds among its top branches, the sunlight peeping through. The bark was rough. I moved closer, the tiniest insects came into focus. And then it happened. As I peeped behind a fairly loose piece of bark I spotted a cocoon and watched spell-bound as a butterfly slowly emerged.

Now decades later, I can still draw on that wondrous image when I’m stressed or distressed. It draws me into the mystery of God the power of faith. That moment when you choose red or black and place your bet on a roulette table. You don’t have all the answers but you are willing to take a chance. It was the day I met the ‘God of Surprises’.

I wish I could tell you that I’ve never had a moments doubt since that meditation in the convent garden. But it is a compass point for me when I feel lost, in those moments when I wonder if God isn’t on a par with those awful Facebook hoaxes.

Have you had a defining moment in your faith journey?

SORRY HELL’S ANGELS BUT….

 Okay, so Alpha ended with me barely noticing. I was hurtling towards a destination I wasn’t sure I wanted to arrive at. After all, I was happy, successful and single. Why rock the boat?

But curiosity killed the cat. It can also change your life.

By the time Alpha ended I’d recovered from the shock of turning 50. The crematorium was fading into the distance. The urgency for taking out a heavenly insurance policy was fading.

At least at this stage I knew what I didn’t want. Topping the list was a chocolate-box Jesus looking like an Englishman in a nativity play. The model for soap powder ads. The ultra-white version who still holds sway in many township churches. (Tell some folk the historic Jesus had an olive skin as well as a prominent nose and they cringeJ.)

Fortunately my avid reading revealed a Jesus I was warming to.  I liked the man who knew the difference between quality and lousy wine. (Remember I was in PR, that first miracle was invaluable branding.) I was impressed by a guy who spoke truth to power, got seriously irritated, wept and attended dinner parties. I loved that he ignored class and cultural differences. 

Mind you, I wasn’t ready to go the ‘Jesus on a Harley’ route – it was only when I became chaplain to a bike club many years later that that image could work.

With Alpha behind me I finally hit the main road to Damascus.

At that time my spiritual director and her husband launched the first Open Door Retreat at the parish and invited me to participate. I’d got used to giving up one evening a week for Alpha so I reasoned ‘what the hell’ and signed on. 

Introduced to South Africa by Father Andrew, a CR monk, the retreats were designed for people too busy to actually take time out at a retreat house or with a religious community. They are based  on the spiritual exercises of St Ignatius  and  the format is very much about finding God in the hurly burly and realities of your own life. Praying as one can, not as one can’t.

For me it turned out to be much praying in the bath and not worrying about what Jesus could see.

Open Door groups range between 12 and seven and the retreat runs for nine consecutive weeks. You are given 15 minute daily spiritual exercise. For example, in the first week we were asked to take special notice of God’s loving creation. While the others took walks, gardened and made trips out of town, I invested in a pair of binoculars and checked out the large tree at the bottom of my garden – wine glass on hand. 

It worked for me. As did experiencing religion/spirituality within a real life context. It says something that of our group of seven 3 became  priests (including me!)

This brings me to something I come across quite a lot. The perception that God needs to be approached like an eastern potentate - crawling on our knees, beating our breasts. An extrovert bishop once shared with me how he felt far holier at a school assembly of 1000 boys than in solitude. I can identify. Felt it at a U2 concert in Cape Town.

Of course it’s imperative to make space and time for prayer and self-audits. As Dag Hammerskjold, former UN Secretary-General, pointed out, ‘an un-reflected life is a wasted life.’  But time is a precious commodity which makes the gym, the loo and your local coffee shop all okay. Whatever rocks your boat.

I’d love your comments. I notice most readers respond on my Facebook page and that’s also very welcome. Some, I suspect don’t respond because you are asked to ‘sign on’. That’s just to filter out weirdos, your information is not passed to marketers.

NO SEX, WE’RE ANGLICAN!

Let’s take a step back.

I gave the Alpha Course a lousy rating in my previous posts. Yet the Alpha website says 27 million people have participated in courses across 169 countries. Those charismatic folk must be getting something right for a lot of people.

Why didn’t it work for me? Was it my spiritual or intellectual arrogance? Probably a good dose of both. 

Early on in my spiritual journey I underwent a Myers Briggs personality type assessment and emerged as an ‘ENTJ’. Referred to as field marshals we are said to have a natural tendency to marshal and direct. This may be expressed with the charm and finesse of a world leader or with the insensitivity of a cult leader.

In retrospect, I got far more out of Alpha than I appreciated at the time. For starters there were always questions to take back to my spiritual director, an irreverent woman with a great sense of humour. 

 As counterpoint she introduced me to Henri Nouwen who took theology out of my head and planted it in my heart. He helped me understand that I’d embarked on a lifelong relational journey, not a God 101 Course.

I was fascinated by the Dutch priest, professor, psychologist, theologian and social activist. A prolific author, he had a hectic schedule and was a sought after public speaker. Then he felt called to join a community where people with developmental disabilities live with assistants. 

 For 10 years he served as resident priest at L’Arche Daybreak near Toronto in Canada. Most importantly he was Adam’s assistant, spending up to two hours a day dressing, feeding, bathing, and shaving the severely disabled young man. It was time spent in meditation that yielded wonderful spiritual insights. Nouwen said he learned more about the spiritual life from his friends in L’Arche, than he had ever learned in classes of theology and psychology.

Henri Nouwen and Gord, a L’Arche resident, became friends. They travelled together to speaking engagements and their core message was ‘just open your heart’.

Fr Nouwen and others like Thomas Merton and Gerald Hughes helped me to understand that I’d embarked on an intensely personal relational journey. I stopped looking to Church to do the work. At best it was a supportive structure. One that offered me the sacraments, teachings and what had become invaluable fellowship. On that basis it didn’t have to be perfect.

Just as well. I was becoming increasingly aware of its quirks. As Alpha drew to a close someone in my group mentioned that it was okay to for gays to become priests as long as they didn’t have sex. I laughed. 

Then I learned that this wasn’t just an ‘Alpha’ thing. I got the same response elsewhere. It was official Church policy!

My pre-churchfriends were just as bemused. We all wondered if the married priests and bishops, who were presumably enjoying their conjugal rights, had any concept of what was being asked of gay clergy. Did they really believe that healthy humans with no vocational call to celibacy would feel obliged to obey?

Years later a married Anglican friend shared that he’d given up sex for Lent and nearly ended up wrapping his Merc around a tree. It proves my point.

Besides, the same exponents of celibacy for gay priests would often righteously opine that the reason the Catholics were having problems with paedophilia was that they didn’t allow their priests to marry.

No, I’m not lesbian although I suspect some people in my village think I am - as an in-house joke, my son calls me ‘Dad’. It’s a play on ‘Father Loraine.’ But I have counselled too many good Christians who have gone to hell and back wrestling with their sexuality. The official Anglican stance on same-sex relationships was and still is an issue that bothers me greatly.

When the Irish recently made history by voting for same-sex marriage the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin declared that the Church needed ‘a reality check’. I agree but I suspect we differ on what that reality is.


Comments are welcome.

KING THUMBS NOSE AT POPE

As I hurtled along my journey into Anglicanism I was reminded  

of the elephant in the sanctuary. King Henry 8th.

The nuns had dutifully made us non-Catholic convent girls aware of the lust filled recalcitrant king. How he’d thumbed his nose at the Pope who wouldn’t annul his first marriage so he could marry Anne of Boleyn.

Anne Boleyn

The sisters told how Henry had taken control of the Church in England. Destroyed the monasteries. Published the bible in English. Beheaded two of his six wives.

We teenage girls, starved of romance, were enthralled.  We fantasized about being wooed by a king. We ghoulishly imagined having our heads chopped off.  We didn’t care about Church politics. Nor did we bother about the apostolic succession. This is the belief that the apostles passed on their authority to their successors and so on.

The succession issue mattered to me. So I conducted my own research but Google was still a twinkle in Larry Page’s eye. History books became yet another fascinating side-path in my personal journey.

Fact is, back in Henry’s day Church was predominantly about politics and power. First-born sons inherited the titles land and wealth. So younger siblings often became ambitious priests. (Think Machiavelli and you are getting warm.) The Church had become the high road to political influence and wealth accumulation. Vocation, celibacy and poverty were part of the small print many overlooked. 

Of course there were exceptions on both sides of the English Channel. They brought new meaning to ‘saint’.

Notably the king still gets a surprising mix of good and bad Press.  Several Catholic websites paint him as evil personified, egotistical, harsh, and insecure.  Political commentators are kinder. We Anglicans tend to ignore the elephant.

In a nutshell Henry (1491-1547) played the role of a Renaissance man to the hilt. His court was a centre of scholarly and artistic innovation. Glamorous excess kept him on the brink of financial ruin.

Holbein's The Ambassadors shows the luxurious display expected of Tudor diplomats.Holbein's .

Real and perceived enemies were tortured and executed. All good fodder for modern movies and soapies. 

Henry’s main dispute with the Catholic Church was with papal authority. Yet he was quick to institute the concept of the divine right of kings.

Importantly, despite his excommunication from the Catholic Church, he continued to believe in its core teachings. He also retained the clergy who didn’t tick him off politically. So the apostolic line of succession was not severed. The likes of Cardinal Wolsey and Archbishop Cranmer had all been ordained by Rome. That succession would be continued within England and across the world.

Bishop Steve Moreo was consecrated in St Mary's Cathedral, Johannesburg. 

A former political journalist, I wasn’t fazed by Henry’s shenanigans.  But I must admit to being relieved to learn that it is only in England that monarch is ‘the supreme governor and defender of the faith’. For me separation of State and Church are key.

As defender of the faith and supreme governor of the Church of England Queen Elizabeth even approves the Archbishop of Canterbury.

I was reassured.  But there was an important lesson. Do not confuse Church leadership with God.  

Meanwhile, having bunked the ‘Holy Spirit’ week-end, I’d underestimated the persistence of the Alpha Course facilitators. They arranged a special Saturday session for those of us who hadn’t been able to get away!

Convent raised I was good at guilt. By the Friday I was doing some serious grovelling to God. I was begging, no exaggeration, for the Holy Spirit to give me a good solid zap next day.  If not it would be like attending a Girl Guide camp and returning with no merit badge.

Needless to say, nothing did happen. The Holy Spirit had other plans. Instead I spent much of the Saturday afternoon consoling a distraught woman. She felt the Nicky Gumbel video for that day had instructed her to give up her live-in partner of 10 years. Yet she loved and respected him. She and her daughter were financially dependent on him. A good man, he’d been hurt by divorce and was disillusioned with marriage.

It was my first experience of the tensions between the ‘real world’ definition of family and Church teachings. Do we set too much store on a marriage certificate? It is, after all, an instrument of State? Does the sacrament of marriage not rest more in mutual commitment, caring for each other, respect. The vows?

What do you think?

By the way, I’m finding most of the comments on my blog posts are being made on Facebook. Thank-you. And I’m gobsmacked to find that these pages have been viewed from as far afield as Qatar, India and Sweden. Nine countries in all!

 Just a reminder, if you feed your email address into the blog site you will receive direct alerts.

Have blessed week.

DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS

There was a point when I acknowledged a need to worship God within a Christian context. It was the ‘how’ that challenged me.

Somewhere along the line I attended a ‘non-denominational’ service conducted by a dynamic pastor in a school hall.  I was used to the traditional Catholic and Anglican Churches of my youth so that hall just didn’t do it for me. (I later learned how traditional architecture, candles, vestments and icons are triggers for worship.) It also didn’t help that the sermon was on the need for women to obey their husbands.

The Anglican parish I was attending seemed to suit my basic needs. Designed by Sir Hebert Baker, the stone church had beautiful stain-glass windows. The services just bordered on the high and hazy. It felt like church.  

Importantly, the sermons were exceptional. (My rector became a bishop.)  And I’m still in awe of the God-incidence that took me past several other Anglican parishes between that one and my home.

Frankly the main reason I kept returning was the new social circle I was slipping into. I enjoyed the great conversations and the good red wine. My rector and his wife (my Spiritual Director) subscribed to the Benedictine principles of hospitality. They were generous hosts.  I, who’d become a real pleb as a single mother building up a major business, was drawn into company that enjoyed the arts and were creative. Most importantly, several of them understood the politics of our imminent democracy.

Never underestimate the power of planned fellowship!

I was also increasingly impressed by Jesus’ joie de vivre – the quality of wine he produced at the wedding, the dinner parties he attended, the friends he visited. His maverick approach to social taboos.

The Alpha Course wasn’t doing it for me.  Not enough reasoning for my personality type.  But I came from an era in which you finished your food (for the starving kids in Ethiopia) and anything else you started.

I did, however, draw the line at the residential week-end that most Alpha courses focus on. Over two days participants are encouraged to experience the Holy Spirit. For some this involves speaking in tongues. Others are zapped by the Holy Spirit and keel over.

No way Jose! When I was about 11 years old I’d fainted during Mass in Grahamstown’s Catholic Cathedral and wet my pants. There’d be no encore.  I bunked.

Nor did I have any desire to speak in tongues. Most of you will know that the gift of tongues is authenticated when, after a person has gabbled away, others are able to interpret. Invariably there’s a long and sometimes embarrassing pause before this follows. I often wonder if the interpreter isn’t just being kind.

Okay I accept it’s a special gift and that it can be a great way to lose oneself in God.  However, I’ve never seen it used publicly to really good effect. What’s your opinion or experience? 

SHOOTING OURSELVES IN THE FOOT?

If ever there was proof that God has a sense of humour it was  my participation in an Alpha Course. Moreover, I was allocated to a discussion group comprised of young people barely in their 20s. Someone had obviously misread my age on the submission form!  

That God-incidence would catapult me into fascinating territory. The lessons learned from those young people have stood me in good stead throughout my ministry.  (Remember, no church for me from the age of 17 to 50 and I hadn’t sent my two sons to church.)

In case you are wondering, Alpha is a 15-session introduction to the Christian faith and conducted all over the world. Developed by the Revd Nicky Gumbel, a former London barrister and vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton, it is arguably the most successful tool of evangelical Christianity in recent years. Today Nicky’s services attract a regular Sunday attendance of around 4,500 people – most aged between 18 and 35.  If you’re dying to speak in tongues and consider yourself conservative, then Alpha is for you.

The Alpha format at my parish was a fellowship supper in the hall, then off to the church for prayer and far too many hymns for my liking. This was followed by the Nicky Gumbel video for that week. Then we would have group discussions.

I was almost old enough to be my group’s honorary granny, a cynical seeker of truth to boot. They brimmed with unquestioning faith and were into gospel music, Christian movies and coffee shop gatherings. Fresh-faced and privileged they were a-political and blissfully unaware of life in the townships. I was into progressive jazz, art movies, political activism, good restaurants and sometimes hectic parties. They spoke about keeping themselves pure for their wedding night. I’d been divorced and had two live-in partners, one for 11 years, the other for five years.

Not that I discussed my personal life with them but the dynamic meant (small miracle) that I had to mind my tongue and tread gently. My age didn’t seem to matter and I was afforded a privileged in-depth view of what young people expect from church - how action speaks so much louder than pulpit eloquence.

Many years later I served a parish deep in Soweto for the six-weeks of Lent. On the first Sunday I noticed that the extra-large and very youthful music group was dominating the Eucharist Service. The oldies were sitting through praise and worship with folded arms and glum frowns. Thanks to my Alpha group I felt confident enough to approach the talented young musicians and singers and challenge them to plan a service that would serve their elders. The following week they wowed us all with a traditional Prayer Book format interspersed with well-loved choruses and even a few ancient hymns. There was a beautiful solo during Communion. For the remainder of Lent they alternated between youthful exuberance and worship that they understood to be an important ministry to older folk.

But back to my Alpha Course.

It was providing plenty of fodder for me to take to my Spiritual Director and her husband, the rector. Through them I came to understand the meaning of “broad church”. They taught me the importance of respecting other people’s religious views and how I was entitled to question.

Fact is, the Anglican Church accommodates a wide range of opinions and people. In the process we embrace the high and hazy, the low and even the ‘speaking-in-tongues’ evangelicals.  

This broad approach is said to be Anglicanism’s strength and its weakness.

As I’ve mentioned before, we rely on three pillars, Scripture, tradition and reason. It is what allows us to disagree on matters like the definition of family and same-sex marriage. We are even allowed to question whether the bread and wine at the Eucharist is miraculously transformed into Jesus’ body and blood or if those who take communion in faith receive the spiritual body and blood of Christ.

(If you want to impress your bishop at a cocktail party, the first is called ‘transubstantiation’ the second is ‘consubstantiation’.)

So what do you think? Is the Anglican Church shooting itself in the foot by being too broad?

RELIGION JUST A SUGAR PILL?

Looking back, the books I read in my run up to the Alpha Course were a wonderfully unfettered way to learn about Jesus and quite a lot of biblical stuff. Remember, I’d never attended Sunday School. My convent school religious education was based on a well-thumbed Catechism book that told me what to believe. My confirmation course in the Anglican Church was really an escape hatch to stroll through Boksburg, buy ice-cream and have toast for breakfast in the rectory.

Now 50, I was on an incredibly exciting journey of discovery – no epiphany, no lightning bolts but sensing a new beginning. It was also a welcome diversion from my hectic work and social diary, brain exercise. I hadn’t studied since my twenties. It was also long before The Tudors series was broadcast which would have put me off Anglicanism, despite that sexy Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

Besides the off-the-wall books about Jesus, there were a variety of others.  These included fascinating archaeological finds (remember I wasn’t born with faith in my back pocket I needed proof), Judaic history and Greek history. Admittedly the Crusades and all their barbarity took a lot of shine off Christianity but then I wasn’t all that interested in following Jesus or killing people in his name. As the founder of a large PR agency I had long been used to dealing at chief executive level so the Son was interesting but if I was going to leap into a faith abyss I expected the ‘Main Man’ to do the catching. (In my PR life I was teaching chief executives ‘management by walkabout’ and the importance of an open door policy).

Running parallel to this was another development. In the second week after I’d attended my first Eucharist in about 35 years I called the parish to ask if they ‘did meditation’ in the Anglican Church. The rector’s response was “hang on I’ll call my wife, she’s into it”.  She was quick to share, “I’ve just finished a meditation and realised I think I’m God.”  We made an appointment for the next day.

I didn’t understand then but she was my first Spiritual Director.  The weekly psychology sessions were replaced by visits to the rectory. The coffee was excellent, the session were free and there was no reining either me or my reading in. Nor was there any proselytizing or effort to argue theological points. There was just lots of encouragement to continue my journey of discovery. And, because the rector had worked in the ad industry, a great understanding of my work life. There was also quiet amusement when I enquired if the best looking guy in the choir was single. (I’d find out later that he was gay.)

Today I count the three of them among my dearest friends and I fully agree with that marvellous Catholic priest Gerard Hughes who authored the best-selling God of Surprises. He argued that there is no such thing as coincidences, they are all God-incidences.

I’d spent a fortune on books but that little book would be that real beginning of my faith journey. Never one to subscribe to dogma Fr Gerry brought Church into different focus. Most importantly, he declared that God could never be fully understood because if this was so God simply wouldn’t be God. It made imminent sense and I stopped trying to prove God existed. Instead I stepped tentatively into the realm of mystery. But it was still a game of chance.

Those of you who were born with faith will probably have no concept how high those stakes were. So often when I share that I only really became a Christian at the age of 50 the response is “You must have been really happy for the first time in your life!” It wasn’t happiness I needed, I’d had huge doses of that throughout my privileged life. What I wanted was a spiritual dimension, balance. BUT with me still in full control.  

But I get ahead of myself! There was still the Alpha Course. It began with the traditional introductory dinner. I’d had a day from hell so had a long hot bath to unwind before heading for the parish hall.  I also poured an extra-large glass of wine to sip while I soaked, knowing full well that I’d be drinking fruit juice with supper. I was wrong.

As I walked through the door, I was offered a choice of “red or white wine?” An auspicious beginning. But as I watched the slick Nicky Gumble video, I couldn’t help spotting the production tricks. I could smell PR a mile off. But I enjoyed the company at my table and the following day my Spiritual Director assured me the course would “improve”. More of that later.

Writing this has reminded me how many of my Christians seems to enjoy unwavering faith. They never seem to doubt our religious rituals or question the Church’s teachings.  I now understand that it will never be as easy for me. Faith eludes me at the most inconvenient times. Sometimes I struggle to believe in unconditional grace. Or I just plain wonder if religion isn’t one big panacea. Yet I have acquired a relationship with God that permeates every aspect of my life – sometimes very inconvenient, invariably humbling but always dynamic.  I now accept that like most relationships this one will always have it ups and downs.  Of course I don’t play fair, I assume God will always be constant.

Do you also have faith wobbles? I’ve decided to give Archbishop Shakes, the main protagonist in my novel, a crisis of faith so your input would be very welcome.

May the Force be with you!