I’ve been reading old entries on my blog. Yes, my own blog. I know that’s cheesy – right up there with googling your own name. (Which I’ve also been known to do.) But I’ve been confused lately. I told Neil T. yesterday that I was in metaphysical flux brought on by my birthday, leaving Seattle Vineyard, and an over-booked calendar. I have all these “I wonder” thoughts regarding my future and what I should be throwing my energy into. At the same time I feel bombarded by “you should” thoughts: You should call this person or that. You should start this random project. You should write on this topic.

This bombardment is not usually good news. It means things have been going too fast lately, that I’ve been over scheduled. I used to think this was just my prophetic tendencies on overdrive getting a download of insight. Now I realize that I’m not hearing rapid-fire suggestions from the Muse, but just a bunch of anxious thoughts of my own making. It’s not pretty.

To combat these things I usually do a couple of things. First I get quiet. I prefer to do this by sitting in the labyrinth, but have you been in St. Mark’s lately? It is freezing! Instead I settled into the online daily meditations over at sacred space. The layout is blah, but the meditations are so so helpful. Today I really relied on the breath-as-prayer option. I think it helped. The other thing I do is read old journals and blog entries. They are a good reverse roadmap of sorts. They let me ask, “Where was I going back then and have I got there?”

So here’s something that’s been putting me in metaphysical flux. I want and need a community where I can worship God and seek guidance from God in ways that are meaningful to me. These are mostly contemplative things: daily meditations, weekly Sabbaths, seasonal celebrations, centering prayer, silence, and of course art (always art). On the other hand, I totally realize that these practices are a bit tricky for someone to get their heads around. I was at a church planter’s workshop this week and Neil Tibbot and Casey Ceranti showed clips from Dances with Wolves. The clips focused on what Lt. Dunbar had to do to explain himself to the natives—and what the natives had to do to explain themselves to Dunbar. Contemplative practices take a lot of explaining. They are called practices because, like yoga or breathing exercises, they take practice. They aren’t the easiest things in the world to just jump in on. They aren’t any more accessible then say, a bunch of choruses talking about “fire falling” or bowing around flaming thrones or whatever. So even though I’ve found a way of “doing church” that is more meaningful and life changing/shaping for me, I haven’t made the thing more accessible. And that is a big goal for me, finding away to make the worship Christian life accessible, inviting.

Still, I want to continue on with these things, these traditions and rituals and special meals. I guess in that way I am a priestess. This is what I found helpful in the comments on an old entry. It’s from Karen Haluza, who hasn’t been blogging much lately (because of a new job) and I really miss her voice:

Hi Rachelle,
I like how you keep exploring what a pastor/spiritual leader/cultivator is supposed to be. I’ve been puzzling over what a priest is - if it’s different from a pastor. A friend who is a priest told me that being a priest is about living a sacramental life. Whether or not people follow you or are lead by you seems to be secondary. You’re there to live this sacramental life, kind of like opening up your house and inviting folks over - it’s just how you live. Through that it’s not so much that you are leading, you are just preparing space in which people can connect with the divine. You’re smoothing out the altar cloths, polishing the chalice, preparing the bread and wine and then letting people partake of the banquet.
Keep following the Muse.
Peace,
Karen

I am a priestess. I live a sacramental life in the service of the God who birthed and created us, the Son who is our brother and friend, and the Holy Spirit, she who is our guide. Karen encourages me in those actions. And it’s true — even if no one came, I would still do them. They are important to me. They bring meaning to me, and to my family. When I do these sacramental, contemplative things I understand what the Jews mean when they say they are doing “what was commanded of our forefathers, Abraham Isaac and Jacob.” I start to grasp the depth of what these actions are doing as acts of remembrance for the past, and acts of hope-holding for the future.

But I am also an evangelist, a cultivator, an urban abbess. I really believe that “he will come he will come he will soften all that’s hardened, make the deserts into gardens and we all we see his face.” In fact I think he has come, and the he is doing that. (Even though whenever I try to talk about it I sound like a crazy person.) I really think that the divine lies within each person, that Jesus’ great desire is to bring everyone to wholeness, and that we can fan the reality that lies in each person into flame, that the life in us can breathe on the life in others. I really, really want a place where I can practice this. It has to be something consistent, or it never happens. And it has to be something that has a wide open invitations – a big email invite list or a flyer in the neighbor’s mailboxes or something, so that no one ever has to wonder if it’s okay for them to come (and can they bring their cousin who is visiting). And what we do in this time has to be primarily conversational, or something easy that we do with our hands. Uncomplicated things. And it has to happen repeatedly, so we can keep going deeper with each other, so we can share the up’s and downs, so we can follow each other’s life-lines like a kooky television plot.

This can’t happen at ThPM. ThPM is worship time, is sacrament time, is contemplative time. And as much as I wish that could just be natural and every day, it’s not. Now, don’t get me wrong. I think worship and sacrament and contemplation happen all the time in the everyday. For instance, I think putting a stamp on a letter is one of my favorite rituals. (But only if it’s lick-em kind of stamp.) So is lighting a candle with a real match. Or setting the table and actually folding the napkin under the knife and fork and positioning the water glass and all. I think holy space is made when MJ dims the lights in the yoga room. I think contemplation can happen when you tell a friend your highs and lows—even if it’s just over the phone. And I honor all those little moments. I honor them so much I want to make more space for them. Consistent, Wide-Open, Repetitive space.

What does that look like? How does that come into being?

That’s what I’m stewing about these days. That’s why I’m in a metaphysical flux, and in idea stew.