A week or so ago I wrote an off-the-top-of-my-head post about the organized church, and my current relationship to it. As is usual with the case of my shitty first drafts (SFD) it wasn’t worded especially careful. And as is usual of my most propheticish moments, it raised some hackles. I don’t intentionally raise hackles, at least not most of the time, but I really don’t mind when they get raised, and I mostly stay out of the fray. There was quite a bit of back-and-forth on the blog…15 or 16 comments, if I remember rightly. Folks do do do love to theologize. I don’t really enjoy that much myself, the theologizing. I like orthodoxy as much as the next guy, as long as it’s a generous orthodoxy. But orthopraxy, now that really turns me on – I really like being in on the action. So my next post suggested a little action step, very small, very easy. Guess how many comments it got? Two.

This got me to thinking about thinking, and doing, and being and how they all interact, or don’t; how they intersect, or parallel. When we first left the organized church, our merry band of fellows, we did it sort of sideways and accidental. First we wanted to form a different church, and then we weren’t sure about the whole kit and caboodle, and eventually we settled into what you all see here on Thursday nights, Monkfish Abbey. When we made our first exploratory steps we spent a lot of time theologizing, purging, and just plain bitching. We called this “deconstructing.” Then we spent about the same amount of time experimenting, messing about, and doing things in fits and starts. We called this “reconstructing.” The deconstructing part was mostly talk, and the reconstructing part was mostly action — in the form discovering and re-discovering spiritual practices. And it’s curious to me, how they work, the ideas and the action…how they ying and yang, ebb and flow, make energy and burn energy. Talk and Action.

I guess it’s a little like the new way MJ is doing yoga. She went to this workshop a few weeks ago and now she’s all about putting small movements into our yoga postures. Like when we are in Warrior Two, she’ll tell us to explore the pose, to not remain static. We’ll tip our hips from side to side, bounce slightly on our knees, rotate our wrists, wriggle our shoulders. The pose is important, it’s bedrock, it’s foundational. But if we just throw ourselves into it and remain their, frozen as statuary, we drain the life out of something that is supposed to be very life-giving. But if we remember to move, to find the particular fit for our bodies and our energy at that particular moment, if we remain present and aware, then we get something in the body that is much more healthful. We create more shalom.

This is true of our talk and our action, theology and our actions, our orthodoxy and our orthopraxy. One informs the other. And one of the theologies that has been underground, but central to Monkfish Abbey since day one, is this idea of transformational theology. One of the reasons our original core drifted away from the church as we knew it was because it had ceased to be transformational. Sure, we went there and we worshiped and it felt good and we were all very lovely and safe and got a sort of spiritual goody bag for the week. But we weren’t really changing, we weren’t really seeing anything alter in our lives and the way we reacted and interacted with the lives around us. We knew how to throw ourselves into the pose, and it felt familiar and not-bad, but it wasn’t really connected to the energy of our lives, of life in general, and that reality felt …stagnant? Dissatisfactory? Less than?

Right now, in my life, there are two things that really interest me about Jesus. The first is that I really dig his humanness. He was cranky and bitchy. He was serene and kind. He was compassionate and passionate. He was obtuse and direct. Just like me. Just like the people around me. That, more than anything, helps me connect with him, makes me want to know him. But the second is that Jesus was all about transformation. Make blood flows stop. Straighten out crooked limbs. Teach the rich to respect the poor. Change our outlook to honor the small instead of the mighty. Learn to forgive. He was 100% into moving things towards wholeness using whatever means were available to him. He was 100% into helping others do the same – which in our case requires exploration, change, discipline (in it’s best sense) and transformation.

Now a lot of times when religious folks start talking like this, the underlying message is “you’re bad, you need to change.” Most of us have grown-up with this message, and I might be triggering that tape right now. As my kids would say, “Press pause!!” Take a deep breath. Now mentally reach out your index finger and push the big red “stop” button on that tape player. You have a new tape now:

“You, beautiful, are made in the image of God. Find it!”

That’s the message of transformational theology. God is good. God is whole. God is love. And all that good stuff…it’s for you and the people around you. It’s shalom, wholeness. Its kingdom come…find ways to move towards it.

This is the season of epiphany. Epiphany is traditionally the celebration of the arrival of the three wise men. They studied, and they discussed, and they pontificated. Then they saw something new in the stars, and they said “Ah Ha!” They had a moment of epiphany, of understanding – even if it was only a partial understanding, even if the details were unclear – and they moved. They didn’t stop at pontificating, or thinking, or saying, “Ah Ha!” They got on their camels and they moved. They took action. They practiced praxis.

This is the season of epiphanies, and I know from my one-on-one conversations, that many of you are having epiphanies: about relationships, and jobs, and where you live, and what gives you life. I would really like to spend some time hearing about those epiphanies. Now, I know this never works when I spring things on you. We all just sit around staring at each other like deer in the headlights. So I won’t ask you to tell us tales tonight. But if, in the next week or two, you thinking about an Ah Ha! moment, tell me, and we’ll make space for you to tell us, and we can learn about each other and from one another–we can be the teaching-learning community that we set out to be.

But for tonight, here is my epiphany. Be the peace you seek in the world. Okay, so that’s actually a bumper sticker that you see often here in Seattle–a.k.a Peacenik Central. I’ve seen it often and thought, “Oh how nice.” Or alternatively, “Oh, what a crock of shit.” But this year, on January second, I was walking on the treadmill and listening to the NPR when I heard an hour on peace makers and peace keepers, and I thought, “Ah Ha! I get it!” I had an epiphany, which I’ve actually had before in other contexts, but what can I say, I’m a bit dense. The epiphany was this: Peace keeping and peace making are possible, if you take it one step at a time. Start small. Do what’s doable.

Some people participate in peace making in amazing ways, like being western observers in the middle of a war torn country. Or, you know, being Bono and getting a promise of 25 billion to create wholeness in Africa. But some of us, like you, like me, have to do it in teeny tiny ways. Like pinning peace flags to our clotheslines, or practicing peaceful parenting, or deciding not to flip off the asshole who just cut your off in the rain as you were trying to get across 1-5 to the 520 interchange. (Umm….ideally, that is.)

I’m asking us, as a community, to be the peace we’d like to see in the world this year. Maybe you’ll seek peace in a particular relationship by committing to communication and seeing things through the other person’s eyes. Or maybe you’ll commit to seeking peace by participating in elections, by voting. Or maybe you’ll make flags and light candles and say prayers. Or maybe you’ll volunteer to tutor a child or make soup for a sick friend. Or maybe you’ll write letters and send emails and strive to stop wars. Be present to your lives. Listen for what inspires you and commit to one thing–maybe not for a year, but for awhile, commit. Try it out. Explore something small.

I have some starting spots for us, in case some of us feel at a loss as to where to start. The first is this hour of peace talks from January second. (See the December 05 mp3) Give it a listen this week. See what it brings up for you. Stick it in your car stereo or in your walkman or down load it on to your ipod. See what it says. The second is an assignment. Next week bring a jar, or a box, or a vase, or a sock…whatever, and find a place to give some money. Some place that promotes peace, some place that moves us towards shalom, towards wholeness. Then stick all your change–the dimes and nickels and pennies at the bottom of your pocket–into that vessel for one year. Let’s see what this brings. Let’s look forward to cashing it out for some good cause 12 months from now. And finally, spend some time this week thinking about a place in the world around you (personally, locally, or globally) and consider how you would like to symbolize that peace-making, wholeness-seeking, shalom-forming place. Next week, we’ll refresh our prayer flags with these symbols and let our time making them serve as our prayer. (I’ll have fabric pens and stamps and such like last time, or you can send me an image as a .jpg or .png and I can print it out as an iron on.)

When we talk about peace and peacemaking and finding wholeness/shalom in our world, it can be quite overwhelming. We can stop before we even get started. Last week I was in the guidance counselor’s office at Roosevelt High School and she had a slew of students she was responsible for. Their pictures were on the wall, and I can only imagine some of their stories, some of their challenges. In the middle of the photos was the serenity prayer, and I thought, “Ah Ha! How fitting. I bet she needs that every day a she seeks avenues towards wholeness for these kids.” So I thought we should close with the serenity prayer tonight. It’s an oldie but a goodie, and maybe you’ll hear it with fresh ears as we embark upon this peace keeping journey.

God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Amen