Fasting to grow

"Let our avowed intent this Lent be to fast from...whatever else dwarfs and hurts the soul." (Holy Island, page 19.)

A long time ago, back at my home parish of St. Paul's, Kingsport, during the first year I was in EFM, wow, I don't even remember the year now, there was a lady who gave up negative thoughts for Lent.  I will never forget her.  She was a jewel.  She was one of the most loving women I have ever met. She is one of those people that you really don't think of as having "negative thoughts", but to hear her tell her story, did she.  Now, I am not going to break the confidentiality of EFM, but suffice it to say that she really struggled with her Lenten discipline that year.

Think for a minute how many times a day we have a negative thought.  These thoughts can be about ourselves or others.  Think for a minute or two about what happens to us when we string four or five of these negative thoughts together in one day.  Then think about having four or five bad days in a row.  It can really "dwarf and hurt the soul."

It is the intent of Lent that whatever our Lenten discipline or form of fasting upon which we decide to endeavor, we will claim it as a life changing discipline.  We should choose a discipline that we can live with once Lent is over.  We should choose a discipline that will change who we are, especially before God, not just for 40 days, but for the rest of our life.

Are we ready for our Lenten fast to touch us as Kennedy suggests?  He says, "The lasting results, the outward and visible consequences of such a chosen fast, must indicate that those who have chosen it have been deeply and permanently dyed by their experience." (p. 18).  Are you ready for what a true and well intentioned Lenten fast can do?  Or more personally, am I?  In what ways will I  be changed during this Lent by the study, prayer and discernment that I am willingly undertaking?  Do I trust God to lead me?  Do I trust me to follow God?  Will my spiritual growth be enough to overcome my childlike insecurity?

Holding 'fast' to your Faith

"[B]ut bodily discipline and spiritual growth must lead to another aspect of this third point, namely, to resist successfully the temptation to grow weary of well doing and chuck the whole business." (Holy Island, pages 16-17.)

There will be a time on our spiritual journey when we will think we have arrived.  Don't be fooled!  Nourishing our spiritual life is a continual, life long process.  If we stop nourishing, then we start mal-nourishing!  Life is a constant discernment of where God is calling you to be, what God is calling you to do, and how God is calling you to do it.  We should never reach a place in our spiritual lives where we feel as if we know we have made it or know we have learned everything there is to know.  That is giving in to the temptation of well doing. To constantly learn, discern and digest will allow you to grow "fast" in your faith.  In this sense, I am using "fast" in the sense of "anchoring" as Kennedy refers in today's reading.  The more we can ask ourselves the tough questions about our faith and honestly answer them, even when the answer is "I don't know," then the stronger our faith can become and the more of a foothold we will have in our faith journey.

When I felt called to be a priest in the Episcopal Church, my spiritual growth didn't stop happening then and I didn't know everything there is to know about being a priest in the church on the day I was ordained to the priesthood.  Likewise, I did not stop discerning God's call in my life.  When I became the Rector of St. Paul's, Smithfield, my discernment didn't stop either.  I served God in Smithfield, then God, and the people of Mequon, called me to serve as the Rector of St. Boniface Parish. I've just learned that I've been called to serve on the Task Force on Health Insurance Parity and on the Diocesan Communications Committee for the Diocese of Milwaukee. My discernment doesn't stop. At some time in the future, I will be called to serve somewhere other than St. Boniface. God only knows.  Your call to serve may change, but our faith can be steadfast.  I have a strong faith that God will call me and place me to serve where God needs me and wants me to serve.  It is my responsibility to remain steadfast in my daily study of scripture and prayer. As odd as it may be, I am thankful for the wording of the mission statement of St. Boniface: "To know God and to seek an understanding of His evolving plan for us." As we grow, God will use us in different ways. Hold fast to your faith and see where God takes you, takes us, next!

As you can see, all of the "fasting" is lived out in a multi-layered community.  So maybe this Lent, you will learn to 'fast'...stand fast, or firm, or grow more firm in your faith.  Give your life an anchor.  Begin a daily study or prayer time.  Constantly discern where God wants you to be and how he may help you to get there...

Fasting as 'Quickening'

"The season of Lent provides many stimulants for speeding up spiritual growth." ( Holy Island, page 15.)

Yesterday the reflection was on placing our body under our soul.  The logical next step is that if we have the body out of the way, we would have more opportunities to strengthen our spiritual soul and take steps down our spiritual paths.

What are ways in which we can "speed up" our spiritual growth?  Well, by participating in this discussion. :) I know that some have had at least a stimulant for thought, if not the beginnings of actual spiritual growth over the last few days.  Some would argue that this "online world" is not a community.  Even though from time to time you may feel like you are talking to Brad Paisley in a three-way chat, growth happens in a community.  I do not mean to minimalize the real dangers of the internet, especially for youth, but I have found people to be the most "real" in some internet chat rooms.  They may not be "real" to who they "really" are, but the questions they pose to you, or the direct responses one may abruptly give to you may in fact be exactly what we need to speed up your spiritual growth.  The point here is not that you are chatting in a chat room.  The point is that you are involved in a community instead of going about your study alone.  If you are in community, you have someone to ask you the questions you may not want to ask yourself.

Call up two or three of your close friends and start a discussion on Holy Island and then share your thoughts here.  Read Marcus Borg's The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith and discuss it in a small group of 4 or 5 at someone's home, or start or join an online discussion community.  Read Everything Must Change: When the World's Biggest Problems and Jesus' Good News Collide by Brian McLaren or Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church Is Transforming the Faith by Diana Butler Bass.  Or here is an interesting book that I read just last year, If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus and Bishop Curry of North Carolina, my former Bishop, calls it a must read. Want to join a small group that is already formed? There is a small group that is meeting at the Gettel's house where they are talking about another of Brian McLaren's books Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices. All of these books provide great food for thought and fodder for discussion in a small group.  If you decide to start a small book group, let me know and I may join you, if you wish, and we can quicken our spiritual lives together.

Fasting...it doesn't have to mean taking away.  It can also mean quickening, or speeding up the spiritual growth in our lives.  The good Lord knows we could all use a little tune up in our spiritual growth engine!  And what better way to do it than venturing off our own Island to a place that is a little more unfamiliar.  Who knows, we may just learn something about God and ourselves in the process.

Being an Island

As I read (and re-read, present tense in both instances) the opening reflection of Holy Island: A Lenten Pilgrimage to Lindisfarne by James Kennedy entitled "A Word about Islands", there is one thing that really impressed me and that is Kennedy's comment, "No one can be an island or live on an island completely cut off from the life of his fellows, for one would soon become ingrown and unproductive, living artificially. But we can make pilgrimages to one, actually or in our mind, and can designate any time or place of apartness as our Holy Island of retreat and spiritual renewal, provided we do not remain there too long" (P. 7.)

We hear week after week that we Christians are part of a community. We live in a community, we worship in a community, we serve in a community, even our monotheistic God is a community, or economy, of three persons in one. Even our "personal" lives are lived in community. We have the communities of our work places, our families, our friends, our neighborhoods, and many other "communities" in which we live. Unfortunately, and all too often, we get this hair-brained idea that we can do it ourselves and that we don't need the rest of the community. We in effect make ourselves an island.

As a church, St. Boniface is part of the community of Mequon and Ozaukee County (and even a couple of other counties!) St. Boniface is part of a community of churches, part of a community of non-profit corporations, part of a community of forgiveness, part of a community that is called to help the hungry, homeless, and hopeless. When we make ourselves an Island, we leave a hole in the community in which we live.

In the Episcopal Church, each church is part of the Diocese. Again, all to often, an individual church begins to think "we know how to function best" and "We don't need the Diocese to exist." Each church, at some point in their existence, will tend to make themselves an Island and set themselves apart (in a negative way) from the rest of the Diocese.

When we make ourselves an Island, and especially when we stay there, we "become ingrown and unproductive." We become an Island unto ourselves, we begin to live "artificially" because we have lost touch with the reality of the world around us.

This Lent, as a community of people, how do we honestly own our past, repent of our shortfalls, celebrate our blessings, and once again appropriately re-engage the communities that surround us and of which we are such a vital part?

Online Lenten Study

As a Lenten discipline, beginning on Ash Wednesday, I am going to begin an online study. I will be reflecting on a short book called Holy Island: A Lenten Pilgrimage to Lindisfarne by James W. Kennedy. I hope you will join in (presuming there are any of "you" out there) and make this a discussion. This book can be purchased from Forward Movement publications. If you are a member of St. Boniface, you may pick up a copy of the book at church. The cost of the book is $5 if you pick up the book at church. Make checks payable to St. Boniface Episcopal Church.

On Monday or Tuesday of this week, I will publish a short post with some background information on Holy Island: A Lenten Pilgrimage to Lindisfarne and my perspective of a Lenten discipline.

So, keep your eyes open for the my Lenten online study of 2011...

Faithfully,

Kenny+

So, some of you want to know what I read...

Several people have asked me what I have been reading recently. When I’m asked this question, my normal reply is, “well, scripture and related material, of course!” Of course that is my tongue and cheek response because I know that they don’t necessarily mean theological or Biblical tomes.

Over the past 2 months I have read four books for pure fun, and I have just started my fifth. I hope you have heard of Naomi Novik and her Temeraire Series?As it says on her website, temeraire.org, the novels are “a reimagining of the epic events of the Napoleonic Wars with an air force--an air force of dragons, manned by crews of aviators.”

I have found these books to be a quick, interesting, page-turning read. Quite frankly, on those nights following the long days when I just can’t seem to “turn my mind off” from either the events of the day or of the events that are coming up tomorrow, I can get lost in the stories of Temeraire, Captain Laurence, and the rest of aerial corps.

I have read His Majesty’s Dragon, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War, and Empire of Ivory. I just purchased Victory of Eagles. Then, I will be left with Tongues of Serpents until Ms. Novik releases the next installment of the Temeraire series.

For those that wanted to know...that’s what I’m reading. Have you read these books? What did you think?