Soul Dance - an intro

I have been incredibly nourished, and challenged, and invited to grow and expand through a form of conscious dance called Soul Dance.  I went to my first class (although it feels weird to call it a class because it's the exact opposite of what "classes" traditionally are, in that it is very open and all about trusting the wisdom of your own body rather than following someone else or trying to do things a certain "right" way) in early March, and have been going back every week since that I've been able to.  For me, this has been a life shifting experience of really integrating body and spirit, allowing spirit to move in and through me, and trusting the wisdom of my own body when I really let her move and do her thing.  

The basics are: my friend Erin creates a playlist of music that lasts around 75 minutes moving from slow, to more energetic, and back to slow, and the space is open for each person to move in the exact way that their body needs to move or invites them to move.  There is usually a theme to help us center our thoughts and prayers that we want to bring into the space that evening.  There is some lose guidance and reminders to breathe and trust your body, but it's a very open and inviting space to experiment, try new things, and be as big and bold as feel called to.  That is one of the aspects that stood out most to me my first time - how I was encouraged to really take up all the space I wanted and needed.  This was such a powerful contradiction for me as a woman.  It was/is an incredibly freeing practice, to be in a judgment free zone of getting to just delight in all aspects of your body and have everyone doing different things and really embrace and celebrate that each person is trusting the wisdom of their own body, working out just what they need to.  And we get to do it together!  

Usually at some point during the dance, I take a break to write down the thoughts and feelings that are coming up.  I want to be more intentional about sharing these bits of my own body wisdom in this space, so the following posts will be catching up with the past few weeks of Soul Dance insights.  Enjoy!  And if you're in St. Louis, consider joining us on Monday evenings at 7:30pm at Big Bend Yoga studio.  

Body and Blood

The blood flowing 

inside and outside me 

are rives of eternal life

I am powerful

I am life giver

I am life taker

I am the first and the last

Where you begin and where you end

I am fire, lava bubbling up to the surface

Unable to be contained

Releasing my power

Bursting open to destroy and re-create

I am sacred and holy

To be honored

Not shamed or hidden

I am wisdom

I am calling you back 

To your body

To our home

To remind you

To teach you

Who you are

I am connection and detachment

Letting go

I am ancient

I am your grand-mamas and great great grand-mamas

I am eternal 

I am your future daughters and granddaughters

I am life itself

And death

I am good

I am holy

I am whole

(c) Jennifer Reyes Lay 2016

Homily 2.18.17

Readings:

1st Reading: LV 19:1-2, 17-18

2nd Reading: 1 Cor 3:16-23

Gospel: Mt 5:38-48

Love Centered Resistance

“We have the power to turn our upside down world right.”  These words were spoken by Leymah Gbowee, a Liberian woman and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011.  In 2003 Liberia was in the midst of a brutal civil war, and the president and other male leaders had been meeting for months for peace talks and a resolution to end the conflict but were not getting the job done.  So a group of Liberian women led by Leymah Gbowee, who had been organized and engaging in protest to the war and putting pressure on the leaders to come to a resolution, they take over the building they are meeting in, surround the space, interlock arms, and say the men cannot leave until there is a signed peace accord.  When the men attempt to leave anyway, the women threaten to rip off their clothing.  In their culture, it was considered a curse to see an older woman deliberately bare herself.  So the men stayed, got to work, and over the course of the next week under the constant presence of the women, they signed a peace accord that ended the war.  Leymah Gbowee continues to teach and organize around creative nonviolent resistance.  She is a living example of our Gospel story tonight.  

In looking at our Gospel story tonight I want to first address the translation of the phrase we heard read as, “offer no resistance to one who is evil.”  Walter Wink in his book, “Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way” talks about how the original Greek does not mean how it's been translated and interpreted into English.  A better translation he offers is, “don’t respond to the one who is evil, with evil” or “don’t resist violence with violence. We hear this same sentiment in our first reading as well: Though you may have to reprove your fellow citizen, do not incur sin because of him.  If we repay evil with evil we harm ourselves as well.  In the sentence before this Jesus said “you have heard it said an eye for an eye, BUT I SAY to you… this implies a new teaching, do not repay violence with violence, but rather with creative nonviolence centered in love.  He then gives three examples of this teaching, which I think are also important to  dig into a bit tonight to really understand the context they are coming out of.  

I pull a lot from Walter Wink’s book on Jesus and Nonviolence in learning about the context and implications of the examples Jesus offers us in the Gospel tonight.  So what was first example?  Turn the other cheek.  This is a phrase we’ve probably heard quite a bit right.  But what is it really saying.  If someone strike you on … which cheek?  The right cheek, turn the other.  The custom in Jesus’ time was not to use the left hand, so if I’m striking you on the right cheek with my right hand, i have to use my backhand, which was common in a power differential.  So if you backhand me, and I turn my other cheek, you can’t use the left hand, so that means to hit me again you would have to use your palm, which would be a recognition of equality.  

Example two: what was it about?  A debt settlement with a tunic and cloak.  What’s going on there.  Someone who was very poor would only have his tunic, his outer garment to use as collateral.  So if someone was coming demanding payment and all he had to offer up was his outer garment, imagine him standing in court, in only his undergarments, and then taking those off too as a way to shame the one demanding of him when he has so little.  Similar to the story of the Liberian women who threatened to expose themselves, nakedness was considered taboo in Jewish culture and the shame fell on the one who viewed or caused the nakedness.  Again this was a way of calling out an oppressive system, asserting one’s own human dignity while shaming the oppressor.

And how about the third example, what’s going on there?  If you are forced into service, which meant carrying the load for a Roman soldier, for one mile, Jesus is telling the listener to go two.  There was a specific law under Roman occupation about what a Roman soldier could force you to do, and going one mile was the limit.  Forcing someone to go further would incur serious penalties on the soldier.  And so to continue an extra mile would throw the soldier off, make him worried, and it would allow again for the one being oppressed to take back their own power of choice and assert their dignity by challenging the customary practice.  

So it’s clear the call is not: do not resist, but rather Resist!  Engaging Jesus’ third way of creative nonviolence.  

So how do we do this?  Where does this kind of resistance come from?  What fuels us or centers us to be able to engage in creative nonviolent resistance?  Both our first and third readings talk about this: the answer is Love.  Loving our neighbor, loving our enemy, recognizing they too are the temple of the Spirit of God, so I cannot destroy that temple, but I am called to challenge the ways they perpetuate injustice, centered in love.  

I had the opportunity a few years ago at a CTA Conference to hear the amazing Diane Nash speak.  She is an African American woman, freedom fighter, active in the civil rights struggles of the 60s who put her body on the line, engaging in creative nonviolent resistance to challenge the systems of racism and segregation.  And she shared with us that the only way she was able to do it, was because they centered themselves in love and were fueled by agapic energy.  The term agapic energy she created from the word for the kind of love God has for us, for creation, the perfect love Jesus talks about in the Gospel tonight: agape.  She said that if we use agapic energy, we can disarm, heal, and transform every situation.  We must take the time for prayer, for meditation, to nourish and center ourselves in this agapic energy in order to help transform the world.  

Just like in the Gospel tonight, and as we have seen in so many nonviolent acts of resistance throughout history and even today, through this sourcing of agapic energy we are called to resist injustice in a way that draws attention to the unjust practice/system while lifting up the humanity of the person being harmed and shaming the one doing the harming so they can wake up to the ways they are oppressing the other.

There is creative nonviolent resistance going on all around us.  Protests, marches, boycotts, petitions, solidarity economies, and various forms of non-cooperation with oppressive systems.  As immigrants are being profiled, arrested, and deported in record numbers, it is an act of love centered resistance to offer safe haven and protection in the form of sanctuary.  Given an education system that continues to fail our students and push students of color out and into the juvenile detention and prison systems, it is an act of love centered resistance to create and support freedom schools that promote the brilliance, power, and success of every student and focus on a curriculum of literature that reflects the student’s own lives and stories.  

So what is our charge in all of this?  In the Gospel, Jesus is addressing those who are oppressed by the empire, those who could be physically assaulted, forced into labor, or imprisoned for being poor with no repercussions for those who were assaulting or abusing them.  

We all hold multiple identities, and under some structures we are the oppressed… BUT we also hold identities of privilege.  This means we have to be ready to be confronted, be ready to be made uncomfortable, to be challenged and called out for the ways we perpetuate and support these systems oppression.  We have to lean in when we are called out, and join with those challenging these systems of oppression, because I am not free until ALL of my sisters, brothers, and gender-nonconforming family members are free.  And this is an ongoing process of learning and unlearning again and again.   

So we have a double responsibility in our intersectional identities of oppressed and oppressor: we are called to assert in every creative, active, non-violent way we can our own human dignity as nothing less than temples of the Holy One, and we are called to recognize and dismantle the ways that we collude in systemic oppression and treat others as anything less than temples of the Holy One.  

This is hard work friends.  I struggle with this every day.  It is a real challenge to love those I view as enemies, to not dehumanize them as I assert my own humanity.  But the Good News is that we do not do any of this difficult work alone.  We do it united with Christ.  It is Christ’s perfect love that calls us together as church, as family gathered around a table.  It is Christ’s perfect love that invites all to partake in the feast.  And it is Christ’s perfect love which we are called to carry with us when we leave the table, and go out into the streets, trusting in that perfect love to teach us and guide us in what it means to be the Body of Christ in the world today.

Amen

Homily 12.3.16

2nd Sunday of Advent

Scripture Readings
Isaiah 11:1-10

Romans 15:1-9

Matthew 3:1-12

I don’t know about you, but I am feeling particularly grateful for this season of Advent this year. In what has been a year filled with divisive and hateful rhetoric, acts of violence, and now much fear and uncertainty, I am grateful for the rich images and symbols that Advent surrounds me with. The light of a candle flame conquering the darkness. A voice of reason crying out in the wilderness. A green shoot coming out of a dead tree stump. A reconciled creation. Gifts of hope surround us in our celebration tonight.

Fitting that we too are in a literal time of darkness as the days grow shorter, until the celebration of Christ, the incarnation entering the world, and then the light comes back a little more each day. We all have times of darkness and despair in our life. Advent reminds us that even in the deepest darkness, we can kindle the flame of hope, because in the words of my friend Claire Hitchens, “our darkness is not darkness, in your sight Lord in your sight, our deepest, deepest night Lord, is clear as day light.” (listen here)

The prophet Isaiah and the community of Judah in our first reading tonight knew about living in dark times. They knew about despair and fear, living under an oppressive empire. Isaiah's audience for our first reading tonight has had their rulers cut down like the stump left after a felled tree. There seems to be little reason to hope or rejoice, and yet it is out of this context that Isaiah reminds them of the power and promise of their God, who is greater than any earthly ruler or structure. Out of what seems to be dead and barren, new life will spring forth. And not just any new life, but a new leader who clothed in the gifts of the Spirit who will bring justice and righteousness, filling the earth with the knowledge of the Lord and bringing peace.

Now the people of Israel and Judah came from an oral tradition; they were great storytellers. And during their darkest moments, they would often look back, to look forward, remembering and praising God for the ways that God fulfilled her promise to their ancestors. Living under an unjust empire, they would recall how God led them out of Egypt and into the promised land. While being slaughtered and persecuted they would remember how God made a great nation from Abraham and Sarah with descendants to outnumber the stars. These stories reminded them of God’s promise that God is not only with them, but in the words of another great prophet, Jeremiah, has plans for them to prosper and not be harmed, will give them a future and a hope. Paul recognized this in his letter to the Romans we heard today, that all that was written in former days was to give us hope.

This tool of remembering our stories and looking back to cultivate hope is useful for all of us, and perhaps you have experienced it as well. When we are in our own moments of darkness and despair, when it feels hardest to find the hope of how things could possibly work out or get better, we are blessed to have those around us remind us of all we have already overcome, remind us of who we are and whose we are, remind us of God’s power, promise, and unfailing love.

Just recently I had two such experiences to draw me out of my own darkness and despair: one through the Call To Action Conference in Albuquerque and another at a special commitment ritual for a dear friend following her spiritual path. Surrounded by communities grounded in faith and hope, I was called out of myself and into the deeper reality of the Spirit of Life who is still just as present with us now as she was at the beginning of time. We shared stories of connection, life, reconciliation, and love. Being able to shift my consciousness from myself and my own worries, to the Spirit’s work in the world and reconnect to this larger web of light, life, and love that infuses all of creation, I was able to see and experience the hope that can only come from a deep connection to God and the infinite river of love that is always present for us to tap into.

Looking back at the stories of our ancestors in the bible, at the promises that they believed in even though they did not see them come to fruition, we have the benefit of knowing that a shoot did spring forth from the stump of Jesse, that people of all different backgrounds have been united through Christ, and that we have been gifted with the power of the Holy Spirit to bring about the kin-dom of heaven on earth. Who am I, of little faith, to doubt the power and promise of God in the world today? When I know that in just a couple weeks we will celebrate and remember how God’s infinite love did become incarnate in the person of Jesus, who through his life and message tuned us in to the reality of the kin-dom already present but not fully realized, and tasked us with continuing his holy work.

Advent provides us with a time to remember and prepare anew, to nurture hope so that we can act in faith as co-creators of God’s promise and plan for the world. And the hope we nurture this Advent season is not a passive or lazy hope. It is not a hope that allows us to sit back and wait for things to get better. No, the hope of Advent is an active, energizing hope, fueling a faith that calls us to act for justice here and now in order to bring about the shalom we are promised by our God. It is a hope that connects us to our ancestors and through their stories reminds us that with God, all things are possible. It is a hope fueled by knowledge, the lived experience, of a God who’s love is so big, and infinite, and mysterious that it took on flesh to fully enter into our human experience and free us from all that binds us and separates us.

I want to end with a beautiful quote I saw this week shared by one of our fellow ECC priests, that captures this idea: “Hope is the ability to hear the music of the future. Faith is having the courage to dance to it today.” When we are connected to the Spirit of Life, we can hear the music of a future where all people, and the whole of creation, can cooperate in harmony with one another. Let us have the faith to enter into this dance today, to live the promises of tomorrow. And so as we prepare to welcome Christ into the world anew, let us continue to nurture this active hope in one another to make the kin-dom of God that is already present and promised but not yet fully realized, a reality for all.

Amen

Homily 11.12.16

Homily from ECC Liturgy at Call To Action National Conference in Albuquerque, NM
(This was a shorter time frame and more interactive/smaller crowd)

Gospel: Luke 18:1-8

It’s been a tough week for many if not most of us. When we despair, we turn to our faith for wisdom and insight. The scripture that just happens to be the daily reading for today can offer us some insight into how to respond when facing injustice, when confronting an unjust judge. It also ties into our Conference theme: A Call to Mercy and Justice. How are we called to persistently pursue mercy and justice in the world today?

Did anyone catch the opening lines of our Gospel? What is this parable about? (response: the need to pray always without becoming weary)

So this is a story about prayer. What does prayer look like? (responses: action, protest, incarnation)

The widow in this story is incarnating prayer, making it take on her own flesh as she persistently and without ceasing advocates on her own behalf for justice. Prayer is Protest.

A particularly startling thing about Jesus making the protagonist of this parable a widow, is that she is engaging in uncharacteristic and shocking behaviors for a widow. Widows were quiet, forgotten, marginalized, often had no rights once their husband died, and were reliant on the community for their sustenance. Not this widow. This widow goes to the very seat of power and demands that her agency and humanity be taken seriously. She’s not going to wait for someone else to speak on her behalf. And she won’t take no for an answer!

We don’t have a timeline for how many days, weeks, months, or years she continued to demand justice, but we know that she wore down the judge, and received a just ruling. And we are reassured the God sees our actions and hears our prayers, and if we remain faithful to the persistent pursuit of justice we too will see it come to fruition. It might be a long road, it is sure to be a difficult one, but it is the one we are called to as children of God and people of faith.

So what does it mean to be called to mercy and justice. It means claiming our full humanity and agency, presenting ourselves before the unjust power structures of today, and persistently pursuing justice through incarnational prayer.

We will have an opportunity today to do just that. There will be a direct action at 1:00pm outside this hotel, joining together with local Albuquerque organizations to demand justice for those whose rights and lives have been violated in this community. We will come together to elevate the voices of those who have been victims of fear, hatred, racism, sexism, and homophobia - and say no more. We will not let this injustice continue. We will not remain silent. 

And the widow won’t be going to the judge alone. We will join her in solidarity, not just today but every day. We will demand that our full humanity and holiness be seen, be honored, as well as the humanity and holiness of each of our brothers and sisters. Because we believe that we are One people. One earth. And as such, my liberation is bound up in yours.

Amen

Homily 10.13.16

Homily from the closing Liturgy of the 2016 Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Catholic Communion.

Scripture Readings:
Genesis 18:10-15
Luke 1:26-38

Like our opening song so joyfully proclaimed: Our God is Here! Amen? The Spirit is alive and well, at work in the world, in our beloved Communion, and in each of us present here today and throughout this week.  She has been moving among us, through us, and within us as we have engaged this week in the holy work of being church together, walking together, living into our call as the body of Christ in the world.  We have tried to create intentional spaces throughout the week to tune into the Spirit, to notice how she is moving among us and in us, because as we hear in our readings this morning, God sends the Spirit to bring new life into the world when least expected, where least expected, so we have to pay attention.  

And God speaks to us in many different ways.  Maybe there has been a time this week, where you heard something that gave you a physical reaction: perhaps a knot in your stomach, or goosebumps, or maybe you had an experience that brought tears to your eyes, or made you tremble.  Maybe there was a particular phrase or idea that you heard that has stuck with you, perhaps a refrain from a song or a line from one of the prayers or keynote talks that keeps coming up in your heart and mind.  These are important things to pay attention to, to sit with, to dig deeper into to see what God’s invitation is for you and for us.  

In our Gospel reading tonight we have these two incredible women presented at different ends of the spectrum: Mary who is still a young girl, not yet married, and Elizabeth an old woman married for many years.  Both of these women are invited to bring new life into the world, and neither of them are expecting this invitation when it is presented, and I think it’s safe to assume that no one in their communities was expecting these particular women to bring new life into the world in the way that God was inviting them.  These weren’t wealthy, or powerful, or even well educated women.  Within the Jewish community they were no bodies, a young girl and old crone. And God chose them to participate in her dream for the world.

I love this spectrum that is covered looking at Mary and Elizabeth as book ends, because it reminds us that no one is too young, no one it too old, to collaborate with God’s vision, God’s dream for the world.  No one is too young or too old to offer new life.  No one is too young, or too old, to dream a new dream and make it reality.  We can expand on this to include all of our identities: no one is too female, or too male, or too straight, or too gay, or too white, or too latino, or too black, or too rich, or too poor or too anything in between to collaborate in God’s dream, to bring new life into our Church and into our world.  

Our communion is about the same age as Mary, when she was invited to bring new life into the world.  We are young, but we are not too young to incarnate God’s love in the world, and shake things up for the better.  What seeds might have been planted within you this week that could grow into new life?  What seeds have been planted for new life in our Communion?  And are we willing to say yes, to take the risk of living into that vision, that dream, to step out of our comfort zones and into the mystery?  

[Take 3-5 min. for people to share with a neighbor some thoughts/answers to these questions]

Every time a challenge arises, and we stay, we recommit ourselves to work through it together, we are saying Yes to God’s dream for the world.  Being vulnerable, opening ourselves up to one another to learn and grow, we are saying Yes to God’s dream for the world.  When systems of oppression seek to divide us into categories and pit us against one another, and instead we choose love, mercy, and liberation, we are saying Yes to God’s dream for the world.  My yes to not giving up on you is a yes to unknown mystery God will birth into the world through you.  

What do we need in order to say Yes to the Spirit of Life?  How can we support and encourage one another in our individual Yes and our collective Yes? We need to have strong, deep roots.  In order for Sarah, Mary, and Elizabeth to say yes, to believe in the vision of God for their lives, they had to have deep roots of faith.  They had to be grounded enough, and sourced enough, by God, by the Spirit, that even though they were afraid, even though they doubted and even laughed at God’s plans, they were still connected enough to trust God and say yes.  

Because we know from our readings that they were scared, and they were uncertain.  That’s ok.  We aren’t stuck with our first reaction.  God didn’t say to Sarah, because you laughed and doubted you will no longer bear a son.  God said, you laugh now but just wait, I will still bring new life into the world through you.  Gabriel didn’t tell Mary, because you are confused and afraid God has changed God’s mind and will find someone else to bear the Son of God.  

We get to be scared, we get to laugh at what seems ridiculous, we get to not understand how this could possibly all work out, what it will all mean, AND we can still be open and say yes, in spite of that fear or doubt, because we are deeply rooted in God and sourced by the Spirit.  And because we are not doing it alone.  As Bishop Francis laid out for us in his opening homily, we are walking this road together.  

God reminds us in both readings today, that nothing is impossible, nothing is too wonderful for God.  Isn’t that an incredible message?  Nothing is too wonderful for God.   

Perhaps some of the dreams shared with one another throughout this week might seem too wonderful, too impossible, but not for our God.  I have heard repeated throughout this week about the Catholic impulse toward unity, and I have seen this in the dreams we have shared with one another, taking an honest look at where we have work to do - bridging the gaps that keep us divided across genders, cultures, languages, ages,  titles and roles within our beloved Communion.  I have felt the Spirit moving among us, through us, within us, drawing us closer to her, and the closer we are drawn to her the closer we are drawn to one another.  

I want to end by encouraging you to hold these two questions in your hearts, and bring them back with you to your communities:  What new life is God inviting me to say yes to and share with the world?  What new life might God be inviting the ECC to say yes to, and share with the world?  

As we leave this sacred space we have built together throughout this week, let us make a commitment to not only the nurture the new life growing inside of us, but the new life growing inside each of our sisters and brothers as well, those who are present and those who are not.  Let us be attentive to the unexpected places that God’s life and spirit will burst forth into our beloved Communion.  And let us all be midwives to one another, accompanying one another birthing into reality these beautiful dreams growing inside us.

Amen

Catching Up!

You wouldn't know what a busy past four months I've had by looking at this blog!  Since I started my first semester at Eden Theological Seminary in September my days and weeks have been full, but I've neglected to keep this blog updated with all that fullness!  So, get ready for an end of the year catch up of my various homilies and other reflections from the past four months.  Maybe I'll try to make one of my New Years resolutions to keep this space a bit more current as I'm writing and reflecting on the presence of the Divine in the holy bits and pieces that make up this mystery of life...