Today, we not only graduate our students at the Institute Of Contemporary & Emerging Worship Studies, but I also graduate with my M.Min. degree (Master Of Ministry).

What a rich, community learning experience this has been. At my thesis presentation to the SSU Faculty, Staff and Community on Wednesday, I thanked my beautiful wife, Anita, my three gracious children, Anna, Abigail and Benjamin, and my parents, John and Elsie Wilt (who are here now for my graduation and the commencement exercises).

What a privilege to grow, hard as the process can be. Thanks to all who were praying for me to “finish well” this phase of the journey.

The following are some random, scattered notes on Celtic Christianity from our course this past session. I thought I’d post them out of interest, giving some books to read and targeted insights.

Restoring The Woven Cord
Michael Mitton

Published 12 years ago, it began a renaissance of spiritual connectivity with the Celtic Christian tradition.

Celtic roots go back 1000 years before the Reformation, when all looked toward Rome, but Celtic spirituality was the first expression of Christian faith in the UK. Some believe its the nearest thing to a complete expression of the faith (Mitton).

“Truth is sought and found only in community.”
Walsh and Middleton

Self-deception is less likely if a person is willing to come before his or her peers and to make the decision in community.

In Google, if you type in “Celtic” you get:

Celtic Connection
One of the largest Wikka and witchraft sites

The Celtic Cafe’
Mythology and music

Celtic Origins
Personal histories

But, if Trinity and Jesus are central, you hit the riches.

“a thin place” (iona, st. stephen)
George McCloud

Celtic Christianity is solid in the center and loose around the edges.

For Next Week: Come with a definition of Christian community.

Discerning God’s will in community happens best when the community is healthy.

* How will we live together?
* What will our relationships be like?
* How will we honor God and each other?

For the Celts, the mundane was the edge of glory (Esther DeWaal).

There is no sacred/secular divide.

There is no difference between being religious and being normal.

There is no gap between now and eternity.

All is sacred. All is magnificent. God is ever imminent, ever close.

“Love is not doing the extraordinary thing, but knowing how to the ordinary thing so as to make it holy.”

A thin place: The veil between this world and the next is tissue thin.

A pursuit of all places to be like this. We are thickened by worries, anxieties, fears, stress. Thin in this context means access to God not on occasion, or just on mountaintops, or when we feel but, but being clear that He is ever close.

A theology of “place.” Places they’ve been to that have changed them. God is everywhere, though, right? But a theology of place suggests that sometimes when we go to places we are more open.

There is a distinction between a buzz and a way of life. The art of travel is not in seeing new places, but in seeing old places with new eyes. There is a franticness to today’s buzz seekers; the Celtic sense of thin places spoke to beautiful places, with many over centuries who were open to God in a place, to embracing the glory of the mundane, and then carrying it into the world in all places.

Is Celtic spirituality a quaint diversion that is irrelevant?

“Looking back and understanding helps you shape, craft, fashion and influence what is to come.” Gregg Finley

The Celtic prayers collected in the Hebrides and Isles by Alexander Carmichael in the late 19th century, collected from the highlands, blessings and incantations about milking the cow, warming your hands over the fire, sleeping, waking, birds, elements – mundane things. The mundane is the edge of glory. The book is Charms Of The Gaels: Hymns And Incantations.

The Celts afforded a great deal of wisdom and spiritual authority to women. In 664, there was a meeting called between the Celts and Rome to work out differences at Council of Whitby in Northern England. The meeting was called by Hilda.

The continental church was totally dominated by men, hierarchical and women were subordinate.

The Celts created a spirituality of the mundance, in the misty, cold hills of Scotland and Ireland. We can take great strength from this.

The Celtic tradition arises out of the Druid tradition. The Druids honored their women in a way that was unusual. They had a love of nature, and worshiped nature. They had a strong sense of the supernatural - all was Spirit.

The Celts built churches over spots where there were pagan temples.

St. Patrick’s day, green beer, pubs, etc. Patrick would say “Just go home and pray. You don’t need a buzz. It’s about being faithful in a non-spectacular way.” He was a guy who was in Ireland on a mission to bring the truth of Jesus to the Irish. The Irish pagan folks were led by Druid priests, with both spiritual and temporal authority. A legend/story: Patrick is in conversation with the 3 Druid priests on the shore. The Druids say “All is connected, all things interrelate. It’s cyclical, rocks, trees, us, etc. It is complete.” Then Patrick, after listening, knelt before them, and drew a big circle in the sand. “I understand what you’ve told me about the oneness of it all. He drew a cross in the middle of the circle, and spoke of Jesus, his crucifixion and resurrection. “My message to you, after hearing and respecting, there is a God who can take your circle and ultimately complete it in his death and resurrection.”

Celtic spirituality is built on story and narrative, even legend. Not journalism… but “it’s a story,” don’t be so uptight for facts, etc.

Paul’s teaching on the Body: Every true expression of Christianity is an expression of the Body. (Col. 1:18-20, 1 Cor. 12:27). “We” are the Body of Christ.

Dan’s Note: I wonder if many of the greatest acheivements of human greatness would have happened in this view of community? Individual achievement seems to be necessary.

Why are we here? To prepare God’s people for works of service, unity in the faith… etc.

Paul is speaking to the (Gal. 3:1 - you foolish Galatians, “Keltoi,” that part of Turkey, in Galatians, the Celts. Before Jesus, the Celts, sometimes called the fathers of Europe, occupied all of Europe. Also called “Gauls,” and “Celts”. 1000 BC. People of Celtic origin were throughout Europe.

Came up against Romans, and German tribes (barbarians). Celts would often lose. Pushed further and further west, into low countries, Gaul (Germany), Holland, etc. Julius Caesar beat them, and drove them further, so they went across the English channel to England in 50 BC. The Romans pursued them into Southern England. No place to go except the moments of Wales, highlands of Scotland, and even further, to Ireland. This ethnic body was pushed to the fringes of Europe. The Baskes, the Bretons (Brittany), the Welsh, the Irish and the Scots.

A rough timeline:

50 BC defeated them in the Celtic Wars
Rome controlled England until 410 AD (400 years), most of England was controlled by Rome.
A long way from Rome. The great distance, and water break from the continent, they developed ways of understanding themselves and God and each other, etc. differently from Rome.
They had a different time to celebrate Easter, they dressed differently. The Celtic monks hairstyle was different, shaved front half of hair off, and grew long hair down the back.
Rome had issues - doing things right, Pope’s word goes everywhere, bureaucracy, control, sacred trust to enforce.

In 664 Romans wanted to meet over disagreements. In Whitby today, an old abbey run by Hilda, the Abbess, who called the meeting. Written up by Bede the historian, church lawyers came, Celts come across as not being that well organized, not adversarial for the Celts. At the end of the day, Rome got its way, and Celtic church agreed to everything they were asked. The King of Northumbria, district of Northeast of England, sided with Rome.

Some sources trace decline to there. Rather, it was a “course correction,” reminded who the boss was. Woman to play a lesser role, date of Easter. From the time Rome left, to the Synod of Whitby (400 years), Celtic Christian spirituality flourished. By 1066, the Norman conquest, the Celts had basically been absorbed.

In that 400 years, Patrick and Columba took the message to the Scots, down into England. Brendan the Navigator was an Irishman who got into a coracle, a boat made with animal hides, set off from Northern Ireland into the Atlantic, no sails, believed that God would take them where they needed to go, and many centuries later Columbus included references to Iceland, Southern tip of Greenland and a “land beyond that.” It’s possible that Brendan and his followers found it before 1000.

Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, was at Whitby, a reluctant bishop, would get up early in the morning before Dawn, walk into the ocean, stand in the water praying, as the tide came in up to his neck. The water lapping around his body. He would exit the water, come up onto shore, and the otters would apparently slither up onto the shore and dry him off with their breath. He died, and a cult formed around his body. For hundreds of years his body didn’t decay (now remains are in England); taken out of the grave, and by accounts by church authorities, who say that his body had not decayed.

Iona came first, then Lindisfarne became a branch.

Discernment is personal, but never entirely private.

How do faithful people come together, and discern what God has called us to do. It is a phenomenon, a mystery, and cannoted by notated.

As we step into the riches of the past, the riches of faith, and we step into the mystery of relationships.

The more comfortable we get with love, the more comfortable we get with mystery. A journey of unlearning. With age and experience comes more comfort. Celts were very comfortable with mystery. Imagine a world where praying a prayer of protection was an urgent need. You can’t read. Demons everywhere.

Given the tensions between mystery and certainty, resolve and ambiguity, personal achievement and communal achievement, we must each seek our own life of perfect symmetry, or at least ask the question as to what would a life of symmetry look like for me?

We are learning toward mystery.

Danny Morris and Charles Olson, Discerning God’s Will Together.

“The community of people who have decided, through the history of mankind, to both follow the teaching of Jesus, model their lives after the life of Jesus, and to allow themselves to be led and guided through life by the Spirit of God. Our particular faith community is a microcosm of the larger, living a life of worship, shared journey and mission in a particular context. Often, community leaders are chosen that carry the corporate identity, and reinforce it through the tides of change.”

“Sharing life in Jesus’ Name.”

From The Celtic Way by Ian Bradley. The dominant institution of Celtic Christianity was neither the parish church nor the cathedral, but the monastery, which sometimes began as a solitary hermit’s cell (celtic hermits into a cell or cave), and often grew to become a combination of a commune, retreat house, mission station, hotel, hospital, school, university, arts centre, and powerhouse for the local community. Good people, good ideas, etc. Spiritual energy, learning and cultural enlightenment.

1. Believing
2. Behaving
3. Belonging

Stereotypical mainline church, late 20th century,

You start with “what do you believe.” Catechism and confirmation. If you believe enough of the right stuff, you’re in. After many years of doing the right believing, dressing, behaving, I feel like I’m “home.”

Northumbria

1. Belong – All are welcome. sojourn with us.
2. Believe – They begin to experience the life and vitality of the faith.
3. Behave – The final stage is behavior.

George Hunter - belonging before believing. Celtic Way Of Evangelism.

You have to get used to the taste of beer and the smell of pot if you’re going to hang around youth.

Celtic Christianity

1. Celtic Christianity was essentially monastic (but not necessarily celibate), married folks, singles, children.

Bonhoeffer called for a new monasticism, allegiance with the sermon on the mount. (Life Together).

2. The Celts expressed their faith understanding that worship and mission are one; they are not opposites.

3. The Celts expressed their faith in Hospitality. They were far more into relationships than reputation. Lindisfarne - a prayer cell, and a place to receive guests.

Starting with belonging.

4. All of life is sacred. There is no distinction between regular people and religious people. God’s presence pervades everything; all of life. God was as real in a discussion around the fire as around the Eucharist. Prayers around milking the cow, lighting fires. “The mundane is the edge of glory.” Esther DeWaal. Life is not chopped up and compartmentalized. False dichotomy. Five gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and Creation. We are born whole and good. The Church in Rome declared that to be a heresy, Augustine didn’t like it up and against Pelagius. Doctrine of original sin is still with us. When the mother holds the baby in her arms, this creature is not born evil, in the Celtic mind.

5. They took risks. When all of life is sacred, it can be freely lived, radically, in the hands of the creator. They could dare to discern God’s will no matter what it meant. Thomas Merton called a contemplative person an outlaw. They might do anything; anyone that serious about God. Evangelized much of western Europe.

Unconcerned with institutional structures, but deferred to the authority of Rome and looked to St. Peter’s, anyplace could be a thin place, tree in grove or cathedral, any moment a thin moment, solid in the center and loose around the edges.

Beliefs were solidly biblical, but their culture was loose around the edges. Reach into riches of the past, to help people come to terms. The inspiration for much of Celtic Christianity was the desert fathers of the middle east, not Rome.

Desert fathers are quoted all over in the Celtic Book Of Daily Prayer. The east greatly influenced their ideology.

Pelagius
Romans 5:12ff (last phrase - NIV “because all sinned,” “in that all have sinned”
Augustine vs. Pelagius - is sin associated with Adam’s sin or the sin of each person.
“ef” action of sinning Adam, or
Ps. 51, “in sin” did my mother conceive me. Born sinful?
Comparing Adam and Christ.

Note: Everyone knows that relational learning is the best; learning with people who care is optimal.

Many dreams seem to lack significance and these are eaisily intuitively screend out. Dreams rich in emotion, plot and/or symbolic are almost always potentially significant.

We always dream; remembering depends on when/how we wake up and whether we’re tuned in to paying attention. A notebook by the bed is key when wanting to pay attention.

While some dreams may be sent by God to give us a specific message, in most cases the gift of dreams refers to the their ability to reveal to us important aspects of ourselves.

Dreams naturally speak a language of symbol and metaphor. The meaning of those symbols, while culturally shaped, is idiosyncratic. We know better than any expert the associations of the symbols that occur. However, since we sometimes resist seeing the relevant association, it is sometimes useful to consult others.

Many people believe that people in our dreams primarily represent different aspects of ourselves. Quite probably, they occasionally represent “introjected others” as well.

The emotional content of a dream is often central to its understanding. It is often helpful to consdier what the dream might be saying about places in our lives where we feel the same emotion.

The “meaning” of a dream may reside in it or may be projected onto it. Either can be valid and/or useful.

One of the central purposes of dreams is to raise certain questions and suggest certain alterations of our conscious orientation.

Sometimes it can be useful to do something concrete (perhaps a ritual of a sort) to connect something we feel is significant in the dream with our life.

To have your REM sleep interupted, continually, your memory gets lost. It doesn’t have time to download the information the day before into your memory. Studies are clear. People need deep REM sleep.

An hour or two into sleep, we’re in the deepest sleep. Not dreaming. Then we go into REM cycles

Processing Dreams (Rather Than Interpreting):

Sometimes there is a meaning to draw out, other times, there is a meaning to apply to it.

Recurring Dreams Are Always Significant.

We evaluated some dreams.

Active imagination is a close cousin to inner healing prayer.

Carry through an unfinished dream or nightmare, with a light hand, by daydreaming about it. Bring it to a conclusion.

After his 2 hour “Fire” encounter, he spent his entire life trying to convince people that Christ is real.

The collection is just his thoughts, a book he never finished, what he thought would be the final apologetic convincing everyone that Jesus is the Christ.

Nature shows that God is real, and reflects His beauty.

“Physical science will not always console me…, but the science of ethics will always console me.” I.e. it’s more profitable.

The practicality of his genius. The calculator, the bus (takes the profits and gives to the poor and a hospital). Gave away everything except for his Bible, a’Kempis and Augustine.

Pascal has a 9 month or so gestation, then he has the Fire experience.

198. The sensibility of man to trifles, and his insensibility to great things, indicates a strange inversion.

154. When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant and which know me not, I am frightened and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then. Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have this place and time been allotted to me? Memoria hospitis unius diei praetereuntis.

210. The last act is tragic, however happy all the rest of the play is; at the last a little earth is thrown upon our head, and that is the end for ever.

213. Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.

217. An heir finds the title-deeds of his house. Will he say, “Perhaps they are forged” and neglect to examine them?

229. This is what I see and what troubles me. I look on all sides, and I see only darkness everywhere. Nature presents to me nothing which is not matter of doubt and concern. If I saw nothing there which revealed a Divinity, I would come to a negative conclusion; if I saw everywhere the signs of a Creator, I would remain peacefully in faith. But, seeing too much to deny and too little to be sure, I am in a state to be pitied; wherefore I have a hundred times wished that if a God maintains Nature, she should testify to Him unequivocally, and that, if the signs she gives are deceptive, she should suppress them altogether; that she should say everything or nothing, that I might see which cause I ought to follow. Whereas in my present state, ignorant of what I am or of what I ought to do, I know neither my condition nor my duty. My heart inclines wholly to know where is the true good, in order to follow it; nothing would be too dear to me for eternity.

212. Instability.—It is a horrible thing to feel all that we possess slipping away.

From 194. The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us and which touches us so profoundly that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent as to knowing what it is. All our actions and thoughts must take such different courses, according as there are or are not eternal joys to hope for, that it is impossible to take one step with sense and judgment unless we regulate our course by our view of this point which ought to be our ultimate end. Thus our first interest and our first duty is to enlighten ourselves on this subject, whereon depends all our conduct. Therefore among those who do not believe, I make a vast difference between those who strive with all their power to inform themselves and those who live without troubling or thinking about it.

I can have only compassion for those who sincerely bewail their doubt, who regard it as the greatest of misfortunes, and who, sparing no effort to escape it, make of this inquiry their principal and most serious occupation.

But as for those who pass their life without thinking of this ultimate end of life, and who, for this sole reason that they do not find within themselves the lights which convince them of it, neglect to seek them elsewhere, and to examine thoroughly whether this opinion is one of those which people receive with credulous simplicity, or one of those which, although obscure in themselves, have nevertheless a solid and immovable foundation, I look upon them in a manner quite different.

This carelessness in a matter which concerns themselves, their eternity, their all, moves me more to anger than pity; it astonishes and shocks me; it is to me monstrous. I do not say this out of the pious zeal of a spiritual devotion. I expect, on the contrary, that we ought to have this feeling from principles of human interest and self-love; for this we need only see what the least enlightened persons see.

“I know not who put me into the world, nor what the world is, nor what I myself am. I am in terrible ignorance of everything. I know not what my body is, nor my senses, nor my soul, not even that part of me which thinks what I say, which reflects on all and on itself, and knows itself no more than the rest. I see those frightful spaces of the universe which surround me, and I find myself tied to one corner of this vast expanse, without knowing why I am put in this place rather than in another, nor why the short time which is given me to live is assigned to me at this point rather than at another of the whole eternity which was before me or which shall come after me. I see nothing but infinites on all sides, which surround me as an atom and as a shadow which endures only for an instant and returns no more. All I know is that I must soon die, but what I know least is this very death which I cannot escape.

“As I know not whence I come, so I know not whither I go. I know only that, in leaving this world, I fall for ever either into annihilation or into the hands of an angry God, without knowing to which of these two states I shall be for ever assigned. Such is my state, full of weakness and uncertainty. And from all this I conclude that I ought to spend all the days of my life without caring to inquire into what must happen to me. Perhaps I might find some solution to my doubts, but I will not take the trouble, nor take a step to seek it; and after treating with scorn those who are concerned with this care, I will go without foresight and without fear to try the great event, and let myself be led carelessly to death, uncertain of the eternity of my future state.”

424. The heart has its reasons; that reason knows not of.

Pascal is not saying here that faith is irrational, but rather trans-rational.

Love carried by humility. Humility carrying love.

You carry a stream, an emphasis. Live it, and present it with humility.

All the greatest thinkers of history had something beautiful to say, but also something awful.

Our key verse was:

“If you will return… if you can extract the precious from the worthless, then you will be my spokesman.”

If you can live a life continually coming back to me, not too alarmed by dryness, or depression, or wilderness, if you will continue to return to me, then I will restore you. If you can extract the precious from the worthless, then you will be my spokesman.

“We believe that the task of spiritual formation is to form us. We then rub off on others; we’re always looking for the next mass program, but we are the next thing we have to do.” How do we deepen? How do we rise?

William Seymour - if we pray, and form, then maybe 100 years of missionary expansion will follow us.

“Imagined evil is extremely exciting and draws us in. Real evil is actually very boring. Imagined goodness is extremely boring, but real goodness is the most exciting thing in the world.” Simone Weil (not exact quote)

Simone Weil
From PBS, link here

French philosopher and activist Simone Weil was born into a wealthy, agnostic Jewish family of intellectuals in Paris. She studied and eventually taught philosophy, attracting attention for her radical Marxist opinions. Hoping to understand the working class, she also worked in fields and factories and even participated in the Spanish Civil War. Over time she lost faith in political ideologies and was drawn to Christianity. Her religious writings often emphasized sacrifice and martyrdom through an ascetic lifestyle, a lifestyle that Weil personally adopted and which led to her early death at age 34 from tuberculosis. In this 1943 essay, written during the last year of her life, which she spent working with Gen. de Gaulle in the struggle for French liberation, Weil makes the case for the existence of a transcendent and universal moral law, and describes the social responsibilities that accompany it.

Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (an excerpt)

Profession of Faith

There is a reality outside the world, that is to say, outside space and time, outside man’s mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties.

Corresponding to this reality, at the centre of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.

Another terrestrial manifestation of this reality lies in the absurd and insoluble contradictions which are always the terminus of human thought when it moves exclusively in this world.

Just as the reality of this world is the sole foundation of facts, so that other reality is the sole foundation of good.

That reality is the unique source of all the good that can exist in this world: that is to say, all beauty, all truth, all justice, all legitimacy, all order, and all human behaviour that is mindful of obligations.

At the centre of the human heart is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.”

Those minds whose attention and love are turned towards that reality are the sole intermediary through which good can descend from there and come among men.

Although it is beyond the reach of any human faculties, man has the power of turning his attention and love towards it.

Nothing can ever justify the assumption that any man, whoever he may be, has been deprived of this power.

It is a power which is only real in this world in so far as it is exercised. The sole condition for exercising it is consent.

This act of consent may be expressed, or it may not be, even tacitly; it may not be clearly conscious, although it has really taken place in the soul. Very often it is verbally expressed although it has not in fact taken place. But whether expressed or not, the one condition suffices: that it shall in fact have taken place.

To anyone who does actually consent to directing his attention and love beyond the world, towards the reality that exists outside the reach of all human faculties, it is given to succeed in doing so. In that case, sooner or later, there descends upon him a part of the good, which shines through him upon all that surrounds him.”

This is my favorite book, or message, ever, outside of the Scriptures. What a joy to study it in class. I don’t agree with every small bit, but I do agree with its energy, and its quest to both celebrate God’s glory and celebrate human glory. I find that every time I read it, my eyes fill with tears, and my heart longs, with Lewis, for a far-off country, that is somehow so near.

Here are some favorite quotes from it, but just a few:

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption which you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.”

“But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn.

Apparently what I had mistaken for humility had, all these years, prevented me from understanding what is in fact the humblest, the most childlike, the most creaturely of pleasures — nay, the specific pleasure of the inferior: the pleasure of a beast before men, a child before its father, a pupil before his teacher, a creature before its Creator. I am not forgetting how horribly this most innocent desire is parodied in our human ambitions, or how very quickly, in my own experience, the lawful pleasure of praise from those whom it was my duty to please turns into the deadly poison of self-admiration. But I thought I could detect a moment — a very, very short moment — before this happened, during which the satisfaction of having pleased those whom I rightly loved and rightly feared was pure.”

C.S. Lewis, The Weight Of Glory

I must note this: There are so many riches in this book, and that were pouring from our discussion that I decided to cease taking notes so that I could learn. I must recommend that you read this book twice. Once is simply not enough to absorb its strength.

Thoughts on Bonhoeffer’s Life Together.

Wish Dream: you create ideas of idealism

Psychic Push: the community always has to be better, always pushing, so an ideal and vision is pushed that has a dark human power – empire building. The weak are absorbed into the vision of the strong.

Understood properly, you can’t build it without vision. But, the slavish obedience to “vision” to become the best thing, is “antichrist.”

We never end up being grateful for just what we are; a community.

p. 26 “Looking for some extraordinary social experiences. Confusing Christian brotherhood with some wishful idea of religious fellowship…”

“Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. the serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires…”

“The one who wants community the most, who has dream and disatisfying dream of what it should be, will never simply be grateful for their brother or sister beside them.”

When you have the psychic reality going, the weak are absorbed into the strong. It looks good and other worldly, too good to be true, it probably is worth suspicion. Driven by a human, ugly ideal.

Human community is a fellowship of devout souls. Christian community is a community of the spirit, a friendship.

When you see people or communities working too hard, too long, too much – you are seeing a human drive that is driven by a form of “eros” love; rather, an “agape” love is a lighter yoke; agape doesn’t call you to do what you can’t do, agape make you a certain way and limits its requirements to who you are.

SSU
We prepare the thinkers, not the thoughts

Big, rich, beautiful discussion on mavericks, visionaries, innovators and idealists, and how they contribute to us. When using the community’s resource though, drawing the weak into the visions of the strong. When the leader lacks humility, even in the midst of great vision, the community gets increasingly corrupted.

homolegeo - confess - “to say the same thing” - recitations, songs

“Every Christian community must realize that not only do the weak need the stropng, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of fellowship.”

The Ministry Of Community

1. The Ministry of Holding Ones’ Tongue
2. The Ministry of Meekness (elevating another)
3. The Ministry of Listening (to another)
4. The Ministry of Helpfulness (support)
5. The Ministry of Bearing (the pain, the load)
6. Proclaiming
7. Authority

To confess to one person, is to confess to all. We are a solidarity.

Today is the final day of Master’s work, before our thesis year. It’s been grueling, but more than worth the journey.

Good friends from across the states and Canada will be connected by threads (as the SSU student body prayed for us) of community, and the space between us (thanks, Steph) will be holy ground (Nouwen).

Healing Communities

Healing communities are messy in a good way. There is a quality of disorder, as people aren’t putting up too many false appearances or pretensions.

All that’s great and good, such as healing, can turn into an idol. Even we who typically have some degree of mental illness can do great good.

If God heals you, you must turn toward making justice and peace in the world; more wholistic and less individualistic. Kingdom ethics mixed with Kingdom healing.

If it’s all about taking away your sadness or mine, it’s another cover for self-absorbed faith and western individualism. In a healthy healing community, people are turned outward when they are healed and look to expand the healing.

The Church has always been good at giving stuff to the poor. The next level, we teach the poor to fish (development). The justice level is our issue – making sure that people are allowed to fish.

This morning we spent 3 hours in Ignatian Prayer exercises, all 15 of us in the Master’s, and it was beautiful.

For me personally, the lit candle in the middle of the room became my source of life and the ensign of God’s nearness to us.

I would stare into the flame for a minute or two, then close my eyes. The image of the flame was burned onto my retina. I closed my eyes, and the flickering light remained.

Then, I did it again. This time it was different. I closed my eyes, and saw the negative of the image. The candle and light were dark, and the rest was light.

To see the flame, etched in our souls. To see the absence of the flame, etched in our souls. This is real vision.

Our generation is in need of deep healing, as a pastoral concern in a complex, fragmented, isolated generation. When we resist surrender and withhold worship, we resist the streams of healing that flow from a very present and living God interchanging with us.

I’m not going to post too many notes here, because I won’t get down good material on some controversial ideas. The following are some simple notes only.

Often our intuitive “Pain-Meter” will sense that someone is needing a deep healing work by God. A sense of them being “stuck,” or incapable of finding forward motion.

The raw material we have to work with:

Pain (emotional)
Distorted images of God
Dysfunctional pattern of relationship
Traumatic memory

When these things are there, inner healing prayer is an appropriate response.

While there are tons and tons of books on inner healing prayer, all of them are “popular” books, and non-academic. This is because they are often written by folks from similar faith streams, that emphasize the right brain and experience, and often make claims that the more academic or left-brained people question whether they can make.

Dangers. Inner Healing Prayer sometimes brings and esoteric quality that scares many people because of the possibility of excess.

Training non-professionals to do this kind of therapy, where some highly trained people in many situations won’t touch it, may be like allowing a few lay-trained people to do brain surgery.

Educate your gifts and intuitions. Don’t just practice folk-counseling.

And yet, the equipping of the saints to do all the work of ministry. We all get to play.

But, growing in skill is vital to work that can be dangerous.

In many cases, an ongoing experience that is very painful can be dealt with in a time of inner healing prayer, and people (even in my present class) have come away with the entire sting of that situation completely removed from them. The sting is not there the next time they deal with it. (Wow. I’d love that kind of healing in a few areas of my life).

Again, all these notes are through Dan’s filter, and do not necessarily what is actually being taught in the class.

We watched a fascinating video on a man who had his right and left brain hemispheres separated to lower epileptic seizures.

The right brain reads faces. The left brain reads details. A face made out of fruit is interpreted by the left eye (right brain) as a face, by the left as, as the individual fruits.

Neurons can potentially link up with billions of other neurons, creating exponentially more possibilities than the most advanced computers.

Neurons are “connected” by synapses, that carry electrical impulses, across a small gap, neuron to neuron. At the end of each synapse are neurotransmitters. Dopamine and other drugs enhance or diminish the neurotransmitters. For brains to think clearly, we need the normal functioning of our neurotransmitters.

Mood, energy level, thinking clearly, problem-solving, all are highly affected by our neurotransmitters.

Dead end thinking will re-shape your neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitter issues will re-shape thinking. It’s chicken and the egg, complex questions of what affects what.

If you’ve become dependent on a videogame, TV, or coffee, your neurotransmitters will give you a shot of dopamine. Over time, certain things destroy seratonin levels.

In order to overcome and addiction, there must be a period of “emptiness” from that thing that is releasing dopamine.

Addiction and Grace by Gerald May

Statistics show that as many people break from alcoholism and become moderate drinkers, as break and stay away from it completely.

We consciously process about 40 of the 11,000,000 bits of information that our senses take in per second. The vast majority of our brain activity takes place without our conscious awareness.

Our left brains have an insatiable tendency to explain things regardless of whether those explanations are available or not. The explanations, even while being honest at some level, may well have nothing to do with our actual motivations, feelings or thoughts. In other words, self-deception is a neurological fact.

Our left brain will make up a story to make sense, even if it doesn’t have all the facts. The right brain will seek to keep the left brain honest. Or, the right brain will initiate actions that the left brain will justify.

The consistency of actions, emotions, dreams and other visible things can tell us more about what is happening inside than the explanation a left brain is giving. Words don’t mean as much as consistent actions for what is going on. Hence, a biblical principle – what we do means alot.

Therapy can help put words to actions. “i.e. You’re blaming that person because they remind you of your mother, not because they’re horrible.”

A strong left brain can create stories for the craziest of activities.

While we could fight for the roots of all our personal issues, our core beliefs from childhood, we must remember that the mental health journey is not the only journey.

Healing is particularly enhanced by increasing neural connections between emotion/memory centres (largely right brain) and linguistic/logical centres (largely left brain). Depending on the emotional/personality resources that a person bring with them, trauma creates disconnects between these different neural areas. Therapy can actually enhance and multiply neural connections, even re-connect. The Holy Spirit working, and working with/through therapy can do the same.

PetScans show more diverse blood flow in a greater amount of area when a situation is resolved.

Narratives are one of the most inherently whole-brained activities that we have, music is another. Stories are more linguistic, music is mathematical as well. It changes and flows over time, both story and music. Can heal over time. A static image may need more “time” to linger.

My Best Thought: Creative process can be more healing than a finished product. Your piece of art can articulate the emotion.

Building the connections across the different parts of the brain builds complexity, and that is good when talking about the brain. We want more neural connections.

Rebuilding The Brain: Neuroscience and Psychotherapy

Gaining new information and experiences across the domains of cognition, emotion, sensation, and behavior.

1. Telling stories, and
2. Safe Emergency are the heartbeats of effective therapies.

Combining safety (nurturing, loving, supportive environment in the presence of Jesus) with allowing the emergency to occur. You don’t use the relationship to protect them from the emergency, but rather to go with them into the emergency. Without the healing, the emergency overwhelms.

Narratives that make sense out of the high’s and low’s of life; and “safe emergencies” that walk a person through an experience of stress and pain in the context of a supportive relationship help to make those connections.

Trauma for one is not trauma for another. When a trauma overwhelms you, you tend to isolate it, don’t process it, don’t put it into words. Post-traumatic stress disorder comes from this. When you talk about it, open up about it, write it, it aids process.

Memory is as diverse as the amount of cells involved in the original experience. What’s remembered is the moment when all those associations were in one place. A memory is your brain reconstructing.

How do you have a court system when memory is so unreliable? It is possible that through hypnosis you can regain a memory, but it doesn’t necessarily extract an accurate memory – but rather a reconstructed memory.

You can heal a memory by reassociating it with another sense – maybe of God’s presence and nearness in it. The memory becomes encoded with that new association. When exploring memories, one must watch for suggestion – suggesting things even subtley can set off a chain, embedding the suggestion in the memory.

The feelings that come with a real memory are different than ones with a false memory. Seems more distant and unreal.

We believe in “everyone gets to play,” and that all the saints can do the work of loving ministry, yes. But, we don’t do a few training sessions and allow a person to do brain surgery. Some things need extensive training, and the mental health of the individual doing the training is of vital importance.

RECOVERED MEMORIES, THROUGH DREAMS, THERAPY OR HYPNOSIS ARE NOT ALWAYS RELIABLE. WE ARE RECONSTRUCTING, AND SELF-SUGGESTION, OR THERAPEUTIC SUGGESTION, CAN CAUSE A STORY, EVEN A FULL MEMORY, TO BE CREATED.

For example, up to 2 million people in North America believe that they have been kidnapped by aliens at one point. False memory research asked people to pretend that they’re hypnotized, and to describe the kidnappings. These reports are indistinguishable from others actually under hypnosis. 1) we all want to be special and this makes me special, and 2) it explains why my life is screwed up. We have all sorts of alien and abduction images, stories and scripts to draw from for our false memory, be it of alien kidnappings, sexual abuse, etc. Imagination can enhance this.

Satan Ritual Abuse (SRA), in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s took a similar pattern as the alien abduction memory above - millions declared they had “real memories” of it happening. One reliable source said that today, we do not have one single, verifiable case of an SRA conspiracy. Humans, conspirators or not, are never that good at covering their tracks. And yet, millions of cases were reported. (There may be exceptions, of course). Memories can be created, and environment, relationships and many other elements contribute to this neurotransmitter phenomenon.

Look for much corresponding evidence before indictments are made, as our memories may have been shaped by suggestion, experience or a wide variety of input.

I don’t believe that Jesus was with me in my difficult experience because I had a beautiful inner healing experience. My belief system tells me that He is with me in all things, therefore I applied that reality to the inner healing experience. My faith does not come from my inner healing experience, rather my inner healing experience comes because of my living faith in Christ.

The “brain wash” occurs in fetal development in boys, dissolving many of the synapse connections in the corpus collossum.

Rich imagination (remembered or constructed) and sensory expeirnece are neuurologically very similar. To a large extent, one experiences what one imagines. Contructed thoughts and memories can greatly affect your mind.

Wow. There are incredible implications to this, for our healing. The Holy Spirit can and will greatly aid this process.

If a person is getting healed through a process involving a memory, it may indicate that the memory is true. Studies show that therapy working through a false memory bring a degradation to the condition.

Some say there is a God-spot in the brain where religious activity/spiritual experience is often centered. The atheist says “See, there’s a place that we all want to have stimulated.” Believers say, “See, we’re built to experience and to know God.”

Again, all these notes are through Dan’s filter, and do not necessarily what is actually being taught in the class.

From p. 51, upon the death of Luther’s daughter:

“When his wife wept lundly, Martin Luther comforted her by saying: ‘Remember where she is going. It will be well with her. The flesh dies but the spirit lives. children do not argue. They believe what they are told. To children everything is plain. They die without anxiety, without complaint, without fear of death, without great physical pain, just as if they were falling asleep.’ When his daughter was in the agony of death, he fell upon his knees before the bed, and, weeping bitterly, prayed that God might save her if it be his will. Thus she gave up the ghost in the arms of ther father.”

Ideas written in a letter to Jerome Weller, on battling melancholy, p. 84-87 of Luther’s Letters Of Spiritual Counsel.

1. Persevere.
2. Laugh.
3. Flee Solitude and Enjoy Community.
4. Take Fun.

The same truth must be applied differently in different situations.

A person of Jewish descent can still stand Martin Luther (who showed frequent anti-Semitism) because of these letters. He was a real human being, trying to make a difference for God in his generation. The death of his daughter, the pastoral love and care with which he approached many people, the boldness with which he addressed the powerful.

Faith is the integrating factor, in every situation, for Luther. “You must respond to truth; growth in faith takes you to the answer to this situation.” In my estimation (Dan’s), many of the Christian cynicisms of our day are a direct result of a growing faithlessness in God – respecting the theological tradition of suffering and difficulty to an extreme, and reposing ourselves to no longer exert the energies of faith in every circumstance. Faith proceeds from adoration and worship.

A Quote For Courage
p. 157 “Our rainbow is frail, and their clouds are mighty, but it will appear in the end to whose tune we shall dance.”

A Quote On Suicide
p. 58 “I am not inclined to think that those who take their own lives are surely damned. My reason is that they do not do this of their own accord but are overcome by the power of the devil, like a man who is murdered by a robber in the woods.”

A Quote For Breaking Free From Bondage
p. 86 “Whenever the devil pesters you with these thought, at once seek out the company of men, drink more, joke and jest, or engage in some other form of merriment. Sometimes it is necessary to drink a little more, play, jest, or even commit some sin in defiance and contempt of the devil in order not to give him an opportunity to make us scrupulous about trifles.

We shall be overcome if we worry too much about falling into some sin. Accordingly if the devil shoud say, ‘Do not drink,’ you should reply to him, ‘On this very account, because you forbid it, I shall drink, and what is more, I shall drink a generous amount.’ Thus one must always do the opposite of that which Satan prohibits.”

MY GREAT QUESTION:

Because many of the great Christian leaders, writers and reformers tend to carry a personal battle with pride, they address it most frequently, and have convinced the whole church that the greatest battle of humankind is the virulent pride that elevates oneself above God.

In my estimation, while this is a tandem truth, it is our low view of ourselves that has been the most original systemic evil. Thinking we are not what we are, majestic sons and daughters of God, sparkling among the lesser glories of creation, we strove to become something more.

I long for writings, and to write myself, lessons that cultivate our sense of personal majesty in the light of God – not diminishing God by this recognition, but rather amplifying His glory by living in the center, led by His guidance, of our own.

LESSONS FROM LUTHER ON ADDRESSING MELANCHOLY:

To Jerome Weller, in battling melancholy, p. 84-87 of Luther’s Letters Of Spiritual Counsel.

1. Persevere.
2. Laugh.
3. Free Solitude.
4. Take Fun.

Luther chose his own name – Luther – it means “freedom.” His original name was close to this.

He had a passion for freedom translated into action, an ability to cut to the chase.

It threw Europe into turmoil; it took courage to move ahead with these strong convictions. His theology didn’t remain in an ivory tower, but went to the heart.

PRINCIPLES FROM LUTHER’S LETTERS OF SPIRITUAL COUNSEL

1. Through everything, we’re called to respond with courage, and to grow in faith. (Today, we tend to be more nurturing, like a warm blanket. We soft-pedal things that don’t equip for the long haul. Suffering is a scalpel on one hand, but there is also a bully at work. Jesus responds to suffering with “this isn’t my Father’s will. So he breaks the suffering, and brings the Father’s healing. God’s in control, using suffering to make you better - it’s true in the midst of suffering, refining you, but sometimes there is simply a bully that must be dealt with. Classic Christians state that the way to deal with suffering is to assume its come from the Father. Assume that God knows all about it, respond to it, and expect God to move in you through it).

2. Life here is full of suffering. (Don’t leave because of the plague; stay and take people into your home, care for them. One of Luther’s friends got the plague by kissing a woman on the lips as she was dying, saying “Recieve Jesus, receive Jesus.”

3. God sends suffering to test us.

4. The next life will make it worthwhile. (Jacquie Pullinger, “So much of this life will only make sense in the day of the Lord.” How we view the next life will totally determine this one.)

5. A relationship with Christ is more important than any loss.

6. Medicine is of some value, though more may be happening than natural causes reveal.

7. The devil is to be fought, and this included melancholy.

8. Help the poor even if some are unworthy. (he lived in the years of rulers; he worked for the poor and thought it was a great use of his time, p. 186)

9. Mercy is an underlying principle. (p. 175, to John of Saxony, poor friars are complaining, Luther’s “enemies” on one hand, we must take good care of them; they’re old and need aid.)

10. Tough love is appropriate in some cases. (p. 146-7. To Melancthon. Speaking on Luther’s behalf. Kicks his butt. He is also hard on his wife’s anxiety for him.)

11. The importance of home. (his wife, p. 107, his “pope.”)

“He who has God and everything else, has no more than he who has God alone.”