CECoP Book Study

Getting Started on "To Heal a Fractured World"

2010-07-20T10:25:00.000-07:00

I hardly know where to start with this one. Our last book was great, and full of things to think about, but compared to this book it was pretty easy to zoom in on something and pop it out for discussion. Rabbi Sacks' book is much thicker; every time I try to dive in and bring something up to look at more closely I end up spending half an hour under water and come up with my empty fingers all wrinkly.

Perhaps I'll just start by stating one of Sacks' central themes--one that informs most of the other things he has to say in the many pages to come. In the very first chapter he writes, "One of Judaism's most distinctive and challenging ideas is...the idea that God invites us to become...his 'partners in the work of creation'". It is this intimate involvement in making the world better that I find so compelling. It's not that we can save the world (or ourselves for that matter) without God, but we do have a role to play. There's a sense that God needs us to do something about the way the world is. I find this empowering and encouraging. You can find similar sentiments in Christian thought of course, but the way Rabbi Sacks puts it makes it clear.

Are there others out there reading along? There are three of us reading the book and meeting Sunday afternoons at my place. We've been wrestling along and would love to hear from another voice!

An Altar In the World: Wrapping it Up

2010-06-30T09:43:00.000-07:00

I think I was supposed to have posted this last week, but you all have been doing a fine job in the comments section. Now that we're all on the same page (hi Mary!) let's wrap it up for now.

Are people finished? I've had many say that while easy to read, this is a book that leaves itself open to lots of thinking. I've enjoyed the opportunity to go back through it, even though I read it for the first time earlier this year. What are you left with after finishing? Any general impressions that you'll be taking away? Or maybe smaller, more specific points are sticking with you?

Thanks in advance for participating in this online book discussion. I've enjoyed the opportunity, and while I missed the in-person contact, given people's schedules this was a big improvement over nothing at all. Enjoy the summer, and keep reading!

An Altar in the World, Chpts. 4-6

2010-06-15T10:06:00.000-07:00

How's it going, readers? We had some good discussion last week, and several people checking in to say they were starting late but had begun the book. Where are people at? What is jumping out at you? Do you love it? Hate it? Check in please.

This week's assigned chapters were four through six. We covered The Practice of Walking on Earth (Groundedness), Getting Lost (Wilderness), and Encountering Others (Community). My personal favorite subject amongst these chapters is the getting lost theme.

I imagine that one's fondness for getting lost is linked to one's ability to get found again. Barbara Brown Taylor starts chapter five off with some very pleasant descriptions of getting lost: wandering through a meadow and taking a scenic route through town. This is being lost only in the sense that you are not on your very most well known paths. It barely counts as being lost if you know exactly what to do in order to return quickly and without trouble to a place you know well.

Taylor acknowledges that these are "benign forms of getting lost (pg. 72)", but asserts that if we are so uncomfortable with lostness that even straying from a well-worn convenient footpath makes us nervous, then we will be ill prepared for any serious lostness that life might throw at us. We are intentionally mashing metaphors here: physical lostness (i.e. not knowing where you are or how to get where you want to go) is a powerful metaphor for--but not the same thing as--spiritual lostness, which is a crisis more about meaning than about location. I like this metaphor mash-up a great deal, but you may not.

At this point I'm going to go into an extended digression about driving, and maps, and GPS. If that sounds painful to you, jump ahead to the last couple paragraphs. I learned to drive in the town I grew up in. Many of you probably share this experience. I never had to think about how to get where I was going, because I'd been there before a hundred times, even if I hadn't been driving then. My navigation at that point was entirely instinctual and organic. I still have a hell of a time deciding which way north is in the town I grew up in.

When I moved away for college, all of a sudden I had to learn how to drive around a town I didn't know. I had to use maps. I know without a doubt which was north is when I'm in Spokane, WA, because I learned how to navigate that town by using a map. These were the days of Triple A maps.

Things have changed a lot navigation wise in the past decade or so. I haven't bought a map in a long time. I remember being so impressed by Triple A's famous "Trip Ticks", which were linear maps of your planned route that you could order in advance of a long drive or vacation. Google will now produce these instantly and for free. Anytime I needed to go somewhere new, I just printed out a new map.

My main form of transportation in Seminary was a motorcycle, which necessitated a different kind of navigation. If you're going somewhere new on a motorcycle, you pretty much have to memorize how to get there, because it's really hard to unfold a map while riding. Even if you have one of those snazzy tank bags with a clear plastic map bag on top, staring down at a map while hurtling along on two wheels is a pretty bad idea. For three years I navigated by memorizing where I was going before I left. If I forgot, I had to pull over and stop, get out the map, and memorize some more.

When we moved to Puyallup, J and I got a nifty new car with built in GPS. Taylor could probably have added a whole other chapter on how GPS gives us the illusion of never being lost. It is insidious. I had been to Tacoma General Hospital at least three times when I had to drive someone else's car there one day. I was halfway there and headed in the generally right direction when I realized I had no idea where I was going. I had previously just followed the GPS voice without paying much attention to where I was. How's that for a metaphor for spiritual lostness? (I've since learned to use the GPS to improve my knowledge of where I am. Since the machine always gives three routes to where I tell it to go, I'll sometimes pick the odd one just to see a new way to get somewhere.)

All of this is a long way of saying, isn't it interesting how many different ways there are for us to pay attention (or not) to where we are? The link between physical lostness and spiritual lostness says that this is a truth of faith as well as a truth of driving.

One last note about getting lost. It is very popular nowadays to say that kids are too well sheltered, too well protected, too safe to really grow up. We look with nostalgia back to days when kids could wander wherever in received safety. I'm willing to believe that is might be necessary for kids to experience wilderness (it might be necessary for adults too), but I'm not sure there's a practical way to implement this. I recommend this article by a mom who holds these opinions and then has to actually experience what it's like to lose her son, for however short a time.

So, there we are. There were two other chapters of course, but I'm out of thoughts for now. Jump in with whatever you want, comment-wise. I hope you're enjoying the book!

An Altar in the World: Intro - Chpt. 3

2010-06-08T10:35:00.001-07:00

Barbara Brown Taylor begins the introduction to her book, An Altar in the World by citing the popular line, “I am spiritual but not religious.” Personally, I was hooked right in at that point, since that phrase is so often given to me as an offering by those who don’t attend church. Like the author, I’m not entirely sure if this is meant as an excuse, an indictment, or an invitation.

A couple months ago Jieun and I brought together two couples, both of whom were well known and loved by us but completely unknown to each other. When couple A discovered that both members of couple B work for Hallmark Cards, there was an immediate conversation about whether or not and how often Hallmark cards were purchased by couple A. Sometimes I feel like this is what is going on when I tell people I’m introduced to that I’m a priest. “Oh,” they say, “I don’t go to church (I don’t buy Hallmark cards), I’m spiritual but not religious (but I think they’re really great).” Probably there’s more going on here, but that might be some of it.

My original intention with this book study was to pair a real time discussion with an online conversation. Thus I would report here on the blog the contents and interesting questions raised in real time for the benefit of those participating online. It turns out that people are either really busy, unavailable for three weekends in a row, or too polite to take someone else’s spot, because nobody is participating in real time. So instead of reporting online, I’m just offering a bit of commentary and a few of my own thoughts. Hopefully this will spur some comments and we can all share a few reflections.

Taylor’s book is explicitly a book about how to be both spiritual and religious, whether or not you go to church, subscribe to a particular belief set, or believe in a specific creed. The introduction and first three chapters really set up the book and establish her pattern. I particularly enjoyed the second chapter, “The Practice of Paying Attention”. In fact, I found myself trying out the author’s suggestion for grocery store checkout lines and was startled to learn that I never do make eye contact with the checkers. I’m always polite, and was remembering that politeness as being a connection, but when I actually made a connection it was a completely different feeling. This experience in and of itself was pretty interesting, but Taylor connects it to the concept of reverence. This is reverence, she claims, not simply bending a knee towards the altar, but really paying attention to the people around you—recognizing them as fellow creatures.

Chapter three, on Incarnation, ought to be a central chapter for Christians, as it addresses one of the very core doctrines of our faith. I wonder how you found this chapter? Did it clarify anything for you, or perhaps grant an additional insight into how incarnation affects our unique outlook on God? I’m curious as to what you all think.

OK, let’s get this started. Post a comment, ask a question, share a thought. Let us see if this distributed-network-book-study thing will work.

Everybody say "Hi"

2010-06-03T09:13:00.000-07:00

Sunday is the official start date for our first book of the summer. As of this morning there aren't any signed up to study in real time, but several have indicated they would be reading along. If you plan to join us in reading the book and discussing it here on this website, please say hello in the comment section. If you have a Gmail address, you should already have a profile for commenting. If you don't, they are easy to acquire. If you're not interested in having one, you should be able to comment anonymously--just don't forget to sign your name so we know who you are.

Our First Book

2010-05-20T11:15:00.000-07:00

OK, CECoP Book Studiers, it's time to get into our first book. Here's a quick review and some suggested first steps.

I first heard Barbara Brown Taylor's name years ago in seminary. At the time using all three of your names was kind of the in-thing to do, but I already had my fan slot used up (Sarah Michelle Gellar, if you must know) so I didn't read any of Taylor's books until long after I should have. This past Fall the Discernment Group passed around a pile of books on vocation and discernment so that we could each take one and report back to the group on our reading. I took Taylor's Leaving Church and really, really enjoyed it.

Enjoyed it so much in fact that I promptly bought her latest book, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith (doesn't it seem like subtitles are now what using all three of your names was back in the mid-90s?). Leaving Church was great, but its intended audience was pretty small. Outside of ordained clergy in the Episcopal church, it seemed to me that only die-hards would we interested. Altar is much more widely of interest and should appeal to anyone who has spent time thinking about making their Sunday morning worship connect to their every day lives. More than that though, this book is for people trying to do that while not shutting off half their brain or entering a different worldview from the one the rest of the humans typically live in.

Each chapter in Altar is based on a practice: The Practice of Waking Up to God, The Practice of Paying Attention, The Practice of Feeling Pain. This aims to be a very practical book about how to practice faith in very normal kinds of situations. In that sense it is a book following in a long tradition of religious gurus, for isn't that what a saint does, makes the everyday alive with God?

An Altar in the World is a pretty easy read; it's light enough for summer with short, easily digestible chapters, but the ideas and practices contained within are also plenty deep enough for some serious examination and exploration. I encourage you to pick up a copy and read along. There's still room in the IRL book group (In Real Life) if you can meet the time/date constraints, or else you can follow along and participate here on the blog.

Altar is still in print and widely available at major booksellers virtual or physical. Used copies are abundantly available on Amazon.com, and the Puyallup and Pierce County libraries both have copies. The reading assignments for the book study are as follows:

June 6th: Introduction through Chapter 4, pages xiii - 68.
June 13th: Chapters 5 through 8, pages 69 - 120.
June 20th: Chapters 9 through 12, pages 121 - 209.

Meeting for the in-person group are at 7pm on Sunday evenings at my house. Please send an email to save yourself a spot and get directions.

I hope you'll read along this summer and put your two cents in, either in person or in the comment section below.

Announcing Two Summer Book Study Series

2010-05-13T10:17:00.000-07:00

This summer, I'll be trying out a new format for adult education. I read several really great books last year, and I'd like to share them with you. How to do that though? Everybody is busy; when could we meet? Should it be a large group so more people can participate, or a small group for better conversation?

I've hit upon an idea that I think might work. I'd like to try and combine an intimate conversation that will take place in real time and in person with an online component that anyone can take part in at whatever time is convenient.

The real time conversations will take place at my house, on Sunday evenings at 7:00pm. The first session, featuring Barbara Brown Taylor's "An Altar in the World", will begin on June 6th and continue through June 13th and 20th. The second session, covering Rabbi Jonathan Sacks' "To Heal a Fractured World", will begin on July 11th and continue through the 18th and 25th. For those of you who have been to my home before, you'll already know that space is limited. I figure we can seat a maximum of 6 or 7 people and still have room for me. This will make for a nice, intimate discussion group. If you're interested in participating in one of the real time series' you can sign-up by sending me an email. Due to the limited space, please only sign up if you can attend all three sessions of the conversation, and for now only sign up for one of the two sessions. If demand is high, I'll happily repeat these two great books in the Fall.

The online component of the conversation will work like this: before each series I will post here an overview of the book we'll be reading and some initial questions and/or themes to watch out for. Pages covered in each session will be posted in the sidebar so we can all stay on the same page. After each real time session, probably the next morning in the office, I'll write up a report of our conversation including any questions, criticisms, or epiphanies we might have had. Folks following along here at the blog can participate either by simply reading what is published here, or by posting their own comments to each report. Hopefully we can get some good online conversation going.

So, that's the plan! We'll see how it goes. If it works, I'm happy to continue running book study groups like this indefinitely. I can't imagine running out of books, but if I do I can always pick a new one and read along with yall. Stay tuned for more details on the upcoming books, and have a reading summer!