Homeless Shelter Spirituality

A significant number of my friends at seminary are dedicating their summers to homeless shelter work. I am humbled and warmed by their selflessness, especially at a time when sniping large-profile church internships is so en-vogue. Which is why I stopped to think about a recent blog entry that caught my eye: in a less-than-nuanced tirade against Christian brainwashing, Rev. Jessica Sideways poses the following intriguing question: 'why is it that Christians run homeless shelters...[while] atheists do not do anything for humanity?' For what it's worth, the aforementioned seminarians all do happen to represent different stripes of Christianity: Lutheranism, Disciples of Christ, Presbyterianism, etc.

Obviously, the question presupposes a dangerous level of generic abstractionism - many Christians do not work with the homeless, and I'm sure many atheists charitably donate their time and energy to such noteworthy causes. Yet, as Rev. Sideways continues her diatribe, an unsettling array of additional enigmas surface. She writes:

I know that this sounds quite paranoid but they ARE trying to get to people in their most stressful, weak states in order to brainwash them into believing the Jesus nonsense. They ARE abusing people in their most vulnerable state...I have seen homeless shelters that require their clients who want to have a bed there to attend classes to implant ideas into their head about Christianity that are just not true...This is very manipulative and it is a very dark, creepy thing that these religious people do.

A couple thoughts come to mind: while I remain highly skeptical of any mandatory religious instruction, I am hard pressed to categorically dismiss Christian shelter work as a subversive plot to 'abuse' and 'brainwash' the most vulnerable sectors of society. For one, this description fails to account for the countless venues that offer life-saving services through federal funds (hence, work or sobriety requirements replace religious ones). Secondly, as my good friend Jeannie playfully and insightfully asks: 'where are all these homeless converts'? Further, it is only from a position of privilege that we can adjudicate the worth of 'a consciousness free from contact with Jesus' in comparison with the basic human necessities of housing, warmth and food. What violence do we perform when we write such work off as worthless - even harmful - merely because it offends our personal cognitive sensibilities?

I am much more inclined to take Rev. Sideways' probing inquiry as a call to action. At their inception, many religiously-based homeless shelters came into existence to meet a dire (and theretofore unfulfilled) human need, benefitting in turn from the sustaining faith of parishioners and the circulating nature of church volunteerism. In turn, most have become secularized or disconnected from their spiritual origins. Today, whether Christian, atheist or any label in between, we should build our theologies (or philosophies) from the ground up, as we donate our lives to the betterment of others. Let us discover what the Jesus-of-the-homeless-shelter looks like first hand. We might even be transformed in the process.

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Pentecost

In celebration of Pentecost Sunday, Rev. Andrew James Brown closes his meditation with the words of Cliff Reed, a Unitarian and Free Christian minister in Ipswich:

We are the Christians who move on...
carrying with us the free and timeless heart of Jesus,
faithful to what was said and done in love for liberty by him, by those who follow him,
by those who give his spirit voice and flesh in every time and place.

I find the intersection between Pentecost and the experience of movement poignant. After all, in the Hebrew Bible, the occasion represented a feast of harvest (Heb. Shavuot) that commemorated natural growth in the fields. In the Christian context, the day recorded in Acts begins with 'the rush of a mighty wind' (Acts 2:2). The great mystery of the Holy Spirit's descent, then, is marked by the transitory, the fleeting, the passing, The celebration reminds us that new life, new power and new blessing are to be found in the kinetics of the soul and in the workings of the unexpected.

An anonymous proverb reads: “Every time I find the meaning of life, they change it.” On Pentecost, we pause to find God working in those novel tides crashing against the cliffs of human history.

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Hospitalization

As I gradually recover from my extended hospital stay, I cannot help but lift up a prayer that touched my soul in a time of torment:

O Brave and Powerful God, Ocean of Peace and Calmness, I have fallen into a pit - please, take my hand. Bless life with the gentle touch of a healing resurrection.

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Sharing Global Faith - Issue II

Sharing Global Faith gathers Unitarian and Universalist voices from around the world in a unique devotional e-resource. Reflecting on various aspects of faith life, participants share spiritual insight into the stories and thoughts that fuel their ministerial call. Distributed monthly from April until September 2009, the publication seeks to deepen international connections and nourish the individual spirit.

In the second installment, three global luminaries explore the meaning of FREEDOM to our faith tradition by reflecting on the words of great American singer and activist Paul Robeson. We are honored to include the following contributions:

Rev. Steve Dick (former Chief Executive, General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches in Great Britain) sings of freedom’s unending revelation and passion for engaging difference.

Rev. Roux Malan (Unitarian Church, Cape Town) locates in human freedom the need for a ‘spacious spirituality’ that binds peoples together in sustainability.

Rev. Bill Sinkford (President, Unitarian Universalist Association) lifts up the great responsibility that accompanies humanity’s fate to freedom.

More HERE.


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Distinguishing Soul From Spirit

After preaching one Sunday morning, an enthusiastic and thoughtful man approached me with the following question: how to conceptually and theologically distinguish between the soul and the spirit? Needless to say, I failed to produce a comprehensive articulation of the soul-spirit link on the spot. However, with a bit of time for reflection, I believe I have arrived at a temporary consensus that works well in my own life:

The soul, it seems, refers to that innate longing of the individual to reach out to and connect with the interdependent web - human and divine. Inversely, the spirit describes the holy's indwelling in the individual by way of the collective - a binding together of selves in spiritual solidarity.

Jewish tradition helps gesture towards this malleable expression: in terms of the soul, we read that God ‘breathed the breath of life’ into Adam and he became a ‘living soul’ (Genesis 2:7). Hence, the soul operates as an animating principle or actuating cause of an individual life - in effect, a spiritual principle embedded in the human (and non-human?) experience. Spirit, on the other hand, derives from the Hebrew ruah, suggesting wind or breath - perhaps the 'breath of life' above. Thus, it embodies a vital life force moving within and through people and places.

I also find traces of this distinction in the Sri Guru Granth Sahib. On Pannaa 18, Guru Nanak Dev emphasizes the individuality of humanity's need for sacred relationship:

ਸਚੁ ਮਿਲੈ ਸੰਤੋਖੀਆ ਹਰਿ ਜਪਿ ਏਕੈ ਭਾਇ
Those contented souls who meditate on the Lord with single-minded love, meet the True Lord.

In Raag Maaroo on Pannaa 1096, Guru Arjan Dev Ji emphasizes the collective nature of the spirit:

ਇਕਿ ਵਿਚਹੁ ਹੀ ਤੁਧੁ ਰਖਿਆ ਜੋ ਸਤਸੰਗਿ ਮਿਲਾਈਆ
You enshrined spirit within, which merges with the Sat Sangat, the True Congregation.

Perhaps most illustratively, Guru Gobind Singh paints the reciprocity and relationality of the spirit and soul in Dasam Granth: "O Individual soul, this is All-Pervading spirit of the universe" [Pannaa 326].

The two, then, interpenetrate in multivalent mutuality.

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Gaining Trust

In her blog entry entitled 'Trust and Obey,' Kit Ketcham navigates between skepticism and 'reckless trust' to arrive at a place of "not being afraid but relying on the wisdom and skill of others to help me."

Her disposition resonates profoundly. On my view, however, this trust resides not necessarily in the mind (i.e. a rational abdication of anxious agency) but rather somewhere deep in the belly of the spirit. Trust implies faith in that which is somehow moving-beyond both the orbit of the self (hence, the reliance on others) and the confines of the knowable (towards the Great Mystery). Trust demands a humble recognition of human frailty and finitude, alongside an impulsively flamboyant exclamation of gratitude for the promise of being and becoming. As such, trust speaks to the habituation of a willingness and openness to the flow of the universe.

On Pannaa 1106, Devotee Jaidev pens the following:

ਅਰਧਿ ਕਉ ਅਰਧਿਆ ਸਰਧਿ ਕਉ ਸਰਧਿਆ ਸਲਲ ਕਉ ਸਲਲਿ ਸੰਮਾਨਿ ਆਇਆ
I worship the One who is worthy of being worshipped. I trust the One who is worthy of being trusted. Like water merging in water, I merge into the Lord.

Much as water cascades over rocky tiers with the grace of adaptive elegance, so too trust enables us to endure rugged terrain with the dignity of fluidity.

O Source of Virtue - luminous source of hope - may I ever merge into Thee.

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Prayer for Life

O God,
Commanding Castalian Composer -

How my body breathes your sweet song
When the lute strikes notes without being touched.

Hear the violin sing softly of playful aspiration!
Hear the cello moan rudely of decisions fraught with fear!
Hear the trumpet blast hastily towards futures yet unknown!
Hear the clarinet hum steadily of days and nights in turn!

Your sacred water enflames my soul,
Overflowing with pleromatic joy-
Have You once again conducted Your creation?

May it always be so.


[Inspired by discussion with Kerry Maloney and Pannaa 730]

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