life Archives - Page 14 of 30 - Lisa Colón DeLay

Prayer of Communal Lament: For Franklin Regional HS

My small hometown–Murrysville, PA–is undergoing a time of shock and pain because of the Alex Hribal’s attack. Two steak knives and a blood bath. Many heroes were made, but the event was and is traumatic–rocking the community to its core.

My young niece (the daughter of my brother’s who is a Franklin Regional Alumnus from the 1990s) was not allowed to attend her classes at the elementary building at Franklin Regional and her street shut down as FBI, State Police, and legions of first responders, media, and others have swarmed the scene.

My family’s church, the church were I was married, mourns as an entire community and feels trauma and pain deeply because several from their youth group teen were wounded. Some of them have undergone surgery.

All are expected to survive. Praise be to God for that grace.

It would be easy to say this youth of 16 years old is a monster, but students attest that he was very nice. Answers for why it all happened are left unanswered at this time.

In these times, the community of faith raises its voice in communal lament. We are comforted by each other and by a good God who is with us in our pain.

Sadly, violence has become a normal occurrence in school settings… and it may be your hometown that suffers next. But, parish the thought!

If not that, than surely you and your community will encounter pain and loss.

For that, here are some thoughts on Communal Lament.

1. About 1/3 of the Psalms are songs of lament. They are meant to be sung as prayers. They can be read with that in mind.

2. God invites us to cry out in our pain, not to suppress it, or put on a “happy face”. That kind of honesty dignifies our feelings and helps us feel our emotions fully, so we can move toward healing.

3. Communal laments are always meant to be expressed in the context of ongoing faith and trust in God.

4. Our laments (communal and individual) are a normal response to the pain and loss of life and living; they help us experience greater bonds of community and healing from God.

5. Laments of the psalms are unvarnished. That is an important quality to understand. They depict the anguish, desperation, pain, and messy feelings that often smack of ill-intension toward enemies and abusers, in parts. They may seem to condone retaliatory violence. But, that’s not the end of the story (song)…

6. If the reader or hearer pays close attention, she or he will notice each song ends in hope and trust in the Lord. This is key to the communal lament. All is left in God’s hands.

(In this way, our burdens lift and our faith grows.)

7. Communal laments are a cry from a whole group for Justice (things to be put to rights) and this ultimately necessitates the elements of…

• Mercy

• Forgiveness

• Reconciliation

• Restoration

• Redemption

Here is a resource on the types and categories of Psalms. May they be of comfort to you.

Join with your community and raise your voices in lament when your hearts are heavy with sadness, pain, and grief.

For your reflection:

Psalm 63

A psalm of David, regarding a time when David was in the wilderness of Judah.

1 O God, you are my God;
I earnestly search for you.
My soul thirsts for you;
my whole body longs for you
in this parched and weary land
where there is no water.
2 I have seen you in your sanctuary
and gazed upon your power and glory.
3 Your unfailing love is better than life itself;
how I praise you!
4 I will praise you as long as I live,
lifting up my hands to you in prayer.
5 You satisfy me more than the richest feast.
I will praise you with songs of joy.

6 I lie awake thinking of you,
meditating on you through the night.
7 Because you are my helper,
I sing for joy in the shadow of your wings.
8 I cling to you;
your strong right hand holds me securely.

9 But those plotting to destroy me will come to ruin.
They will go down into the depths of the earth.
10 They will die by the sword
and become the food of jackals.
11 But the king will rejoice in God.
All who trust in him will praise him,
while liars will be silenced.

What is Celtic (Christian) Spirituality?

In recent years there has been renewed interested in the unique flavor of Christianity from the Celtic region. The Celts transformed their paganism into devote Christian practice and belief, but their connection to nature and to each other in community continued to flavor their understanding and practice of Christianity.

The ultimate Druid (their word for a priest) was then, Jesus, the Christ, Son of the Living God.

After the area was first introduced to Christianity, it became largely cut off from the world and also the massive changes in Christianity that happened once it became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Subsequently, Christianity evolved and soon involved in the power and authority of the (Rome-based) Roman Catholic Church who dominated and influenced life and culture during the middle ages in almost all of the Western civilized world (except the areas that were not subjected to the influential jihads of Islam).

Most Protestants don’t realize the deep and prevailing influence that the Roman version of Christianity has on how they understand, and practice their faith. Many widespread notions in the Western church, even today, began during the Middle Ages and stemmed from Rome.

Empires have a knack of distorting things for their own gain. Religious empires are no exception.

It’s insightful to see how Celts lived out their spirituality and it can add to our own understanding and growth to learn some things from them.

Here is the wikipedia article to expand your general understanding.

Here are some distinctions:

Distinctive Features of Celtic Christianity:

-love of nature and a passion for the wild and elemental as a reminder of God’s gift.

-love and respect for art and poetry.

-love and respect for the great stories and “higher learning”.

-sense of God and the saints as a continuing, personal, helpful presence.

-theologically orthodox, yet with heavy emphasis on the Trinity, and a love and respect for Mary, the Incarnation of Christ, and Liturgy.

-religious practice characterized by a love for tough penitential acts, vigils, self-exile, pilgrimages, and resorting to holy wells, mountains, caves, ancient monastic sites, and other sacred locations.

-no boundaries between the sacred and the secular

-unique Church structure:

-there were originally no towns, just nomadic settlements, hence the church was more monastic rather than diocesan, resulting in quite independent rules and liturgies.

-also, Ireland was very isolated and it was hard to impose outside central Roman authority.

-influenced much by (original/early Christianity) middle-eastern and coptic monasticism.

-they celebrated Easter and Lent according to the ancient calendar system.

-Irish tonsure shaved the front of the head (like the druids).

-abbots had more power than the bishops.

-monasteries often huge theocratic villages often associated with a clan with the same kinship ties, along with their slaves, freemen, with celibate monks, married clergy, professed lay people, men and women living side by side. (Sometimes monasteries “raided” other monasteries, esp. during the period of the Anglo-Norman invasion.)

-while some monasteries were in isolated places, many more were were at the crossroads of provincial territories.

-women had more equal footing in ancient Irish law, thus had more equal say in church government. (Did St. Bridget receive Holy Orders and act as an Abbot?)

-developed the idea of having a “soul friend” (anmchara) to help in spiritual direction.

-invented personal confession.

-monks traveled as “Peregrinari Pro Christ” (White Martyrdom).

-many pagan practices were “Baptized” such as St.Stephen’s Day, and the resorting to holy wells, and many monasteries were built on pagan sacred site (as evident in the names Derry, and Durrow).

Read more here.

Prayer Attributed to St Patrick, missionary to the Celts:

I arise today,
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of the sun, radiance of the moon.
Splendor of fire, speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind, depth of sea,
Stability of earth and firmness of rock.
I arise today,
Through God’s strength to pilot me:
God’s might to uphold me, God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me, God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me, God’s hand to guard me,
God’s way to lie before me, God’s shield to protect me.
From the snares of devils, from temptation of vices,
From everyone who shall wish me ill,
Afar and near, alone and in a multitude

Faith = a Basket of Eggs: In Tribute to David A. Dorsey

So, a dear man died one week ago. Dave, to his students (because he preferred this), and Dr David Dorsey, PhD officially. On Tuesday the chapel was packed for his funeral as hundreds resolutely braved sub zero wind chill to pay respects, support his family, share memories and express their sadness at the loss. For us who remain in this world and knew him the hole of his absence hurts. It actually feels painful.

If I tried to tell you all the things that I loved about my former Old Testament Professor, or the countless benefits to me, or the simple and genuine ways he loved on me and others, I would be typing for days. Suffice it to say just about everyone on Tuesday was in tears and everyone felt the weight of the loss as we remembered his light in this world.

In the next few weeks I hope to share some of the insights I gleaned from this amazing scholar and human being.

For now, I’ll share with you something Dave taught us about faith. Granted, I won’t do it justice; and if you read this and heard differently from him, please add your own amend in the comments section.

So, here goes…
He said the faith of the patriarchs of Israel might not be the kind of faith we suppose it is. Hebrews 11 gives us a “Hall of Fame” of the faithful. We may think that these people trusted and relied on God. They did. But we get the pedigree of it all wrong. The practice of faith is much richer than we might suppose, especially at first glance reading the list of the faithful.

Instead, it’s something like this:

Faith is not about being hopeful about what lies beyond the bend in the future. It not really about a “blind” ascension to trust either. Those are good and important in their ways, but when we speak of the life of faith in terms of the Old Testament faithful, like Abraham leaving everything he knew for the wilderness for instance, we are really talking about a concept much like “putting all your eggs in one basket.”

That’s how Dave put it. The word picture stuck and it stuck good.

With the Life of Faith…
You are deeming God good, trustworthy, and loving and then you put it all on the line.

(So, it’s rarer than you think!)

You stop hedging your bets. You stop saving a little security for yourself. You stop holding something back that gives you a sense of control. You bet the whole thing. You leave nothing back. You. go. in. wholly.

Sometimes, I find eggs in my pockets, or around the house, or in places that I didn’t know they were, like a weird easter egg hunt. Not chicken eggs, of course, but the eggs of my worries. I may have thought I handed the basket over, and perhaps I really did, but life can make you lay a few eggs. Sometimes people throw them at you too.

Faith, Hope, Love. Those are what remain, yes?

Faith = a Basket of Eggs.

It’s a shocking level of vulnerability: the life of faith.

You can tell when you do it too. You get a mixture of feelings. Great relief that your job is over, your poor skills are not needed any longer, and someone more capable is now responsible and in charge. Whew! Then, you may get a twinge of terror at the power you gave up, but probably never really had anyway. You become all at once very hopeful and very dependent. It’s precarious.

There’s a rare beauty to it.

Sometimes we give up our baskets and sometimes they sort of get pried out of our hands.

Dave was gravely ill for over 3 decades. His was a life of faith. It had to be. And he handed over eggs.

It was a wrestle match, he would tell you. He didn’t always feel faithful. He made mistakes. His candor was humbling. But, through his honesty he became faithful all the more.

There’s something about growing to trust God for each breath, and believing that God revealed himself as a thoroughly good and gracious and generous Creator and Sustainer in the passages of the Old Testament that transformed this brilliant man into a true saint. Not sappy, but real. All at once very strong and stable and yet achingly weak.

Dave was not self-righteous but gracious. Not arrogant in any discernible manner, but loving and open to others. Concerned with others and their lives and largely uncomplaining. Free with his humor and goodwill.

Hear this: You don’t get the privilege to meet people like this very often. You don’t get to be a person like this often. It’s takes an amazing about of formation, re-formation, and transformation. It doesn’t happen by accident or by genetics.

A life of faith means that you hold nothing back. See the difference?

It’s not using power to feel better. It’s giving it over to be fully won over.

In a life of faith you love whole-heartedly. Not because it’s safe. It never is. But, because it is good. A life of faith means that you have a sharp, ongoing sense of your own weaknesses and dependence, and that goes overflowing into compassion for yourself and others.

A few days after Dave’s death I was praying in the car out loud as I do sometimes. (I take more comfort in doing this now. People talk on the phone hands-free all the time in their cars and look like they are talking to nobody. Now, I just look like I’m having an important conversation. In fact, I am, especially when I shut up.)

So, I was in the car and I was warring as I too often do with things in the distance. Shadows, possibilities, next steps. I was planning, wondering, and worrying–like I was holding a bunch of eggs and walking on a lake of ice.

And then I said, “No, this just won’t work. I see I’m holding too tightly. I think I have to go all in. I have to have faith. I have to put all my eggs in one basket. Your basket.”

And a song sung by Ella Fitzgerald came to mind. I’ve embedded the audio so you can hear it after you finish.

Then I simply burst into tears, because that’s what a godly and good legacy looks like. Literally, one leaves words to live by. Dave’s words of life and hope and faith were ringing true in my mind in everyday life, even after he’s gone. And I thought, “That’s an amazing man and I was given an amazing gift to know him.” I kept having to wipe away tears for awhile.

Spirit, you know, is “breath of life”. (The Hebrew and Greek words for breath carry this meaning.) God is Spirit. When you see goodness, when you see sacrificial love, when you see wrongs being made right, you see God. You see the Spirit of the unseen God. Those describers are just part of what and who is impossible to confine or describe fully.

God isn’t just Life Force, but God is that too. And I don’t think Dave lost his own spirit or the Spirit. I think God became greater. The Spirit got so great that it filled him, and his body of water and carbon gave out, finally. It birthed something new and better and unseen and lasting.

And this Spirit and the part of Dave that is Dave (his truest self–his soul) joined up in union with the Great Spirit, somewhere and everywhere, the One, True, Living God who defies reason, explanation, and the limits of us, and even of the universe.

But, Dave didn’t completely leave us. But, my does the sting smart, right now! From my experience I know it dulls in time; but the pain is, at first, ultimate.

Yet, the fragrance of his spirit remains. And it is sweet.

It’s around us when we remember him. The Spirit remains, and Dave’s flavor fused with that true Spirit carries on with us. We miss the more familiar everyday interaction with him so dearly, and always will, until the same happens to us and we are joined somehow together again.

To those who grieve him: his family and friends, I join you in your deep and powerful sorrow. I join you in your joy–that is bitter and sweet–that realizes the gift he was–having known him, been enriched by him, and been intimately connected to him. Your loss is not small.

May you feel the comfort, presence, shalom, and holy goodness of the Spirit of God.

Amen.

-Lisa

P.S.
Here is a brief local obituary posting of David A. Dorsey.

With these links you can enjoy two of his most well-known books:

(egg photo is a Creative Commons image.)

On concepts of communal Redemption

First, let’s start with the word deem.

The word deem has to do with regarding and considering.

Also, we often connote this word with giving something worth. It’s a verb after all.

The monarch deemed the knight fit for duty.

That’s the power of redeeming too.

Redeeming something puts the worth back in.

There is hardly anything that won’t improve with some redemption.

How does it happen? It’s not magic at all.

It pivots on the one offering redemption. That can be anyone, king or not.
Individually or communally.

Redemption reaches out. The reinstitution of worth happens after the deficit is noticed, and after the choice to correct it has been made. I should rather say put it right, but more on that in a minute.

In redeeming merit is given, or rather given again. This would presuppose that everything has inherent worth at the onset, no matter what. That’s a salient point.

Sometimes redeeming happens without the prerequisite merit–and that is grace. Redemption and grace make a lovely pair.

You may have noticed that we go around deeming things all the time.

You will deem this short article helpful or a waste before you even get to the end of it, for instance.

The real genius of the concept comes when we realize that deeming and redeeming is always available. Offering it and attaining or receiving it. It more commonly found than you think, but you have to be ready to act. You have to be more than ready, but willing too.

So, one more big point:

There is a mutuality in redeeming. And that first smacks as counter-intuitive.

Redemption benefits both parties involved. It’s a communal because of the fact that is it a restorative act. And because it is restorative, it is just.

Want to start spreading redemption? You can help by sharing this on Facebook and letting it loose in your own life in little ways.

(Don’t forget to sign up for the next post-in the sidebar.)

The Myth of Ordinary Time

Do you have time to read this?

That may depend on what language you speak.

Have you ever felt like when you’re creating or otherwise “in the zone” you pass into a strange pocket in the space-time continuum (or whatever) where the passage of time appears to almost be standing still. Then, when you’re jolted from your pocket, you find that time has actually moved along far faster than you would have guessed.

That is likely what it’s like (all the time) for someone living near the equator. More on that in a moment.

There’s something about relativity here and we’ll unpack it.

Consider too, the other side. Sometimes you are very conscious of time maybe because you’re in a bad meeting or you’d rather be somewhere else and the hands on the wall clock seem to barely move. That is because you are perceiving time in relation to other things and not experiencing is as it passes.

So, it seems experienced time works in an eerily timeless way (having no easily determinable passage of time), and referred to time (Ex. “That man spoke for 20 minutes.”) is a measurement or qualifier of time, but not at all a direct experience of time. It refers to only a memory of certain period, but one that was not recognized necessarily in the moments in which it truly happened. Time is marked outside of itself. So…

Time is never really ordinary.

Perception is powerful. Here’s some potent proof.

Time near the Equator:

Residents of places near the equator experience time completely differently than people who live in temperate climates. You already know this to be true.

Maybe you’ve heard of “island time”…

…if you’ve ever vacationed on a warm tropical island, things just mosey along. Maybe things will get done and maybe not. People get to things when they do, or whatever. “Hey, Relax Mon”. It can be a hassle when you’re not used to it. However, time is literally experienced differently.

It’s not the heat bringing a lack of motivation. They are used to the heat. It’s not a mere lack of a work ethic. It’s not simply enjoying the weather too much to be bothered with revving up to tackle hectic things.

It turns out that the passage of time is harder to discern because markers are missing.

Most often, for humans, change punctuates time in our awareness.

An event (accident, holiday, birth, death, full moon, dawn, solar eclipse, victory, loss, etc.), or a change in weather are the most common markers. With more changes–especially ones that involve rain and snow, brilliant leaf color changes, or a blast of Spring blooming–that means that our perception of time’s passage are further clarified. Our memories are literally shaped differently and therefore our brains are, at the cellular level, wired differently. Perception is relative. Variety, repetition, and influence change the brain’s capturing of data which determines the comprehending of time. It affects the awareness people have and the activities people undertake.

Seasons, and the things that are attached to them (growing of food, for one example) make the ability to plan more perceptible and pronounced. Need to buy wheat seed for Spring in a few months? Better save now. Plants grow all-year-round? Then, nevermind.

Residents of equatorial climates do not experience the massive change in seasons, plus they do not experience the great shortening of daylight either. For them, unless they’ve been influenced by outsiders, the passage of time happens in the present. Right now, or it’s not really real.

For pole-dwellers (people living in the northern and southern regions of the globe) time is usually experienced two ways:

1. through remembering past events

(A locked down thing that doesn’t truly exist except in the mind)

2. through planning (projecting to the future to a not yet real time and place).

Pole-dwellers spend far less time–“Zen-like”–in the here and now.

In fact, being “stayed in the present” can be discredited as somehow wasteful by those who like to plan. Interesting argument of which is wasteful, and why, right?

For pole-dwellers it’s an ironic thing too, because if your mind is not attached to the present, you essentially are not fully aware of living at all in real-time…Instead you are aware of life passing in relation to something else. Time perhaps is more like a point on a map–over there–more than an experience. Perhaps a counterfeit experience compared to the real thing or real-time? I’m not sure.

Or on the other side, near the equator, planning might seem pointless or amorphous. A sort of figment.

• Living solely in the present has disadvantages too. It comes packaged with a (undetectable) lack of impetus that can help us make all manner of changes or improvements possible. The checkpoints are missing. Our interaction with time movement is different. It passes like “being in the zone” or perhaps like standing midstream in an ever-changing flow of water. Motion. Life is in real-time and un-captured.

• Living in the future or past (as I have been trained to do) is like staring off at fixed but ultimately untouchable points. Triangulation.

I mainly live in the “trigonometry of time”. Do you?

Certain cultures actually have no form of future tense.

(Did you absorb that?)

For them, there is no language or solid way to truly express or encapsulate something ahead of this very moment.

BOOM. That’s crazy different.

Sicilian and ancient Hebrew are just two examples.

Now brace yourself. If you haven’t guessed already…

Yes, that means anytime you hear the words “shall” or “will” in Jewish/Christian scripture you are hearing the imposition of your own cultural and linguistic bias placed onto the original text and meaning.

(Thinking of the implications could just blow your mind, right? Now, go ahead, open your Bible and find a few misleading verses and re-understand them.)

Note: New Testament Scripture was written in (ancient) Greek and does contain a future tense. It was however based on beliefs and texts of people who did not have a native reference to an equivalent future tense option nor the applied meaning future tense indicates, necessarily or at all.

Binary vs. the not yet
Often in equatorial geographic regions, there literally is no way to really say “I will work.” Instead it’s “I work.” Binary. Sometimes inflection is used to draw a sort of distinction or a qualifier, like referring to a (future) month or day. That’s a watered down communicative incident compared to the full use of future tense we take for granted in English, and the closest language to English: German.

The language difference has even been studied scientifically to see if things like breaking habits (like smoking), or the activity of saving or spending money, or gaining weight are different because of language. Click the link to see the results.

What are some of your thoughts on the passage of time, future tense, or living right now?
Whew. Ice pack for my brain, please.

IF this post was interesting, please like or share it…now. (In real time.) :)