spiritual journey
IN 2017, on a year-end retreat, the leader asked what descriptive name we might like to claim for the coming year. I thought a bit and said “elder.” When asked why, I smiled: “Because I could share wisdom without taking responsibility.” It was humorous, but serious too.
In my life I’ve had my share of taking responsibility for organizations and movements in ways that have been rare privileges. I was the legislative director for a U.S. senator working against the Vietnam War. I started an institute committed to strengthening churches’ care for the earth. At the World Council of Churches, I directed its work on church and society, including beginning its focus on climate change. Then the Reformed Church in America selected me to be its general secretary. I played a significant role in beginning and directing Christian Churches Together and served as chair of the board of Sojourners and as president of the Global Christian Forum Foundation. All these efforts involved grace and pain. And, at this point in my journey, all have ended.
Now, I wonder where you are in your long journey of soulwork and justice. Maybe you’re in early days, with new roads and big challenges that are so daunting. I want to share that with you because it is your inward journey with God that will sustain you in your outward journey, joining in what God is doing in the world.
The witness of Christian faith in the public square, if done authentically, has always required spiritual alertness. New crises erupt almost daily, tempting us to endless reactivity. You will need inward spiritual grounding that can make a practical difference in political engagement, social action, and outward witness. Your vision, starting point, and disposition will bear the distinctive features of the Christian witness that scripture and prophetic voices have and continue to note. I invite you to tend, sit, read, pray, and act. Let God ground your life. Over many years and many times of chaos, I’ve identified eight elements that contribute to a spiritually alert, faithfully rooted witness.
It snuck up this year, as though I’d almost forgotten about it until I saw friends in another time zone posting Mardi Gras pictures. Mardi Gras is this week? I thought. That means Lent begins this week?! Maybe it’s because I don’t go to church right now, or because I’m not in a spiritual community like I was before I moved cities. But for whatever reason, it came fast and unexpected, and something inside won’t let me pass it up. As much as I disagree with some of the traditional teachings about Easter and various interpretations of why Jesus was crucified, I have always had a penchant for Lent.
Lent is a time that draws out the heart’s ability to draw nigh to your Creator. Of drawing closer to God, to others, to the wide open world around us. A time for spiritual reflection and inner examination. A time to pause. A time for simplicity. A 40-day season containing strong, beautiful symbolism. Death from life. Life from death. The two are inseparable. Hope is reborn, recycled out of crushed pain and heartache. The timing of this season enhances the meaning all the more to me, as we begin Lent in the waning winter, in which it is still snowing as I write this. But we end Lent well into spring.
Last Sunday, the Catholic singer/songwriter/poet/theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama (who hails from County Cork, Ireland), took to Revolution NYC's "barstool pulpit," to share stories, poems, and wisdom from the spiritual journey — his, yours, ours.
Listen to Ó Tuama's talk inside the blog ...
A vibrant spirituality for our troubled times grows out of a centuries-old tradition.