I lead a weekly group on my campus. Actually to say I lead it is a little too
bold. I certainly arrange the
meetings. And they let me pretend to be
the leader. The group begins early in
the Fall semester and we continue through the school year until things are over
in May. I have been doing this for
nearly two decades. One woman has been
in it every year we have done it.
When I first met her, she was working in one of the coffee
shops on campus. I like to get to know
people like her. My faculty colleagues
are under the impression that we are the most important folks on campus. That’s not true! It is people like Suzanne who are the most
important. Faculty don’t see people like
her and the powerful, often invisible, ministry they do. Students see it and make use of her empathy
and compassion. And sometimes she simply
told them to knock it off and they complied.
She is now retired, but is eager to keep learning and
loving. So she shows up every week. She joins others and me as we begin to read
some contemporary book on some aspect of spirituality. The books are good, but it is not actually a
book discussion. The book offers some
starting place for us to pursue our own experiences. We share and learn from each other. We share and grow from the encouragement of
each other. That group is like an
ever-present oasis in the middle of the desert of life. Living waters are found there.
One book we recently took is An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor. The book has a neat title, A Geography of Faith. I like the kinds of things Taylor does in the
book. She is a good writer and offers
insightful ways to see life and to engage life in meaningful and purposeful
ways. She gives me and others a chance
to be better. Let me share some early
quips from the book.
One of my favorite lines comes in the introduction to the
book. Taylor talks about being invited
by a priest to speak to a church on one of the southern states. Like I would, Taylor asks the priest what he
wants her to address in the speech. His
answer blew me away. He told her to “Come
tell us what is saving your life now.”
When I read that, I nearly burst out laughing. I also have been invited to speak in
countless contexts. But I don’t think I
ever have been given such a challenging assignment.
It is a direct, open invitation to talk about something
important in your life. Taylor shares
over the next couple paragraphs how she processes the speech invitation. How she processes it is actually more
important to me than the specific answers she comes up with and the speech she
developed. I will share a couple of the
processing lines.
The first sentence in her processing the invitation
indicates the direction her speech will take.
Taylor says, “What is saving my life now is the conviction that there is
no spiritual treasure to be found apart from the bodily experiences of human
life on earth.” While that may not be an
answer, it is directive in ways I find helpful.
She becomes clear early on that what is saving her now is not
theological doctrine, even if that is important. Church dogmatics are not the means to
grace. God is the origin and giver of
grace.
There is no spiritual treasure apart from our bodily
experiences of human life. I agree with
Taylor. What is saving me now has to be
real in this bodily existence within my real world. This reminds me of the perspective of so many
of my students. They do not find
religion to be real. That is why they so
often are looking for their reality in spirituality---even if they cannot tell
you what that actually might mean. In
their own way they need something to address their bodily existence in this
human life.
This is exactly what Suzanne came to know in her life. She calls that something “God.” But her God is a living reality who helps her
as she pushes into her eighties.
Students and even I want the same kind of living reality. And we seemed to be joined with Barbara Brown
Taylor in what she knows and shares.
Taylor offers me a very nice take on what is saving her now. She comments,
“What is saving my life now is becoming more fully human, trusting that
there is no way to God apart from real life in the real world.” I know this might not be a very good answer
to some church bureaucrats, but it is good enough for me. She aspires to become more fully human. Me too!
I figure if I can become fully human, I will in the same process become
fully god-like.
That was the creative design of God in the first place. To become fully human is to be all that God
meant us to be. That means to live out
of a loving place, committed to the work of justice and to make peace. That sounds a great deal like kingdom
living! That is what is saving me now.
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