Mar

23

Attention Bible Lovers: Win an iPad!

Announcements

I don’t normally post contests on this blog, but this one seemed like too much fun to pass up… and the grand prize is an iPad! Other prizes include a Kindle, an iPod, and Bibles. The contest is sponsored by Tyndale House Publishers and is designed to promote their New Living Translation of the Bible.

Here’s the info:

The New Living Translation Break Through to Clarity Bible Contest and Giveaway
Visit www.facebook.com/NewLivingTranslation and click on the tab that says “Sweepstakes”
Fill out a simple form, take a quick Bible clarity survey, invite your friends to join and you’ll be entered to win one of our exciting prizes. With each fan number milestone a new prize will be given away.

Grand Prize: Apple iPad 64G and a Life Application Study Bible
Awarded when the NLT Fan Page hits the fifth milestone
Retail Value: $829.00

2nd Prize  – Already awarded: 32G iPod Touch and a Life Application Study Bible
Awarded when the NLT Fan Page hits the fourth milestone
Retail Value: $300.00

3rd Prize – Will be awarded when fan count hits 3500: Kindle DX and a Life Application Study Bible
Awarded when the NLT Fan Page hits the third milestone
Retail Value: $489.00

4th Prize — Will be awarded when fan count hits TBD: Apple iPad 16G and a Life Application Study Bible
Awarded when the New Living Translation Fan Page hits the second milestone
Retail Value: $499.00

5th Prize — Will be awarded when fan count hits TBD: Apple iPad 32G and a Life Application Study Bible
Awarded when the NLT Fan Page hits the first milestone
Retail Value: $599.00
 
Prize Eligibility – Recently updated to include more countries: Sweepstakes participants and winner(s) can be U.S. residents of the 50 United States, or residents of any country that is NOT embargoed by the United States, but cannot be residents of Belgium, Norway, Sweden, or India.  In addition, participants and winner(s) must be at least 18 years old, as determined by the Company.
 
Sweepstakes Starts: March 17, 2010 @ 10:24 am (PDT) 
 Sweepstakes Ends: April 30, 2010 @ 10:24 am (PDT) 
 
Wait, there’s more!
Visit http://biblecontest.newlivingtranslation.com/index.php for a chance to win a trip for two to Hawaii!
Here are the details:
Choose one of six passages of Scripture from the New Living Translation and consider:
How do these verses encourage you to know God better?
What is God teaching you in this passage?
How does this passage apply to your life?
Submit your answer and you’ll be entered to win.

Just for signing up: Everybody Wins! Win a Free .mp3 download from the NLT’s new Red Letters Project. It’s the dynamic, new presentation of the sung and narrated words of the Gospel of Matthew. You win the download just for entering! Or choose to download the NLT Philippians Bible Study, complete with the Book of Philippians in the NLT.
Every day, one person will win the best-selling Life Application Study Bible!
The grand prize: One person will win a fantastic trip for two to the crystal clear waters of the Turtle Bay Resort on Oahu’s North Shore in beautiful Hawaii.

There you go. Have fun!

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Mar

23

Water, Wind, Earth & Fire

Christianity / nature / Prayer / Spirituality

Water, Wind, Earth & Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements
By Christine Valters Paintner
Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2010
Review by Carl McColman

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that St. Francis of Assisi’s “Canticle of the Creatures” (also known as the “Canticle of the Sun”) is a powerful and poetic evocation of God’s presence in the elements of nature. But few Christians, in my experience, seem to draw the connection that if the elements are indeed agents of God’s blessings and means by which we can offer blessing and worship back to God, then it might make sense to think in terms of “air prayer,” “water prayer,” and so forth. This is the simple yet powerful premise of this lovely new book from Christine Valter Paintner, a Benedictine Oblate and the founder of the Abbey of the Arts website which explores the connection between spirituality and creativity.

Some of my readers may wonder if this is a crypto-Wiccan book, and indeed anyone interested in creative cross-fertilization between Neopaganism and Christian spirituality will find much to explore in this book. But let’s be clear: the four elements (air, fire, water and earth) are universal energies, since they are grounded not only in the nature of the earth, but indeed in our very bodies (think of it: your skeleton and flesh are earth, your blood is water, your lungs and breath bring you air, and the very heat your body generates is the fire within you). Historically speaking, knowledge of the four elements and exploration of their spiritual meaning can be traced back to Greece, where Plato speaks of the elements, following the earlier Sicilian philosopher Empedocles. In other words, our earliest knowledge of the elements is not occult or magical, but rather philosophical and scientific, in scope. For Christians today, befriending the four elements is a way to honor the incarnational dimension of our faith, seeing God’s presence in nature just as we believe the Holy Spirit and the Mind of Christ is present among those who are knit into the community of faith.

Water, Wind, Earth & Fire is essentially a workbook (“playbook”?) for prayer, divided into sections where Valters Paintner explores each element through poetry, stories, blessings, quotations, lectio divina, and suggestions for prayer and reflection. Most of the connections she highlights are obvious enough: water is linked to baptism, air to centering prayer, earth to feasting. This is not a book of secrets revealed so much as earthy common sense: water goes with the flow, fire brings passion and creativity, earth stabilizes and grounds us. Weave all four elements together and we find balance, perspective, and a sense of being at home in the good universe God has given us.

Obviously, this book should appeal to anyone with a love for Franciscan or Celtic expressions of Christian spirituality. But I think the author was wise not to limit her exploration of the elements to those particular strands of wisdom. Water, Wind, Earth & Fire feels universal in its tone and its application — it is a book for all Christians, and indeed, for all people, anyone who might be interested in finding out what mystics like Hildegard of Bingen or John of the Cross or Thomas Merton might have to say to the question of bringing prayer and nature together.

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Mar

22

Speaking of World Mysticism…

Announcements

Attention Atlanta-area readers…

Introduction to World Mysticism — a four week class offered through the Emory University Center for Lifelong Learning — starts on Wednesday, April 14. Follow the link to register for it!

And if you’re not convinced that you would absolutely love this class, try listening to this MP3: Carl McColman talks about mysticism: what it is, and why it matters, in this interview which originally aired on Atlanta’s AM 1690 in September 2008 (to promote this same class when it was offered a few years back).

Click here to listen:

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Mar

20

Contemplative Programming That Would Interest You

Spirituality

Please take a moment to respond to this poll. I’m looking for insight into what people would like to see in programming offered by a local center for spiritual development. In answering this poll, please only check those items that are sufficiently interesting to you that you would make a real effort to attend. Thank you for your input.

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Mar

20

Of the Equinox and the Spirituality of the Earth

Christianity / interfaith dialogue / nature

Twice this week, on two separate occasions coming from two different individuals, I have been invited to participate in Spring Equinox rituals that will take place this weekend.

Ten years ago that would have been nothing remarkable, as I was a regular participant in Wiccan and Neopagan groups like the House of Oak Spring or the Grove of the Unicorn or the now-defunct local grove of Ár nDraíocht Féin. But since I wandered “out of the woods and into the Catholic Church” in 2005, understandably my number of invitations to Wiccan Circles and Pagan Rituals have been in short supply. So I find it interesting that I would get not one, but two, offers to honor the turning of the wheel this time around.

And the real irony: both invitations come from Christian friends. Not “Christian” in the sense of “that was how I was raised but I don’t really believe it,” but Christian in the “going to church every Sunday and trying to follow Jesus the best I can” sense.

So… why are the Christians who love the turning of the seasons suddenly coming out of the woodwork? I’m not really sure. But it does seem auspicious, in that just this week I’ve begun reading Christine Valter Paintner’s newly-released book Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying With the Elements from Sorin Books, an imprint of Ave Maria Press (about as mainstream a Catholic publisher as you can get) I’ve just begun the book so I can’t say too much right now, but I will post a review once I’ve finished it. What I can say is that it looks quite good: a poetic and prayerful approach to spirituality grounded in the blessings of the natural world, suitable for Christians to incorporate in our overall spiritual practice. Valter Paintner is a Benedictine oblate whose website is called Abbey of the Arts: Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts.

Meanwhile, both of the Atlanta-area Christians who requested my presence at Equinox rituals this weekend are contemplatives as well. Am I noticing a groundswell of emerging interest in the convergence between contemplative Christianity and a healthy, positive honoring of the good Earth that has been given to us?

I sure hope so.

Alas, I had to decline both opportunities to participate in the Equinox rituals for the most prosaic of reasons: I work this weekend. But I’m pleased that I was honored with the invitations. To all of you who read this, whether you are Neopagans — or Christians with a deep and abiding interest in honoring the blessings of the Earth — I wish you a joyous day in celebration of the coming of Spring.

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Mar

19

Introverts in the Church

Christianity / Contemplation / Reviews / Spirituality

Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Way In An Extroverted Culture
By Adam S. McHugh
Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2009
Review by Carl McColman

Why wasn’t this book published thirty-some years ago? Reading it now, even at the hoary old age of 49, has been a journey of healing, recognition, and validation. At the risk of hyperbole, this one book has given me tools to rethink numerous passages in my troubled relationship with institutional religion. If I had access to the wisdom and insight contained in this book when I was 16 or 17 years old, I can confidently say that my life would have taken a different path — and my experience as a Christian would certainly have included less angst.

Okay, enough about me; let me tell you about this book. Like introverts in general, it seems unassuming and, well, rather quiet in its scope and message. But like all introverts, there’s a lot going on beneath its humble exterior. The premise is simple enough: God creates and loves all of us just as we are, which means that, for introverts, our very introversion is part of “God’s plan.” But in its social and institutional form, religious Christianity tends to privilege and reward extroverted behavior: not explicitly, of course, but in all sorts of ways — from the expectations placed on clergy to be highly engaged people persons, to the centrality of Sunday morning coffee  hour to the life of the community. Church is social, and to a great extent, we equate “social” with “extroverted” in our culture.

Presbyterian minister (and unapologetic introvert) Adam S. McHugh wisely never attacks extroversion; on the contrary, his ecclesial vision calls for creative partnership between extroverts and introverts. He simply calls for greater balance and a greater willingness for Christians, both individually and communally, to honor and value the particular gifts that introverts bring to the table. Since introverts are more naturally thoughtful, meditative, slow-paced, and comfortable with silence, the vision that McHugh offers is that of a church where contemplative spirituality is more central than marginal. How I wish that all the Christians who attack contemplative spirituality would read this book.

McHugh considers the role of introverts in the church in general, but pays particular attention to introverted leadership styles (where the emphasis is on mentoring and spiritual direction rather than showy socializing) and — what I think is the best and most important chapter in the book — introverted evangelism, which eschews “selling Christ” for a humbler, quieter emphasis on building relationships and then exploring mystery together. At this point, McHugh’s vision for a holistic, introvert-friendly Christianity is not only deeply contemplative, but even touches on the silent frontier where Christianity embraces the mystical. As someone who has always inhabited the sacramental (rather than evangelical) side of the Christian world, I’ve never had much interest in the “Hi, are you saved?” approach to Christian outreach. But McHugh’s lovely description of evangelism as a gentle, respectful, mutual apprenticeship to the Mystery makes even me excited about the idea of sharing my faith.

Richard Rohr loves to tell the story of how years ago he led a retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani, only to find out that the monks were not particularly fond of Thomas Merton, who had lived at that monastery for over 25 years. When Rohr asked one of the monks why, he received this telling answer. “Merton told us we weren’t contemplatives, we were just introverts!” I’ve heard Rohr tell this story once in person and have heard it on more than one of his CD programs, and it always elicits laughter from his audience. And it’s true that being an introvert is not the same thing as being a contemplative. But perhaps if we learn to value the natural and unique gifts and talents of the introverts in our communities, they will be liberated to become more than “just introverts” — and, likewise, they can help all of Christ’s followers to grow more deeply in the riches and splendor of a truly contemplative approach to spirituality.

That, at any rate, is my hope, and I think Introverts in the Church is a wonderful means to that end. This book is a gift to the entire Body of Christ. If you’re an introvert, “read it and heal,” as John Ortberg says in his endorsement printed on the front of the book. But I think this book isn’t just for introverts. If you’re an extrovert, read it to raise your consciousness a little bit. Maybe you’ll learn to see the quiet folks, who come to every meeting but never say a word, just a little bit differently. And maybe in that new way of seeing, you’ll find a bit of healing yourself.

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Mar

18

Quote for the Day

Christian mysticism / Mysticism / Mystics / Quotations / Spirituality

The hound that runs after the hare only because he sees the other hounds running will rest when he is tired, or go home again. But if he runs because he’s seen the hare, he won’t stop, however tired he gets, until he has caught it.

— Walter Hilton, The Stairway of Perfection

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Mar

17

The Snakes and the Slaves

Catholicism / Celtic Christianity / interfaith dialogue / Ireland

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day.

As I ponder on this day, I am reminded that it, like Columbus Day, can elicit a radically different response from people, based on their world-view and value system. Columbus Day for Euro-Americans was traditionally a day of celebration and commemoration of “discovery,” but for Native Americans and those who share concern for the plight of indigenous people who face the brunt of colonialist expansion, Columbus Day has become the symbol of loss. As one pundit put it, “Columbus didn’t discover America, he invaded it!”

St. Patrick’s Day, likewise, means different things based on whether a person’s interest in Celtic spirituality tends toward the Pagan or the Christian end of the continuum. For Christians, Patrick brought the new faith — hence, enlightenment — to this “island at the end of the world.” But Neopagans re-interpret Patrick not as a liberator, but as an oppressor. The arrival of Patrick’s mission marked the beginning of the end of the old ways. I remember back in the 1980s, in Nashville at a Wiccan bookstore, the first time I saw a leaflet for Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship: It said “Bring back the snakes! Ireland was better off Pagan.”

So when Patrick expelled the snakes from Ireland, was this a mythic way of saying he brought about the end of the native, druidic religion? It might be easy to interpret things that way, and I suppose many, both Christian and Pagan, would agree with this way of reading history. But I am not so sure. I think indigenous Irish spirituality did not so much vanish under Christianity as adapt and evolve. The old gods and goddesses may have retreated undergone and became the fairies of myth and lore, but many practices associated with them — from the veneration of holy wells to the Imbolc ceremonies Christianised under devotion to St. Brigid — have lived on, into the present day. Indeed, when I participated in a Brigid’s Eve Ritual in Co. Kildare in 2005, I quickly lost any sense of orientation as to whether what I was doing was primarily Catholic or Pagan in its focus.

Purists on both side of the Christian/Pagan divide will not like this very much, but I think this is the glory of Irish spirituality — and the true legacy of Patrick. Neither Pagans nor Christians are going to go away, so we can choose to hate each other — or we can decide to live together peacefully, and perhaps even joyfully. I opt for the latter. And I think the folk traditions of the Celtic lands are some of the best tools we have for learning how to be good neighbors with one another.

One other thought about St. Patrick. He first came to Ireland not as a missionary, but as a slave — and escaped several years later as a runaway. Much of the drama of his story came from his sense that he needed to return to the land of his own captivity as a spiritual emissary. Part of his legacy as the apostle to the Irish was his work against human trafficking. Now, there’s nothing within Celtic paganism that mandates the owning of slaves, and likewise we know that many Christians over the centuries have been slave owners, so it is a mistake to assume that because Pagan Ireland was a slave state, and the coming of Christianity brought also the fight against slavery, that this makes Christianity automatically morally superior to Paganism. That argument just doesn’t hold water. But what is worth considering is this: perhaps the “snakes” that Patrick expelled were not the Druids, but the slave traders and slave owners. By bringing an ethic of human dignity and respect to Ireland, Patrick brought a character that the best expressions of both Paganism and Christianity can celebrate.

Perhaps Pagans will always lament the coming of Patrick, and Christians will always celebrate it. In some ways, we will simply always be different. But if we can both agree that slavery is a bad thing and that freedom is good, perhaps we can see in this a call to freedom of religion, and the possibility of true interfaith spirituality and peaceful co-existence that will liberate us to work together for the common good. After all, human trafficking is still with us, and other problems (like the environmental crisis) exist where Neopagans and Christians can work together to achieve a common goal. In this way, everyone wins. Except for the snakes.

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Mar

16

Palm Sunday Concert at the Monastery, featuring Thomas Tallis

Announcements / Current events / Music

If you live in or near metro Atlanta, you won’t find a more aesthetically and spiritually uplifting way to begin Holy Week than this special event at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit. I’m excited about the inclusion of Tallis’ Lamentations, but the entire program should be splendid.

Monastery of the Holy Spirit

presents

A Concert of Sacred Classical Music

A Lenten Meditation for Passion Sunday
March 28, 2010 at 4:00 pm
featuring

The University of Georgia
Collegium Musicum &
Chamber Orchestra
Dr. Mitos Andaya, Conductor

Lamentations of Jeremiah I and II
Thomas Tallis (c. 1505-1585)

Seven Last Words from the Cross
James MacMillan (b. 1959)

The Lamentations of Jeremiah are deeply emotional, polyphonic settings that are consider to be very personal compositions of Thomas Tallis. Tallis was Catholic, but as he served in the employ of four monarchs (Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth I) he also composed works for the Anglican ritual. The Hebrew letters are set beautifully, the stanzas of the lessons are expressively. Both settings conclude with the exclamation, “Jerusalem convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum” a plea to Jerusalem to turn to the Lord.

Seven Last Words from the Cross is Scottish composer, James MacMillan’s first major choral masterpiece. Composed for mixed voices and strings, the words are set uniquely and most powerfully. MacMillan draws upon complementary texts including the Palm Sunday Exclamation, Good Friday Responses, as well as Catholic ceremony and plainchant and combines a variety of compositional styles to provide the opportunity for reflection and meditation, and yet communicate directly to the heart of the listener.

The Concert also includes some short instrumental pieces.
Free general admission • Doors open at 3:30pm • Free-Will offering is accepted
The Abbey Store will be open before the concert
Click here for Directions
Monastery of the Holy Spirit • 2625 Hwy 212 SW • Conyers, GA
Info • 678-964-2237 • www.trappist.net

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Mar

15

Go Ask Alice

movies

The Cheshire Cat: All Smile, No MenaceWe saw Alice in Wonderland Saturday evening. It’s getting lukewarm reviews and that’s pretty much how I feel about it. Of course, it was visually rich, and even without the obligatory presence of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter, it had Tim Burton’s fingerprints all over it. It kind of felt like last year’s Star Trek reboot — a chance to see familiar characters interpreted in interesting new ways. Unfortunately, where Alice fails is in the story. Other critics have complained that it feels too “Hollywood,” with caricatures rather than characters and the story galloping along to the inevitable Big Fight™ at the end of the film. Well, they’re right, and so I won’t beat on that particular dead horse. Rather, I want to look at the more interesting-from-a-Celtic-mythology question of how we relate to otherworlds and underworlds. After all, Wonderland is such an archetype of the mythic otherworld that “Going down the rabbit hole” has entered our cultural lexicon — think of The Matrix.

Wonderland gets renamed “Underland” in this movie, and actually the characters tell Alice that she got it wrong the first time — the name has been Underland all along. And, yes, this isn’t Alice’s first fall down the rabbit-hole, a crucial plot element that is hinted at throughout the narrative but only made clear well into the film. This is not little-girl-Alice, but Alice-on-the-verge-of-womanhood, dealing with an unwanted suitor and a controlling mother; and while she seems unable to manage the various claims that other people place on her in “real” life, once she lands in Underland, Alice asserts herself. Convinced that Underland is merely a kaleidoscope within her own subconscious, whenever the Caterpillar or the Hatter or any of the other characters express an expectation of her, she confidently replies, “This is my dream, I make my own path” or something to that effect. In this sense, Alice seems to be bringing to her otherworldly journey the same modernist/rationalist assumption that shapes the greatest of all alternate-reality movies: The Wizard of Oz, in which Dorothy wakes up at the very end to discover her entire adventure in the land of Technicolor was “only a dream.”

But Tim Burton’s Alice ultimately cannot take refuge in such a reductionist approach; when she finally realizes that she really has been to Underland before, she likewise realizes that this mythic land has a reality that exists independently of the machinations of her dreaming mind. This adds a bit of gravitas to her impending battle with the Jabberwocky: if the dragon she needs to slay is more than just a demon conjured out of her own shadow, then perhaps it will not so easily be vanquished. But this is Hollywood, after all, and the movie ends up pulling its punches as the story resolves itself in utter, banal predictability — down to Alice rejecting her suitor and becoming a poster-girl for Victorian-era Grrl Power once she climbs back out of the rabbit hole.

So I really like the fact that Burton and screenwriter Linda Wolverton mess with the “it’s-only-a-dream” convention. But in the end, that was the only really cool thing about this film. Otherwise it was just too neat and formulaic to really matter. I think it would have been a more dangerous and interesting story (but probably less marketable to today’s Cineplex world) if the same theme had been thrown at little-girl-Alice rather than young-adult-Alice. As wonderful as Mia Wasikowska was in the title role, imagine if the part had been given to Elle Fanning (alas, even Abigail Breslin and Elle’s sister Dakota are getting too old for this) — and imagine if the Red Queen had been truly scary, instead of Bonham-Carter’s petulant, over-the-top performance (like I said, this movie deals in caricatures). After all, as Celtic myth reminds us: when the dream is real, so is the nightmare.

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