Singing Along the Journey
Thoughts about faith and wholeness set to the soundtrack of life

Feeling subversive today?

Feeling particularly subversive today?  I certainly hope so.  You might wonder just what I'm talking about.  Well, the idea came to me while I was reading a book by Eugene Peterson called The Contemplative Pastor.  I was drawn to his use of the word subversive as a description for the life altering power of faith.  For Peterson, and now for me, every act of faith is an act of subversion, even the quiet ones like prayer:  "Prayer is a subversive activity. It involves a more or less open act of defiance against any claim by the current regime....[As we pray,] slowly but surely, not culture, not family, not government, not job,…
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With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation…

Gaudate Sunday...today is an  important anniversary for me.  Six years ago this very morning, around 11:10 a.m., I was baptized for a second time in my adult life.  That day in December was, like today, the third Sunday of Advent, also in the Lectionary cycle Year C.  That day in December, I joined the Calvary Baptist Church and embraced a form of Christian and community identity based in the Baptist distinctives,  a group of beliefs about individual and community practice  that is best described by the charter covenant of the Alliance of Baptists.  It has been the lens through which I have understood my life in Christ for almost ten years now,…
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Going plural…

I had never heard the phrase, until about a month ago.  And why would I?  Apparently it is a phrase that comes out of the Peter Drucker school of management theory -- not exactly my specialty.  There is even a consultancy manual to guide the executive towards diversification.  The friend who used the phrase in relationship to my life and the many and varied ways I am drawn in my life, said that they first heard it while travelling in Africa and believed it to be a cultural term, not a business one.  In my dreams, my research led me to anthropological tracts about the glorious of a natural, unsegmented…
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Let’s talk about…questions

Ever since I can remember,  I have been chasing my ideas about life with a single solitary question.  That question? The question is this: where did that (that being anything peeking my curiosity) come from (I know, I just ended a sentence with a preposition, sorry).  One of my earliest memories is of the day I followed my then-beagle companion Toby into the dog house because I wondered where she was when she went through that little hole.  My father's reaction was not one of amusement. It was one of the few times I remember being punished as a small child. Well, maybe the punishment came because once inside the dog house I tried to hide…
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Five times a day…

I remember so clearly my first experience in the city of Istanbul -- the sound of the call to prayer coming from the beautiful Blue Mosque as the day was done. Of course, my travel companion and I were sitting in a rooftop bar sipping from a glass of hot apple tea, having just arrived in the city and experiencing jet-lag beyond belief.  But each and every day, five times a day, we were drawn by that sound -- a sound simultaneously foreign and comforting to us .  We laughed at the time, saying that we thought perhaps we should initiate a call to prayer from the bell tower at our…
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Thistles, tea and transformation….healing as a practice

Some days, you just need a reminder that there are people in this world who follow God's breadcrumbs against all the odds and do the work needed to transform their little corner into a living expression of the Kingdom of Heaven in this world.  Last night I had the chance to listen to just such a person, the Rev. Becca Stevens, founder of Magdalene House, a residential program that "stands in solidarity with"  women who have survived lives of prostitution, trafficking, and drug addiction as they come in from the streets and changes their lives.   And next, out of a need to support these women and this work, and to…
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Love, imperfectly known…

I have been thinking a lot lately about the words of the General Confession used in Rite II of the Book of Common Prayer. I know, strange words for someone who insists that she continues to identify as with the Baptist distinctives as a format building block of her faith.  But, despite the fact that Episcopalians everywhere often begin each morning with these words (as they are the opening corporate prayer of the Morning Prayer discipline), these are words (and sentiments) which belong to the whole Body of Christ. Let’s read together these words of confession, and then I’ll share what I’ve been thinking: Most merciful God,  we confess that…
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Bless, the Lord, my soul…

Occasionally in life, a much-longed-for opportunity drops into your lap unexpectedly. This week, I had just such a chance -- one of the brothers from the community at Taize spent an hour with us at VTS.   We had the rare opportunity to talk with and worship with Brother Emmanuel last Tuesday. It is funny, to have known and loved the music for many years and yet, to never have learned more about the community itself.  And so I was mesmerized as Brother Emmanuel explained to the assembled participants the founding of the Taize community and the precepts of its mission.  Finally understanding the mission and intent of the community, for…
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A movement, not an institution

I am a person who lives in the questions.  No, really, I mean, I question everything.  I question the use of the most simple words, words that we use every day and assume that everyone with whom we speak them understands.  I question everything. This state of being is partly the result of the work I did to put my life back together after my divorce, partly the result of a lifelong inquisitiveness that drove my parents to distraction and has caused me to spend more years of my life enrolled in some sort of educational program than, well, is at all natural by the standards of our society. Right…
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Threads lost and found…

Yesterday, the 28th Annual Festival Gathering of the Alliance of Baptists to a close with a joint worship service with our hosts, the Northside Drive Baptist Church.  As a kind of benediction to the work and learning that had occurred during these past days, we heard the words of Mahan Siler, one of the movement's founders. I'm going to have a lot to say about his words to us and so much more that touched my faith and the ways I live that faith in this world during this gathering, but for now, on this Monday morning after, I wanted to share with you the poem that he shared with…
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