Journey
This is about my spiritual journey and trying to find what God is calling me to next.
Obedience
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 06/02/2016 - 05:51This evening I am scheduled for the final meeting of the discernment committee that has been meeting to help me better hear what God is calling me to, including the possibility of pursuing ordination as an Episcopalian Priest. The topic for this evening’s discussion is supposed to be ‘Obedience’.
In my past, I’ve been well known for wearing a ‘Question Authority’ t-shirt which may seem contrary to obedience. I’ve worked for some very difficult bosses whom I’ve had to obey their requests, but that I’ve disagreed with and done reluctantly after expressing my belief that their requests were not in the best interest of the organization. To the extent that we are talking about obeying humans in power structures, sums up a lot of my relationship to obedience.
Yet the discernment committee talks about obedience in a different way.
The word obedience derives from the Latin word to “hear or listen deeply.” How are the words “obedience” and “listen” related in his or her life?
If we think about listening deeply, I don’t do as a good a job as I would like. My mind is so full of ideas that it is hard to hear other ideas. Yet at the same time, it is a driving force in my poetry. How do we stop and listen to life, to the sound of the babbling brook in the woods, to the rhythm of our hearts, our breathes, the rhythm of the street, the story of the homeless person at the corner, of those suffering oppression because of the color of their skin, their gender identity, or other many other ways people are oppressed and unheard? How do we stop and listen to God’s still small voice?
For my writing, for my activism, listening needs to be a starting point, and I don’t always listen as well as I should. There have been long periods without writing poetry tied to a lack of listening.
And then, there’s God. How much of my life has been disobedient to God, not out of willfulness or disrespect, but simply out of not listening.
The discernment manual goes on to ask,
Talk about a time when you have been disobedient. What led you to act this way?
We live in a world of distraction. People want our attention, and it seems as if there just isn’t enough attention to go around. How do we tell what should get our attention? How do we re-read stories from the Bible if we think of them in terms of who is paying attention to whom, in terms of disobedience as not listening deeply?” Who pays attention and listens to the man who fell among thieves? Who listens to our needs?
How does this relate to the ideas of abundance, of active listening?
I feel like I’m rambling, which is what I’m likely to do if I feel like someone might be listening to me, so I guess I should wrap this up.
I do not listen as closely as I should, it feels to me like most people don’t, but the discernment process is, or should be, about learning to listen a little more closely to God. I hope I’ve gotten a little better at it. I hope members of the discernment committee have as well. And if someone else stops and listens a little more closely, because of my words, either this post, because of some of my poems, so much the better.
Come
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 05/07/2016 - 04:54What are you passionate about? What do you wake up in the middle of the night thinking about? What do you get up early in the morning to do? These were the questions we were asked Friday night at the South Central Regional Convocation in the Episcopal Church in Connecticut.
My immediate response was poetry. When I got home, I worked for a little bit on my poem for Friday. Later, I’ll find more time to work on it and then post it online. Now, it is four in the morning, and after waking up in the middle of the night thinking about the convocation, I am up writing. Yes, perhaps I should broaden my passion to writing, and not just poetry. Writing blog posts. Sharing on social media. Email.
I am on a journey. We are all on a journey. Over the past couple years, important parts of the journey have been around poetry. A year ago, this coming Friday, I was at a conference on poetry at Yale Divinity School, an unlikely place for me. While I was there, during a guided meditation, I was overwhelmed by God’s love for me, for all of us, in spite of all the times that we’ve failed, I was overwhelmed by a need to share that love in a way that could be heard and understood here in the twenty-first century.
That moment became a guidepost for me. I have set out with it in my rearview mirror heading down path that leads, well, I’m not sure where it leads yet.
It led me to the Missional Voices conference at Virginia Theological Seminary a few weeks ago. That was an amazing conference. I went down not sure what I was going to or why, not expecting to know anyone, but seeing a few familiar faces. I came back inspired and full of hope.
I remember a few years ago going to a discussion as part of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut’s listening tour in the early days of exploring how we reinvent ourselves. I left disillusioned. I felt to me like a bunch of old members of the priestly establishment looking for ways to hold onto a dying church, the church of the 1950s when everyone still went to the established church, before television and the internet had changed what we do in the evenings or on the weekends, when all but the outcasts and a few others lived in a world where blacks, women, homosexuals, immigrants, you can fill in the rest of the list, knew their place and we were all part of one big happy white European Protestant straight cis male hegemony. I walked away shaking my head and thinking, “Unless the Lord builds the house….”
Okay, it wasn’t really all that bad, but that is what it felt like, and I couldn’t see how rearranging a few things in the church structure was really going to make a big difference.
At the convocation, we were asked to get to mingle, to break the ice, to get to know people we didn’t already know. I spoke with a high school principal, a retired journalist, and a retired electrical engineer. We talked about education, radio, the internet, folk music, and racial justice. We exchanged cards. We talked excitedly about Ministry Networks. I have to stop every time that I write that. Is it Mission Networks or Ministry Networks? In my mind the two are so woven together it is hard to think about them one way without thinking about them the other way. “Are you going to be here tomorrow? … Great. Let’s talk more about this then!”
Can moving a few chairs around and talking to different people really make a big difference? Can some of the energy of the Missional Voices conference stir things up in The Episcopal Church of Connecticut?
We ended with compline, and I tweeted a grainy picture of the crowd seated in a circle holding candles with the hashtag #compline.
On the way home, I listened to some of the music we will be singing today. “We are marching in the light of God… That’s why we praise him… Here I am, Lord”
Thursday was Ascension Day, and Friday I posted my poem about it, ending off with waiting for Pentecost. Today, I will go to the Regional Convocation, praying first, seeking racial justice, singing to God, and hopefully, even writing a poem. Tomorrow, I am scheduled to read the second lesson appointed for the Sunday before Pentecost.
The Spirit and the bride say, "Come."
And let everyone who hears say, "Come."
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.The one who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming soon."
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.
Counter Narrative
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 04/30/2016 - 18:49One of the themes of the 2016 Trinity Institute conference, Sacred Conversations for Racial Justice was the idea of Counter Narrative. It is an idea that people talk about, in certain circles, but perhaps do not do enough to foster. There is the official narrative, the stories we learn in school or read in the mainstream media; the stories of America as uninhabited or inhabited by barbarians, when Westerners came, the stories of Westerners being welcomed at a great first Thanksgiving meal, the stories of southern plantation life which overlooks the suffering of slaves, the stories of a city on a hill and manifest destiny. A good way to understand the problems of this is by listening to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk, The Danger of a Single Story.
The dominant narrative of the day seems to be one of consumerism, where what matters is getting whatever you can for yourself, and the rest be damned. It is a narrative based on fear; sending troops and building bigger walls. It is a narrative where all people are not created equal, let alone created in the image of God Some of seen as more or less deserving than others, perhaps because of their skin color, the location they were born, or how wealthy their family was when they were born.
I thought of this when I listened to a book on tape by Barbara Kingsolver where she said that $100 is spent every year for every person on the planet, trying to get them to buy more stuff. Friday, I heard Dr. Gail C. Christopher of the W.K. Kellogg foundation say, at a forum on health equity and access, talking about what you see on television and movies, “We are entertained these days by the destruction of life".
The master narrative is about consumerism and inequality, it is about the loss of creativity and spirituality. People talk about counter narratives at conferences. Perhaps they tell some of the other sides of the story, like those talking about the Middle Passage are doing. Maybe they are telling some women’s history, talking about the domestic arts with as much respect as has been shown to the “fine” arts, or highlighting great black and/or women artists and scientists.
Yet what about countering the master narrative in daily life? Today is the last day of National Poetry Month. I set for myself a goal to write a poem a day during the month. When I’ve done this in the past, there have been days that I could find nothing to say, and wrote pieces that weren’t all that great, that were throw aways, just practice pieces. This month I did a little better. I didn’t always get the poem for each day posted on the day I wrote it. Sometimes, I’d let it sit for a day or two before editing and posting, but I did get my thirty poems done. I’ll probably edit my last poem of the month and post it tomorrow.
I’ve also been participating in a Modern Poetry class online. I’ve been reading Frost, Sandberg, and Masters most recently. I’m listening to a book about the transcendentalists in Concord during my commute. Next up is Spoon River Anthology or Big Magic, depending on when I finish the transcendentalist book and when Big Magic becomes available from the library.
All of this shapes into an idea for a counter narrative. Can I write a post, more or less daily, often as poetry, but not necessarily always, that celebrates spirituality and creativity while giving voice to people and things too often overlooked? Can I find others who are willing to write along with me? Can we listen to one another and by listening and writing shift the narratives?
Random Thoughts about the #MissionalVoices Conference
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 04/19/2016 - 05:48This past weekend, I attended the Missional Voices conference at Virginia Theological Seminary. It was deeply moving for me. It has given me a lot to think about and I thought I’d share some of my thoughts with you. I’ve struggled a lot with writing this. How am I writing it to? What is the impact I hope it will have?
This morning, I was reading Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation. It starts off with “If the Trinity reveals that God is relationship itself, then the goal of the spiritual journey is to discover and move toward connectedness on ever new levels.” Missional Voices, at least for me, was a move towards connectedness on new levels, a movement I hope will continue afterwards.
There were three seminarians from Yale that went down to Virginia as well as a priest from Tarriffville. The event was also live streamed and the Dean of the Cathedral in Hartford posted about the livestream on Facebook. I hope to stay in touch with others that participated and am looking for ways to help make this happen.
As I thought about my discernment process, it struck me that this was an event that people seeking discernment should participate in. I hope to go down to the conference again next year. If they livestream the conference again, it would be something good for people to gather at various locations around Connecticut, like The Commons in Meriden, to view the stream together and talk about it, similar to what happens with the Trinity Institute.
One of the discussions was about how you measure success of missional activities. There were frequent references to ASA, which being an old photographer, I only knew of as American Standards Association measure of film speed. Eventually, it became clear that this stands for Average Sunday Attendance, a metric that many at the conference didn’t think was all the relevant.
Instead there were discussions about Average Weekly Impact as a much better measure. One of the panelists spoke about being asked, every day at the dinner table by her father, what she had done to help the community that day. There were also various discussions about the importance of stories.
I’m not sure what the rules are on Parish Reports. My understanding is that they are for standard data required nationally. To the extent they could be shifted to focus more on the stories about impact a church is having on the community, it would seem like a good thing. Of course rectors might bristle and being asked to provide even more information, but that information might be really valuable.
e.g. A Connecticut Addendum to the Parish Report: What are three stories that best illustrate the impact your parish had on the community over the past year? I don’t know if there is anything like that, but it would be great. One person suggested it would be great from a communications viewpoint and talked about the idea of having diocesan or large parish beat reporters.
As an aside, to what extent is any of the data accessible? I’ve seen generalized reports on a diocese by diocese basis on a website, with reports up through 2010, but I’m wondering if the data is available for further analysis.
Another topic that caught my attention was a discussion “Mission Churches”. It was suggested that in common usage, a mission church is really a financially supported church, and it may be better to refer to financially supported churches as such, saving the phrase “mission church” for churches seeking “to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ”, which ideally should be every church.
When people asked about my journey, one of the things I talked about was the role of poetry and mentioned the Diocesan Poet. I don’t know to what extent other dioceses have diocesan poets, but it seems like that might be another part of mission, ideally going even beyond what we have by encouraging poets in other languages, supporting poetry slams etc.
I write all of this, thinking about my own journey, as well as the journey of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut and the mission networks of the restructured church.
There were various ideas that were floated around about being willing to take risks, be vulnerable, and not fear failure. There were talks about mission work being messy, and just doing it. There were talks about #FlashConpline. Anyone up for #FlashCompline in Connecticut? How about Laundry Love, a program to help those without sufficient housing to do their laundry, like a twenty first century foot washing?
There were talks about intentional communities, worshiping communities, arts communities, and young adult communities. There were discussions about how these communities take place both face to face and online.
What are your stories of average weekly impact? What sort of event, like a #flashcompline, have you had recently? What are you planning to do next? How do we gather as a community, both face to face, and online to share God’s Love, “to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ”?
One of the comments I loved from Missional Voices is that sometimes it is important to ask the question, even if you know what the answer is going to be, because the question needs to be asked, it gets people thinking. So, my first action is to ask these questions. In my case, I don’t know what the answers will be, but I pray they will lead to further actions, further questions, and further answers.
#MissionalVoices: The Jesus Movement Camp
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 04/16/2016 - 05:12“Unused creativity is not benign” I started off my poem on Thursday with this quote from Brene Brown. Neither, it seems, is an unresponded to call from God.
It is four in the morning, and I should be sleeping. I woke yesterday at four to drive down to Virginia for the #MissionalVoices conference. Too much driving, so much to think about, too little sleep.
I am a social media manager at a Federally Qualified Health Center. I am not one of the eighty seminarians at this conference. I am not one of the many priests or other church leaders at the conference.
I had all the standard fears and anxieties I have going to a conference as an outsider, as an other, as someone who is not already well versed in the topic. Going to a conference at a seminary is not something most of my co-workers would ever think of doing, but here I am, and it feels like someone sent me.
“Unused creativity is not benign”. It is something I’ve been struggling with all my life. After dropping out of college, giving up my plans of being a priest or professor, I moved to New York City to become a poet, and instead, spent the follow decades making a living, supporting myself, and then my wife and family. I love them dearly, but I had a secret love, writing, and so at all of those events and a proper life, the gatherings with co-workers, I pined for this other love as well.
A year and a half ago, I somehow got connected with the poetry efforts in the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. They have a Diocesan Poet, something it seems more dioceses should have. I started writing again. I attended a poetry conference, at of all places, Yale Divinity School. The signup form asked what sort of church leader I was, Rector, Music Director, Director of Christian Education, those sort of things, and “other”. They did not have “Aspiring social media bivocational missional priest”, not that I would have understood what that means, or identified that way, yet. So I registered as “other” and went, embracing this otherness, and encountered, not only my secret love of writing, but also the source of love, who is called by the name of Love, and Love said, “I’ve been waiting”.
That was eleven months ago. Next month, a parish discernment committee will have its last meeting with me and then submit a report to the diocese on their thoughts about what should happen next with me on my journey.
As I sought discernment, I stumbled across new a word for me, “missiology”. Then, I heard about a conference at Virginia Theological Seminary, Missional Voices, and here I am. It started off with a video welcome from Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, who talked, as he often does, about the “Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement”. Yup. Here I am at Jesus Movement Camp.
I chose this phrase as a combination of Bishop Curry’s comments about the “Jesus Movement” and the 2006 film “Jesus Camp”. Living in a liberal secular community, “Jesus Camp” represents all that is wrong with Christianity. To borrow from the Wikipedia article about Jesus Camp, “At the camp, Fischer stresses the need for children to purify themselves in order to be part of the ‘army of God’”
I don’t want to feed into “us/them” thinking by focusing on what I believe is wrong with “Jesus Camp”, but if I were to try and put this conference into that framework, I would say that instead of focusing on ritual purification, we are focusing on God’s love for us, something that is very personal and palpable to me, and on the calling to go out and share that love with our neighbors.
On a certain level, these words may sound very similar to my conservative Christian friends. The difference, it seems, is how we show that love. Some people seem to believe it is all about telling others that God loves them, and they will go to hell if they don’t accept God’s love.
This conference is about showing our neighbors that God loves them. It is about more than just a symbolic washing of feet on Maundy Thursday, it is about washing the clothes of homeless people while listening to them and learning what it really means to be a neighbor. It is about gathering in communities, artistic, intentional, worshipful, that provide food, housing, and fellowship to those around us.
It is about stepping out in faith and fear in failing churches, not to maintain a dying institution, but to show the love of a living God.
On the way down, I recorded some of my thoughts about the road trip. I listened to modern American Poetry. I listened to some essays by Barbara Kingsolver that she wrote after 9/11. Back home, friends gathered to protest a campaign rally for a candidate who wants to make America great again, not by loving our neighbors, but by being tough and building higher walls.
Today, when over $100 per human across the earth is spent advertising mammon, when our consumption of natural resources causes serious problems for people around the global, the need for God’s redeeming love is as great as ever, and learning to show that love, learning to help others learn how to show that love is important work, is crucial work, with all the nuances of “Crucial” fully intended.
After the conference, I will head back to Connecticut. I will talk with my priest, the discernment committee will continue to meet, and I will talk with my bishop and the Commission on Ministry.
One thing that I will recommend is that next year, the Episcopal Church in Connecticut have viewing parties of Missional Voices, similar to what we did for the Trinity Institute, that those in the process of seeking discernment and postulants be strongly encouraged to attend and have deep discussions about what it means to have missional voices heard in Connecticut.
I do not know where all of this will lead, but this much I know. God loves me, more deeply than I can understand, in spite of all my failings. God wants me to show that love to my neighbors, especially to the others, those that our political candidates seek to blame or exclude. This is what the Jesus Movement is about for me right now, and why Missional Voices, a Jesus Movement Camp, is so important.
