Journey
This is about my spiritual journey and trying to find what God is calling me to next.
What I’m Thinking 1/2/2016
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 01/02/2016 - 13:39Last January, I wrote several blog posts about what I was thinking. They fit with some of my current thoughts about Shaping Ava, Continuous Partial Discernment, and The Rhizome - Perhaps 2016.
So, here are things that I’ve been looking at over the past day, part of the rhizome, part of shaping Ava, as part of my journey. One friend on Facebook posted something which seems to me to follow a similar line of thought about trying to be more focused for 2016 and looking for tips. I responded, in part:
Write something every day. Do it digitally. Have a few things that you can fall back on. What did you read online that caught your attention? (If there are a few things, how are they related?) What was the most beautiful thing you saw today? What kind act or compassion did you experience, either as giver, receiver, or observer?
Try to connect with others making similar goals. If you post something on Facebook that I see on this line, I will try to respond. Try to find others to respond to in the same manner.
So, here are a few things that caught my attention. Somehow, I stumbled across the Spiritual Formation in the Episcopal Diocese of Western MA Facebook page. This led to their blog, Sharing the Season in the Episcopal Diocese of Western MA Reflections on Advent and Christmas.
One of the posts was about Barbara Crafton speaking at St. Francis Church in Holden, MA on January 27th. Another was about the possibility of a book study group around Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus. The Facebook page, the blog, and the book are on my reading list.
Also from Western Mass I found a link to The Awakening Conference. It is scheduled for April 28-May 1st in Holyoke. It looks interesting, but probably isn’t for me.
Someone, I suspect from an Episcopalian group on Facebook, shared a link to Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation. I’ll add these to my list of daily meditations.
Someone else mentioned Marcus Borg, another writer to explore. One final link for today is BEST OF RNS: Coloring books for grown-ups: A spiritual practice?
As an aside, I started looking at various daily meditations and poems I receive. I looked to see if I could organize them into a good RSS feed. Unfortunately, some of them are available only as emails. During my search I got back to my old RSS feeds, which I’ve used various tools to manage. Right now, I’m thinking I’ll use Digg’s RSS reader, and I’ve added a few new daily mediation blogs there.
Another blog I stumbled across over the past day or two is Between the By-Road and the Main Road. It has a tag line, “Exploring the intersections between art and learning”, and the most recent post includes Billy Collins poem “Forgetfulness”
For other daily reading, there is Poem A Day from Poets.Org and a word of the day email I get from The Society of Saint John the Evangelist.
Shaping Ava
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 01/01/2016 - 10:33Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit. Happy New Year! We perform our rituals, say our incantations in hopes that, somehow, this year will be better. For a day, we forget the quote attributed to Einstein, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”, and make the same resolutions.
This year, I’ve been seeing a quote attributed to Mark Twain making the rounds, “New Year's Day--Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”
Last night, we had a YouTube Riff Off. This is a game we play where one person plays a song on YouTube, and the next person riff’s off of that tune, selecting some other tune the first tune made them think of. We go around and around as one tune leads to another and one mood gives way to the next. It is interesting to observe what emerges.
We started off with Auld Lang Syne and went to songs about children growing up, Cat’s Cradle, Circle Game. We went to the sending off phase of Black Parade and Carry on my Wayward son, to remembrances, in “Will you remember me”, “Box of Rain” and “Ode to Billie Joe” The Riff off culminated in a nod to religious coexistence in The Kennedys’ song Stand.
Perhaps it reflected some of the themes for the coming year, as Fiona potentially heads off to school and I explore more deeply my religious calling.
Afterwards, we watched “Ex Machina”. I’ve been interested in AI’s for a long time and remember a saying that AIs would end up looking like their creators. Back then, the folks working on AI were nerdy engineers. In Ex Machina, the guy creating the AI is a reclusive genius. The software for the AI is the large search engine he has created and made his fortunes off of.
It is an idea that has fascinated me for a long time. What if our search engines and social networks are the new AIs, or at least the source of information for these AIs about social behavior? Seem unlikely? It’s already happening.
IBM'S Watson Can Figure Out A Lot About You—Just By Looking At Your Social Media
IBM Is Using Watson To Psychoanalyze People From Their Tweets
Matters Of The Mind: Mass. Computer Scientist Creates Technology To Read Emotions
So, are we now just pawns, nodes in some giant AI? Are the results of the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign already predetermined? Does it matter who gets elected anyway? Are we just amplifying echoes in the social media echo chamber when we like or share messages about Trump, Bernie, or Hillary?
Can we shape Ava? If so, how?
It seems easy to be discouraged when you look at all the issues our country and our world faces. Will what I write help shift the direction of climate change? Will what I write help bring an end to oppression; to racism or sexism?
I chose to remain optimistic. I think Robert Kennedy’s quote provides some insight.
Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
Here, we could go off into a long discussion about whether sharing posts that reflect our political or religious views counts as standing up for an ideal. We could talk about slacktivism and whether we are just going back to paving the road to hell. Yet that, too, most likely leads to hopelessness and inaction.
Instead, I think David Foster Wallace presents a more useful way of looking at it in his commencement speech, This Is Water
The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the “rat race” — the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.
Perhaps this is the real challenge, for the new year, for each day, in shaping Ava, to challenge the default settings, to pay attention, to be aware, not only to the trending topics on Facebook or Twitter, but to the simple things around us, the beauty of the squirrel running in the woods, probably the same squirrel that has been raiding your bird feeder, the common humanity of the homeless guy you see on the street.
Happy New Year.
Continuous Partial Discernment
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 12/31/2015 - 10:17Sitting on the verge of 2016, I wonder what sort of year it will be. Friends are posting about the presidential election. They are reflecting on racial injustices that continue to this day. They are concerned about climate change. They are making plans for celebrations for this evening and resolutions for the coming year.
My resolution for the coming year is to seek a better understanding of what God is calling me to do. There is a specific process for this for those who believe God may be calling them to ordained priesthood in the Episcopal Church, the discernment process.
Starting in a couple weeks, I will begin meeting regularly with a small group of people who will pray with me, study scripture together, and help me seek a better understanding of what God is calling me to. I view this as a wonder gift to me, and I hope it will be a wonderful gift for them as well.
Some of my early thoughts about this have been to explore how much I can share this online as well. The Discernment Manual of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut talks about the importance of maintaining confidentiality. “What is said here stays here. It is not appropriate to tell someone else’s story.” It is extremely difficult to maintain confidentiality online, so I won’t be posting stories from my discernment committee meetings online, although I hope to share some of the insights I’ve gained and further explore these insights online.
Yet as I think about it, the discernment process I will be going through seems limited in several ways. It is focused on people seeking discernment about becoming ordained priests. Yet we all should be seeking discernment. It takes place for a couple hours every other week, over a period of several months. Yet it seems we should all be seeking discernment constantly; praying without ceasing.
How do we do this, as we also pay attention to what is going on around us, like paying attention to the cars around us as we drive? It seems the idea of continuous partial attention by Linda Stone.
To pay continuous partial attention is to pay partial attention — CONTINUOUSLY. It is motivated by a desire to be a LIVE node on the network. Another way of saying this is that we want to connect and be connected.
How do we connect with God, and God’s creatures around us? Is that what we are doing when we scan through our social media feeds? What do we do with our feelings of outrage, compassion, awe, or gratitude? Are we seeking to discern how best to react?
My daughter who is building a tiny house talks about her goal of reconnecting art to daily life. I think this is part of continuous partial discernment. We need to recognize, create, and share art, things that are beautiful, things that have meaning. We need to have outrage at injustice and oppression, and seek discernment on how we can best address such injustice and oppression. Is it enough to click like? To share a link? To donate to a cause? What are we called to do?
How do we seek continuous partial discernment in the twenty first century?
The Labyrinth
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 12/29/2015 - 21:12A cold rain blows
across the labyrinth
on a hill
on Block Island
as I kneel down
to touch the pebbles;
symbols
of hopes and dreams
of earlier
pilgrims.
That he might see me.
That I might find the courage
to say, “Hi.”
For our life together.
That we might find a home.
For my job, my career.
For the life growing
inside my womb.
That he might conquer his addiction.
That she beats the cancer.
For a better world.
That my life
might have true meaning.
That her final days
might be peaceful,
happy,
and pain free.
For those that mourn.
I kneel down
and touch the pebbles,
as I search for my own hope
my own desires.
To help others
reach theirs.
The Mangers of Our Lives
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 12/26/2015 - 19:53Earlier today, Kim asked me if I was writing my Christmas blog post. I’ve been struggling with whether to write such a blog post, and if I do, what I would write. Perhaps, I’ve already written my Christmas blog post at work, Nicholas and Isaac.
Kim always seems to want some sort of affirmative blog post around special days, talking about what a wonderful wife she is, what a great cook she is, and so on. She is all that and so much more. She especially looks for these posts at Christmas, a time which has always been magical for her, but difficult for me.
There are traditions about Christmas that are important to me. Cutting down a fir tree for Christmas with my daughters, preferable balsam, inspired by The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree, which I read to my daughters when they were little. A Christmas Goose, a tradition from my early days as a parent. Hanukkah Geld, a tradition from my childhood, that I’m not even sure how it started.
Unfortunately, the past few years have seen the tradition of the complicated Christmas with my older daughters off on their own. It has been further complicated by illness and car troubles making the shopping all the more difficult.
This year, Kim and Fiona picked a precut blue spruce on their own. We are having duck instead of goose, and there was no Hanukkah geld. It is the Christmas of transition. Fiona is hoping that next year, she will be coming home from school in a different state to join us for the holidays. I am expecting big changes as I explore more deeply religious aspects of my life.
Yet Christmas is for everyone. It isn’t just for those who had magical Christmases as children. It isn’t just for those who share our beliefs, be they political or religious beliefs. On one Facebook page, people discussed where a certain presidential candidate whose words and actions seem very far from their views about what Jesus is calling us to do, would be spending Christmas Eve.
I tried not to be judgmental and posted,
Praying for everyone who comes to church on this most holy evening, that they may have life changing experiences of our God Incarnate leading to amendment of life and showing forth God's love throughout the coming year.
For me, some of the important parts of Christmas Eve was chatting with some of my homeless friends who gather near my office at work. It was donating to an organization that helps refugees as my present to Kim.
At Church, our priest Amanda talked about the shepherds, about people not ready for the coming of God Incarnate. It seems like none of us are ever really ready for Christmas, but it happens anyway.
Kim was going to get me Leaving Church, by Barbara Brown Taylor, a book that it has almost become a cliché to give to people exploring the priesthood. She couldn’t easily get a copy and got me Learning to Walk in the Dark instead, also by Barbara Brown Taylor.
It starts with “Come inside now, it’s getting dark”. A phrase Barbara Brown Taylor often heard as a child, telegraphing concern about the dangers lurking in the darkness. I thought of my childhood, hearing a similar phase, and reluctantly leaving the magical time of dusk.
It makes me think of William Styron’s Darkness Visible about his struggles with depression. It makes me think of the Dark Night of the Soul. This whole process makes me think of what a friend posted on Facebook a few days ago
It's often frustrating to be a saint-in-process. Why does it take so long for maturity, for transformation, for developing more of the elusive fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, and the rest. Jeff Peabody has a helpful thought: Jesus becoming a baby automatically put God's seal of approval on a slow process. It was quite a while from birth to baptism to beginning his ministry. Something to ponder this Christmas season.
This struggle comes to mind as I read a couple Facebook posts from a friend whose baby died this summer. All of the happy pictures of families celebrating together was difficult and she posted about Jesus coming for the bereft and outcasts. Later, she apologized for her bitterness and anger, and everyone was quick to tell her no apologies were needed.
Jesus did come for the bereft and outcasts. He came for the presidential candidates making their show of going to church on Christmas Eve. He came for those who had magical childhood Christmases. He came for those who had disappointing childhood Christmases. He came for those posting happy family pictures on Facebook and for those at the homeless shelter on Christmas Eve. He came for those in the midst of deep grief. He came for those who waited in eager anticipation, for those keeping a Holy Advent, and for those completely unprepared.
The Christmas message from the Diocese had a line that particularly jumped out at me.
the good news is that God in Jesus, born again in the mangers of our lives, is the Messiah, the Lord.
