Journey
This is about my spiritual journey and trying to find what God is calling me to next.
The Unimaginable Discernment #Hamilton
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 10/29/2016 - 17:47The yellow and red leaves of autumn are turning brown and falling. I am exhausted. Four years ago, today, my mother died in a car accident during Hurricane Sandy. It was in the final days of my first campaign for State Representative.
There are moments that the words don’t reach
There is suffering too terrible to name
Today, I’m running for State Representative again. It is a low key campaign this time. I reluctantly accepted a minor party nomination, with the agreement that I would not have to do much other than allow my name to be on the ballot. This would give voters a choice, the minor party a chance to keep their name on the ballot, and me a few chances to talk about what is happening in the public sphere.
I was reluctant to run because I knew that even with a full-fledged campaign, which is a lot of work, my chances of getting elected were minimal. I am running against the house minority leader.
I was also reluctant because there was something much bigger going on in my life. I was seeking ordination as an Episcopal priest. Yesterday, I hit a major roadblock.
The moments when you’re in so deep
It feels easier to just swim down
The Hamiltons move uptown
And learn to live with the unimaginable
My quest for ordination has seemed unlikely from the very beginning. I went off to college forty years ago, intending to study religion and become a minister. Money had always been tight in our family, and it was even tighter since my parents were going through a divorce. A high school classmate I had been fond of was brutally murdered during my freshman year and being off in college in a different state, I did not get the opportunity to mourn with my classmates. I had few friends, little support, and my dreams slowly fell apart. I became a philosophy major, dropped out of school and moved to New York City to write poetry. I supported myself writing computer programs, got married, had kids, and forgot my dreams.
In my brokenness and timidity I gave up my shot.
I worked hard, made a good salary, was involved in church, but slowly ennui crept in. My wife left me. I fell apart.
I remarried and my new wife gave birth to our daughter, my third and youngest. We struggled financially, lost our house in foreclosure, went bankrupt and moved to a small rented house near where my wife grew up.
I spend hours in the garden
I walk alone to the store
And it’s quiet uptown
It’s been quiet in Woodbridge. Slowly, I’ve gotten involved in town politics, made friends, and became involved in church again.
I take the children to church on Sunday
A sign of the cross at the door
And I pray
Slowly, I started writing poetry again. I joined a poetry group and share my poems with them and online. I went to a conference on poetry in the church and had deeply religious experience. I felt, more powerfully than anything else in my religious life so far, that God was calling me to ministry, to the ordained priesthood in the Episcopal Church, and I began my journey of discernment.
From the beginning it has seemed unlikely, unimaginable. How could a fifty seven year old college drop-out impoverished son of a Scotsman become a priest in the Episcopal Church? We are doing okay now, living pay check to paycheck with little savings, but the only way it could happen would be if God clears the way.
He is working through the unimaginable
His hair has gone grey. He passes every day
They say he walks the length of the city
…
Can you imagine?
Yesterday, I hit a major roadblock. It appears as if the way has not yet been made clear, and I must find a different path or destination. It has been a rough day. I’ve slept. I’ve written. I’ve walked. I’ve been to the dump. I’ve paused to remember my mother and still I don’t understand.
There are moments that the words don’t reach
There is a grace too powerful to name
We push away what we can never understand
We push away the unimaginable
Election Day is coming up. Afterwards will be the Annual Convention of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. Advent will come and then Christmas and Epiphany. I will wait. I will listen for God in hopes of getting a new sense of what I am called to. I will confess my sins and seek God’s mercy and forgiveness.
Forgiveness. Can you imagine?
If you see him in the street, walking by her
Side, talking by her side, have pity
They are going through the unimaginable
The Portal
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 10/28/2016 - 08:47In a few hours, I will pass through a portal. It is a portal I have thought about all of my adult life. It is a portal that became more clearly visible and approachable for me about a year and a half ago. I do not know what is on the other side of the portal. I may find myself where I started, like T.S. Eliot in the Four Quartets. I may find myself having crossed a threshold that Joseph Campbell talked about.
I expect the crossing to be overwhelming, to emotionally draining. I expect the crossing to change me. I don’t yet know what the path on the other side of the portal will be. Will it be pretty much the same path I’ve been on? Will there be new goals, new tasks?
Update: I have stepped through to portal to find myself disoriented, in a place that seems very similar to where I was as I approached the portal, while at the same time, completely different. The portal appears to have vanished, and stunned, I look around trying to regain my bearings before taking the next step on my journey.
The Discernment Monomyth
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 10/25/2016 - 06:26I’ve long been interested in the Monomyth or Hero’s Journey as an archetypal story. I’ve thought about this story as a framework and way of understanding my own journey’s and especially the spiritual journey I am now on. Was this weekend, and this time of waiting crossing the threshold into adventure? In many ways it feels that way. Yet it feels like the hero myth is very masculine, grown out of patriarchy. I’m also interested in counter-narratives. What are the other narratives we should be hearing?
Fiona is reading the Odyssey in school which fits well into the framework of the monomyth, but Odysseus is not the only character in the Odyssey. What about Penelope? What is her narrative? What does she do while waiting?
What do we do while waiting? The question echoes Waiting for Godot. We could do our exercises. What is the archetypal story of waiting? Perhaps it is a very feminine story. Perhaps it is Penelope’s story. Perhaps it is Mary’s story, especially leading into advent. Perhaps it is the story of waiting and giving birth.
I am waiting to hear from the commission on ministry and the bishops’ words that will shape the next steps in my journey, words that will help shape what or who I am being rebirthed into. My experience with the birthing process is limited. I don’t remember my own birth. If I recall the stories, the labor was easy for my mother and I was born fairly quickly. I stood at the side of my daughters’ mothers and did what I could to assist when my daughters were born. But mine was the story of a supporting character.
In terms of the pains of childbirth, the closest I’ve come has been the pains of kidney stones, which some say is fairly close, yet without the joy and endorphins.
So, what do I do while waiting. I remember reading parts of “What to expect when you’re expecting” when my daughters were born. What is the monomyth version of this? What is the version for those of us in discernment, “What to discern when you’re discerning?” What do we do while waiting?
As I await my rebirthing part of my story, or at least the rebirthing around whether or how I become a postulant, I am skipping forward in the lectionary to the readings of Advent. I am listening to Advent music. I am praying, “Come, Lord Jesus”.
I am reading about the peace of Jerusalem, quietness within her towers. I am reading about beating swords into ploughshares. I am reading about laying aside the works of darkness, and living honorably in the day, not in quarreling and jealousy.
Initial Reflections on the Discernment Weekend
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 10/24/2016 - 00:03For those of you who are not regular readers of my blog or have missed my recent posts in social media about my spiritual journey, I am aspiring to become an Episcopal priest. It is a long journey. Over the past year and a half, I’ve been praying and seeking discernment on exactly what God is calling me to. This weekend, I went on a discernment retreat with over a dozen other people aspiring to the priesthood as well as the bishops and members of the Commission on Ministry in the Episcopal Church in Connecticut.
It was an intense and wonderful weekend and I’m finally getting a moment to write down some initial reactions to the weekend.
It is tempting to think of this weekend as a long job interview, or perhaps part of the selection process to join some special group. To a certain extent, it may make sense to think of it this way, but I believe this misses something much more important. The discernment weekend, like so many other parts of the discernment process is a beautiful gift. It is a special time together, to help one another gain a clearer sense of how the source of all love wishes us to share that love with one another.
At one point, I spoke with a fellow aspirant about how the weekend was going for him. It seemed like he was struggling. It seemed like to him it was a job interview that wasn’t going well. We talked a little bit about times we’ve interviewed people in a current work. Later, I had the opportunity to share a quote from Winnie the Pooh.
“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.”
I invited him to forget about the job interview and instead wonder what exciting new thing he would learn about himself and God’s love for him today. Later in the day, a member on the Commission on Ministry challenged him to think in a new way about how God was already using him and he had an aha moment. It felt like the Holy Spirit had worked through my words and the words of the priest to help draw my new friend a little closer to God and to each of us.
There wasn’t any one thing that I can point to as an aha moment in my own experience. Perhaps the closest was in a discussion with the bishops when a fellow aspirant who had not been raised Episcopalian talked about her ambivalent relationship to bishops. It led to a great discussion about different ways of being a bishop or priest, what we bring to the role, and what the role brings to us in terms of the institution, our culture, and the expectations others place upon us.
In my mind, I thought of my interest in applying my understanding of Judith Butler’s ideas about performativity to identifying as a Christian in a post-Christendom world, to identifying as an aspirant, and perhaps someday identifying as a priest. I’ve touched on this before, and I expect to come back to this many times in my future writings.
One theme I often return to, and I spent a bit of time talking about this on the retreat is how communications people think about primary tasks. In communications, we should always go back to the mission statement. For Episcopalians, that catechism has this great line:
The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.
How would my becoming a priest help the church restore people to unity with God and each other in Christ? It felt like the weekend helped me deepen my thoughts about this as I spoke with various people on this subject.
Yet the weekend wasn’t just about talking about this idea. It was about living out this idea. I came away feeling as if I had been drawn even closer to God. I felt as if I had been drawn closer to others seeking to strengthen their relationship with God. It has been a wonderful experience.
As part of the ordination of a priest in the Episcopal Church, a candidate is asked,
do you believe that you are truly called by God and his Church to this priesthood?
This weekend reaffirmed my belief that I am called by God to the priesthood. Over the coming week, the commission will meet and deliberate on whether they believe that I and the other aspirants might also be called by the Church to the priesthood and if the bishops should invite us to become postulants.
Now, I wait prayerfully to hear what the Spirit is saying to them.
Good Friday Open Heart Surgery
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 10/21/2016 - 02:00It is Thursday night and I cannot sleep. This coming afternoon, I will go on retreat with the bishops and members of the Commission on Ministry and others, like myself, who are seeking discernment in the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. I have lit a candle and am listening to music from Taize.
Stay with me.
Remain here with me.
Watch and pray.
What was it like in the garden ages ago? What was going through Jesus’ mind? What if something goes wrong? What if it doesn’t work out? What if I can’t take the pain?
What is it like for me, as I prepare for the retreat? What if they say, “No, we don’t think you should pursue ordination”? Will they be speaking God’s truth to me? Will I be able to hear it? What if they talk about my brokenness, about the places I have not yet died to self, will God give me the strength to die with Christ that I might also live with Christ, that I might become more Christ like?
When you get down to it, perhaps that is the more frightening part, facing those places where I need to change, to be changed. What will the journey be like? Is this Friday and Saturday the Good Friday and Holy Saturday of this phase of my life?
To a certain extent, it does feel like Holy Week. The triumphant entry into Norwich for Poetry Sunday, and then things start getting hard, hearing that my ex-brother-in-law Paul has died, going to the funeral of my Uncle-in-law. Making it through the week, trying to fit two or three weeks’ worth of work into a few days.
Today, I learned that Eric died. Eric was the son of a woman I go to Thursday noontime Eucharist with. We have been praying for him for a long time. Later, I spoke with my friend Robert. Robert often hangs out on the street in front of my office. He has had a rough time, drinking, fighting, getting into trouble with the law, a lost sheep of the Lord. He loves God. He knows that God loves him. Yet life is still incredibly hard for him. He is supposed to have open heart surgery next week.
Come, Father of the poor, come,
generous Spirit, come, light of our hearts.
Veni Sancte Spiritus
Is this weekend my spiritual open heart surgery? When those valves that aren’t working as well as they could be get repaired, when the stony parts of my heart get replaced with a heart of love? How painful will it be? How long will I be laid up? What will happen to my relationships, with my family, with my friends, with my co-workers?
How does this relate to the larger picture, after another day of record breaking heat, after another evening of vitriolic political discourse? Robert and I are not the only ones with different types of heart problems, as Rev. Barber says, ”America has a heart problem”. What am I called to in this area?
Have I written enough? Will I be able to sleep now? Will you pray for me and for the others that will be on retreat this weekend? Will you pray for Joe, Paul, Eric, and their families? Will you pray for myself and for Robert? Will you pray for our country and the upcoming election? Will you pray for our world, that we might use its resources wisely?
Stay with me.
Remain here with me.
Watch and pray.
