19th Century Voice, 21st Century Communications
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 01/18/2016 - 21:32It has been another non-stop day. During my commute, I’ve started listening to The Complete Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, recorded on Librivox, and downloaded to a tablet I hook up to the car’s sound system. I had been listening to Billy Collins, but there is something about him that grates on me. I hope to write a poem about it soon.
I did manage to take time at lunch to go to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day event at a local church. In the evening, I did some work online and now, I’m sitting down to do some writing on my own behalf. I think about applying a nineteenth century voice to twenty first century communications, but my eyelids are drooping, so I’ll drift off thinking about this.
Random Stuff
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 01/17/2016 - 22:33Online, the discussions rage on about the Communique from Canterbury. I’ve ended up getting connected with several additional progressive Christian groups as a result. I am trying to be more intentional about my use of social media as it relates to spirituality. I have another long post in mind, but I’ve decided to hold off, at least for another day, since I’ve been writing a bit of long posts about all of this.
Instead, I’ll focus a little bit on the augmented reality game that I play, Ingress. I’ve found a good new site for tracking stats, including overall team stats. It is fun to look at this larger leader board.
I’m thinking of downloading more spoken poetry to a mobile device that I can listen to on my commute and I’m looking for more time to explore rhizomatic learning as well as exploring spirituality in the darkweb.
Our Anglican Vocation
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 01/16/2016 - 22:44I am trying, with the help of friends, to discern what sort of vocation God is calling me to. It may seem like a strange task for a fifty-six year old man with a successful career. It seems strange to me.
Why now? I am hoping that exploring this question will help me get to the question of what God is calling me to. I am exploring this publicly, online, because part of ‘now’ is the world of the Internet, a world I spend a lot of time in as a social media manager. Part of ‘now’ is the waning participation in church, especially by Millennials. Part of ‘now’ is struggles within the body of Christ, here in the United States, as well as around the world, about what the sacrament of Marriage means and if it is right to offer, or withhold that sacrament from same-sex couples. Of course, all of these are interconnected.
Two important events happened this week related to all of this. We had the first meeting of my discernment committee, which I’ve been writing about in other blog posts and a group of bishops in England voted to not allow members of The Episcopal Church to serve on certain committees. A question that both of these events raise is, what sort of relationship should I have with the church hierarchy? With my bishop? With the Presiding Bishop? With the Anglican Communion as a whole?
Before I go much further, I should provide context for those not acquainted with what happened in Canterbury, or who have gotten impartial and probably misleading views of what happened from various media outlets.
To start with, it is best to read the full communique of #Primates2016. It is worth noting that these are ‘recommendations’ supported by a majority of the bishops attending.
The Episcopal Church no longer represent us on ecumenical and interfaith bodies, should not be appointed or elected to an internal standing committee and that while participating in the internal bodies of the Anglican Communion, they will not take part in decision making on any issues pertaining to doctrine or polity.
This recommendation, ostensibly is because of The Episcopal Church’s resolution to permit same-sex marriage. Yet I have to wonder if General Convention Resolution A051, Support LGBT African Advocacy, may have been a larger issue. House of Deputies President Gay Clark Jennings mentions this resolution in her letter on the primates meeting.
Some people complaining about the actions of The Episcopal Church have spoken about it in the language of colonialism. Changing policies on how gay people are treated in the United States seems very far from colonialism, but fighting for human rights in other countries could seem like colonialism to those opposed to such human rights.
In the same letter, Jennings writes
The practical consequences of the primates’ action will be that, for three years, Episcopalians will not be invited to serve on certain committees, or will be excluded from voting while they are there. However, the primates do not have authority over the Anglican Consultative Council, the worldwide body of bishops, clergy and lay people that facilitates the cooperative work of the churches of the Anglican Communion. I serve as a representative to that body…and I am planning to travel to Zambia for our scheduled meeting in April and to participate fully.
A website of conservative Anglicans has described this as “Episcopal Church leader announces she will defy primates ban”.
The best explanation of what the communique really means that I’ve seen so far is from The Rev. Andrew McGowan, Dean of Berkeley Divinity School, No, the Episcopal Church has not been suspended from the Anglican Communion.
In his post, Rev. McGowan asks, “What is the Anglican Communion?” It is a question I struggle with as I explore a possible ordained ministry within the Anglican Communion, as I think about ecumenical and inter-faith issues, having invited people from other faith traditions to serve on my discernment committee.
McGowan points to a post by The Rev. Jesse Zink, On beyond Primates. Rev. Zink talks about a man he met at a small Anglican church in Nigeria, very different from the stereotypical Nigerian Anglican church. Towards the end of the post, Zink says,
Yet no matter who anathematizes whom or what vitriol surges forth, I will continue to believe in the reality of the Anglican Communion because of that man in that village in rural Nigeria. He and I share a bond based not on agreement on contentious issues or a common cultural background but on a common baptism and a shared willingness to live a life shaped by the good news of Jesus Christ.
The church I am exploring ordination in is the church of this man in Nigeria, of Rev Zink, and so many others seeking to “live a life shaped by the good news of Jesus Christ”.
Since the communique from Canterbury, there have been all kinds of reactions online. One that particularly struck me was from St. Laurence Cowley, Friendship bears for ECUSA. It is a wonderful gesture showing support those who feel most hurt by the request of the Primates.
One friend posted about going to a wonderful interfaith worship service, and not feeling all that upset about this whole communique from Canterbury because she has plenty of people to pray with. She acknowledge that this might not be perfect Anglican party line thinking, I suggested that it seems to fit very well with what the Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop’s response to Primates’ statement.
We are the Episcopal Church, and we are part of the Jesus Movement, and that Movement goes on, and our work goes on. And the truth is, it may be part of our vocation to help the Communion and to help many others to grow in a direction where we can realize and live the love that God has for all of us, and we can one day be a Church and a Communion where all of God’s children are fully welcomed, where this is truly a house of prayer for all people.
I started off my blog post using the words discernment and vocation. I did this deliberately. Normally, I try to shun church speak, to try and make my posts more accessible, but I wanted to use those to words because they are words my ears are especially attuned to right now. Bishop Curry spoke about our vocation, and as such, it is part of my vocation. A vocation shared at a small Anglican church in Nigeria, at an interfaith worship service, and in comments online.
A lot of people are wringing their hands right now about the communique from Canterbury. People are praying for priests that get to preach tomorrow on Jesus’ first miracle, changing water into wine at a wedding in Cana of Galilee.
My thought for those looking for words, Jesus’ first miracle turned something that could have been hurtful, a big disappointment, into an even greater cause for celebration. I am praying that God will use the communique out of Canterbury to reinvigorate all who seek that day when we can “be a Church and a Communion where all of God’s children are fully welcomed”. I am praying that as we seek to understand Anglican Vocation, we may all see bringing this about as part of our vocations.
I’m finding others sharing similar thoughts. The Vicar of St. Martin in the Fields wrote,
The ray of hope from the experience of those who have come out is this. Those same people whose ostracism hurt them so much, in many cases later came to say: “But you’re my brother, my sister, my child – I cannot reject you.” Likewise worldwide Anglicans have been rediscovering, “Our unity is integral to our identity: we don’t know who we are without each other.”
On Sacramental Marriage
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 01/16/2016 - 15:02On Facebook, someone asked,
What, in your opinion, is the purpose, function, and effect of the sacrament of marriage? I think that if we can nail down what exactly this sacrament is supposed to do for those who receive it, we can thereby determine whether or not the sex and gender of the couple involved is essential to its matter and form.
I started to reply in a comment, but it grew too long, and is probably too important to be lost in a comment, so I’m sharing it as a blog post.
Thursday, I had my first discernment committee meeting. I wrote about it in a blog post, Discernment Committee Reflections 1/15/16
In part, I wrote:
" I came from a relatively poor family with a relatively strict father. In elementary school, my classmates made fun of the clothes my mother bought me from thrift shops, and the food we ate was simple, either home grown, inexpensive, or day old. In spite of doing well academically, it often felt like I could never please anyone, not my father, not my classmates. I was never good enough. Other than the care I felt from my mother, I rarely felt particularly loved.
And here I am, exploring becoming a priest. Why? Because I finally came to believe that God really does love me, not just as some sort of nice concept that we talk about in Sunday School, “God loves you”, but a deep full love greater than we can understand, a love beyond our deserving, made accessible through the cross. In experiencing that love, I came to believe that I must go show that love to whomever God leads me to."
In a comment on Facebook, my wife responded, "Hey, *I* love you."
To her, I responded, " I know and appreciate that. I believe it is part of the reason I can now more fully experience and share God's love and am finally ready for this the phase of my spiritual journey."
For me, this captures a core aspect of marriage, particularly as a sacrament. Marriage is an outward and visible example of the love between a person and another person like the inward and invisible relationship between a person and God.
For me, recognizing the love between two people should not depend on the genders of either people, any more than the love between a person and God depends on our understanding of the gender of either person or God.
Postscript: I realize that not all marriages are wonderful, are blessed. I also realize that not all relationships with God are what they should be. I do not intend to imply ones marriage reflects ones relationsihp with God, or vice versa. However, I do believe that when we see a really good marriage, we are seeing, in part, a sign of the relationship to God that is available to all of us.
Discernment Committee Reflections 1/15/16
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 01/15/2016 - 17:44I arrived at church a few minutes early to find my priest and a member of the discernment committee talking about the events of the day. It seemed to us that the death of Alan Rickman was of greater import to members of the parish than the latest pronouncement out of Canterbury. For me, of even more significance was this next step on my spiritual journey, my first discernment committee meeting.
For my friends who are not Episcopalians, a discernment committee is part of the process of becoming an ordained priest. You need your priest to support your calling and you need your local community to support it. All of this comes after many meetings with my priest, as well as meeting with the bishop and members of the commission on ministry to get the go ahead to even have a discernment committee.
It seems like in the old days, people would tell the Bishop about the career path they hoped to follow, starting as an assistant rector, becoming a rector, and over time moving to larger churches. The discernment committee would then either be a rubber stamp, or a veto of this desire.
If you got all the proper approvals, you would then go to seminary for three years and then start your career as a priest, where there would always be jobs available.
Things have changed. In my letter to the bishop, I said I didn’t know what God was calling me to, but simply that I was called to some sort of ministry beyond what I am currently doing in my day to day life. People have told me that in the old days, that would have ended the process for me right then and there, but things have changed.
So, for the next couple of months, every other week, I will gather with a small group of people, some from my church, others from beyond the church, to pray, study scripture, and talk about God’s calling to each of us, especially as it relates to what God might have in store for me. It won’t be a simple rubber stamp or a veto. It will be work for all of us. They will then pass their thoughts on to the bishop and the commission on ministry and I will move on to the next step, whatever it might be.
The discussions will be confidential, so we can all speak as freely as openly as possible, so unless someone gives me specific permission to talk about something they have said, I expect to be sharing my experiences of the meetings, what they feel like and meant to me, but not much else.
I am hoping that the meetings will be a blessing to me and to members of the discernment committee. Likewise, I hope that my reflections on this online will be a blessing to a wider audience and that I might gain additional insights from my friends online.
I realize that the process I am going through may be different than the process in other dioceses and I hope that my writing about this will help both The Episcopal Church in Connecticut and other diocese think more about how discernment and formation processes can be improved to better meet the needs of the 21st century church.
So, what was it like last night? I came from a relatively poor family with a relatively strict father. In elementary school, my classmates made fun of the clothes my mother bought me from thrift shops, and the food we ate was simple, either home grown, inexpensive, or day old. In spite of doing well academically, it often felt like I could never please anyone, not my father, not my classmates. I was never good enough. Other than the care I felt from my mother, I rarely felt particularly loved.
And here I am, exploring becoming a priest. Why? Because I finally came to believe that God really does love me, not just as some sort of nice concept that we talk about in Sunday School, “God loves you”, but a deep full love greater than we can understand, a love beyond our deserving, made accessible through the cross. In experiencing that love, I came to believe that I must go show that love to whomever God leads me to.
As I think about this, as I try to write about it, I get verklempt , a feeling I felt several times last night. I felt God’s love for me coming through the words of the members of the discernment committee as we talked. I felt God’s love for me, and all of us, in the words of the opening collect and in the discussion of parts of the liturgy that have been said by others God loves just as much for centuries.
Yet one does not have to be ordained to share God’s love. So, is God calling me to ordination? If so, why? Does it have something to do with celebrating the sacraments? With living a sacramental life? With outward and visible signs of inward and invisible grace?
And who is God leading me to serve? What sort of service is God asking of me?
These are the things I hope to discern, with the help of the members of the discernment committee as well as the help of people reading and commenting on my words online.
