Keeper Of The Word

I was raised as a Protestant Christian. As such I was educated in the Bible. The denomination in grew up thought it important to present scripture - both Old and New Testaments - as divinely inspired (1 Timothy 3:16), a record of how God interacted with people in the past, and a model for what was possible for people who were open to such still today. I found it to be a caring, nurturing, mutually supporting group of people.

When I was in grade nine someone came into our young adults Sunday School class and asked if anyone there would be willing to teach Sunday School as they did not have enough teachers. Something prompted me to volunteer (I was the only one out of about thirty teens to do so.) That prompting changed my life.

I was at first mentored for a few months, teaching a class of second grade boys. And then for the remainder of that year and for the next three I taught that class. We were all in one open room. Each Sunday there was an opening session with everyone involved and then we divided into separate groups at our own tables. I loved it. I liked each year's class that came through and they all liked me. I never had any issues with any of them. I enjoyed my work.

But beyond feeling like I was making a contribution in society, most of all this piqued a desire in me to learn the Bible and I found myself sitting at home reading it almost every day. That doing so raised more questions than for which I had answers is no doubt. But slowly I worked my way through them all.

I also realized that while what I was reading had historical and moral aspects to it, it also had an element that was experimental, inviting me to consider how God actually encountered people today. What might that look like? Christian faith had little to do with morality, doctrine, ethics, etc.; it had everything to do with the encounter with the risen Christ every bit as much as Moses encountering God in the burning bush, or Jesus' disciples on the road to Emmaus. At that time in my own life I wanted to dictate the means by which this happened; I came to find out that that was not possible. In order to avail oneself you simply had to deny yourself, and be open and attentive...and patient. So this started me on my journey into Christian contemplative prayer - apophatic and eremitic.

In university I grew in my knowledge of scripture by involvement in a campus ministry organization. They emphasized a comprehensive reading of the Bible, memorizing scripture, and a disciplined time of reading scripture and praying every day. These were helpful to me. What was not helpful were the ways in which they sacrificed the interaction with God in favour of ethics, morality, doctrine, and theology. After two years I left that group but took with me the disciplines that they encouraged in me.

That summer I was introduced to the publication, Sojourners. This was the first time that I had run across a model of Christian faith that actively critiqued the surrounding culture by applying scripture to it without compromise. This was something that had disturbed me ever since I had started reading scripture in earnest as a teenager. Here was an approach that did not impose select scriptures in a way that justified living non-biblically, but that actively sought the presence of God in the world and tried to respond in a way that was in keeping with the biblical witness of God being alive and active in the world today. And it was through Sojourners that I came to be introduced to the work of William Stringfellow. There were others, too, who they introduced to me: Thomas Merton, Clarence Jordan, Dorothy Day. These people sought God in daily life and they, responded as the opportunity opened before them. And it was this dynamic that I sought to unearth.

Over the course of my life I wound up spending eleven years in full time study, obtaining three graduate degrees - two Masters and a Doctorate - looking for anyone who could shed light on this foundational element of faith. I joined a religious society and a monastic community to this end. But sadly no one could syphon off the actual dynamic of faith from their investment in their organization's ego. For twenty-eight years I served (sacrificed) in various religious organizations and denominations hoping to find a gathering of people who could get beyond their own religious narcissism, live a free life in the world, and simply wait for God to lead and act. I found no such people. In the end I resigned my ordination and quit all groups. I recognized in my religious interactions a hypocrisy that I could not abide any more.

These days I live a very simple life, open to God, serving others through providing a place for free for contemplative prayer as well as by growing food for free distribution among those who have less access to the necessities of life. It is really that simple. And in this William Stringfellow's insights into the nature of principalities plays a very important role. There are others who will appear on this blog who are equally important. But just as my five years of training in clinical psychology affects the manner in which I hear what others say in the church, so his insights into the nature of corporate organization provides me with an important foil against which I need to defend myself, because without that I am at risk of serving idols.

I thank God for this man and am forever in his debt, although I am sure that if he could say so he would simply point beyond myself to something greater at work in the world, both directly and through the Word...