Archives for July 2008

213: Guest Writer Frederick Buechner showcases a gem from “Yellow Leaves”

July 16, 2008 by


Once a week, we often share with you spiritual gems from popular writers. We’ve showcased many guest writers, including Gail Hayes, Judy Gruen, Father Donald Vettese, a story about Nobel Prize-winner Wangari Maathai and others.
   Today, we have been invited to share with you a piece by the great spiritual memoirist Frederick Buechner, called “The Laughter Barrel” about a catalytic meeting with Maya Angelou. We’re offering this piece today as an example of the gems collected in Buechner’s new collection, “The Yellow Leaves.”
   Here is …

THE LAUGHTER BARREL
By Frederick Buechner

   My first meeting with Maya Angelou took place at the Trinity Institute in New York City where we had been invited to come and in effect tell our stories before a large audience of Episcopal clergy who were there more or less to have their batteries recharged. I no longer remember how it was I went about it — I think I may have read from one of my books — but one way or another I described something of my background and told how despite having grown up in a family without any interest in religion in general or church in particular I found myself little by little so drawn to the Christian faith I knew almost nothing about that in my middle twenties I enrolled at Union Theological Seminary in its heyday and was eventually, to nobody’s surprise more than my own, ordained as a Presbyterian minister.
   After I finished, the same man who had introduced me proceeded to introduce Maya Angelou. They would now hear from her, he said, a very different story from the one they had just heard from me, and he had every reason to believe such would be the case. She was a woman, and I was a man. She was black, and I was white. Though my family was often hard pressed for money those Depression years, in comparison with her I had grown up in the lap of luxury, always living in pleasant places and going to good schools whereas she had been brought up by her grandmother in the rear of the black people’s store she ran in Stamps, Arkansas, during the worst days of red-neck racism. But even as Fred Burnham was saying how different our two stories had been, I could see her shaking her head from side to side, and when she took her place at the lectern the first thing she said was that he was wrong.
    “No,” she said. “Frederick Buechner and I have exactly the same story.”
    She was right, of course. At the deepest level the story of any one of us is the story of all of us. We all have the same dreams, the same doubts, the same fears in the night. Her words brought sudden tears to my eyes.
    And then she went on with her talk whose title if I remember rightly was “The Accessibility of God,” and I remember the way she drew the word “accessibility” out to its full length so that each of its six syllables got its full due.
    She was an extraordinary woman to behold, larger than life, with a smile that lit up the room and the dignity of a queen. Elegantly dressed with strings of beads around her neck and on her head a turban of brightly dyed African cloth, she made it clear right away that she was going to go wherever her heart took her. If it seemed the right thing to do, she would suddenly break into a scrap of song or spiritual in a voice that welled up out of the deepest truth of who she was. Sometimes, if she thought it fitted in, she would tell a story or recite a poem. At one point she told us something about slavery days that I had never come across before.

   On certain plantations, she said, it was forbidden for slaves to laugh as they worked, presumably because the masters were afraid that if it ever turned into laughter at them, the whole system might start to crumble. But if they couldn’t contain themselves, she said, what they would do was go over to some barrel that was standing around and under the pretext of looking for something reach down into it as far as they could and let great peals ring out where nobody could hear them.
   At the opening worship service earlier in the day there had been a procession of church dignitaries, and she continued by saying that as they had come parading down the aisle rigged out in their most elaborate ecclesiastical vestments and regalia, she had had an almost irresistible urge to duck off into some out-of-the-way corner somewhere — and at that point she interrupted herself by bending over double and letting fly with a cascade of laughter that no one who heard her is every likely to forget.

   Years later I stayed with her for a few days in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she had a many-roomed house filled with art she had collected or been given over the years together with photographs of friends like Nelson Mandela and James Baldwin and Oprah Winfrey, and shelf after shelf of books. She also had a number of other African Americans helping run things for her there, but never for an instant did she treat them like servants, addressing them always as Mrs. Thomas, Miss Stuckey, Mr. Miles, just as they always addressed her as Dr. Angelou. It was as if they were all of them trying to make it up to each other for all the years they had been treated like dirt.
   Toward the end of the day I was thinking of going to my room for a nap before dinner but somehow or other found myself instead sitting with her in a little gazebo overlooking her garden, and with the spring afternoon soft and fragrant about us, I listened to her talk as randomly and easily as she had at the Trinity Institute while we sipped the scotch that Mrs. Thomas kept us supplied with. She is as good a listener as she is a talker, but I kept mostly silent so as not to interrupt her wonderful, lazy progress from one thing to another.
   She seems able to quote by memory from virtually everything she has ever read, and somewhere along the way apropos of I’ve no idea what, she recited a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, titled “Conscientious Objector,” which moved me deeply.
    And then, “I believe I’ll have just one more, Mrs. Thomas,” she said, “only this time don’t bother with the ice and water, dear,” and heaven only knows what she turned to next, or what I did, though I do remember that at some point she said in a slow, pensive way as if it was only then occurring to her that she believed that, given the chance, we could be real friends. I replied that I thought we were that already, but she said, “No, I mean real friends,” and if we didn’t live so many miles apart, and if she wasn’t so busy being a celebrity and I being whatever I am, I think she may have been right.
   In any case as we sat there I had the feeling that even if we never set eyes on each other again, in some soft, shadowy way we had left a lasting mark on each other. For a few moments, with the dusk beginning to gather, our two stories merged like raindrops on a window pane.

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PLEASE, TELL US WHAT YOU THINK. Click on the “Comment” link at the end of the online version of this quiz. Or, you can always Email ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm directly.

212: Conversation With Dale Brown on Buechner and writing from the spirit

July 15, 2008 by


Building faithful communities in this new century -– with so much changing all around our world — depends on people making spiritual connections.
    That’s people –- people like you and me –- taking the time to connect a friend with something helpful and inspiring that we’ve found in our daily lives. And, that’s what makes Dale Brown’s career so important. As a teacher –- a professor of English at Calvin College for many years –- he wanted to do more to encourage spiritual connections around the world. So, he threw enormous energy into building up what has become a nationally recognized Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin.
    Before he left Calvin in 2007, writers like Garrison Keillor, Annie Dillard and Frederick Buechner all made pilgrimages to Dale’s annual connection point in the Midwest.
    Dale became such an important connector around spirituality in literature that he began producing books based on his conversations with writers –- and specifically about his work with Buechner. We’ve already recommended his “Book of Buechner.” And, today, we’re adding a recommendation for Dale’s latest book, “Conversations with American Writers: The Doubt, the Faith, the In-Between.”
    He’s now the founding director of the Founding Director of the Buechner Institute at King College, which he established in 2007.
    (Remember: We’ve got helpful links at the end of today’s story. Or, click on any book cover to jump to our Amazon store where we offer further reviews and you can purchase copies at Amazon’s regularly discounted rates. And, buying through our Web site helps to support our project.)
    In today’s Conversation With Dale Brown, we turn the tables at least 90 degrees. Normally, he is the interviewer, talking with writers. Today, we’ve invited Dale into a conversation about his many years in collecting –- and connecting -– with some of America’s great spiritual writers.


Here are highlights of our conversation:
    DAVID: Dale, first of all, let’s get this straight for our readers. You’re not the Dale Brown who writes the military thrillers.
    DALE: (laughs) No! I get asked that when I’m speaking. Sometimes, people even come up and ask me to sign one of the other Dale Miller’s books — and sometimes I go ahead and just sign it. (laughs again)
    DAVID: Explain what you’re doing now with the new Buechner center at King College.
    DALE: I’m now at King College, a small school in the Presbyterian tradition in the Appalachians right on the Virginia-Tennessee border in the mountains. It’s a very good place and we feel very comfortable here. We’re trying to build up this new institute, raise funds for it, develop programs, build up a series of speakers –- and I have a lot of freedom here to invite a whole range of people down to speak and teach and work at the center.
    I’ve got a great national advisory board. People like Kathleen Norris, Phil Gulley, Carrie Newcomer, Brian McLaren, Will Willimon, Phil Yancey, Barbara Brown Taylor.
    DAVID: And Buechner’s name is a key part of this. You’re one of the leading Buechner scholars –- certainly, you’ve done the most significant book on his life and works. But, more than that, there’s something about the spirit of his work that’s a guiding light there.
    DALE: Yes, his voice is not one that speaks shrilly about religious issues, but he has found a way to talk about faith without being shrilly sectarian on the one hand or secular on the other. It’s an interesting position between the worlds — and there are a lot of people who respond to that.

    DAVID: He’s got another great new book just out from Westminster John Knox Press. Somehow its release flew under the radar screens most places. I haven’t seen it on bookstore “new releases” tables, for instance, but it’s out there — and Buechner fans definitely are going to want it, called “Yellow Leaves.”
    DALE: That book has had an interesting publishing history. Harper’s has been pretty good in keeping his titles in print, but they didn’t choose to do this one. He has a very loyal but relatively small audience in terms of the way these publishing lists are considered these days. It may be the same 30,000 people who buy all of his books. I don’t know –- but it’s a very loyal audience of people who have followed him throughout his life.
    He turned 82 last week and it’s been hard for him these last few years to develop new things.
    DAVID: I’ve kept in touch with him from time to time, too, over the years -– and I know he’s started and stopped on a lot of projects. He told me he will start a book and then discover that really he’s rewriting a past book.
    DALE: Yes, there are just stacks and stacks of incomplete manuscripts. Wheaton College has his collection of papers –- and there are lots of starts and stops.
    DAVID: But what a career! He is one of the great, serious literary talents -– respected in prestigious places like the New York Times Review of Books –- who just fearlessly went out there and explored spiritual life and asked incredibly tough questions. I still find him one of the most reassuring writers out there about the power of faith to unite us, to unite all our stories. I think he’s an amazing writer and a model for serious writers like the people you’re featuring in your new book –- writers like Ron Hansen. I think Hansen’s most popular book at the moment probably is “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” because of the movie with Brad Pitt. But I think one could argue that, without a Frederick Buechner, it would be tougher for there to be a Ron Hansen.

    DALE: I like Ron a lot. He’s coming here to our center to do the Buechner lecture in 2010. I really like his new book, “Exiles,” on Gerard Manley Hopkins. It’s very powerful. He has incredible integrity as a writer. He only seeks a publishing deal for his books after he’s finished them. He doesn’t sign a contract until after the book is ready to send out there. He also doesn’t shy away from the label Catholic writer or Christian writer — he likes that idea. I think his books like “Atticus” or “Mariette in Ecstasy” are beneath the radar for a lot of readers. I hope a lot more people find their way to his books.
    DAVID: It’s perhaps a cliché to say, but he’s really a writer’s writer. When I’m asking other writers who they read -– I hear Hansen’s name.
    DALE: Yes. I’d call him a writer’s writer.
    DAVID: This is a good place to raise the central question of your new collection of interviews. You raise this in your introduction to the book and I think I’d summarize the question this way: Do novelists and poets preach? You argue that they do preach in powerful ways.
    But we’re talking here about two forms of reflection, really. At ReadTheSpirit, we talk about religion as a revelation to be accepted -– while spirituality is the other strand in the double helix of faith -– a quest to be pursued. And most great faiths involve both strands: Islam has the hajj as well as the Quran, for example.
    Reading your reflections on writers and faith, I think you’re saying: Pastors tend to want to preach the revelation –- while writers call us back to the spiritual quest -– to looking for that pilgrimage that runs through our daily lives. Does that make sense?
    DALE: Yes, I think it does. Those are not the same terms I use in talking about these issues, but yes this makes sense to me.
    I’m interested in writers who start with the statement: I don’t know. And who invite us to explore with them.
    DAVID: Yeah, we use a little different terminology, but we’re on the same track here, I think. And this is why within our online magazine -– and within your programs over the years and even in this new collection of interviews you’ve just published -– you’re as interested in statements about doubt and even rejection of faith as you are about religious affirmations.

    DALE: There’s a lot to be learned from all of these voices. What worries me about the Christian subculture is that there’s this narrowing of vision where people only talk to each other –- or read each other’s books –- and this can leave out even writers like Buechner.
    DAVID: I went on an evangelical reading binge this spring and read a whole lot of the new evangelical books. I liked a number of them and we’ve recommended them -– even featured interviews with the authors. But a lot of those books get into trouble when they try to talk about the larger world. It turns out that a lot of evangelical writers don’t know much about the world beyond their denominations.
    DALE: It is a problem. A lot of writers in the Christian subculture are terrible simplifiers. If you only read those writers, then you’re not left with much. That’s why I’m interested in writers who explore doubt.
    Years ago, I read a line that I think describes this: Writers who explore doubt “give us something more to be faithful with.”
    DAVID: I agree with you. And this is a tough time to be a preacher. You point that out in your book.
    DALE: It is a tough time for preaching. Preaching today even from a pulpit is very difficult. We just don’t have the patience anymore to sit and listen to someone preach at us like we once had.
    DAVID: I like this line from your introduction: “The word preach is an anachronism these days. Nobody wants to be preached at. Preachers who pound podiums, like parents who point fingers, have gotten bad press, and an artist who preaches is in suspicious company. Frederick Buechner says that ordination was a terrible career move.”
    But what you offer people in your book is an insight into how deeply these writers can invite us into their spiritual journeys. Here’s a passage from your interview with the novelist Ernest Gaines, who talks about his spiritual and literary connection with specific places in the South. I love this passage. Gaines says to you: “I was baptized as a Baptist, baptized in the same river that I write about, the same river where we’d fish and wash our clothes. We washed our souls in that same river.”
    I could feast on a handful of words like that all week.

    DALE: A sense of place is so powerful. This has been talked about in the work of southern writers particularly from Faulkner onward -– writing out of their sense of place. And, yet, there’s something transcendent about this experience, because readers discover their books in places all over the world and love them.
    What’s fascinating to me about Ernie Gaines work is that he moved to San Francisco when he was 12 or 13 years old and yet when he started writing books, he always goes back to the South. He always returns to this vivid sense of place.
    I understand some of that. I grew up in Anderson, Indiana, right up by Indianapolis. I remember that place and this culture of words I grew up in so vividly. The local Carnegie library was where I went every Saturday morning to pick up my next six books. I grew up in a fundamentalist church called the Church of Christ. So, for our family, it was very much a culture of words –- books, the Bible and the drama of the pulpit.
    DAVID: Sometimes, I worry about what kind of creativity we’ll experience in the future because there aren’t as many families that have these cultures of words and books and storytelling. I grew up in a family like that, and I know a lot of writers have that experience in their background. For so many young people now, it’s all images –- and I wonder sometimes if all we’ll wind up with in the future is an endless reinterpretation of Batman over and over again, because we’re mainly focused on images.
    That’s one reason I really enjoyed spending time with your new book. Talking about Ron Hansen, there’s this great almost Buechner-like passage when Hansen’s describing to you the start of a story. Here’s what he says:
    “Something happens to you and then something else happens and gradually these things accumulate, and then they somehow start to compact together and you realize they’re all part of the same thing. That’s how a story begins.”
    DALE: I like that, too. You’re right. It’s very much like Buechner.
    Buechner is a very private man and yet he writes all these memoirs -– he writes these memoirs that he invites you to look through as you might visit someone’s home and pick up a photograph album that you find on a table there. You start to turn the pages and then you start to recognize a picture. And you recognize that picture because actually it’s –- you.

CARE TO READ MORE?

PLEASE, TELL US WHAT YOU THINK. Click on the “Comment” link at the end of the online version of this quiz. Or, you can always Email ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm directly.

Happy Birthday, Mary and Ginger—Let’s Think Positively, Now

July 14, 2008 by


In honor of tomorrow’s joint birthday of Mary Baker Eddy (born July 16, 1821) and Ginger Rogers (born 110 years later on July 16, 1911) — we’ve got a special Tuesday quiz with loads of positive thinking.
We’ve got 10 questions — 5 on Mary and 5 on Ginger. See how you do on this quiz — and, in their honor, approach life this week with your mind and heart focused on the best life can be.
We intend today’s quiz to be a fun learning experience and intend no disrespect to Mrs. Eddy, an important religious innovator and founder of a major denomination within Christianity. For more about the serious side of her work, here’s a Frequently-Asked-Questions Web page sponsored by her denomination — but don’t peek until you’ve tried our quiz today.

1.) What’s the name of the branch of Christianity that she founded in 1879?
A. Church of Christ, Scientist
B. Scientology
C. Science and Health

2.) Where is the “Mother Church”?
A. Jerusalem
B. New Orleans
C. Boston

3.) What is the church’s most famous ongoing publication?
A. U.S. News and World Report
B. Scientific American
C. Christian Science Monitor

4.) What’s the church’s membership?
A. More than 5 million
B. About 1 million
C. No one knows for sure

5.) Which of the following have been among the adherents of Mrs. Eddy’s church:
A. Tom Cruise and Madonna
B. Bill Gates and Paul McCartney
C. Ginger Rogers and Doris Day

6.) One of the great Gerswhin songs about diversity — sung by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in “Shall We Dance” — includes regional options for pronouncing potato and tomato. Which of the following also is pronounced two ways in the song?
A. pajamas
B. Cadillac
C. baseball

7.) There’s something especially challenging in the way Fred and Ginger danced through that number in “Shall We Dance.” What was it?
A. They were on roller skates.
B. They were on ice skates.
C. They were dancing on the ceiling.

8.) When Fred and Ginger sing, “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” a Gershwin standard that has become a hauntingly nostalgic song about love — what were the two of them preparing to do in “Shall We Dance”?
A. Get a divorce.
B. Commit a murder.
C. Go to prison.

9.) Another great Fred and Ginger song, performed defiantly against tough odds is “Let’s Face the Music and Dance.” Which movie included this Irving Berlin hit?
A. “Meet Me in St. Louis”
B. “Follow the Fleet”
C. “Holiday Inn”

10.) One of the other great American classics Ginger Rogers introduced was a song by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields for the musical “Swing Time.” Which was it?
A. Pick Yourself Up (Dust Yourself Off)
B. The Lion Sleeps Tonight
C. High Hopes (the Rubber Tree song)

Got all the answers?

IF you are reading the online version of today’s quiz, click on
the link below to see the answers pop up. If not — don’t peek until
you’re ready!

 

HERE ARE TODAY’S ANSWERS:

1.) A. Scientology is a completely different group. And “Science and Health” is the name of Mary Baker Eddy’s famous book.

2.) C. There are about 1,800 branch churches and societies of the Church of Christ, Scientist, around the world, but the Mother Church is in Boston.

3.) C. The newspaper continues as a publication respected by journalists — even though the newspaper has a fairly unusual history and mission. Here’s the way the Monitor’s Web site describes that mission:
The newspaper is “published by a church — The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., USA. Everything in the Monitor is international and US news and features — except for one religious article that has appeared each day in The Home Forum section since 1908, at the request of the paper’s founder, Mary Baker Eddy.
“In an age of corporate conglomerates dominating news media, the Monitor combination of church ownership, a public-service mission, and commitment to covering the world (not to mention the fact that it was founded by a woman shortly after the turn of the century, when US women didn’t yet have the vote!) gives the paper a uniquely independent voice in journalism.”

4.) C. One of the unusual and long-standing rules within the denomination is a prohibition against counting the membership.

5.) C. Yes, both Doris Day and Ginger Rogers were devout adherents. See why Mary and Ginger fit together so well in today’s quiz?
Rogers wrote about her long-standing faith in her autobiography. Among the final lines in her memoirs are these: “As the curtain comes down on my final thoughts, I would like to use a
line from my one-woman show that has meant a great deal to me through
the years. It is part of the scientific interpretation of the Lord’s
Prayer by Mary Baker Eddy: ‘And Love is reflected in love.’ This says
everything I want to say and more.”

6.) A. Pajamas, of course, along with playful pronunciations of banana, Havana, oyster and laughter, as well!

7.) A. Roller skates. And, what’s more, part of the gag is that they can’t quite control their wheels — and they wind up falling over together in the park.

8.) A. They may have toyed with the lawlessness in their comedies but they weren’t hardened criminals! It’s ironic, though, that the song — which many Americans recall as a nostalgic love song actually was about a couple preparing to divorce. Fred sings it to Ginger during a ferry ride on a foggy night.

9.) B. “Follow the Fleet.” “St. Louis” was a Judy Garland musical. And, while Fred did appear in “Holiday Inn,” and Irving Berlin wrote music for it — Ginger Rogers wasn’t in the Christmas musical.

10.) A. You may think that “Lion Sleeps” was a much later song, but it originated in the 1930s. “High Hopes” originated in the late 1950s. In the song, “Pick Yourself Up,” Ginger crooned: “Nothing’s impossible I have found, For when my chin is on the ground, I pick myself up, Dust myself off — Start all over again!”

COME BACK TOMORROW …

We’ve got an in-depth Conversation With Dale Brown, a literary scholar who has spent decades exploring the spiritual themes in American novels and poetry. For years, he ran one of the country’s leading literary festivals — and now is founding director of a new center devoted to the legacy of Frederick Buechner at a college in Tennessee.
And, don’t miss Thursday, when our Guest Writer is — Frederick Buechner himself — with a chapter from his new WJK Press book, “Yellow Leaves,” about a historic meeting between Buechner and Maya Angelou.

PLEASE, TELL US WHAT YOU THINK. Click on the “Comment” link at the end of the online version of this quiz. Or, you can always Email ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm directly.

210: Students Take a Pilgrimage Through the Lens of a Camera

July 13, 2008 by


“For now we see in a mirror, dimly — but then we will see face to face. Now, I know only in part; then, I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

1 Corinthians 13:12

We asked 10 young adults, contemplating lives in various forms of ministry, to take up their cameras and help us see our world a little more clearly. They are part of an innovative spiritual formation program called Transforming Leaders, which is part of a nonprofit group in Michigan called the Young Leaders Initiative. You can read all about it at their Web site, if you wish — but first let me tell you about this fascinating experience in which these 10 young men and women hit the streets of Ann Arbor.

    Their assignment: “Spend an hour in spiritual mindfulness, trying to peer through the dim lens of daily life to catch an image of where you are at this very moment, on this day, in this place.”
    Of course, this practice taps into longstanding disciplines in Buddhism, Christian contemplation, Muslim reflections on God’s daily guidance — streams of Jewish spiritual reflection — and on and on.
    But we didn’t go into all of that. We made it very simple. We made it — clear:
    Take up your camera.
    Go into the world.
    See.
    Got that? Really see.
    And capture an image of your spiritual state — here and now.

    Here’s what they found:

Tony Gorga, 20, a student from Albion College, said, “This was so brief and direct.”
    Many of the 10 ventured far from our meeting place in their spiritual reflections, but Tony spotted this striking image within 200 yards of our starting point.
    “I have work that I need to do in my spiritual life,” Tony said. “This was such a clear image of that.”

Thom Victor, 21, who studied political science, economics and religion at Central Michigan University, said, “My spiritual state is irony and there it was at the top of the kiosk: a play about Karl Marx right next to a poster for summer jobs.”
    That’s the daily struggle most of us face, Thom said. As a Christian, “Jesus tells us that wealth can distract us from God — yet we still need jobs. That always will be the tension in life — needing money and needing to follow a spiritual calling, too.”

The group discussion about these 10 photographs got more complex by the moment. And, Ben Bower, 20, an Albion College student in religious studies and philosophy, kicked it up a notch with his photo of a warning sign at a construction site. One big reason that we need spiritual community is to pool our knowledge about life’s challenges — because the world can be a dangerous neighborhood.
    “I really feel that God is calling me into places that are not the safest or most comfortable,” he said. “And I need to take a step back and talk to other people who’ve been out there in ministry. I want to listen to them talk about what dangers they’ve encountered, what mistakes they’ve made. I want to be conscious of the risks and challenges and dangers — and learn from them as I move out into the world.”

All of these images could be described as visual prayers, but Joel Pier-Fitzgerald, 23, chose an image that even incorporates the words of a possible prayer.
    “Right above these words is a map of the bus system,” Joel said. “But like most maps of urban transportation systems — it’s incredibly complicated. We know we need to pick a path, but we can’t quite figure out where to go. The map is right there, but it’s so hard to read it. Ultimately, though, we do know there’s somewhere we can go — someone we can ask for help. We can ask the driver.”

This wasn’t a somber experience! Far from it! This collective pilgrimage through the photographs they captured soon became playful and provocative.
    Steven Shepherd, 20, a Michigan State University student who studies telecommunications said that his own educational discipline at the moment is: Nerdism.
    So, when he hit the streets, trying to clear his vision and really see the world — “I found that I started taking pictures that were pretty depressing. But then I thought: I’m not a naturally depressed person. What can I see that would lead me toward a more happy path — get me coasting more happily through life — and I found this laughing Buddha. That was perfect.”

Rachel Hashimoto, 20, a Hope College student in Japanese and youth ministry, made a fairly striking discovery in her experience on the streets. She was walking around downtown Ann Arbor, an urban landscape, but like Robert Frost she spotted an alternate pathway that stopped her in her tracks.
    She said, “There it was: An overgrown path that went right off the sidewalk where everything is so easy and is laid out — so open and clear-cut. But here was this — this unexpected, rough, overgrown path. And I really liked standing there and looking down that path, but it wasn’t easy to tell where that little path might lead me.”

    Here was another invitation to look much deeper beneath the opaque surface of the urban landscape. This image really is one of those wonderful little spiritual “trap doors” we can spot each day — if we’re really looking. It was spotted by Lynne Dunne, 21, who studied Christian ministry and mission at Spring Arbor College and now is working as a chaplain. It’s a section of sidewalk in Ann Arbor — 99.99 percent of that particular sidewalk comprised of brick pavers.
    At first, Lynne was struck by this image as a powerful illustration of spiritual diversity. “The asphalt patch here doesn’t look like what you’d expect. It doesn’t look like the other bricks here — but it does the job very well and keeps people from falling,” she said.
    Then, she began to ponder the vocational themes in this little discovery. “Someone patched this carefully so that people wouldn’t fall.”
    We’ll never know what man or woman, in the course of a day’s work, took care to secure this community with a careful application of asphalt — but hundreds walking down this path are safer because of it. There’s an inspiring affirmation in that little patch beneath our feet for all of us, especially someone like Lynne who is pursuing chaplaincy.
    All those lessons — those prayers, really — are embodied in a small rectangle of asphalt most of us would completely overlook.

    For some, despite the relatively short duration of this spiritual experiment, the visions were absolutely amazing! Perhaps it was that  Michelle Fitzgerald, 20, a Central Michigan University student in Spanish and social work, was still grieving from the loss of a grandfather recently. Perhaps her vision was especially acute — especially sensitive to the world’s spiritual possibilities — but she captured one of the day’s most mesmerizing images.
    “This is an empty bus stop because I’m feeling quite empty right now. My Grandpa just died. I feel as though the world is moving all around me and yet I’m somehow empty. I was close to him and I miss him,” she said.
    And yet —
    And yet — if you look closely at the bus stop — reflected images of Michelle and one of the other young pilgrims are there in the left-hand glass panel of the bus stop — their visual essence hanging there in the glass, captured by the camera and spread to the whole world today via this Internet story.
    “It’s very haunting,” Michelle said. “The bus stop is empty, yet really — I am there — and with a friend, too.”

Sari Brown, 21, a comparative religion major at Marlboro College in Vermont, was one of the few pilgrims who tackled the most challenging spiritual work of all: In addition to looking deep into the landscape — and peering deep into her own spirit — Sari peered into the lives of other people.
    Her multiply faceted vision resulted in this photo of a busy woman hurrying past a cheerful street musician — trying her best to avoid contact with the man.
    “There’s so much going on here,” Sari said. “There’s this woman with her brisk gate trying to ignore what’s going on all around her. And there’s this guy playing his music, trying to reach out.”
    Here’s what made Sari’s photograph transcendent. At first glance, you may think of this photo as a two-dimensional moral metaphor.
    No. Sari said, “The truth here is: I am both of them.”
    She explained: “Sometimes I’m the man. Sometimes I’m the lady. Sometimes I’m both at the same time. I have all of these philosophies in my life about love and compassion — and yet — you know — you know, a lot of the time I’m too caught up in my own little freaking errands of the day and I’m rushing right past –“
    Right past the world.
    Right past the community.
    Right past herself.

Finally, how could a collection of spiritual images in the summer of 2008 be complete without a “Wall.E” image?
    Kim Bos, 21, captured this photograph. She’s a senior at Michigan State University in a wide-ranging program with a dual major involving, in part, international relations and Middle East women’s studies.
    “Where I am spiritually is: Growing against the odds. So, I was seeing things everywhere that are not supposed to be growing where they’re growing,” she said.
    “I’m a plucky little plant — regardless of what happens,” she said. “I’ll grow.”

AND SO should we all, hmmm? So should we all.

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK! And, if you care to express yourself visually — as these 10 young adults did — then send us a photo from your summer journeys that is meaningful to you. Not only do we welcome your notes, ideas, suggestions and personal reflections — but our readers enjoy them as well.

You can do this anytime by clicking on the “Comment” links at the end of each story. You can Email ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm. We’re also reachable on Facebook, Digg, Amazon, GoodReads and some of
the other social-networking sites as well, if you’re part of those
groups.

Sample from July 14, 2008: ReadTheSpirit weekly Planner

July 13, 2008 by

ReadTheSpirit Planner:

At a glance, here’s what you need to navigate the world of faith this week …

 

WHAT’S THE SPIRITUAL SEASON?

On Friday, many Buddhists will mark Asalha Puja, recalling their founder’s first sermon.

 

This week, one of the world’s most-endangered faiths marks its New Year. These are the Mandaeans,
who now are among refugees from Iraq and it is unclear at the moment
where most of them have settled. At least a few thousand are in the
United States. Some fledgling Mandaean Web sites established just a few
years ago now are either down or are inactive.

 

For
those of us intrigued by the conjunctions of births and deaths —
Wednesday is the birthday of two women who had enormous influence on
American culture: Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science, and Ginger Rogers,
who teamed up with Fred Astaire to help popularize ballroom dancing —
and the effervescent music of Cole Porter and the Gershwins as well.

Can’t see any spiritual connection between these women? That’s because you’re not — nudge, nudge — thinking positive thoughts, even in tough times. Go rent “Shall We Dance” and you’ll understand.

QUESTION YOU MAY HEAR THIS WEEK:

“What’s my sign?”

No, we’re not
predicting some awful resurgence of lounge lizards, trolling for
astrological signs. We’re talking about the blossoming of campaign
signs, bumper stickers — and symbols on your license plates, too.

Last week, one of our most popular questions on the new OurValues landing page
was about the emergence of “Christian” license plates in the South. So,
by mid-week, Dr. Wayne Baker is going to return to that issue in a
fresh way.

And, today — today we ask college students to express their spiritual world in an unusual kind of sign — a single photograph. Check it out.

 

THIS WEEK, PEOPLE WILL TALK ABOUT:

 

We Are Proud to Introduce —

Four National Co-Sponsors of “Our Values”

Our innovative online project with the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research
is an experiment in opening up the scholarly process of designing
research — to the whole world. Under the guidance of Dr. Wayne E.
Baker, we are exploring whether it is possible to “open source” a
constructive discussion on hot-button issues related to our most
heart-felt values.

To enlarge the
community that is inviting people into this pioneering project, we are
adding a short list of “co-sponsors” today — existing Web sites and
programs with a similar commitment to using online tools to make a
positive difference in our world.

These co-sponsors, whose links appear today on the OurValues landing page,
simply are indicating that they want to see this experiment succeed.
They’re not shouldering any responsibility for our specific content —
or occasional flaws, if we should encounter pot holes along this new
road. But their co-sponsorship is a welcome sign of encouragement.

I want to thank them
personally, today, on behalf of ReadTheSpirit, OurValues, Dr. Baker and
this UofM-ISR effort to redefine how scholars understand our values.

The four are:

The Knight Chair in Media and Religion at the University of Southern California.

Spirituality and Practice,
a major online hub for reviews of books and films on spirituality
produced by veteran journalists Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat.

And, Peace X Peace, a growing international network of women connecting at a grassroots level to work toward peace.

THANK YOU ALL!

 

Speaking of Campaign Signs —

Here’s Some Very Timely Political Advice

We know that this
ReadTheSpirit Planner is especially popular among leaders in religious
life — and we want to thank the Rev. Tom Reese, the Jesuit scholar,
author and journalist, for sending out this timely word of political
advice:

Most Americans don’t want clergy to endorse political candidates!

So, if you’re
feeling anxious this summer about whether you — or your clergy —
should stand up in the pulpit and “make a political statement,” Tom
wisely says: Back off.

A careful scholar,
Tom underscores this advice with data: Only 28% of Americans agree that
“clergy should be permitted to endorse political candidates during
worship services,” according to the Calvin College “Religion and 2008 Election”
survey. Support among Catholics is even lower (23%). Support for a
politically active clergy is highest among Latino and Black
Protestants, but even among these groups only 35% agree that clergy
should be permitted to endorse political candidates during worship
services.

“While members of
the clergy, like every American citizen, have a constitutional right to
vote and support candidates, their congregations do not want to hear
endorsements from the pulpit,” said Tom, who is a senior fellow at the
Woodstock Theological Center. “Endorsements at church services can also
get the clergy and their churches in trouble with the IRS.”

NOTE: Tom
pulled his information from a recently published summary from Calvin
College. If you click on the link above, you can download a 22-page
Word document that analyzes this data in greater depth.

 

Two New Windows into the Timeless

Allure of Egypt and Jerusalem

Since three of the
world’s great religious traditions, embracing more than half of the
world’s population, regard Jerusalem as a holy city — it’s fairly safe
to describe Jerusalem as the world’s most sacred city. But scholars of
global culture also can make a pretty convincing case that Egypt holds
a timeless allure around the world, as well. For Americans, Egyptian
imagery is everywhere from our currency to the current crop of
Hollywood blockbusters.

Considering the
enormous worldwide interest in these areas, it’s surprisingly tough to
find educational resources about the long history of travelers’
encounters in these locations.

So, I’m passing
along news today of two books that are available in new editions. In
this little niche of publishing, my advice is: Order copies now,
because they might go out of print again. Click on these links to read
our reviews of the books (and, if you wish, order copies via Amazon):

“Traveling through Egypt: from 450 B.C. to the Twentieth Century,” a collection of hundreds of excerpts written by travelers, edited by Deborah Manley and Sahar Abdel-Hakim;

and “Jerusalem: Caught in Time,” a collection of photographs, many more than 100 years old, edited and introduced by Colin Osman.

 

Here’s Literary Networking at Its Best — and with a Quaker Example, No Less

If your life is anything like mine, you end
your day with a “To Do” list that’s longer than when you started,
right? So, you’re making daily choices about which Web hubs you’ll
visit — and sites that aren’t regularly helpful will fall by the
wayside.

That’s how I felt
about GoodReads after I registered for the site earlier this year. It’s
a site that networks people based on the books they read. (THINK:
Facebook with your favorite books as the connective tissue, rather than
Facebook groups.) The idea is that you’ll log every book you read, then
later you’ll file mini-reviews, or at least numerical ratings of these
books. You can move through this community friend by friend — or book
by book.

Cool idea, right?

Well, I’m a
voracious reader but I only have so much time each day — and the books
I want to recommend wind up on ReadTheSpirit. I was beginning to think
that GoodReads should fall off my must-check list.

Then — I discovered
that GoodReads isn’t a daily stop, after all. It’s a community that’s a
lot like stepping into a C.S. Lewis novel — where, if you’re lucky,
you’ll encounter characters who essentially invite you into their home
libraries.

This just happened with J. Brent Bill, the Quaker writer who we’ve featured on ReadTheSpirit, especially for his latest book, “Sacred Compass.”

Just a couple of
days ago, I got an Email from GoodReads (you can configure your
preferences via Email, if you choose) proclaiming: “You have 42 new
updates from your friends.”

Wow, I thought. My friends network on GoodReads just went viral!

But, no. It was all
Brent — apparently in a flurry of literary activity, rating dozens of
his books — mainly his favorites, although he fired darts at a few
big-name books that annoy him.

And I really enjoyed
this little virtual visit with Brent! It was like one of those scenes
from Narnia in which some friend invites you to step inside his warm
little, book-lined home — perhaps built in the trunk of a huge tree.

What’s intriguing
about Brent’s new literary list is that he doesn’t have much use for
Dan “DaVinci Code” Brown — but he very much enjoys both the
dark-obsessed Cormac McCarthy and the light-called Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Hmmm, that’s worth settling into an easy chair and talking about for a while, isn’t it?

Now, all GoodReads needs to figure out is: Who serves the tea and biscuits?

Hot Read:

If You Don’t Subscribe to TIME,

Go Get This “Dangerous” Issue on Twain

Most weeks, I like to give our “Hot Read” recommendation to publications that you wouldn’t normally find without our spotlight.

But this week,
anyone who cares about the literary world — and, the possibilities of
cross-cultural connection — should grab this issue headlined: “The
Dangerous Mind of Mark Twain.”

Oh, and: Actually read it. (We know you’re busy and TIME’s Twain section is a good chunk of reading.)

If you’re a Twain
fan like me, you can quibble here and there with a few references in
the lengthy section — but, hey, that’s what makes this a delight to
read!

And, I have to
admit, I was pleased to see that — in addition to the Twain “required
reading” list, there’s a recommendation here of my own favorite among his lesser works, “The Innocents Abroad.”

Speaking of
Jerusalem, as we did above, Twain’s essay in “Innocents” about the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre is among his most pointed — and poignant.

This Week Inside ReadTheSpirit

We’re going to be exploring …

TODAY (Monday), we asked 10 college students to demonstrate the spiritual power of vision
— by choosing personal signs in the form of photographs they snapped
just for us. Check out their 10 images and reflections. Which image
captures your world today? Tell us.

Tuesday: Our
popular Tuesday quiz returns in honor of the convergence of the
birthdays of Mary Baker Eddy and Ginger Rogers. You’ll have fun — and
you’ll think positively about life, too!

Wednesday:
We’ll introduce you to one of the country’s leading scholars of
spiritual writing — Dale Brown. For decades, Brown crisscrossed the
literary world, talking to a huge array of authors about the spirit of
their literary vocation.

Thursday and Friday: We’ve got several cool surprises — plus, we’re planning another reader-feedback page.

 

Our Latest Stories

209: Readers Tell Us About Business, Slavery, Wall.E — and a “Messy” Rabbi

July 10, 2008 by

   Once again, we’ve received so
many creative and helpful notes from readers this week that we’re going
to share some of your best comments and ideas … Today, it’s your
page! And, please, we love to hear from readers!

SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNITY INSPIRE NEW MARKETING

An occasional ReadTheSpirit contributor and the founder of her own Nourish Cafe blog, Jewish writer Lynne Schreiber Emailed me this week about a new marketing venture she is housing at YourPeopleYourBusiness.com. This is a new-style marketing business intentionally built around powerful spiritual principles of community building. We’re not talking here about some kind of stealth religious-recruiting campaign. Rather, we’re talking about the foundational principles that connect people’s lives and give us a sense that we really are a part of a larger community. At their core, these principles are spiritual values. Lynne knows that and understands it can be powerful fuel for helping people to see their communities in new ways.
    Lynne is not only a gifted author, a freelancer for national magazines and a blogger. (Her most recent appearance at ReadTheSpirit was in April during Passover.) Now, she’s venturing creatively into a new kind of marketing company. After showing me her new corporate Web site, YourPeopleYourBusiness, she walked me through one of the new-style Web sites on which she is working with corporate clients. This one is for a grocery store chain, called Hiller’s. She did not directly design the site, but worked with Hiller’s in developing the theme, tone and direction of the site. She also did much of the writing for the site.

   
Even if you’re thousands of miles away from this Midwest chain, take a look around the site and ask yourself: Why would a small grocery store chain want to build a Web site like this? By going online in this way — they’re talking to 99.9 percent of the world that will never shop at a Hiller’s store. You all live too far away from their outlets!
    The answer? Borrowing a metaphor from marketing guru Seth Godin, Lynne says the site is deliberately a “Purple Cow.” The approach is so out-of-the-ordinary — like an exotically colored cow — that people are likely to stop and contemplate this new site. And, what’s more: Lynne convinced the Hiller’s staff to take several risks in this new site to signal to customers that this is a very friendly purple cow. What’s more, it can quickly become THEIR purple cow, if potential customers live anywhere within driving distance of a Hiller’s.
    Look around the site and see if you can spot some of the many ways that Lynne carefully wove community-building principles into the design. Here are a few pointers: Not only are there blogs within the site — but the site also has Email links to Mr. Hiller and the head chef, so customers actually can ask them questions or send them suggestions. That’s a radical step. The corporate standard on commercial Web sites is to hide direct-contact links. AND that’s not all: Hiller’s is putting its signature recipes onto the site — empowering people to fix-it-like-Hiller’s in your own homes. Of course, most of us — if we live close enough — would rather just stop by “our” store and pick up a ready-to-eat serving for dinner tonight, right?
    Bravo, Lynne for your innovative use of Godin-style marketing coupled with (broadly speaking) spiritual principles to enliven secular realms!

WE’RE ALL SPIRITUAL COMMUNITY BUILDERS


Well, we certainly can be — and regular reader Elaine Greenberg has turned this into an almost daily spiritual discipline. Elaine is a model of what anthropologists call “bricolage” — basically, the term describes the process an everyday person can follow to build a community’s culture with whatever materials life happens to send their way.
    Elaine read our recent Conversation With Chris Yambar — and even though her life as an older, suburban, Jewish musician has little in common with Chris’ life as a young, urban, Christian comic artist — Elaine immediately jumped on the fact that Chris’ latest line of comics, Life Maxx, is aimed at teen-age cancer patients. Elaine is a cancer survivor and uses every uplifting tool she can find to help lift the spirits of other cancer patients. So, she immediately got copies of Chris’ comics — and is spreading those comics into her personal network.
    She also Emailed this week after reading our Conversation With David Batstone about modern slavery: “When I started to read today’s article, and saw the very top of Dr. Batstone’s book, ‘Not For Sale,’ I honestly thought this was going to be about the
real estate problems that we are having. As I read through the
article, I thought: ‘How can this be? And, in 2008!’ I guess many of us are
going through life concerned with our own lives and just never imagined
that slavery still exists, and in large numbers!”
    Elaine wrote this Email because she wanted to pass along word to Dr. Batstone that she really likes his idea of developing a “badge” to certify companies as producing slave-free products. She’s a consumer, she said, who would look for such badges — and also would avoid products that have been identified as using forced labor.
    In other words: There’s real power in passing along the ideas we share here at ReadTheSpirit.

THIS WORKS THE OTHER WAY, TOO

What’s so powerful about spiritual insight is this: Truth is fuel.
    Just as Elaine immediately “got” Chris’ mission — and made it her own — this week, we heard again from the Rev. Jeff Johnson, a Baptist minister in North Carolina. Jeff recently appeared here at ReadTheSpirit, talking about his own adaptation of our ideas for an IKEA pilgrimage.
    Jeff is a Southern, male, evangelical pastor — and seemingly has little in common with the Northern, female Jewish educator Gail Katz who reviewed Rabbi Irwin Kula’s book, “Yearnings,” yesterday. But Jeff instantly “got” it — and carried it off, a thousand miles away, into spiritual connections of his own.
    What triggered Jeff’s reflection was a concluding reference in Gail’s review. Jeff wrote:
    “The last line of Gail’s review intrigued me. She said, quoting Kula, that we need to ‘celebrate the anarchy, MYSTERY AND MULTIPLICITY of the spark-filled cosmos.’
    “This connects so well with Fr. Richard Rohr, a master retreat leader and author and the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuqurque, New Mexico. A few years ago, he contributed to the NPR series called ‘This I Believe,’ where all kinds of people share a brief confession of faith from all religious perspectives. Rohr entitled his confession ‘I Believe in Mystery and Multiplicity.’ “ (Click on the link and you can visit NPR to hear Rohr’s thoughts.)
    Thanks, Jeff, for contributing to this illustration of the power of “multiplicity”!

VIRTUAL “BRICOLAGE” WITH “WALL.E”


Of course, among the new masters of spiritual community building are Facebook group leaders. If you’re on Facebook, check out the new Our Values group we formed in support of the new OurValues project, which we co-host with the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.
    But, today concerning Facebook groups, we want to say: Thank you, Shaun Edward Hildner! He’s a 2007 film-and-video graduate of Columbia College in Chicago — and formed a Facebook group dedicated to exploring themes in “Wall.E”
    I asked Shaun if he would explore specifically spiritual themes in “Wall.E” and Shaun dove right into his “Wall.E” group with his own reflections:
    From the first moment on screen, I doubt anyone thinks of
Wall.E as a robot. The character is unbelievably human. The term “Jesus Figure” always comes up whenever a character sacrifices him/herself for a cause (to save a plant in this case). I am not sure if Wall.E fits this description perfectly. Sure, he does sacrifice himself and he is “reborn” to the promise of Utopia in the end, but the path there is a bit sketchy. Wall.E is not so much a hero to any cause; he is more of
an awkward observer. Others make the Utopia possible. Wall.E’s
involvement seems accidental and for alternate reasons. Wall.E, while
obsessed with human artifacts has no desire to save them. His entire
journey is based on the Lust (deadly sin) of another robot. I have a
hard time relating this to other Christ-Figures in film.
    This is an intriguing response. Since we first published our thoughts on “Wall.E,” I’ve read many Emails and online reviews — and Shaun offers some real challenges here to claims I’ve read in other reviews.

Other Facebook writers also were intrigued by Shaun’s opening reflections. Raymond Lum of Vancouver, B.C., took up Shaun’s challenge on the question of lust, writing:
    WALL.E is not motivated by lust for another robot. The love he and EVE eventually share is unusually pure and innocent. It’s one of the
reasons I have such an affinity to this movie. It is 100 percent about
companionship and sacrifice. At no point does WALL.E do anything that
seems solely for the purpose of self-gratification.

    Also, I was especially drawn to Becky Garcia’s comments from San Diego, California. She wrote, at one point:
   As a hardcore atheist, I think it’s possible to be a good and moral
person without having any religious or spiritual beliefs at all. In
fact, I think it makes one a better person, but that’s another story.
    I would say to Becky: No, it’s not another story. You’re right in what you’re saying in this discussion. There is truth in the argument you’re posing here. However we define “spirituality” — it is an affirmation that life’s ultimate meaning is even larger than specific religious codes. “Wall.E” effortlessly conveys this point, doesn’t he? I’ve rarely seen a fictional character who has such a powerful ability to teach people of all generations. From children to adults, the little robot has won our hearts — despite some tough messages he’s teaching us about the purpose of life here on Earth, hmmm? Wall.E is a revelation in the potential simplicity in making spiritual connections. And think about this question: How many words does this little fellow need to preach his message?
    Haven’t seen the film? Make it your own little spiritual retreat this weekend.

THANK YOU to all the readers we’ve quoted today! And, thank you as well to all of our readers who send us such marvelous notes!

  If you didn’t see your comment or suggestion show up today — keep
reading, because we’ll have more news, reviews, quizzes and inspiring
interviews next week.

AND PLEASE, as these readers have done — Tell Us What You Think.
    There’s still time to sign up for our Monday morning ReadTheSpirit Planner by Email — it’s free and you can cancel it any time you’d like to do so.

  Not only do we welcome your notes, ideas, suggestions and personal
reflections — but our readers enjoy them as well. You can do this
anytime by clicking on the “Comment” links at the end of each story.
You also can Email ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm. We’re also reachable on Facebook, Digg, Amazon, GoodReads and some of
the other social-networking sites as well, if you’re part of those
groups.

208: Gail Katz writes: If you think life’s messy — a wise rabbi says that’s great!

July 9, 2008 by


On Thursdays, we often feature guest writers. These are among the most popular stories we publish here at ReadTheSpirit. And, today, we’re welcoming back Gail Katz, whose earlier guest story is still popular among our readers. This time, we invited Gail to share a review of a book by Rabbi Irwin Kula.
   It’s on a theme that’s very close to our hearts: Finding spiritual meaning in the often chaotic twists and turns of daily life.
   Remember: You can click on book covers and titles throughout ReadTheSpirit — and you’ll jump to our Amazon-related bookstore, where you’ll find additional comments and can buy a copy, if you wish. (Buying books through our store helps to support our online magazine.)

Here is Gail’s reflection on Rabbi Kula’s book:
   “Yearnings: Embracing the Messiness of Life” is a book in which all of us — people of many faith traditions — can find fresh insights into what we share: Being human.
    I heard Rabbi Irwin Kula give a talk about his book this summer. It’s a book that I enjoy, so I was pleased to learn more about him. He is an eighth-generation rabbi, nationally known speaker and teacher — and the president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership (CLAL). He is a regular on the TV and radio talk show circuit and host of the public television broadcast called, “The Wisdom of Our Yearnings.”
    His book is an exploration of our day-to-day living, an uncovering of the spirituality that can be found in all of our desires and longings, leading us to appreciate more deeply our varied pathways toward God.
    Kula organizes his book around our major yearnings, such as desires for truth, meaning, love, happiness and transcendence. What I find most appealing is the way he writes about human nature — and the intense human desire for certainty. In his chapter, “God Will Be What God Will Be,” Kula describes the God that everyone would like to evoke: a God “who tells them exactly what they want to hear -– whether God is our intuition, that soft, still voice within that we feel holds some magical truth, or the guy in the heavens who affirms our perception of the world.”
    What we don’t accept so easily is that God is more often challenging and life changing -– that God is the voice urging us to question every truth.

    The word “prayer,” the rabbi teaches, comes from the same Latin root as the word precarious. The certainty we yearn for is, at best, precarious. Kula’s central insight for all of us is that the precariousness of life is bound up in our own sense of ourselves, and “when we hold our identities lightly, knowing that they are temporary constructions, humble absolutes, the crises and crossroads in our lives tend to be less shattering.” What great advice for handling the day-to-day challenges to our sense of our selves!!
    Kula continues to refer to these challenges as the “sacred messiness of life.” It is the search for meaning –- the sorting though all of the messes -– that can transform us and give rise to wisdom.
    I was most impressed with Kula’s use of the Yeshiva as an illustration of the need to accept uncertainly in our lives. In a Yeshiva, Jewish students wrestle with the meaning of the sacred texts -– the Torah, the Mishnah and the Talmud. In some settings, hundreds of students sit across from each other for 10-12 hours a day, discussing and analyzing, voices rising and falling with great emotion and vitality in debate. One point of view rarely prevails over the others. With this illustration, Kula is trying to teach us: Winning is not the point.
    Disagreement is the gift that alerts us to “something wonderful waiting to be uncovered.” Kula’s point here is that we all need to re-assess how we deal with conflict and stress in our lives. Rather than dividing us, arguments should be about finding connection with each other. We need to look at the entire weaving, not just our own thread in the tapestry.

    Another fascinating discussion in Kula’s book has to do with the enactment of rituals. I love the way Kula extends an interfaith perspective about rituals, explaining to his readers that all rituals can become rote and boring, and the act of seeing and participating in another group’s rituals can enliven our own spirituality. Kula describes rituals as “Songs of grace and dances of death: they can foment aggression and inspire love; calm the mind and stir things up; enchant the ordinary or transform it.”
    Rituals across the religious spectrum –- the Jewish practice of blowing the shofar on the New Year, the Catholic Eucharist, the Islamic Henna marriage ritual, the Buddhist mandala, or the masked dance of the Hopi — all invite us to enter an “alternative universe.”
    Kula also unlocks the beauty of the Sabbath -– something that Jewish and non-Jewish readers may find particularly helpful. And, he writes that, when we return from the Sabbath into the new workweek — “we do not enter the workweek alone, that all of our creative work is in the end collaborative.” In practicing the Sabbath, in recalibrating and rebalancing, we are “learning how to be better doers and do being better.”  These are words that should give all of us pause!!

    As a Jew, I enjoyed Kula’s book because of the many insights that he brought to my personal connection with Judaism. And, I reveled in Kula’s book because he helps us to embrace our differences. As Jews, we are commanded to “repair the world.”
    The rabbi reminds us that “repairing the world is not about gathering the sparks, but about dignifying each one.” What is life-affirming, says Kula, is the “ever-expanding uniqueness of our selves and the uniqueness of others.”
    Through all the messiness of our lives, we need to celebrate rather than fear the “anarchy, mystery, and multiplicity of the spark-filled cosmos.”

CARE TO READ MORE?

READ GAIL’S OWN STORY: Gail Katz has shared her voice a number of times through ReadTheSpirit — but the signature story that readers still return to read is her memoir: “My Interfaith Journey.” If you haven’t read her story, we think you may enjoy it — and may want to share it with others.

EXPLORE RABBI KULA’S WORK AT CLAL: The Jewish group has a number of landing pages on the Web, but probably the most useful is the portal called “eCLAL,” an online magazine.

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK, PLEASE. Click on the “Comment” link below. Or, you can Email ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm directly. Or, visit us on Facebook, where the best meeting place at the moment is our new OurValues Facebook group.