Shawna Atteberry

Baker, Writer, Teacher

Confirmation and Vigils

I was confirmed at Grace Episcopal Church this morning. I am now an Episcopalian. Throughout the course of the day God has provided confirmation that this is what she wanted through my own heart and the people around me. I just finished praying Vigils from the Benedictine Daily Prayer: A Short Breviary
. It’s as if God has me one final gift before bed. This passage from Wisdom was one of this week’s readings:

For who will say, ‘What have you done?’
or will resist your judgement?
Who will accuse you for the destruction of nations that you made?
Or who will come before you to plead as an advocate for the unrighteous?
13For neither is there any god besides you, whose care is for all people,*
to whom you should prove that you have not judged unjustly;
14nor can any king or monarch confront you about those whom you have punished.
15You are righteous and you rule all things righteously,
deeming it alien to your power
to condemn anyone who does not deserve to be punished.
16For your strength is the source of righteousness,
and your sovereignty over all causes you to spare all.
17For you show your strength when people doubt the completeness of your power,
and you rebuke any insolence among those who know it.*
18Although you are sovereign in strength, you judge with mildness,
and with great forbearance you govern us;
for you have power to act whenever you choose.

19Through such works you have taught your people
that the righteous must be kind,
and you have filled your children with good hope,
because you give repentance for sins. (Wisdom 12:12-19)

Reader: O God, you are righteous and you rule all things righteously. Although you are sovereign in strength, you judge with mildness, and with great forbearance you govern us.

Response: Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, whose judgments are true and just. Although you are sovereign in strength, you judge with mildness, and with great forbearance you govern us.

God is my sovereign. God leads me where she wants me to go. It is not the journey I thought it would be. I thought I would remain in the Church of the Nazarene as a pastor for many more years. But that did not happen. God showed me another way in her gracious sovereignty. I am now a member of a new church–a totally new tradition. For the first time in my life I am not in an evangelical church. And I’m fine with that. I feel great freedom in shedding that heavy weight. For evangelical in this day is not the evangelical it once was. When it was more concerned with lifting up the poor and lowly, building schools, created homes for unwed mothers, teaching people trades. Evangelicalism gave up the acts of Christ for a privatized faith of right and wrong, us vs. them. But right belief and right doctrine does not always lead to right action. I am in a church that has the right action, and that action comes from the right belief: that we are called to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus said on these two things the entire law hangs. Love God. Love ourselves. Love others. This is the greatest commandment. I am looking forward to being a part of the ministries to homeless we are doing as well as the new ministries to all the college students in the area. I feel like I have entered broader territory, and I have more room to find out who God is and who I am and what that means to the community I am a part of. I am looking forward to seeing where this new path will lead me.

“Stepping out in confirmation”
by Shawna R. B. Atteberry

A new step
A new direction
Letting go of the past
On a new path
Stepping into a broader space
With less fences
Less walls
Less rules
It feels good
To be trusted
To discern the Spirit
Instead of being
Told what to do.

(c)2008 Shawna R. B. Atteberry

(There are affiliate links in this post.)

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We're all in this boat together

This week’s Gospel reading was Matthew 14:22-33, which is Peter walking on the water to meet Jesus, who was already walking on the water. My priest had a different take on this passage than one I have heard before. His take is that Peter wasn’t supposed to be out of the boat in the first place. He interpreted the boat as the world and the water as some kind of ecstatic, guru bliss that we want to stay in instead of the world. That’s not where Peter is supposed to be. We’re not supposed to be there either. We aren’t saved by ourselves out in the eternal beyond. Jesus put Peter back in the boat with the other eleven disciples. Then Jesus got into the boat, and the storm that had been tossing the boat around stopped. We are to be in this world. We are to work out our salvation together in this world. We are to build the kingdom of God in the here and now.

This reflects Jesus’ earthly ministry. Jesus came to this world; he came to us. He walked and ministered in this world, and then he told us to continue his ministry of love and compassion to the world around us. I like this new way to look at this story. What do you think?

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Brag time

Cynthia Johansen at Christians Do It Better has listed me in her Top 100 Christian Relationship Blogs (#75 under Christian Values). I think this is the first time I’ve been in a top 100 list. Thank you Cynthia!

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Religion Articles from The Washington Post

A couple of articles on religion from The Washington Post caught my eye today. The first talks about the Coptic Christians withdrawing from Muslim society in Egypt. This is so sad to hear. Christians and Muslims have lived side-by-side in peace in Egypt for centuries. The one thing that struck me is that when Christians and Muslims live in the same neighborhoods, they are good friends. There are no violent clashes. It’s the Christians and Muslims that have separated themselves into separate enclaves that are clashing. In an article I wrote for Credo magazine, I said, “When we make friends outside of our own group–Muslims, Buddhists, or atheists–it is harder to consider an entire group an enemy” (p. 23 in upcoming November 2008 issue). We cannot consider a whole group of people an enemy when we have friends, and they put a human face on that group. Here is an excerpt from Egypt’s Coptic Christians are Choosing Isolation:

Sidhom said he has a simple rule for predicting where Muslim and Christian violence will break out. In a community where Muslims and Christians still live and work together, he said, there will be no problem.

At another auto parts store in Shobra, where Copts and Muslims intermingle, Copt and Muslim clerks laughed at the idea of religious strife.

“Any wedding, funeral, they will be there,” Hussein Mohammed Negem said of his Christian friends. A black bruise on his forehead showed Negem to be a Muslim who regularly bows his head to the floor in prayer.

Nagib Emed Aziz George, a Christian shopkeeper from next door, smiled as he leaned on Negem, his arm and chin propped on the Muslim man’s shoulder.

The worst thing about this is that Jesus taught that our worst enemy is our neighbor, and we are to love them and care for them (see The Good Samaritan, Luke ). This goes directly against the second greatest commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself. It doesn’t matter if you agree with their religion or not, we still love them as Christ loves us and loves them.

The second article is about a Jewish pilgrimage in Morocco:

While religious tensions flare in Jerusalem and beyond, in Morocco, Jews and Muslims say they nurture a legacy of tolerance and maintain common sanctuaries where adherents of both religions pray. Decades of emigration to Israel by Morocco’s Jews and terrorist bombings in Casablanca that targeted Jewish sites haven’t diminished the draw of these annual pilgrimages.

During the festival that began Friday, visitors prayed and feasted around the shrine of Abraham Ben Zmirro, a rabbi reputed to have fled persecution in Spain in the 15th century and then lived in Safi, where he is buried with six siblings.

A half-Jewish, half-Muslim band played local tunes during a banquet, including a song in French, Arabic and Hebrew with the line: “There is only one God, you worship Him sitting down and I while standing up.”

The pilgrims were joined Sunday by Aaron Monsenego, the great rabbi of Morocco, who prayed alongside the regional governor and several other Muslim officials at the shrine’s synagogue for the good health of Morocco’s King Mohammed VI and his family.

“It’s very important for us to pray altogether,” Monsenego told The Associated Press.

People of different faiths can come together, worship together, pray together, and live together. But first we have to listen to each other and actually get to know each other. And above all: respect each other!

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Great Indepth Article about Obama and Wright

Dwight Hopkins at The Immanent Frame has posted a great article detailing the differences between Barak Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and why their parting of ways was inevitable. Here are a few excerpts:

Barack Obama is white and black and immigrant and multicultural. His mother and his grandparents hail from a white, heartland America and semi-rural America. Growing up with a white mother and white grandparents, Obama caught a glimpse of how many white citizens expect society and government to respond to their needs. Socialization processes in the U.S. (i.e., media, education, movies, power positions, etc.) produce white citizens who imagine whatever options they wish to choose in life. Not only can one envision different options, one can also decide to implement and, thus, realize those dreams. Despite his grandmother mentioning her fears of inner city black people, Obama grew up in a predominantly white environment that nurtured a view of government and American citizens as working together so each citizen could realize their desires. This perspective invites a career as a politician.

Obama also emerges from an immigrant sensibility. His father was from Kenya and immigrated to the U.S. to get a prestigious education. Barack Obama, Sr. did not come to America to find the American dream—get married, have children, and seek permanent residence and naturalized citizenship. Rather, he saw the U.S. as a place to obtain the best resources and then return back to his own home in Kenya. Senior Obama’s consciousness and history were not rooted in the black American story. Rather, his heart and priority were at home in Kenya.

In contrast, Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. hails from inner city Philadelphia and from a black family that traces parts of its roots back to Virginia and the slavery era. And Wright is a third generation black preacher.

Wright’s world was intensely racialized by the awareness of Africa’s contributions to humanity, his slavery history, northern racial discrimination, and the segregation he encountered when he went south for his B.A. degree. At the same time, he grew up in a loving household and city where blacks told folk tales, recounted the heroics of enslaved blacks, swayed with jazz rhythms, doo wop, and R&B, and played the dozens on ghetto street corners. Wright knew about other great black achievements such as the Harlem Renaissance, A. Phillip Randolph’s threat against FDR if the president didn’t integrate the armed services, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X.

Wright emerged out of a specific lineage of black preaching. His father was a big name Baptist preacher in Philadelphia and he, too, was a son of a Baptist preacher. Thus Jeremiah Wright, Jr. symbolizes three generations of the prophetic wing of the black church, one where Christianity is empty rhetoric if not linked to social justice and occasional prophetic denunciation of the powerful.

Wright and Obama—the preacher and the politician, race and multiculturalism—have different parental, geographic, historical, and personal experiences. Yet both agree on the Bible as being partial to the poor. Both agree on church function as organizing justice.

Wright is deeply connected to a segregated black community and the importance of its voice and its ability to obtain resources for living. From that particularity, he bridges into conversation and coalition with all of America. In contrast, Obama begins with a vision for all of America. From that perspective, blacks are simply one strand among many in a larger narrative about whites and blacks (as well as yellows, browns, and reds) being their brothers’ and sisters’ keepers.

Go read the whole thing and let me know what you think.

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Foremothers and Theologians

Lisa Guyla at Utne Reader’s Spirituality Blog directed my attention to an article in Boston College Magazine written by four female theologians: Lisa Sowle Cahill, Ruth Langer, M. Shawn Copeland, Patricia DeLeeuw, and Colleen Griffith. These five women talk about women in the Jewish and Christian traditions whom they consider to be their foremothers. Here is an excerpt from Colleen Griffith who wrote about Evelyn Underhill:

Perhaps her most enticing and challenging idea was that of “practical mysticism.” For Underhill, who was always less interested in defining mysticism than in practicing it, mysticism implied a life linked to social concerns. It was the art of union with reality. As our union with God grows, so does our identification with humanity and the Earth. “The riches and beauty of the spiritual landscape,” Underhill said, “are not disclosed to us in order that we might sit in the sun parlor, be grateful for the excellent hospitality, and contemplate the glorious view. . . . Our place is not the auditorium, but the stage . . . the field, workshop, study, laboratory. . . . We are the agents of the Creative Spirit, in this world.” Becoming a practical mystic, to her, meant simplifying one’s tangled and cluttered character and training one’s attention. Regular meditation and recollection would help.

Not many people today aspire to become practical mystics, thinking, perhaps, that mysticism remains the realm of the few, the proud, and the brave. But through Underhill, we catch sight of a spirituality of ordinary life, and the possibility of an increased capacity for union with God, the Real. This doesn’t require the abstentions of the cloister, just the virtues of the golf course.

Please go and read the whole article. Tomorrow I will be posting a poem I wrote about the foremothers who have inspired me. Who inspires you?

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Food and Friendship

It was a night I will remember for a long time, probably until I die. Tracy and I were on vacation visiting friends in Gilbert, AZ (a suburb of Phoenix). It was a gorgeous desert evening. The temperature was just right: not too hot and not too cold. As we began dinner we enjoyed the crimson-drenched clouds at sunset. As dinner continued we watched the bright full moon slowly come out from hiding behind the clouds. The food was incredible. We were at a Burmese restaurant in Scottsdale called Little Rangoon. It is owned by a husband and wife team: she cooks, and he mans the front. The food was served family style. We had lots of little bites from lots of different dishes: duck spring rolls, fermented tea leaf salad, samosas, lamb, duck, mushroom trio stir fry, giant coconut fried prawns, coconut chicken curry, garlic noodles, and lots of rice. Dessert were these wonderfully light semolina cakes that were perfect. Then the owner gave us these wonderful banana fritters on the house. There were eight of us, and the conversation flowed and undulated on all sides of the table. We ate, we talked, we laughed, we shared. At the beginning of the meal, six of the seven had been strangers to me. By the end they friends and family. Nothing brings people together and brings out community like a good meal.

I was reminded of this again this afternoon. A former colleague and I discovered recently (thanks to LinkedIn) that we both live in Chicago. We met this afternoon for lunch. It had to have been three years since we talked to each other, and we spent a delightful lunch catching up. We ate, and we talked. An old friendship was reborn.

They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people (Acts 2:46).

I think the early church knew what they were doing by making eating together a vital component of their life together. Of course this was nothing new to them. Eating together was a vital component of Jewish and Middle Eastern life (still is). The people who ate with you, ate with your family, became part of your family. While they were a guest, you did anything to defend and protect them from threat. At this time “devout Jewish families following temple worship would share meals together as symbolic of their social and spiritual solidarity” (The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 10, p. 73). Eating together to build and maintain community was nothing new.

I like the emphasis on eating together that is coming out of the missional and emerging movements. It used to be if it wasn’t tacked onto a formal church service, then it wasn’t “spiritual.” It was somehow not sacred or holy if it didn’t happen after the Sunday morning or evening service. I think that’s wrong. I think eating together is a sacred and spiritual experience in and of itself. Something happens when a group of people eat together. Defenses come down, chatter turns into conversation, and people start to open up, share, and just be themselves. Strangers become friends. Enemies can sit together, pass the plate, and may be listen to each other for the first time.

Related Posts:
Tables of Love

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April 13: Faith and Food

Faith and Food
Acts 2:42-47

When I think of tables, I think of eating with friends and family. Through the years these tables have taken different shapes and forms. Sometimes it’s just me and another person and at other times there could be 15-20 of us gathered around. Sometimes it’s quiet conversation and other times a cacophany of chatter, dishes, and someone yelling down the table to get someone else’s attention. I’m Irish-Italian; we tend to be a loud bunch. Of course that didn’t change when I headed off to college, and all of my friends were religion geeks like me. There was still a lot of talking over one another, around one another, and yelling at someone in order to get a word in edgewise. I felt right at home.

The table I normally think of is our family table growing up. Mom, Dad, my sister and me every night for supper. We didn’t have very many family rules set in stone, but eating supper together was one of them. When friends were over, they ate with us. Same thing if family visited: eating supper together never changed except when we slept over at a friend’s or had a school function. Some nights there was a lot of chatter, some nights we played Jeopardy more than we talked, and other nights we ate in relative silence because we were tired. The ebb and flow of activity may have changed but supper itself did not. We ate one meal as a family at the table everyday. Period.

One of the hardest things to get used to when I moved out and started living on my own was eating alone. It seemed odd, wrong. And not just because of family dinner. Before college I had always eaten breakfast with my sister, lunch with friends, and dinner with the family. In college I always ate with friends or the family that adopted me at church. Eating by myself bothered me more than living by myself. In the movie Under the Tuscan Sun her neighbor invites Francis over for supper saying, “It’s not healthy to eat alone.” I absolutely agree with him.

In fact the Mediterranean people know how to do supper. I lived in Barcelona for a year as a Nazarene in Volunteer Service or NIVS for short. I loved their attitude about food. Food was something to be enjoyed, not scarfed down. I am a slow eater. I always have been and I will stubbornly remain so. I get teased because I refuse to scarf my food down in order to “do” something more important. What’s more important than nourishing yourself? And I don’t believe you can nourish yourself if you inhale your food. I fit right in in Spain and with the Mediterranean mindset: food is to be enjoyed and preferably enjoyed with family and bunch of friends. They take supper seriously. There it is a three hour affair with three or four courses and a lot of conversation. Talking, joking, sharing the day, getting caught up. It’s relaxed. Everyone is enjoying themselves. Everyone is enjoying the food. I fit right in. I found out the Italian genes I got from my full-blooded Italian great-grandmother ran true in my blood. They somehow skipped the rest of family.

(more…)

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April 6: Peace and Wounds

Peace and Wounds
John 20:19-31

The nurses at NIH thought it was horrible that we had to spend Easter there and couldn’t go home. But it was sunny and up in the 50s in D.C. Chicago had a white Easter from what I hear. In fact, when the nurses apologized about us having to stay there over the holiday, my response was, “It’s snowing in Chicago. The weather is much better here.” And for the the first time I saw what Craig Kocher talked about in last week’s Blogging toward Sunday: “Peace and wounds dine together on Easter.” Peace and wounds dine together on Easter. I didn’t have the words for it Easter Sunday, but that is what happened. For the Easter service at the NIH chapel, there were some very sick people. Two of them wore masks to protect them. They were probably in one of the cancer programs, and had little to no immune systems from their treatments. The young boy was also in a wheel chair, and you could tell by his eyes, he was so happy to be there. Sitting among people who were so sick, and yet so filled hope, this was an Easter where the resurrection, its power and hope were center stage, believed and proclaimed in full faith. Peace and wounds dined together.We normally don’t think about wounds on Easter Sunday. That’s what we did on Good Friday. The resurrection has happened. Now it’s time to get on to the “hallelujahs,” pretty dresses, hats, and Easter egg hunts. We are quick to move from the nails and spear of Good Friday, forgetting that Jesus still carried those wounds on the first Easter. It was when the disciples saw Jesus’ wounds that they knew it was him and began to rejoice. It wasn’t the glory of heaven that tipped them off: it was the nail and spear wounds that still showed, even after the resurrection.

Peace be unto you.” These are the first words Jesus says to his disciples after his resurrection. He appeared to Mary early that morning, but for some reason, he does not come to the disciples until that night. They’re huddled up in a room with the doors locked still scared of the authorities. Apparently they have not believed Mary’s story or her testimony, “I have seen the Lord.” They are sitting, locked in a room, trying to figure out what in the world has happened the last couple of days. Then out of nowhere, Jesus is there. There was no knock on the door. They didn’t hear a footstep. Jesus didn’t wait to be invited in. He was just there. In the midst of them. Giving them peace–his peace. The peace he promised them on the night before he died. Before his death, Jesus told the disciples: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” Jesus gives peace that isn’t dependent on what’s going on in the world or who is in charge. This peace flows from Jesus’ resurrection, not his political takeover. This peace flows from God’s power, not ours, not the government’s, or even the power of religious authorities. This peace comes from God, is given by God and sustained by God.

After Jesus gives them his peace, he shows them his hands and side. It is only then that the disciples believe that this is Jesus–raised from the dead–and they begin to rejoice. Jesus once again gives them God’s peace, and then commissions them: “As the Father sent me, so send I you.” In John the disciples do not have to wait until after the Ascension onto Pentecost for the Holy Spirit. The giving of the Holy Spirit is also less spectacular in John and much more intimate.

Craig Kocher notes that you have to get close to someone to breathe on them. You have to invade their personal space. Sharing breath is something couples and families share. It’s a familial intimacy; an act shared by lovers. It’s normally not how we pass the peace in the church. There are social graces to keep after all. Jesus did not think so. He comes close to the disciples. The same ones who abandoned him two days ago are now receiving the Holy Spirit through Jesus’ breath. The Spirit Jesus promised them would give them the words to say, would teach them all things, and always be with them was now fulfilled. They were equipped to go into the world as Jesus had and share the peace of Christ with that hurting and broken world.

But one of the disciples is missing on the night of the Resurrection: Thomas. Poor Thomas. I think he is one of the most maligned people in the Bible, and really for no reason. He’s nicknamed “doubting.” But which of the disciples believed that Jesus had been raised from the dead without first seeing him? None of them. The eleven didn’t believe Mary when she told them she had seen Jesus that morning. And Thomas didn’t believe those who told him they had seen Jesus earlier that night. Thomas wanted to see and touch the same thing the others had. They hadn’t believed until they saw Jesus’ wounds. Thomas is no different than the others. No more or less doubting. No more or less unbelieving. He’s just the same.

And Jesus gives him what he wants. Eight days later the situation hasn’t changed much. The disciples are still shut away in a room. Doors locked. Once again Jesus appears to them. Once again he doesn’t use the door or knock. He just comes. He once again blesses the disciples with peace. Then he turns to Thomas and says, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” There is no scolding or berating. There is no disappointment. Jesus simply gives Thomas what he needs to believe. He comes, and he shows his wounds. Seeing is apparently enough for Thomas, and he calls Jesus his Lord and God.

In our self made hells in our fears in the corners we get ourselves backed into, Jesus comes. Jesus comes and he shows us his love–see his hands, his side. He comes into fear and trepidation, and he says: “Peace.” Peace. Through the locked doors, the fears, the “what ifs” whispered behind hands. Into this fear-filled, cowardly crowd, Jesus comes. Jesus appears to them. There is no chiding. There is no “why didn’t you believe Mary?” Or “why didn’t you believe the others?” No, Jesus comes to the depressed and frightened disciples–he just appears. Locked doors no more. He appears in our midst and says one thing: Peace. He came to the men who did not believe the woman and said peace. He came to Thomas who did not believe the men and said peace.

He comes to us and says peace. He comes to our little worlds, to our locked rooms, he finds us walking and fishing, and he says peace. Jesus comes and gives us peace–his peace. But he doesn’t give us his peace to hoard and keep for ourselves. Like the disciples, with his peace, Jesus also gives his Spirit to go out in the world and share that peace. Easter is a triumphant celebration, but it is not always pretty. It is not all Easter lilies and bonnets. It comes with wounds. Not only the wounds of Christ, but the wounds of the world. We are sent with the peace of Christ to share that peace with a broken, wounded, and dying world.

I skipped over verse 23 the first time Jesus visited the disciples. After Jesus breathes the Spirit on them, he says, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Of course Protestants, particularly Evangelicals have a big problem with this. Like the Pharisees, when Jesus healed the man lowered through the roof by his friends, we say “Who forgives sin but God alone?” Listen to how Eugene Peterson paraphrases this verse: “If you forgive someone’s sins, they’re gone for good. If you don’t forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?” When a person repents of sin, the sin is forgiven, and we are to recognize that. Parker Palmer wrote that “the mission of the church is not to enlarge its membership, not to bring outsiders to accept its terms, but simply to love the world in every possible way–to love the world as God did and does.” Of this verse Gail O’Day says, “The faith community’s mission is not to be the arbiter of right and wrong, but to bear unceasing witness to the love of God in Jesus”

Our job is to live the love, peace, and forgiveness of Jesus in our world. It’s not always easy, and it’s not always pretty, but that is what we are called to do. This wounded world will only be healed through and by the wounds of Christ.

The picture is from the He Qi Gallery.

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Church vs. Community

Mak had this to say over at Swinging from the Vine:

One of the things I’ve discovered in my time in the church world is that church friendships are almost exactly like work relationships, except people see each other even more infrequently. This applies perhaps even more so to leaders – even amongst each other. Which means you’re “friends” or at least “friendly” as long as you go to the church. Leave the church and you can pretty much bet that’s the last you’ll see of anyone at the church. I’m guilty of contributing to this and participating in it as much as any one but it must stop.

This has been a contention of mine for some time with churches I have attended. I see people for a couple of hours on Sunday then don’t see or hear from anyone during the week. Now when I attended Northside, there was a very good reason for this: I had a forty minute commute to church, and I wasn’t the only one. It’s hard to be a part of each other’s lives when everyone is so spread out.

It’s one of the reasons I am planting a church. I want to not only plant a church, but start a community here in the South Loop. I want people who live here to worship and minister in their zip code. I am very parish oriented. I think it comes from growing up in a small town. Even living in cities I attended churches I lived close to. I want to create a worshiping community where people I go to church with, I see in the grocery store or Target, and pass on the street because we live in this area. Living in the same area will also promote organic community. It’s easier for people to get together for dinner or coffee if they don’t have to commute 40 minutes one way first. Forming small groups should happen more naturally as well.

Mak, I also agree with your post about Christians needing friends outside of the church they attend. This is doubly so if you are on staff or the pastor. But that will have to be another post because I need to go get supper on.

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