Category: The Realistic Mystic

Principled Retreat

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

How much room should we give people who hold and express principles that violate our own?  

This sounds like an easy question, but like most things worth discussing,it can be more abstract.  What do we mean by “room”? Which people, exactly? How dramatic are the differences in principle? Do we have any hope in being a positive influence on one another? 

What about the co-worker who holds political opinions you don’t care for? No biggie.  Give a wide berth, don’t talk about that stuff at work, smile and nod.  Easy peasy. 

But what about the dear friend whose position wasn’t known to you while you were building what felt like a promising relationship, and then out of their mouth comes an intolerance that is at first stunning and then quickly evolves into a true conundrum?  Where’s the deal-killer line?  What are you willing to put up with?  When does your presence become a silent approval?  It’s hard to have a dear friend that you have to treat like an office co-worker with certain topics off-limits.  That seems to inherently limit the friendship. 

Everyone has to determine the line for themselves, but I believe some important considerations can be helpful guides. 

The first consideration is around harm and safety.  Obviously, if it feels unsafe, hightail it on outta there.  

The second consideration concerns the capacity for dialogue.  Are you able to have worthwhile and meaningful dialogue around this subject with your friend?  If not, well, how delicately do you want to have to dance every time you see them? 

The third consideration is your own energy.  You have the right to protect it, and if the friendship is becoming energetically exhausting for you because of this conflict, then you might need to step back.  

There is a fourth consideration I want to add that is especially important to me — if any of these would apply to a person not present, consider how important your advocacy role is to you.  For me, the line has always been clear.  If someone maintains a position steeped in bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, or racism, I don’t share space with them. Period. 

James Baldwin once said, “We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”  I would add that we can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in anyone’s oppression, the denial of anyone’s humanity, or the denial of anyone’s right to exist. 

My approach may not work for everybody, and it’s probably a good thing it doesn’t.  We need people who stay in the fray and have the argument.  We need people who ease folks around to a new idea without being so absolute.  I appreciate those folks.  I need them because I can’t be them.  

But I’m an Aries.  We’re weird that way. 

Reverend — More or Less

~ Deb ~ 1 Comment

I hold the title of Reverend because of my studies with a seminary.  I use this title in my work as the community minister of Many Paths Spiritual Center in Goodlettsville, TN.  It is a title that has some legacy for me.  

My father was a minister. And my grandfather, and my uncle, and three of my first cousins.  Although there is some variety in the denominations represented in my family, for those I just listed, the title Reverend means that they are ordained to be a Christian pastor in a Protestant Christian denomination.  

I am not a Christian.  My deconstruction began in my 20s and has continued now for four decades.  That process included, as it does for most people, deconstructing the language of religious heritage.  I had to rethink heaven, hell, god, sin, salvation, baptism, and pretty much every word contained in the Christian Bible.  One of those words is “reverend.”  

If we go back to the font of all knowledge, the dictionary, we read that “reverend” is a title given to a member of the clergy, and if we look up clergy, we see that this refers to someone ordained to perform pastoral duties in a Christian church.  So why do I, a non-Christian, who ministers to an interfaith community with a diverse array of spiritual paths, use this word?  

Well, first, I earned it.  I graduated from the ministerial program at All Faiths Seminary, and my successful completion came with the earned honorific of “reverend.”  

Second, I perform the duties of ministry.  I speak every Sunday at 11:00 a.m. to a group of amazing souls with whom I am privileged to share the journey.  I listen to congregants’ personal stories and offer what words of comfort or encouragement I have to give.  I will pray with them or for them.  I carry their hearts in mine and do my best to always be a source of compassion, acceptance, and love.  

Third, other words don’t seem to work.  I am not a priest or a rabbi or an imam or a lama or a guru or a shaman.  I haven’t earned those titles.  Also, I’m sensitive to the potential for cultural appropriation which might unnecessarily offend.  I might like being a rabbi or a guru, but I was raised culturally Christian, and those words belong to other traditions more naturally.  If I traded in “reverend” for anything, I suppose it would be “teacher.” 

Fourth, sometimes a Reverend is just what a congregant needs.  I love the people with whom I am in spiritual community.  I consider them friends.  But I always want them to know that they can come to me and say, “Deb, right now I need my minister.”   

I had to reframe and reclaim a whole lot from my religious upbringing.  I had to decide what could stay and what HAD to go.  Jesus stayed.  Christianity, or what it has become over time, that went. Love stayed.  Judgment went.  Inclusivity stayed.  Exclusivity went.  

I thought the family business of ministry would be a casualty of my deconstruction as well.  And then the path I followed led me back to something that felt familiar and also brand new.  I don’t preach.  I don’t convert.  I don’t insist anyone follow a specific path.  But I do minister, and I feel the responsibility of that calling as a beautiful and joyous burden to carry through this life.  

Reverend Moore was my father, and Reverend Moore is me.  Or as my congregants call me — Rev Deb.  The man my father was would be appalled at the Reverend I am today, but I believe the version of him that now exists only on a spiritual plane might just be smiling.  

Unlimited Compassion

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

I posted a meme to social media recently quoting an influencer named Pastor Brandon.  His quote, the one I liked so much that I stole it, is “When I stand before God, I’d rather answer for loving too freely than explain why my theology made people feel unwelcome at His table.” 

It reminds me of another favorite quote by another minister, Rev. Eston Williams: “At the end of the day, I’d rather be excluded for who I include than be included for who I exclude.” 

Though my personal spiritual journey may differ from these two Christian pastors, I welcome anyone into my energetic circle who maintains inclusive guiding principles such as these.  Because, let’s face it, our world could use all the welcome-home, lemme-give-you-a-hug, soup’s-on kind of acceptance it can get these days. 

Of COURSE, someone had to leap onto my post and make this comment: “Loving does not mean condoning. Compassion can coexist with strict adherence to God’s laws.” 

But can it?  Can it really? And what precisely does one mean by “God’s laws”? 

Let’s deal with the laws first and get my response to the poster out of the way.  My reply was: “Humans made all the laws. The closest thing we have to a divine law is when Yeshua said to love God and love our neighbor as ourself. Everything else is debatable through various lenses of interpretation and culture.”

But the far more important question here is the one about compassion and just what it can and can’t coexist with.  Compassion and judgment don’t seem to be natural friends.  Judgment comes from a place of moral superiority, a sense of rightness in the face of another’s wrongness.  It comes from believing we have the ultimate definition of “God’s Laws.” The Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön said that “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals.”  The delusion of moral superiority cannot exist in the same space as true compassion because it assumes inequality. 

Another part of the commenter’s phrase that slips by almost undetected is “strict adherence — Compassion can coexist with strict adherence to God’s laws.” 

I’m probably stepping into a deep pool here, but I’m a swimmer, so let’s do it. In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with “strict adherence.”  I’d like to live a life that strictly adheres to love and joy and freedom and spiritual expansion.  Yet I’ve found that doing so inherently leads me away from words like “strict” and “adherence.”  Compassion, just like love and joy and freedom, requires suppleness, flexibility, an artistic walk with the sacred rather than a lockstep adherence to a prescribed set of dos and don’ts. Compassion requires an ever-present awareness of how my sacred urging can meet the needs of the one in front of me, not a creed or manual or how-to book.  Compassion requires that I stay awake to the moment, not that I memorize ten commandments or twelve steps or eight beatitudes.  

Mostly, I wonder what compels someone to rush judgment into a declaration of inclusion.  Why the urgent need to counterbalance an expression of love? 

So much in this life leans toward the other side of the scale.  It just seems to me that unlimited compassion might be a good way to go.  

Soup’s on.  Get you a bowl.  

Conversion Blues

~ Deb ~ 1 Comment

In the almost 40+ years I’ve been deconstructing my inherited faith and discovering a lived and meaningful spirituality, I’ve known a shit-ton of people.  Each of those people brought a unique perspective from a unique place on a unique path. One of my core beliefs is that all paths lead up the mountain. I deeply value the insight others bring, and I only ask the same respect in return for my own path.  

Overwhelmingly, the people I’ve met along the way have been those who, much like me, walked away from a rigid, one-pointed belief where they were taught to accept a particular ideology completely and put all others into a pile labeled “evil.”  Not “unimportant,” or “useless,” or even “rejected.”  “Evil.”  The evangelicalism of my youth taught me that if I was not 100% pro-Jesus as they understood him, then I was worse than neutral; I was on Satan’s payroll and guided by demons.  

It takes a lot to shake that.  So those of us who do and then find each other are often immensely grateful to have encountered kindred spirits.  And because the deconstruction has included an opening of the heart and mind to the beauty in so many spiritual paths, this group is usually quite diverse.  While often eschewing specific labels, most of my spiritual tribe tends to be those who take inspiration and comfort in Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Paganism, Sikhism, Wicca, and whatever other path one might add to the mix.     

But here’s where it gets weird.  A couple of times, rarely and randomly, someone will come into my circle, usually a younger person, who displays great open-mindedness and a natural bent toward the esoteric and mystical.  About the time I’m thinking, “oh, how wonderful it would be to have been that free so young,” they post something to social media announcing their conversion to Christianity.  And then it builds. They post more and more. Eventually, they share pictures of the mega-church they now belong to.  Instead of the latest Tik-Tok dance, they’re now posting Bible verses.  

Now that, in and of itself, is wonderful.  All paths lead up the mountain, and if this is their path, then I’m so happy they’ve found it. The rub comes, though, when they’ve bought in so completely that their posts begin condemning all other paths.  New Christian converts seem to pass into the “I’ve got to save everyone from hell” phase quite quickly. 

They’ve moved from joy to condemnation without skipping a beat, which makes an awkward dance-move.  

In full disclosure, I’ve seen this happen twice in 40+ years, so we’re not talking about a tsunami here.  I often find that people who open their minds rarely close them again.  And for fear I am misunderstood, let me emphasize that the closing of the mind is not in converting to Christianity; it’s in the off-putting and judgmental sense of spiritual superiority that sometimes accompanies it. 

I’m curious about their path.  I wonder if this will stick or a more expansive appreciation will return for them.  I wonder what the twists and turns will do to them in the dark nights of the soul they are undoubtedly yet to experience — not because they’re Christian but because they’re babies.  I wonder if they will ever again have a moment of darkness in which they see light coming from a Rumi poem or a Buddhist idea or a new moon.  I wonder if they’ll leave room for the mystic Yeshua, the Jesus of the Gnostics.  

So many places they will go.  So many miles down the path that is theirs to trod.  

I don’t judge their path.  I wish them well on it.  I wish them eyes that see and ears that hear.  I wish them peace and freedom.  I wish them an experience of the Sacred that renders them speechless and transformed.  I wish them enlightenment, nirvana, moksha, even if they only ever call it sanctification.  

Mostly, I pray they will see the Jesus they love as a champion for compassion rather than a measuring stick for judgment.