Tag: Spirituality

Bully Pulpit

~ Deb ~ 4 Comments 
In Sunday School,
I learned that a 
person could live 
inside the belly of
a great fish for
three whole days

And a boat could 
be built that would
hold two of every
creature ever born
plus a family of
eight

And that a barely
pubescent shepherd
could slay a giant 
with a slingshot
and a well-aimed
stone.

And the Jesus
we heard about
fed people and 
welcomed children and
told stories about
kind strangers who
cared for others

And he talked 
about mercy and 
he talked about hope
and he talked about 
loving one another,
not as good ideas, but
as the essence of
righteousness. 

And how the ones
who taught me that
became advocates for
a theology of meanness,
mouthpieces for a
politics of hate,
soldiers in an army
of exclusion,
is a kind of reverse-
miracle I’ll never
understand.

Religion Feng Shui

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment 
A friend says, “I’m practically
allergic to organized religion,” 
and I nod in solidarity and
sisterhood.  I joke, “I'm
far more comfortable with
disorganized religion.” 

Then I go home and check 
Merriam-Webster because English
professors do that a lot more
often than you might think, and it
tells me that religion is “an organized
system of religious attitudes, beliefs,
and practices,” and I realize that 
“organized religion” is redundant.

It doesn’t impact my friend’s
position, but my standup routine
has to change.  I’m not comfortable
with religion period.  I’m not comfortable
with the idea that moral behavior
can be organized into a list of 
dos and don’ts. I’m not comfortable
with the intentions of a singular
creator being known and owned by
this or that hierarchical, patriarchal,
oligarchical, pseudo-monarchical 
“non-profit” organization. I am not
comfortable with any one way being
determined the arbiter of sacredness,
the magistrate of love.  

So once again, since it came
up, I check the layout of my
philosophy.  I rearrange the furniture
of my creed.  I tweak the angle 
of my theology and take residual 
dogma out with the trash. I remember
again that the only value in any of it
is the degree to which it reminds me
of who I am, the freedom with which 
it allows life to flow like a breeze
or a river or a bird gliding on energy
unseen by a physical eye but
undeniable in the experience
of the flier. 

It was still funny, though.

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.