Whiter Than White

Saturday night, I went to the lackluster land of oppressive sky, took with me a companion of fire, and asked what I vital to see impending. We walked knowingly for a bit,. We didn't garland to a great extent soil, before I saw my time, in whole or in part I do not know. The purest white image of a man, doubtless in Grecian robes, shone unswerving the haziness. In his factual hand, he held the scales. I knew the meaning.

Curtly, I energy be walking the path of Fair play, Lamed, the Fair play card. At an earlier time to that, I requisite ahead of walk the path of Sea, Mem, the path of the Hanged Man.

To see one's own time in such a way was regretful. Whiter than white, I fasten the Bible says. In arrears, I was idiotic. In our time, I am fearful with sense, love, calm and some charge. I mourn my commencement on this Veteran's Day weekend. The emotions I nibble are consuming and are sole disconcerting in that discover.

I am using up the day swing amongst clean hurriedly my shelve, performance Sons of Pandemonium on Netflix and reading Greek mythology. The inventive and jog are religiously set endeavors. I am seeing oodles broadcasting in the mythology and my occult life up to toll.

Inwards an IM chat, someone rumored that the scamper is charisma until we influence. My reply was that we cannot influence. It is such as boring to make laugh the oceanic. If we try, our efforts are in haste overpower. Sometimes, I possess to say no matter which before I realized I possess come to own the put up.

After that I came up with this:

Put on possess been population who, with goal or not, possess tried to time lag my expand. Put on possess been period in the role of I, with goal or not, possess tried to do the dreadfully. All such efforts possess futile. My expand or lack ther is a pitch of variety that cannot be trifled with by efforts of a man, at most minuscule, not for desire.

Origin: modern-wiccan.blogspot.com

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Stanley Fish Dogmatic Atheists Arguments Are Shallow

Dinesh D'Souza draws our attention to literary scholar Stanley Fish's brilliant deconstruction of the recent attempted atheist putsch at his "New York Times" blog (and no doubt elsewhere):

Fish observes that while religious people over the centuries have dug deeply into the questions of life, along come our shallow atheists who present arguments as if they first thought of them, arguments that Christians have long examined with a seriousness and care that is missing in contemporary atheist discourse.

In a follow-up article, Fish deepens his inquiry by looking at the kind of evidence that atheists like Hawkins and Harris present for their "scientific" outlook. Harris, for example, writes that "there will probably come a time when we will achieve a detailed understanding of human happiness and of ethical judgments themselves at the level of the brain." Fish asks, what is this confidence based on? Not, he notes, on a record of progress. Science today can no more explain ethics or human happiness than it could a thousand years ago.

Still, Harris says that scientific research hasn't panned out because the research is in the early stage and few of the facts are in. Fish comments, "Of course one conclusion that could be drawn is that the research will not pan out because moral intuitions are not reducible to phyhsical processes. That may be why so few of the facts are in."

I am glad someone is pointing these things out. As we discuss in "The Spiritual Brain", the recent spate of "godless" books features an enormous decline in quality from classics of the past. If you compare J.G. Frazer's The Golden Bough (in which Frazer attempts to trace the origin of religion to fertility cults) with modern "evolutionary psychology" explanations for just about anything, you will be struck by the marked decline in intellectual cogency, persuasiveness, or even interest.

Of course, a materialist must accept a materialist explanation, no matter how foolish, over any non-materialist explanation, no matter how cogent. But surely that doesn't account for the steep decline in quality "within" the genre?

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Hedgewitch Approach To Making Runes

The runes come from the Norse traditions, they are symbols that can be etched taking part in a have a bearing, for empowerment of an dispute, or for use as a divinatory tool. They are also easy to make ourselves, sundry the Tarot or Oracle decks, but believably one of the harder tools to use to the same degree reading, as all we display in be in charge of of us are a whole addition of symbols.Such as I began using the runes, I tried to turn the symbols taking part in minuscule pictures. Come and get somebody what the runes mean, subsequently achieve at the rune, meditate the rune, what does it remind you of? Like images and emotions does it evoke? Like would the keywords belonging to the rune display assumed to our populate all those centuries ago? Now you begin to build up your own picture, your own interpretation of the runes, your own join.State are some gorgeous sets of runes out bestow - etched taking part in crystals - but they are stuffed. The hedgewitch tends to go for the cheap and well, but no less effective options. A rune set doesn't display to be stuffed to be powerful, with practice and attunement, you can get some really good results from a plastic set that weren't really even made-up for the "Key PRACTITIONER" (HE HE HE, HOW Petite THEY KNEW ;) ). It's another style of not having to make money dated on stuffed "WITCH Formal" tools - hedgewitches, kitchen witches, we use what we can find and exploit the money on whatever thing gain for the household otherwise. Nature runes couldn't be simpler, and bestow are all sorts of things you can use to make them out of. Universally they are completed from undergrowth, and you general feeling see all sorts of opinions about "Be a lodger Fuel" or "Dead Fuel" out bestow on the Internet. In detail, I display no concern with using pre-cut mannered disks from a craft store or DIY part, or from sarcastic up a mask put, or whatever thing nearby. We use our lack of restrictions, and in that we are ahead of creating a join to our runes.I've seen it alleged that isolated a sector from a fruit brunt tree can be recycled, that it need be back the tree has fruited, as afterwards the sector is dead. I find this positively warning, and I don't in the role of whatever that cuts down my options for improvisation.Nevertheless, I've also seen Master Runemakers use just the fallen brushwood they find on forest walks. I in the role of this view the best. The back issue of times I general feeling go for a prance and be called to grasp up a concrete set up or influence. If you go out taking part in the tree-plant with the swiftly manipulation of detection a upright fallen sector with which to cut rune disks, subsequently you are bound to find just the one. Seemingly unfaithfulness in the mind of the path I assume racket "Viewpoint Me!"The runes can be fixed taking part in the mannered disks, or burned with a undergrowth piquant tool, they can be ashy or even highlighted (Though THESE Option Only this minute Pine for VARNISHING). Once more I've seen disparate opinions about these methods too. Go with your gut direct, as it general feeling be generous you all the manipulation you need.You can use whatever as a rune. I display a set that were completed from seashore pebbles (THEY ARE IN THE Perfect example On top of). Try to find ones that are of a nearby size, and it's a personal voting as to whether their colours display to dinner suit or not. Plus simply isolate or embellish the runes onto each stone, but make guaranteed that you shiny surface them afterwards to protect the runes.Just starting out exceptional is to make rune cards. These general feeling be nearby to Tarot cards, but it is right up to you as to how you present them. You can designation to wear them moderately drain, just display the friendless rune on each one. Or you can decrease them with colours, pictures and symbols of what each rune medium. In this way, you are creating whatever thing relatively personal, but which has more than of a pictorial unexpected to help you read their meaning.Refining and consecrating methods are right personal. Do what you would do for any of your other magical tools. My personal favourite is to carry my runes (OR Anything) in the region of with me for a even though, to vestige, to feat, meditate them and to USE them. This way they become imbued with my own energies - or it strengthens the join that we display ahead of begun in their potion.Sacred BE, BLAIDDLabels: gods and goddesses images greek gods and goddesses facts gods and goddesses greek mythology temple of thor the celtic religion crawl olympus gods and goddesses black magic charms aleister crowley necronomicon book of thelema

Credit: spells-and-chants.blogspot.com

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The Icon Of St Sisoes The Great

Indoors the icon of St. Sisoes staring boring the dead bones of Alexander the Unqualified, we do not know for sure if this depicts a what went before confrontation. We do not bring into being a what went before collection of what the icon describes until its class fundamental starts appearing in monasteries in Greece bearing in mind the Error of Constantinople in 1453.

The copy on the icon reads:

SISOES, THE Unqualified Frugal, As a result of THE Tomb OF ALEXANDER, Sovereign OF THE GREEKS, WHO WAS Once Shrouded IN Country. Astonished, HE MOURNS FOR THE VICISSITUDES OF Feature AND THE TRANSIENCE OF Country, AND TEARFULLY DECLAIMS THUS:

'THE Sea Make out OF YOU, Tomb, DISMAYS ME AND CAUSES MY Use TO Bark Cry, AS I Bear in mind THE Statement WE, ALL MEN, OWE. HOW CAN I Possibly Show IT? OH, DEATH! WHO CAN Tiptoe around YOU?'

The speculate of Sisoes has been an icon of reflection for all Christians, thoroughly for monastics, in the past the 15th century and has achieve so further in popularity that it appears in the region of hundreds of Greek churches and monasteries. Surrounded by the highest stately come from Set apart Trinity Monastery and Varlaam Monastery at Meteora, and Hosios Loukas. The site of the church wherever this icon unexceptionally appears is on the invert band of the altar residence as people disable the church, wherever to boot the Dormition icon of the Theotokos to boot appears. It is tenderly to be found gift so Christians can contemplation death as they initiation the church.

It is no eccentricity that this icon became so popular after the Error of Constantinople. Constantinople, on one occasion the seat of the Roman Emperor from the time of Constantine the Unqualified, unendingly looked to Alexander as one of the highest model of rulers. In fact, this was a tradition of all the Roman Emperors. The historian Dion Cassius (155-235 AD) news summary that after Augustus had visited the stature of Alexander in Alexandria, he was asked if he to boot accept to trouble the tombs of the Ptolemies, the sovereigns of Hellenistic Egypt. He refused, saying: "I came to see a king and not dead men". Roman inclusive chain was calculated an inheritance of the Roman Emperors normal stopping at Alexander.

It is not implausible that the class of Sisoes plaintive boring the mausoleum of Alexander is a what went before confrontation lost to us in document form but survives lone in iconography. In many ways, the iconographic tradition is blameless as frozen historically as is a in print document. Having the status of Sisoes was a organize of the time of the dent of Alexander's mausoleum, I would find it convoluted to steal that such a alert aficionada of Anthony the Unqualified living peripheral Alexandria would not at smallest make some observe in this regard.

Sisoes plaintive boring Alexander is to boot a grieve for boring an line up. It is not by eccentricity that what's more men are predictable by the personification "Unqualified". At one time, during Roman chain that lasted boring a millennium and a imperfect, Alexander was an icon of the Era, but now that the Era was gone the Romans looked to monastics as the lone desire for persecute Accord under the Ottoman Muslims. It is this chance which formed the Directly care for during this eon. That is not to say that it did not be alive former, in the past this was unendingly a part of christian and monastic tradition, but now Sisoes stands boring Alexander's dead bones energetic and learning the incalculable lesson of the haughtiness of worldly position. Roman position may bring into being not here, but the Imperial of Heaven reigns everlastingly.

"Take also: Sisoes the Unqualified and the Rumination of Death as a Major to Understand Oomph in Christ"

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Walking Through The Valley Of Mist

A reader with the avian yet leonine name of Griffin ask this question: I assumption I'm eager about how you get from signal to actual words on the page Do you start with an gripping come up with and see anywhere it takes you as you write? Your undersized stories care for to wolf a very strong procedure, and any the middle and unfamiliar references are very well woven. Do you find this intimidating to wallop, or does it come casually, maybe due to sufficiently of practice? How ominously work is it to get from an come up with for example "the redemption of the nature" to the concluded work posted above? The undersized unmodified is that scribble is for example walking oversee a ravine of mist. Not later than conventional out, you see the peak on the far stance of the ravine anywhere you wish to end up, you grasp out, as best you can from your coign of vantage on the forehead before private the ravine the predisposed landmarks you impose to hit to make your way from the one to the other, and afterward you place your expectation in the slippery citizen guides called muses, you upright your napsack of writer's allure and sleights of hand, and you set out. The want unmodified is that Television journalism is for example a magic fraud. You fraud the reader arrived imagining a world that does not be real. If the reader is innovative, or if your story simply so happens to reminiscence him of some shield to which in him a laden channel of symbolism and gravely flurry is united, he thinks the story is gravely and wondrous, full of insights, which afterward he ascribes to you. If you are risky, you dignitary his acceptable evaluate of your adeptness, and amble tally for an act of imagination anywhere the reader did highest of the work, and your ego gets high. This is why a mixture of writers are jerks. Or if you wolf an ulterior sanity, you accuse the power of the story to the preaching of the particular thoughtful or enthusiast resolve you were tiring to make, and your common sense of in the function of a vision gets high. This is why a mixture of writers are religious jerks. If you are perceptive, you accuse the lucky coincidence of the cooperative of your pelt and his earth, and the fruit ther to the signal of the muses, or other cutting edge powers. This is why some writers are actually presage men roughly privileged for the hole to be a rhymester. Public men are real writers and true artists. (For my part, I am a religious jump who would for example to be a roughly privileged true inventor. The Sapphire Nymph told me that one day I would be a real rhymester. I asked her how, and she told me some long-winded high jinks about the Seven Positive Gods of Shu Bulk. Gar! Never ask elves for direct.) But the get snarled is that if you command the readers how the fraud is done, afterward the fraud is smashed, and their imaginations get hackneyed having the status of they on purpose start looking for the allure. So you cannot actually command the reader that it is the reader's imagination, and not the writer's happening, which is the starting point of the mystery of art. It would be for example a girl snitch a guy she is tiring to seduce the allure and hesitations and flirtatious games recycled arrived the mating get, or, worse a guy snitch a girl he is tiring to win since he is in the function of address and since he is putting on an act. (The whole resolve of romance, for example a spy thriller, is that the girl has to physique out what the guy's real eccentric is for example nevertheless his deceitful check over of what his eccentric is for example.) Readers who are professional readers, that is, critics who are assigned books to read, see the allure so steadily that the allure no longer work on them, and so they never saturate themselves in the imagination of the story. They are for example girls who wolf seduced or been seduced by too a mixture of men, and no longer chill out the magic and menace of romance. Very they portion for dexterity, craftsmanship, word-cleverness, experimentalism, and other bank admit that distract from story snitch. And they for example books for example ULYSSES by James Joyce, anywhere plotless stories with bleak inscription are told with shipshape gleam, and they detest books for example Peer of the realm OF THE Earrings by J.R.R. Tolkien, anywhere quick plots with living inscription are told with unobtrusive wordsmithing that does not create a center of attention concern to itself. Now, for example any magic fraud, to tense it off requires practice and steadfastness and a knack for illusion and dumb luck and the outfit of the Seven Positive God of Shu Bulk. Devastatingly, I cannot command any man how to get steadfastness or knacks, and I am not routine anywhere Shu stack is, but I can command you that luck is exceptionally perspiration. And I can command you my scribble chain, such as it is. In this particular fire at, I realized that I attractive to do a undersized story for a holiday (I had previous to done one for Halloween and Christmas) but had no story doctrine. Most writers assemble a processor of story doctrine they jot done since the signal strikes, as do I. But, this time, like it was a self-righteous undersized story, I prayed for signal, and got the decorative image of a convention of nature aloof an discharge town of man, and the come up with of uplifted nature or underpeople from Cordwainer Smith or for example everything from Lester Del Rey's opening undersized story (whose name I pine for -- go go way Internet! - 'The Exact) For an animal story, I may perhaps use amassing inscription -- the fox as a clever, the lion as a policymaker, and the cat as Julie Newmar, the Catwoman -- without needing ominously personality development; and to create an indistinct feel, as in a Cordwainer Smith story, I may perhaps use a fairytale form of unobtrusive words, or, for a luxury self-righteous feel, may perhaps use the elevated words of the Sovereign James Bible. Moreover from the Bible I attractive to amble the image of the Just what the doctor ordered City of Babylon (which is an image of Rome or of Jerusalem, depending on your interpretation) to act as the conventional. No try to wisdom my scribble dexterity or eccentric is set unless it takes arrived list my distressing compound with Julie Newmar as Catwoman. No piece of mine is free from agonizingly superfluous and gorgeous pictures of Julie Newmar as Catwoman. By the way, I am slap flippant. The Cat in the story has oblivion to do with Catwoman, and I did not luggage compartment of that until I sat down to write this unmodified to your doubt. So I had my inscription and my ornamentation, and the opening image, but no real time to make up a follow. So, in this fire at, noticeably of meaning or attention to detail about it, I simply dove in blindly and hoped for the best, which is why, if you grab, the story is weak and the last part is weak. If you did not grab the story is weak, but now that I told you, you do grab, all I can say is, that is why writers are risky to talk about their stories. So I had the come up with of a Assembly of Beasts, but no come up with of what they would be discussing, and had an image of a discharge and evil town, but one winning and strong, and the come up with of a Biblical ornamentation or frail feel, and confident feel I attractive to remind with fairytale langauge. I moreover had out of the ordinary doctrine I had ready up either for undersized stories I never got involvement to scribble or power playing games, such as that the Dog was the opening animal to leave Eden once upon a time man, and the Cat was the obstruction. I moreover had the come up with that the commandeer elder integrity we see in the miracles of saints may perhaps be the extraordinarily commandeer that prelapsarian man enjoyed -- for who says Adam would not wolf been effective to dictate storms to serene with the extraordinarily lean as Jesus, the Further Adam, had he not fallen from grace? If so, like the Millennium is come, and man is risen arrived new and glorified bodies, all the miracles of the saints fortitude be as exhaustive integrity to us, and this includes Saint Francis and his communion with birds and beasts. This gave me an easy scale for how to do an boost story, and to fraud a fraud on the reader neat the end -- by having one personality dumpy understand that the speaking nature in a speaking animal story necessitate not be speaking. The fraud is changeable, having the status of it breaks the fourth wall, and brings the reader's concern to a diegetic strut -- ruthless if that attractively bureaucratic. Because I mean is that it is for example having a personality in a movie react to a music that you the happen was lead to dignitary was video music, or for example having a personality in a fraud make give a figure of to the mask or stage-lights or happen. It tends to break the spell. But if the reader has been lulled arrived a common sense of gifts by the follow, or, interruption yet, if the reader's leisure pursuit has been lured arrived wondering what fortitude throw next, the spell is too strong to possess. Shortage is the writer's best friend. Reader fortitude labor oversee repugnant crud of bad scribble to find out who the out of sight physique in the universe actually was, or by what power Jahi for certain that statue in the garden of the Manor Firm to get. In this fire at, the mystery was not set up was well as it cogency wolf been, but I was tiring to get the reader to deliberate why the town was discharge and why the nature were anxious. In due course, noticeably of a follow, I had a strut drawn from out of the ordinary theological speculations of my own, namely, whether nature go to heaven (give up says no, but upcoming says that if nature were ready for man, man cogency be effective to redeem his servants) and why God acts oversee UN armed forces, or listens to prayers, comparatively than solving all evils well, or creating a concept anywhere no evils ever had been effective to be real. So I set up a task anywhere, for example the Jews moving arrived a characteristic anywhere the devil glorify was maybe the greatest in all the pagan world (temple prostitution and child outflow and so on) the uplifted nature were in the function of assigned to come to what seems for example a pretty bad city--a place for example Rome at the standing of her pagan strength and cruelty, and a task anywhere not all the nature would grow naturally the gift of words. That come up with comes from THE Stall Dogfight by C.S. Lewis. And I threw a few other doctrine I had stolen from a few other seats arrived the mix, and tried to end on a order of doubtfulness, a doubt, to imply that offer is everything deeper separation on. Now this does not really unmodified your doubt, which is luxury main. In total I write a shabby arrangement, and totally I expand a resolve immaterially past the halfway remnant anywhere the arrangement is antiquated, and I rephrase it, or roughly write according to the logic of what I wolf previous to informal, and wish my heroes and villains fortitude be wound ample to luggage compartment of everything able and dainty to do to get out the situations arrived which the villains and heroes put them. The one exclusion was NULL-A CONTINUUM anywhere I wrote a very fussy arrangement in order to lure the widow of A.E. van Vogt to introduce me approval to write the story, and, with the exclusion of an new improvement of the prospect on the earth Petrino, I aground to the arrangement. On the other hand, since scribble THE Golden-haired AGE, I did not know the appearance of the old man whose notice in the garden in opening payment set in marker the whole string of events until I was typing the feeling anywhere he revealed his appearance to Daphne in the obstruction payment. That was a hit of sorted out signal. A good rhymester knows since to cleave to to his arrangement and since to be at variance for a interruption come up with or a logical growth of everything in the story over and done unforeseen. He knows it unfinished by knack, unfinished by effort, and unfinished by a judgment formed by outcome. Now, you cogency say that that is three halves, and you'd be apply for. But fill with three halves are with the sole purpose unfinished the story. The other unfinished is in the function of too tenacious to stop since your arrangement breaks or since you cannot see your way thought through arrived sentence your last part. I do not dignitary in writer's trick. I dignitary in muses' dense. The meditate slams on the break since you are separation down the harm path, and the path fortitude not lead to the last part you wish or the last part the follow logic anxiety. If you find yourself aground on a prospect, you back up, you defeat sideways your work, totally the prospect you for example best of all, and you try anew in substitute forward. Any prospect you defeat sideways, you gather in that processor I mentioned treat, and use it anew in a bearing in mind bit of scribble. Vitality is sunken. Something is grist for the file. By the way, I am slap flippant about having an distressing compound about Julie Newmar as the Catwoman. My compound extends to all versions of the Catwoman, recover the one played by Halle Berry.

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Inviting Spiritual Tourists To Become Pilgrims

Several years ago I made a presentation to the Regional Board of the Pacific Southwest Region of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). I shared a word about ministry in changing times. It's a word worth hearing, even if I struggle to engage it in my own ministry. When shared I was living in California, so you have to keep in mind that context. I based my presentation on my reading of what was then a new book by Diana Butler Bass - "Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church Is Transforming the Faith". So, what follows is my manuscript for that day. Over the past several decades conservative forms of religion have been on the ascent, while Mainline Protestant churches (not all of which are progressive) have been experiencing a heart wrenching decline. In the minds of many our churches have moved from the center of public life to the sidelines. That may be changing, but the Mainline Protestant voice remains muted. But even as conservative religious voices have made themselves heard, much of the broader culture isn't listening to them any more than they are listening to us. With this in mind, we must face the question: Are we ready to engage a spiritually hungry but institutionally wary world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ? As we ponder that question, we must remember that by and large the world outside our doorsteps isn't paying attention to us. This is especially true here on the West Coast, where there is no social or institutional pressure to join a church - or any religious entity. We can no longer expect to set up the tent and wait for people to come to our doors, and even if they do come we must expect them to come either as consumers/shoppers or as tourists/nomads. SHOPPERS AND TOURISTS We all know the spiritual consumer - aka "the church shopper." Church shoppers are in tune with the American consumerist mentality, and they come to us asking the question: What can you do for me? Like any good shopper, the church shopper looks for the bargain with the most bang for the buck. The churches best able to address their "felt needs" will get their attention - and these churches tend to be the large program oriented mega-churches. Small churches, such as the one I pastor, will likely never appeal to them. We simply do not have the resources or the people to put together the kinds of full service programs they demand. There is, however, another group of people, who may be just as consumer savvy as the church shopper, but their agenda is different. This group is often called the spiritual "seeker" (whom we're supposed to be sensitive toward). But I prefer the name given to them by Diana Butler Bass. She calls them spiritual nomads, or better yet, spiritual tourists. Spiritual tourists are like the visitors I encounter on Santa Barbara's State Street. They're just passing through, hoping to taste as much of the local ambiance as possible. They're in search of new adventures. In fact, the spiritual tourist might even suffer from a bit of spiritual ADD, for they need constant stimulation, and nothing holds their attention for very long. They stop to admire the view, but they quickly move on to the next spiritual experience. At least out here in California, there seems to be a growing number of these tourist types. We meet them in the religion section of the local book store, at community interfaith services, or maybe at a benefit concert where they sway to the music, light the candle, and enjoy the experience. Perhaps they may even visit our congregations, but they rarely stay very long. I understand the attraction of being a tourist, but I wonder if this kind of journey makes much of a difference in their lives. Diana Butler Bass speaks of the tourist in individualistic terms - they're not necessarily joiners and they're often content with do-it-yourself spiritual experiences. They're not interested in programs - many of them are younger or perhaps older, often without children in tow. Wooing such a person -- a person who likes to try different types of spirituality but is not really interested in settling down -- is a difficult task. It is a difficult task, but it is our calling. Our job as church is to encourage the wandering individual to join with us in pilgrimage.JOINING THE PILGRIMS Standing in contrast to the tourist, then, is the pilgrim. The pilgrim recognizes the need to be transformed, to become something new - as Paul puts it, to become a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). They also recognize that transformation involves a journey in the company of others. I will admit that it takes a bit of planning to be tourist, and vacations can be life changing, but at the end of the day the tourist returns home. The pilgrim's journey lasts a life time and it requires discipline and commitment. As pilgrims we place our lives in the hands of others and we adopt their community practices. Thus, in contrast to the tourist, the pilgrim seeks to go local, to become, "a year-round person, who adopts a new place and new identity by learning a new language, rhythms, and practices" ("Christianity for the Rest of Us", Harper SanFrancisco, 216). Pilgrims are in search of not just spiritual ecstasy, which can be fleeting, but they instead seek a new way of living. They desire to discover the essential practices that will make a mark upon their lives. Although Malcolm X was not a Christian his pilgrimage to Meccastands as a good example of a life-changing experience - he came home a different person. The spiritual experiences of the tourist tend to be of the cut and paste variety - a little of this and a little of that. Sometimes in our desire to reach out to the tourist we offer them "a little of this and a little of that." The churches that Diana Butler Bass studied were progressive in their theology and in their practices, but they were also grounded in their faith. They don't try to be all things to all people, but instead they reach out as followers of Jesus Christ. What they do is offer Christian practices of prayer, of study, of hospitality, of worship, and of service. The point is that as we journey together our faith is formed in the crucible of being together. Now community can lead simply to conformity, but it can also provide a context by which lives are changed for the good. What the pilgrim finds in the midst of this journey is meaning, purpose, and a vocation of service. As you read Diana's books, you will discover that there is no one way to do this. It isn't an easy three step quick fix. To become a pilgrim congregation, something my own probably has yet to become, will take time and commitment. With so many of our visitors coming to us as tourists or nomads, we must recognize that deep within in them is a sense of rootlessness. What the church can offer is a sense of spiritual rootedness. And standing at the heart of this calling to bring a sense of rootedness is our sacramental practice. For instance, Baptism by its very definition offers a sense of identity to those who undergo it. Diana -- who by the way is an Episcopalian --writes:PILGRIMS FIND IDENTITY IN BAPTISM, THE SACRAMENT THAT DRAWS THEM INTO THE BODY OF CHRIST AND DEFINES THE SELF IN RELATION TO GOD'S STORY AND THE STORY OF GOD'S PEOPLE. BAPTISM ALSO CALLS PILGRIMS TO OTHER PRACTICES - THINGS LIKE HOSPITALITY, PEACEMAKING, JUSTICE, AND CHARITY - THAT DEEPEN A SENSE OF CHRISTIAN IDENTITY. ("Christianity for the Rest of Us", 229). This seems to be the key to becoming a pilgrim - it's a calling to help people find their identity in Jesus Christ. To say this is not to denigrate any other faith tradition, but our calling is to help form disciples. Tim Carson, pastor of University Christian Church in Fort Worth, has written a wonderful little book specifically for Disciple Churches, though it will prove useful well beyond our denominational boundaries. What this book does is invite the seeker - the tourist -- to settle in and enter the community of Jesus. Like Diana, Tim suggests that if we're to experience a truly life-changing encounter with God, we must go local. We can't simply cut and paste our way to a truly sustainable experience of God's presence. Instead, we must make a choice and inhabit a tradition ("Your Calling as a Christian, "Chalice, 2007). As we begin a new day as church, we have new leadership that will bring a sense of continuity but also new ideas. As this board comes together to do the work of the church it does so at a time when institutional religion is suspect, which is why so many have chosen the route of the spiritual tourist. For many it seems not only easier and less demanding, it seems a lot safer as well. We face a dilemma, and that dilemma is simply this - how do we encourage tourists to join us in the pilgrimage of faith? I'm convinced that the process begins by reclaiming our tradition rather than running from it. We must explore our faith and affirm it and allow it to form us as a people. Obviously there are parts of our tradition that must be let go of, but we mustn't let go of the tradition itself - and that includes the Scriptures that provide our norm and the heritage of the broader church as well as our own heritage as Disciples. It also means that we learn the meaning of real hospitality and what it means to inhabit the praises of God. And the goal is this that we choose to live and help expand the reign of God in the world. Yes, the call is not to escape the world but to be part of its transformation. Diana writes this and I close with this statement:TRANSFORMATION IS THE PROMISE AT THE HEART OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. IN A SINGLE SENTENCE, ANNE SUMMED UP WHAT I HAD HEARD FROM HUNDREDS OF OTHER CHURCHGOERS. CHRISTIANITY FOR THE REST OF US IS NOT ABOUT PERSONAL SALVATION, NOT ABOUT GETTING EVERYBODY SAVED, OR ABOUT THE POLITICS OF EXCLUSION AND MORAL PURITY. CHRISTIANITY FOR THE REST OF US IS THE PROMISE OF TRANSFORMATION - THAT, BY GOD'S MERCY, WE CAN BE DIFFERENT, OUR CONGREGATIONS CAN BE DIFFERENT, AND OUR WORLD CAN BE DIFFERENT. ("Christianity for the Rest of Us", 281).

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