alexis in the city

my monastic retreat, solitude and finding myself

i am now present to the magnificence of my life

i really try to stay away from touchy/feely/spiritual-y statements as i feel they tend to get in the way of an intellectually-driven quest. but at the same time, certain esoteric components of spirituality do jump out at me from time to time, as the above quote did.

i was minutes away from heading off to my monastic retreat for the weekend. ryan was dropping me off at the monestary in berkeley and we stopped to have lunch before i began my descent into the unknown. ryan indulged my desire to go to cafe gratitude which is entirely another story in and of itself, but while we were there i pulled out a card with this quote on it from the deck that was at our table. it seemed a fitting way to start my journey toward peace, joy and contentment.

it was like something/someone/whatever was saying: your life has already been designed with a purpose. it already has meaning. it’s already fulfilling. now you have to figure that out for yourself.

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what i learned from my facebook fast

i probably spend more time on facebook than the average user. part of this isn’t my fault - i live online and some of my client work requires me to maintain a presence on several social networking sites, including facebook. but it’s true that i had become disproportionately wrapped up in certain aspects of the beast that is facebook - namely the debates and arguments and commence via the platform (or that were sometimes commenced by me …) so here are a few things i learned over the course of the past six weeks or so:

1. i was wasting a lot of time. i didn’t FEEL like i was because a few minutes here, half an hour there doesn’t really seem like that much when you’re logging on for snippets at a time. but i guess i didn’t realize how much it all added up. without the drama of facebook to distract me, i was able to accomplish a variety of other things.

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how i came to celebrate lent, passover and easter

i prefer to think of myself as ecumenical rather than confused. actually, i know exactly what i believe in most cases, and choose to draw the practices of my faith from a variety of denominations, subsections, and religions. having been exposed to many different religious opportunities - both in protestantism and outside of it, within christianity and outside of it, both in childhood and adulthood - my faith has not been shaped from inside one denomination, one belief system or one code of interpretation and for this i am grateful. but this is less about the ideology behind my beliefs than it is about the practices during this week of easter. (if you want to read more about the amalgamation that continues to shift and shape my faith, you should probably read “a generous orthodoxy” by - shocker! - brian mclaren.)

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unity and the prayer of saint francis

this morning - actually, as i was further explaining why i think pod babies would be so great, to someone who was arguing against the idea - ryan (somewhat) jokingly asked me if i was living by the prayer of saint francis.

saint francis is my favorite saint - and the protecting saint of my dogs - as he is the patron saint of all animals. i have his prayer taped up to my bathroom mirror. it says:

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

i wasn’t planning on taking my blog in a more theoretical, philosophical, theological direction - and it’s not like i’m committed to this direction - but apparently these are the things i’ve had on my heart and mind, and they need to make their way out of my head. as a writer, this is part of my process :-).

however, i’d be lying if i didn’t admit that part of the appeal to me of hot-button topics is the debate that ensues. so the prayer of saint francis is something that should probably be more on the forefront of my mind as i write. i don’t think that this prayer - or other ideas of peace and unity - steer us away from debate altogether, but they caution against the spirit of condescension and bitterness that can arise from such circumstances.

everything must change

for anyone that’s talked to me for, like, five minutes, you probably know i’m slightly obsessed with brian mclaren. his books revolutionized the way i thought about faith and religion back when i was in college, and continue to do so. as one of the “spokespeople” for the emergent church and postmodern christianity, his books and ideas give me a renewed hope for change in our world and, yes, even within something so seemingly fatally flawed as religion. i often say that if my heart could write books, they’d write the books mclaren writes.

i’m currently reading “everything must change,” where he tackles issues of social activism. a big point of the book so far is a call to change what has so long been the focus of modern-day faith - saving people from hell - and put it onto something that’s more practical in the here-and-now - saving people from the heartbreaking circumstances they find themselves in in this world. because for so long so many churches, parishes and denominations have refused to do this in practical ways, people on all sides of this issue have become disillusioned with the ideas of faith, religion and christianity. mclaren writes:

eventually some leaders begin to realize that many young and alienated ex-churched people originally dropped out of their churches after attending college … and learning about the dark side of the christian religion’s track record: the crusades, witch burnings, colonialism, slavery, the holocaust, apartheid, environmental irresponsibility, mistreatment of women.

these young people started caring about these issues, but they didn’t find their fellow adherents to religion very concerned … and even when christians in recent decades concerned themselves with contemporary issues, they focused primarily on personal and sexual matters, simultaneously neglecting larger societal and systemic injustices that caused unimagined suffering.

and even in regard to their narrow range of “moral issues,” they were consistently effective in generating heat and conflict but consistently less effective in making a lasting, constructive difference.

mclaren has been criticized by fundamentalists for being a heretic, and i’ve been cautioned against his “fringe” teachings. but if the above statement isn’t absolutely true, and doesn’t completely hit the nail on the head, i don’t know what does. the book in its entirety deserves to be quoted - and i’m sure i’ll bring up more points i find particularly pertinent as i continue to read it - but this section in particular cuts to the quick of exactly my disillusionment with the church. i continue on as a part of it because i believe change IS possible, and i hope to help facilitate it. i continue on in spite of the fundamentalists and the sensationalists and those touting a “narrow range of moral issues.”

i continue on because i have big questions that require big answers and i believe, in my heart, that i’m a part of something big enough to accommodate these doubts and disillusionments and questions. and if i can come alongside and learn from someone like brian mclaren, so much the better. if i’m wrong, i guess the road to hell will be paved with his books …