Infinite God

“Christian faith claims that the eternal truth and wisdom of God spoke most completely in a single human life and death…. To receive his truth is neither to acquire a theory about the universe nor to escape from time into a reconciled eternity, but to embrace the struggle to be faithful to within the limits of being a creature with a body and a biography. So, in this context, not even God becomes an object that will satisfy my longing and my incompleteness. I must learn in this life to accept the fact that hunger and restlessness are part of what I am made for. To love God is not to acquire the biggest and best gratification of all but to have my whole experience of love transfigured. Instead of the manic struggle to fill the gap in my heart, which leads me to the exploitation and domination (manipulation) of others and of my whole world, I acknowledge that I am never going to feel cosily at one with myself, all desires gratified; my longing opens out on the horizon of the infinite God."

- Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams

Stop Hiding, Open Up those Boxes

Image: A pale wood box with a gold clasp sits slightly open, with the opening of the box turned 20-30 degrees to the left.
Text in graphic: This Week in the Rector's Note "We are all wounded. Self-awareness, honesty, and trusting community help us turn our wounds into gifts of wisdom, sensitivity, and compassion. ...Again and again in pastoral caregiving at St. Martin’s I encounter wonderful people who are adding suffering to their suffering because they think they are the only one struggling in the community." - Stop Hiding, Open Up those Boxes. 9.26.2019. Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Episcopal.

A journalist asked Brad Pitt the following question during an interview about his upcoming movie, “Was Ad Astra a way to work through some of the loneliness you may have been experiencing?” His answer was vulnerable and revealing, “The fact is, we all carry pain, grief, and loss,” he said. “We spend most of our time hiding it, but it’s there, it’s in you. So you open up those boxes.”

The article then gives the back story which I quote at length:

It was reported that the final straw in Pitt’s 11-year relationship with (Angelina) Jolie came in September 2016, when they fought about his drinking while aboard a private plane. Now, Pitt is committed to his sobriety. “I had taken things as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privileges,” he told me. After she filed for divorce, Pitt spent a year and a half in Alcoholics Anonymous. 

His recovery group was composed entirely of men, and Pitt was moved by their vulnerability. “You had all these men sitting around being open and honest in a way I have never heard,” Pitt said. “It was this safe space where there was little judgment, and therefore little judgment of yourself.” 

Astonishingly, no one from the group sold Pitt’s stories to the tabloids. The men trusted one another, and in that trust, he found catharsis. “It was actually really freeing just to expose the ugly sides of yourself,” he said. “There’s great value in that.”

I am grateful for the brave honesty Brad Pitt displays in this interview. My hope is that his example helped hundreds, maybe thousands of people, come out of hiding and into spaces transparency, trust, healing, and growth.

“We all carry pain, grief, and loss.” We are all wounded. Self-awareness, honesty, and trusting community help us turn our wounds into gifts of wisdom, sensitivity, and compassion. Hiding, avoiding, and denying cause wounds to fester into self-destructive behaviors and acting out which passes the harm to others. God’s grace transforms our despair over our wounds into hope for progress and growth into a “new creation.”

Again and again in pastoral caregiving at St. Martin’s I encounter wonderful people who are adding suffering to their suffering because they think they are the only one struggling in the community. They tell me that they feel that “everyone else” must “have it all together;” “have it all figured out,” or “have it easy.” When we only present ourselves as happy, high achieving, successful, and winning - that is, when we only share one side of our life - without knowing it we may be increasing the isolation of someone who is struggling. One of the most helpful things we can say to someone is, “You are not alone.”

I want St. Martin’s to be a community of love, acceptance, and grace where people feel free to come out of hiding and find the healing we all crave. Our church is called to be this way because Jesus was this way, and he continues to give us what we need to brave the journey into honesty and vulnerability.

In God’s presence there is no hiding, no deception, no masks, and no facade. As the Prayer Book says so beautifully, God is the one, “unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.” We are transparent before God’s pervasive light and all encompassing love.

Blessings,
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Rector

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If you'd like to know more about addiction and recovery, please join us at Parish Forum on Sunday, October 6 where Steele Stevens will lead a discussion on Understanding Addictions. Learn more on our Parish Forum page.

Aesthetic, Ethical, or Religious?

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

I apologize in advance that this Rector’s Note is rooted in the writings of Soren Kierkegaard. On sabbatical in the library at Princeton Theological Seminary, I renewed my love for this Danish philosopher and spiritual writer. Kierkegaard observed that the spiritual life moves through three phases; the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. 

Episcopalians famously flock to the first and the second phase. The aesthetic phase is all about our enjoyment of beauty. Music, art, liturgy, poetry and literature all contribute to our immediate aesthetic experience of pleasure. Kierkegaard states - and I agree - that all of these experiences are good except when they are treated as ultimate goods in their own right. Pleasure in beauty serves its full function when it leads us to transcend ourselves toward God in praise and thanksgiving.

The ethical phase concerns ordering and shaping our lives toward right action. Many mainline Christians would identify with this phase. We want to live a good life and make good decisions and contribute to the common good. The odd problem with the ethical phase is that often we merely import our existing commitments and sprinkle the holy water of the church on them, rather than derive them from the teachings of Jesus. Liberal Christianity - which is practiced by the whole range of political stripes - goes even further and says that doubt prevents us from making any ethical claims based on our faith. More on this in my next note!

Finally, we have the religious phase. This is the phase where we orient our whole life toward relationship and ultimately union with God. Our preoccupation with self goes on the back burner and we seek God as our ultimate end. All else becomes secondary to the unmatched importance of our dependence on God. Through prayer, worship, sacrament, service, study, conversation, and contemplation we strive to accept God’s invitation to participate in God’s life. 

In my experience, this last phase is most difficult because we resist dependence and we resist submission. The gateway to God is trust and devotion to the God we know in Jesus through the Gospels. For many modern people this feels foolish and embarrassing. While I know those feelings, my life has only grown healthier and more honest, the more I put myself under the teachings of Jesus. When we embrace the religious path, we receive the aesthetic and the ethical again in a new way, with freedom, love, hope, and endurance to fuel our enjoyment and our ethical striving.

Blessings,
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Rector

From Our Interim Rector: What to Wear on the Streets

Our son graduated from college with a degree in psychology and sociology. He spent a couple of years working with children with problems while he decided whether to go to graduate school. We were fine with that. Then one day he called us from Los Angeles and told us he had decided to join the LAPD. He was enrolling in the academy. We were proud that he wanted to serve, but scared out of our minds. But it was his decision and we supported him. 

He survived the long and grueling course, and we went to LA for his graduation. It was a fine ceremony. We sat with the other proud families on the beautiful grounds of the police academy. The officers were handsome in their dress uniforms. There were fine speeches praising the hard work of the men and women in the class and thanking these new “peace officers” in advance for having the commitment and courage to go out every day to protect the public from the forces of evil. 

After the reception, we went back to our son’s house and he proudly showed us his new working uniform and all his paraphernalia. He laid each item out on the bed for us to admire: his bullet-proof vest, his riot helmet, his riot shield, his guns, his sprays, his batons. It came home to me what he would be facing out there on the streets each day. I was absolutely terrified. “Promise me you’ll wear your vest every day,” I begged him.

And that’s the tone we need to hear in Paul’s voice when he says to the new Christians in Ephesus today, “Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may stand against the wiles of the devil”. He lays out for them the many pieces of spiritual armor they are going to need for their protection: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit. He urges them to put on their armor every day, “that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.”

The armor Paul is talking about is not body protection against bullets and bombs. He is talking about soul protection against those forces “which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God”: lies that are easier to accept than to challenge, policies that are just plain wrong, violence that walks all over basic human rights, despair that promises us nothing will change, apathy that convinces us there is nothing we can do, materialism that guarantees the things we get are more important than the kind of people we are.

We can only protect ourselves against these forces with the armor God gives us: truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, the Spirit. 

Paul warns us today, “Be careful out there!” He pleads with us, “Put on the whole armor of God.” Pray God we listen.

Blessings,

Rev. Phyllis Taylor

The Obstacle of Self

Crucifixion by Eduardo Rodriguez Calzado

When I met with my first Spiritual Director for the first time I talked a lot. I jabbered, babbled, confabulated, sermonized and generally rambled. Talking is easy for me and weaving a cocoon of words is second nature. In my heart I know that my words are an attempt at intimacy, in effect they are a smoke screen, a defensive bunker and an assertion of false, egotistic self.

 

My Spiritual Director, a monk from Holy Cross Monastery, patiently endured until he had a chance to speak. “Get your self out of the way,” is all he said before leaving me.

The identity we create over time helps us function in the world. Our self is both an ‘adaptation’ we undertake to manage the demands of life and an ‘accident’ of factors and experiences beyond our control. Our identity may help us swim in the waters of a turbulent world or it may drag us to the bottom, it may help us sing the song God is leading or leave us lonely on an island longing for contact with the Divine.

 

For me, one primary obstacle blocking intimacy with God is my chronic self-loathing. On some fundamental level I hate the person God made me to be. I hate that I am vulnerable. I hate that I am emotional and sensitive. I hate that I am not manly enough. I hate that faith and doubt are constantly at war inside me. I hate that I am inescapably attracted to God and I am embarrassed to be a religious person.

 

Perhaps I share too much. However, the approach to God runs through the bright light of honesty. And this is where self-loathing becomes an obstacle. In God’s presence, we can only be honest; we can only be the person we were created to be. Going into God’s presence means making a journey beneath the mask of our adaptive and functional self and into whatever we are so diligently trying to hide.

Tears, frustration, anger, and avoidance often mark the threshold of this vulnerable place. We are going to a place that we have spent a lot of energy to suppress and ignore. Life experience has often taught us to protect this true self from harsh judgment and rejection by burying it deep.

 

The good news is that the bright light of honesty shining from God is the light of love. It is a liberating and refreshing light, a light that encourages our true self to be alive and real. In the Light, we feel the tingling tenderness and exposure of the newborn; we feel the odd relief of spiritual poverty, stripped of all our armor and strategies for puffing ourselves up. We entertain powerlessness in relationship to our own salvation, putting aside all the false strategies for saving ourselves and admitting our dependence on God.