Processional. a writer s cottage. Alexandria, Virginia, 2017

Transcription

1 Introducton to the 2017 edton Processonal a wrter s cottage Alexandra, Vrgna, 2017 A plaque hangs above my desk: Tell Your Story. Those words serve as a daly nvtaton to a sprtual practce. Tellng a story nvolves honest reflecton on our sprtual struggles. The new edton of ths book asked me to revst my lfe s trals and joys. In some ways, my story has not changed very much over the decades. I am, and reman to be, a restless soul comng to terms wth loss, doubt, fear, and rejecton as well as seekng my place n the unverse and redscoverng the meanng and purpose of lfe. Through t all, there has been a shnng mystery, a lght of wonder and awe, always drawng me and drvng me toward new levels of compasson, nsght, and connecton wth that whch dances rght beyond the horzon. Two decades ago, I had just publshed my doctoral dssertaton on Epscopal Church hstory. In the 1990s, through a surprsng set of crcumstances, I wound up wrtng a weekly column on relgon and culture for the New York Tmes syndcate, a feature that appeared n prnt newspapers across the Unted States. Readers xx

2 ntroducton to the 2017 edton requested a book. But what to wrte? Popular hstory? Theologcal advce? After readng Kathleen Norrs s Closter Walk, however, I knew: I wanted to wrte a sprtual memor. As I mulled over ths possblty, a good frend sad, You don t want to do that now, when you are forty. You won t have enough to say and you haven t lved long enough to fgure out what t means. Her advce seems quant now. Ours has become an age of publc confessonal wrtng, especally n blogs. It seems every person wth access to a computer has wrtten or s wrtng a memor. We lve n a culture where few thoughts go unsad, few crcumstances reman prvate, few doubts are held close. Words surround us; t can seem as f everyone s sharng the most ntmate detals of lfe every mnute of every day to audences both small and large. When I wrote Strength for the Journey, there were few blogs. There was barely an nternet and few people had the prvlege and ts correspondng responsblty of sharng a prvate story n a publc venue. Yet sprtual memor was ganng popularty n those days beautful works of lterary nonfcton by wrters lke Norrs, but Anne Dllard and Fredrck Buechner as well. Sprtual memor seemed the rght genre. I wanted to wrte lke them. But I took my frend s comment serously: What dd t mean to be forty at the turn of the mllennum, and to share the story of a contemporary lfe and ts encounter wth the ancent wsdom of Jesus and the church? For the frst twenty years of my adult lfe, I had been a churchgoer, an unlkely choce for a young adult n the late twenteth century. It was never an easy choce, however. Lke Jacob, I wrestled wth Chrstan communty, as f t were a woundng angel. Mne was nether a story of fndng church and wrtng about t wth honeymoon wonder nor a tale of leavng church n anger or pan. No, mne was a story of two decades of beng n communty wth human bengs who were tryng to be fathful and who xxv

3 Introducton to the 2017 Edton often faled mserably n the process and how those falures ntertwned wth my own falures, questons, doubts, and sns. And that s what I decded to wrte about me, God, the church. Three characters, movng from cty to cty as nomads and tryng to fnd a lfe together. One of my favorte early twenteth-century Epscopal wrters, Vda Dutton Scudder, an Englsh professor at Wellesley College and the founder of a lay relgous order, wrote two autobographes, twenty years apart. The second s much more honest than the frst. I am not sayng that Strength for the Journey s dshonest. But I do thnk my frend was rght. It s more than possble to be too young to wrte a good memor. Tellng Your Story s a complex thng, nvolvng a level of experence and reflecton that I was only touchng on as I entered my forteth year. Tellng Your Story s not blabbng or spewng; the art of sprtual memor s lstenng to the heartbeat of one s lfe wth and n God, reflectng on that deeply, descrbng t n such a way as to nvte others to chersh and recognze ther own lfe-gvng paths. There were thngs I ntuted and dd not say outrght. There were thngs I wanted to say but was constraned by beng nce. There were thngs I dd not know because people ether led to me or because no one knew them at the tme. There s a sense of ncompleteness about ths book because I was, n certan ways, as naïve as the fn de sècle n whch t was wrtten. Strength for the Journey was maled (yes, I sad maled ) to my edtor n San Francsco on September 10, 2001; snce then I have wrtten eght more books. Many of the themes and nsghts of those later works are found n some ncpent form n ths book, especally my passon for personal sprtual experence, the mportance of practce, a deep awareness of hstory and tradton, and a concern that communtes of fath be transformatve, engaged n justce, and xxv

4 ntroducton to the 2017 edton sprtually vbrant for the sake of the world. But what s mssng n Strength (and what shows up wth ncreasng urgency n the later books) s September 11, 2001, and ts fear, gref, and rawness. And, of course, what s also mssng s what has happened snce n global affars and Amercan poltcs, and the near-utter falure of churches to come to grps wth volence, racsm, economc nequalty, and socal prvlege. We have desperately wanted everythng to go back to normal, wthout recognzng how normal dd not work on behalf of God s love and justce. We talk a good game about comfortng the afflcted and afflctng the comfortable, but I have grown ncreasngly alarmed that we whte, manlne church people, that s mostly comfort the comfortable and afflct those who are already afflcted. These days, my soul s paned by what I experence n majorty whte churches. My frends tell me my work has taken a prophetc turn. I do not know f the turn s prophetc, but I do know that n the almost twenty years snce wrtng Strength, the stuaton for most manlne churches, lke the ones I wrte about n ths book, has grown dre. Although there are stll amazng stores of numercal growth and congregatonal vbrancy and tender tales of small-scale love and transformaton, the overall story s one of loss of prestge and membershp. Ths loss s found not just n manlne churches: almost all majorty-whte Protestant denomnatons and Catholc congregatons whether lberal or conservatve are losng adherents and nfluence at a hstorc rate, a shft that s now well documented. We keep tryng to fx thngs. We keep seekng the next shny savor of the church. We keep watng for the kds to come back. Fxng, seekng, watng. Honestly, we are n a sort of sprtual exle. By the waters of Babylon, we are weepng. We do not really know what to do. We fnd t dffcult to admt t. xxv

5 Introducton to the 2017 Edton If, when one s forty, one tempers hard news n favor of the good, then when one nears sxty, sayng what s true s all that matters. I have not become a curmudgeon, thnkng that the church s best days are behnd. No, I have become far more realstc and hopeful about fath. My fellow wrter and frend, Marcus Borg, used to remnd me that fath was about seeng wdely. The eyes of fath do not fxate on what s mmedately n front of us but learn to see softly, to nclude the perphery of the Sprt, to sense a wde feld of grace and God s ntenton that surround us all. Sprtual memor should not be an act of nostalga Ah! The good old days! Instead, sprtual memor gves us the opportunty to retrace our steps, to uncover and redscover God s presence n the whole of the journey, and, by dong so, opens new paths ahead. Strength for the Journey has always been a memor of us, not just me. In offerng these words to the world agan, I hope we can see where we have been that we mght have more joy and courage to keep walkng and keep wakng up. That we all mght see the edges of the Sprt at work n our own lves, our communtes, and the world. I hope that n tellng my story, I mght have told a bt of yours. The nvtaton stands wde open: Tell Your Story. xxv