Gathering Fragments from Last Week's Onground Intensive

 A week ago, I’d be getting ready for the onground intensive for the spiritual direction certificate program at LTSS, Southern Seminary in Columbia, SC.  Alert readers will say, “Didn’t you finish that program earlier?”  Yes, I did.  But alumni were welcomed back to participate, since the pandemic disrupted the program for so many of us.  Let me collect a few last fragments and photos, before I forget these nuggets.

--We began our first session with consenting prayer.  Our leader took us through a meditation which asked us where God invites us to be open, in a space of hospitality, around these issues:  security, approval, control, and change.

--Writer Barbara Peacock had interesting insights about what/how the Middle Passage taught the ancestors how to minister to each other and how spiritual direction practices emerged from this time.

--In our last session, we did lectio divina, and at the end, we all shouted the word or phrase that spoke to us, all of us at the same time.  It was an interesting variation.

--I went back and forth to the Chapel. I love the way the light streams through the stained glass lending various colors to the white marble. Stunning!

--I walked the labyrinth each morning, which I enjoyed, even though I didn't receive stunning insights.

--In my small group, conversation came back to the idea of God and bodies. One speaker had tried to connect Eros with God, and I think this speaker was trying to make some connections with alternate sexualities but I wasn't sure. In my small group, we talked about how an embodied God is difficult if one lives in a body that is not approved of by one’s larger society.

--It was good for me to talk about these ideas with other people outside of my small group, people who were not as discomfited as I was.  We talked about Eros and the Holy Spirit, which seemed a bit better than Eros and God the Father. We talked about Eros not as a sexual energy, but an energy that was embodied in multiple ways.

--I do wonder what it would mean if we took seriously this notion that all are created in the image of God. We would have to expand our vision of God. What would it mean if we worshipped a God who is disabled, in ways that so many of us are disabled? It would certainly challenge our idea of God as all powerful, which is fine with me, but I realize it would be a tough sell for others. Throughout the week I tried to straighten my fingers as I continue to heal from my wrist injury. Some days I was more successful than others. The idea of a disabled God makes sense to me.

--Should I be using the term differently abled to God? But I do mean disabled, a God without full ability, a God who may have developed other capabilities in the absence of full capability.

--We had more free time scheduled into this intensive than in the past so I reached out to an old college friend who lives in Charlotte, and happily she was free on Friday afternoon and willing to drive down.  We met at a coffee shop staffed by people who wore T shirts of the bands of our youth. The guy who took our order had a patch on his leather vest that was a replication of The Smiths’ album, The Queen Is Dead. I said, “I paid $5 for that album back in the day.” He told me he had paid $35 for his vinyl copy. Maybe I should take a closer look at the records that are in the box of records that need to be sorted. Of course I have no idea how to find the people who would pay $35 for my old vinyl.

--It was great to drink coffee with my friend on the hottest day of the year so far, as REM's “Don't Go Back to Rockville” played softly in the background. As with the best of friends, it was like no time had passed at all. Throughout the week I had the feeling of falling through a hole in time. Time has felt more fluid.

--We ended with a commissioning service and the singing of  “Ithe Lord of Sea and Sky” with its refrain of being willing to go where God sends us.

--Take a good look at this picture:

 

 

I am sure that I’ve never been at a  communion service presided over by two female African-American ordained clergy.  Wow!

I went forth, fed and nourished in so many ways.