From Camp Fire Girl to UU Minister

Greenwood Fire Circle at Camp Kilowan

My earth & Deities-relating spirituality is rooted in my experience as a “Camp Fire Girl.” From grade 2 through high school I met weekly with a group of girls obsessed with the outdoors. We learned from the Camp Fire lore and our experiences together as “Earth Maidens in a Circle.” We sang together, we canoed and hiked together, we learned together and we fell in love with the Camp Fire camp in the Oregon rain forest.

Sacred Fire Circles and Sacred Singing!

WoHeLo badge

Our watch-word was “Wo-He-Lo” - which stands for work-health-love. Our law was a sung pledge “Seek beauty, give service, and knowledge pursue. Be trustworthy ever in all that you do. Hold fast onto truth and your work glorify. You will be happy in the law of Camp Fire.” You can hear the Camp Fire Law here.

At our annual grand council fire we processed in with song, processed out with song, and sang many times during the ceremony. As a high school senior, at my final grand council fire, I was proud to receive the WoHeLo medallion: an award for completing a year of work, equivalent to the Eagle Scout rank. Listen, for instance, to the grand council fire processional (which mentions "Great Wokanda.)"

Camp Fire's link with Native American lore

Much of Camp Fire’s lore was written by a Sioux man (Ohiyesa/Dr. Charles Eastman) for his friends Luther and Charlotte Gulick, philanthropists involved with the YMCA and other authors, artists, and visionaries. (For more context on the history see Alice Beard's page.) They were interested in creating a character-building club for girls in America, based on relationship with the natural world, to complement the emerging group for boys: Boy Scouts.

Camp Fire logo circa 1975

I don't know what inspired Ohiyesa to share parts of his language, culture and spiritual practices with the girl children of the well-to-do. I do know I am grateful for the gift, even as my adult self recognizes the colonizing, marginalization, oppression and cultural appropriation interwoven in that process. I have received so many gifts from that heritage that I am still learning how to give back and be properly thankful. Here is one person's take on the complexity of Native American girls who had lost their heritage in boarding schools, learning fragments of their own heritage from participation in Camp Fire Girls.

From Camp Fire Roots to Earth-Relating Branches

Through Camp Fire, years before I encountered Greek Gods, I learned that there are other ways to experience God. I also learned that worship, ritual, and spiritual practice could look different from what I was taught at my childhood church. Circling around a campfire, processions with pageantry and song, communing with nature, collaboratively created rites and storytelling are still a part of my spiritual practice.

Camp Fire beads
photo: Kathy Groner

Through Camp Fire’s reward system (earn a bead for each new skill, experience, or lesson accomplished) I was motivated to learn about ecological diversity, the civic process, orienteering, solar cooking, conservation and more. I gained a lifelong thirst for learning.

Through My Camp Fire group I learned that I could be friends with people who were not like me - who I might not ever talk to at school - and that the relationships we formed from showing up together each week allowed us to have each other's backs in the rest of our lives. I recognized this lesson when I heard the Unitarian Universalist phrase “we need not think alike to love alike”

Unitarian Universalist Blossoms

For me, I think that my early training in ritual, spiritual connection, learning, and community still are my preferred default styles. Now I don't dress up in pseudo-Native American costume, nor do I call on “great Wokanda.” I grew up and learned some things about cultural appropriation, building your own spirituality, cultural roots, and respectful learning, and I'm still learning. I do continue to find campfires and singing sacred. I go to the rain forest and coast, and my own backyard garden to renew. I seek community with people who are different from me. For me, these are some of the earth & deities-relating branches that bloom as my UU Ministry.

Worship and How we do it

Every Sunday thousands of people gather together for what they call worship. Every holy day many more gather. Pagans circle, Christians may assemble in pews and sing, Buddhists may chant or tend shrines, Muslims kneel and bow, Sufis dance, Hindus may light candles... So many forms.

As a UU minister and a Pagan leader I have led worship of various forms for over 30 years. I have developed preferences for how I lead services.

Symmetry
People need ritual assistance in entering and leaving the worship state of mind
Beginning: Casting a Circle and calling the directions (Pagan) or A Call to Worship and Lighting the Chalice (UU)
Ending: Opening the circle and thanking the directions (Pagan) or Benediction and Extinguishing the Chalice (UU)

Ritual is more meaningful without distraction
Announcements and dialog need to be before or after the ritual start and end (call to worship and benediction)

Message or Purpose
Services exist for a reason, and the whole service needs to be in service to the reason or message
When I come to a congregation to provide worship I work with the music coordinator, the worship coordinator, the religious education person, and collaboratively build a service that is "of a whole." The readings, the time for all ages, the call to worship, the songs, the music for reflection, the sermon or "working" all are in service to a full exploration of the topic. That exploration needs to support those who are hurting and challenge those who are ready to grow, it needs to connect the community to one another and to the larger community of which we are a part.

The Time for All Ages is for all ages, not just the children
It is not an opportunity to show the children off or have them perform for the amusement of the congregation. It is not a time to read a book aloud like happens in a library. It IS an opportunity to include all the senses, to tells or convey stories, and to appeal to the multidimensional beings who we all are.

A Pastoral Moment can be off-putting or it can be a critical part of the service
Having a pastoral prayer can tie it together, even if you have individuals speaking their own joys and sorrows. Credit goes to Rev. Dana Worsnop for a truly lovely prayer practice: After hearing the various joys and sorrows, the worship leader summarizes with the phrase "We hold tenderly (the worry for ill family members, those who are saying goodbye, those who are struggling financially...). We hold joyfully (new born babies, marriages, etc.) We give thanks for ALL that is our lives."

The Homily/Sermon/"Working"
When I share a sermon or homily there are a few things that will usually appear. I will almost always speak about the divine, in language connected to relationship, nature, or, love. I will often refer to Jesus, or other great teachers like Buddha or Ghandi. I will often sing and will invite folks to engage physically (perhaps using a finger labryinth, perhaps writing something on a paper leaf...)

It is a joy and a privilege to create a worship experience and share with a community.

A Time for All Ages, Backgrounds, Abilities...

Some of the congregations I've attended still call that period of the service near the beginning, after the call to worship and first hymn, while the younger congregants are still in the sanctuary "Children's time" or even "Children's Story."

I've been a proponent of calling that period "Time for All Ages" but the other day I was thinking. Why do we set that time out separately like that? Shouldn't more of the worship experience with our religious community be an experience that works for all ages?

And then I suddenly realized that the nearly sacrosanct tradition of the 20 minute spoken, uninterrupted, sermon, is probably barely a "time for all adults." It doesn't work for people of all spiritual types or all learning or communication styles. It doesn't work for people of all backgrounds or all abilities.

So I have two questions:
Do we WANT our service to be a time for all? And if not, who are we OK excluding? (and for how long?)

I think we do NOT want every element of a worship experience to work for every person there, simply because that would be impossible, or create communities of worship that were extremely small.

So, we need to be OK with some elements of the service not speaking to everyone there. But for how long is it OK to invite them to graciously wait while other's needs are being met? A full third of the hour, every week? That feels like too much.

I imagine each community will find a different set of proportions that they experience as OK. I do hope that each and every community will spend some prayerful time discerning what works for them, and revisit these questions frequently, playfully, and with commitment.

Meanwhile... I'm going to play with the options of switching the 20 minute sermon into a "double-homily" pattern, or perhaps, inviting the congregation into song, or verbal response, two or three times within the sermon, or, perhaps, another pattern altogether.
I'm going to try to remember ALL the people I'd like be in the community while I imagine a service.
And I'm going to try to make the whole service a time for everyone who shows up.

A Hitch in Your Get-Along

I usually view life as a fabulous adventure, full of joy and many gifts. In fact, most of the time my enthusiasm for life leads me in a thousand directions at once. Joyfully leaping into commitments and excitedly embracing multiple visions for the future. I am test marketing a vision statement. I'm starting two Entrepreneurial Ministry Support groups. I am talking with Oregon's UU Voices for Justice about the plan for the next few months. I am researching crowdfunding and grant funding. I am preparing for a Sunday service next week... and so much more... And then there are the weeks where there is a hitch.
This last week I spent more time in bed than out of it. I was coping with and attempting to shorten an arthritis flare. You see, I have a type of arthritis that is an immune disorder, it flares up, and subsides, seemingly at random. Luckily, most of the time medication keeps it in check. During a flare, standing up, walking, getting out of a car, all hurt. It feels like someone has sewn my legs to my torso, my calves to my thighs, and I have to pull out stitches in order to straighten. I remember my grandmother climbing out of a car, then pausing to remind her joints how to bend. She would invariably comment, 'I've got a hitch in my get-along."
I just returned from a fabulous week at General Assembly, gathered with thousands of my co-religionists, walking 20 blocks a day, getting hugs around every corner, listening to inspiring words, and witnessing inspiring deeds. After a fabulous week at General Assembly celebrating the end of cancer treatment and my return to relative health, I was feeling joyful about my forward motion, a reinvigoration of my ministry, and freedom to develop a vision of the future. This arthritis flare was a major hitch in my get-along.
Last night a friend said "You usually seem so healthy." and I went through a dislocation, an identity shift. I do feel the need to be doing things, to present as healthy and happy and with a full life. But that isn't my whole reality. Sometimes I'm too tired to think. Sometimes my hands don't have enough strength to turn a door-knob or pull up the comforter on the bed. Sometimes I fall and smash my knee and can only walk with crutches and sometimes my toes scream at me "you shall not walk." I usually push through it.
One of the realities of an arthritis flare is tiredness, a need to sleep. And one of the ways to shorten a flare is to get plenty of rest and reduce stress. So I spent more time in bed than out of it. This gave me plenty of time to experience frustration as the irons I had in the fire cooled. Plenty of time to remind myself that I was OK, even when not in motion. I had to remind myself that I have value, even when there is a hitch in my get-along. I've heard it said that one of the ways we ministers write sermons is that we say the thing which we most need to hear. So here it is: Sometimes it is enough just to spend the day breathing.

Amy is Returning to her Circuit-Riding Ministry!

Listen to our Heart-Song

I’m joyful to be returning to my “circuit-riding ministry” after a Spring where my health kept me close to home. I look forward to re-connecting with you and your community! Last year I travelled to Washington (almost into Canada!), California, Arizona, and all over Oregon.
 

In your religious community, does your heart-song yearn for a closer relationship with the sacred earth? Invite the President of the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans to be with you! Or perhaps your heart-song is about building the world we dream about. Invite a representative from Oregon’s UU Voices for Justice! Still waiting and listening for your heart-song? Invite a Spiritual Director who can help you listen it into voice! Now booking workshop and Guest-in-the-Pulpit dates for Summer and Fall 2014.
 

Some popular workshop topics:

• Green Chalice - Hildegard of Bingen and spirituality in nature
• Diving Deep and Emerging (The Inanna Journey) - loss and recovery, through the mythical process
• Faithful Conversations - how to connect, and transform, beyond difference
• Your Spiritual Type - finding the religious and spiritual sources that best feed and challenge you
• The Presence of Absence - mourning together, healing together
• To Die Well - ways to improve the end-of-life experience for yourself or a loved one
• Chalica - involving your whole, intergenerational, congregation in the UU principles
• Sacred Rhythm - West African Drum-song
• The Spiritual Journey - Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory and Carl Jung’s Archetypes meet Tarot cards and Soul Collage as we explore the stages of faith

(let me know if you'd like to attend one of these and I can schedule it!)

 

Some popular Sunday Services:

• The Sixth Source - Relating to our Earth-Based selves
• Bring Many Names - The UU SuperPower of supporting many ways of experiencing the divine
• Listen - The best gifts we have to give one-another I learned from spiritual direction
• Divining the Body - Your body is good
• We Hold These Truths - Unitarian and Universalist foundations of the USA (July 4th)
• The Great Work - where your passion meets the need of the world (for Labor Day)
• Harvest Home - Returning to our spiritual homes and finding balance in the transitions of Fall (Autumn Equinox)
• Blankets for Land - Indigenous People’s Day observance (October 13)
• Living Authentically- Teresa of Avila’s mystical joyful authentic life (Her feast day is Oct 14)
• To Love What is Mortal - Embracing death and loss (good for Autumn, esp. end of October)
• No Time Not to Love - Creating the world we dream about, through love (Election Day)
• Just Peace - Exploring alternatives to ‘just war’ (Veterans day)
• Transgender Day of Remembrance - working with your LGBTQIA community to create a UU-based service that honors transgender people’s experience
• Giving Thanks - Time, Talent, and Treasure… How we give thanks - Stewardship (Thanksgiving)
• Chalica - our uniquely UU celebration (first week of December)
• Light Deep Within - A Winter Solstice meditation on transformation

(Tell your Worship Team/Sunday Services coordinator if you'd like to see me in your pulpit!)

 

See MORE in the catalog! (http://amybeltaine.info)

Listen Listen Listen to our Heart Song

Many years ago I learned the Pagan Chant "Listen listen listen to my heart song." That chant, and many others from the Earth-based community, have formed my theology, faith, and soul through the years. Songs are my source of deepening, healing, strength, and transformation.

Every human has inherent worth and dignity and deserves support in their search for truth and meaning.

I will be gentle with myself, I will love myself
I am a child of the universe, being born each moment.

We are a part of something larger - an interdependent web of all life.

I am opening up in sweet surrender to the luminous love light of the one.

In the last couple of years I've begun a community ministry. I'm called to ministry. I've completed the process to become an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, but it is not yet clear what that ministry looks like. One thing is clear... I will not be stepping into one of the cookie-cutter boxes out there... I'm apparently incapable of following a conventional path!

I'm serving congregations throughout Oregon and Washington (and occasionally Arizona) as a guest minister. I serve individuals through spiritual direction. I serve groups of seekers in the Portland, Oregon area through workshops. And I serve the cause of social justice through partnerships with organizations like UU Voices for Justice.

It is exciting to listen to my Heart Song and find it in these places. And trusting the unknown is scary!

Keep breathing, it's the most important part. You kick and then you glide. Kick and then you glide.
It's all in the rhythm of the heart.

As a community minister I find the Heart Song of ministry beyond congregational walls. Serving on the board of the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans has been joyful. CUUPS is uniquely situated to give gifts to the UU movement. We are already connected beyond and across congregations. We have a tradition of being non-traditional and bringing new worship forms and ways of being together. Our sources of inspiration are incredibly varied and connect with people of diverse backgrounds. Those of us who draw on the Earth-Based paths are good at respecting individual searches for truth and meaning and celebrating all the many names for God that UUs find.

I'm excited about the coming year with CUUPs as we explore our future together, listen for our heart song and, together, create a world we dream about.

Listen Listen Listen to Our Heart Song.

Coming Out as a Person with Cancer

There's this great photo. Three roller coaster cars. In the first one the two women have their hands in the air, their skirts are flying and their faces are full of joy. The second car is a little more demure. One hand is in the air, the other is holding onto the purse. The third car contains two women who are NOT having fun. They frantically hold tight to everything and their faces show not one small bit of joy.
I keep seeing that picture. For me the roller coaster was named "Cancer."
Yep. This Spring didn't go as planned. December 19th at a routine exam the doctor spotted something that wasn't right. I got my biopsy results on the 26th while visiting Mom in Arizona. Surgery was January 28th. Now, it is April and I've completed three of the five weeks of combined chemotherapy and radiation. Yep, the big C.
It was cervical cancer. They got it all with the surgery. AND they are making sure. If there is just one sneaky little cell that got away we are going to be way more aggressive than it.
I'm a lucky one. I know why I got it: Mom was given DES to assist with her pregnancy with me. This is known to increase chances of cervical cancer in "DES Daughters". I only need a month of treatment and then I get to graduate from "cancer college" with the ritual celebration and a bright, healthy future.
I'm also learning to think of myself differently. Now I'm many things and those things include "Cancer survivor" and "DES Daughter".
I was reluctant to come out as someone with cancer. This was private and personal information. It involved me admitting that I am not in control. It required humility and surrender. It required that I trust people to handle the information responsibly.  So I waited. I waited until I had come to some terms with my new identities myself.
This week I'm frustrated, and sick, and wishing I was done with the "cure." The cruel irony of this treatment is that I felt absolutely fine, and the treatment is making me feel sick.
Most of the time, though, I feel grateful. I'm grateful that it was caught in time. I'm grateful that I live near a cancer center where they have the expertise to make sure I'm cured. I'm abjectly, profoundly, grateful that the Affordable Care Act went into effect and when my insurance ended on December 30th I had insurance available to me. I'm grateful that I have loving competent people who surround me with care and support.
I'm even beginning to be grateful that I've received the gift of experiencing this, all of this. I'm learning about surrender. I'm learning that my mental acuity and productivity are NOT the most important parts of myself. I'm learning about the journey that we all take, that is if we are lucky, into periods of ill health and challenge and making it through, day by day.
Nope. Things didn't go as planned this Spring. So I'm riding the cancer roller coaster. Sometimes it is really scary, but I've found that if I stop trying to tie everything down and hold on tight, its a little easier.

The Great Work, Preached in Bend Oregon Sept 1 2013

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882.

It is important to remember that Labor Day was created to celebrate and value the American worker, not the American corporation. It does not exist to celebrate American employment opportunity. Labor Day exists to celebrate American productivity and creativity. This Labor Day let us celebrate the capacity to do meaningful work that is in all of us.

(Psalm 90:12-17 The Message) In the Hebrew bible, in psalm 90, the psalmist sings:

Oh! Teach us to live well!

  Teach us to live wisely and well!

…

Surprise us with love at daybreak;

  then we’ll skip and dance all the day long.

…

…

And let the loveliness of our Lord, our God, rest on us,

  confirming the work that we do.

  Oh, yes. Affirm the work that we do!

However we define the holy, as the beauty and wonder of the human community, the mystery and miracle of the universe, the interdependent web of all life, the spirit of compassion and love, the lure to diversity and complexity, the good...It is because of our connection to the holy that humans can work with purpose, power, and the right intent. Interestingly, the psalm does not bother to separate spiritual work from the work of daily life.

From birth it is embedded upon our minds that we should grow up and do something important with our lives. As adults, we learn that we must provide for our families, no matter what the personal cost. Our vocation and the labor of our hands can be all-consuming and encompassing.

Our capacity to be creative, to be productive, is blessed and sacred and there is more to our labor than merely sustenance. The phrase “Affirm the work that we do” or "Prosper the work of our hands" is a plea to the holy to participate in our labor.

How can the holy participate in our labor/vocation if we do not take our principles, our connection to the spirit of love, to work with us? Moreover, since we have been given this great and wondrous gift, the ability to work, should we not look to do the work where our passion meets the needs of the world? What has been laid before us to do is a blessing and all work is sacred.
(For more of this sermon see the sermon recording on my website http://www.amybeltaine.info/Home/ministerial-portfolio/Worship)

Some responses to the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman encounter, trial, and aftermath

There are those who would set fire to the world.
We are in danger.
There is only time to work slowly.
There is no time not to love.
(Deena Metzger)

There are many who have said "I want to live in a world where George Zimmerman offered Trayvon Martin a ride home, to get him out of the rain, that night." Yes. And what am I doing, what are YOU doing, to create that world?  (White folks and people of privilege, see the link at the bottom for some suggestions.)

I've noticed more than a few folks posting on their facebook that they are considering "unfriending" folks because they've discovered that these friends are less sympathetic to the challenges of being black and brown in America than they originally thought. Hearts are breaking and so are friendships and maybe even communities. Those of you who need to take care of yourselves, please do so. Those of you who still have some energy to continue conversations, please do so. Sending love to all. May we find the healing we all need and may we continue the work, even as our hearts break.

“full-bodied grieving acts like a tonic. It purifies and revivifies… Let your grief be as full of joy as it is of sorrow. Let it be proof of how much you’ve loved” (296, The Seeker's Guide by Elizabeth Lesser)

I'm not really having trouble with the verdict. The law is the law. As far as my non-legally-trained self can tell... the jury did what the law seemed to demand. I'm having trouble with the law that Florida passed, the systemic racism that permeated the Martin/Zimmerman encounter, the media frenzy, and the racist subtext (and maintext) affecting all the discussions about the encounter. Most of all, I have trouble, really big trouble with the reality that mothers of black boys have a realistic fear when their boys simply walk down a street carrying no weapon and with no intent to do harm of any kind, when mothers of white boys do not have that same fear. It is real that Women are in danger due to "isms", Gays Lesbians and sexual or gender non-conformers are in danger due to "isms", and people with darker complexions than mine are in danger due to "isms." NOT OK.

Focusing on the Zimmerman trial verdict is a potential red herring. I say... Focus on the systemic racism, hatred, micro-aggressions, outright aggression, inequalities, violence, fear, and flawed laws... all the things that contributed to the death of a young man that should not have happened. The loss to family and friends. The destruction of a man's life (I'm pretty confident that Zimmerman's life is forever changed, and not in a good way.) and that is only the stuff that made the news. So much more pain has cascaded from this one event. This event is not unique. We must focus and ACT: We won't do it perfectly, but we must try to make the changes to create a world more filled with compassion, love, and the kind of justice that is bigger than law books and statutes and procedures. The moral arc of the universe must bend toward justice. And it isn't going to do it all by itself. We need to help it!

I've been thinking about this. I'm not Trayvon. I'm not a 17 year old black boy. I don't have his experience walking down the street, buying a soda, applying for a job, interacting with school officials. AND we ARE all connected. Oppression ANYWHERE is oppression everywhere. We are one people. So I stand with Trayvon, and all the other black and brown people who survive, or not, in this United States. but I do not have their experience. When I pretend I do, I might forget to listen and be an ally and be the best ME I can be.

For white people who realize something isn't right, but aren't sure what the next steps are to help make it better. Here's one person's story. It rings with truth. And as I said about the bees. It feels so good to know that it is possible to DO something helpful! http://www.zcommunications.org/take-the-red-pill-reflections-for-people-struggling-with-the-zimmerman-verdict-on-how-the-rodney-king-verdict-changed-my-life-for-the-better-by-chris-crass

Easter-Roll Back the Stone

3-21-13 Skagit UU - Easter

OOS
Gathering Song (Come, Come Whoever You Are)
Chalice Lighting
Opening Words - “Thank you Mother Earth” by Susun Arrow(adapted for inclusive language)
  Thank you mother earth Thank you sibling water
  Thank you for my birth Thanks from your sons and daughters
  Thank you sibling sun Thank you air in motion
  Thank you everyone Earth air fire and ocean.
Welcome and Introductions
Hymn #1 - #397 “Morning Has Come”
A Time for All Ages - Amaterasu
Joys & Sorrows
Offertory
Meditation by Rev. Victoria Weinstein
Hymn #2 #266 Now the Green Blade Riseth
SERMON - Roll Back the Stone
Hymn #61 Lo, the earth awakes again
Extinquish Chalice - (see below) unison
  The circle is open yet unbroken. 
  May the peace we have found here be ever in our hearts.
  Merry meet, and merry part, and merry meet again.
Closing Words
Closing Circle Song

Sermon
Hoof and horn, hoof and horn
All that dies shall be reborn
Corn and grain, Corn and Grain
All that’s cut shall rise again*.

I’d like to tell you a story... this story is drawn from Christian and Nazarene gospels, modern scholarship, and universal truths.

Our story begins as the Jewish people are kicked off of their ancestral lands (again). This time the conquerors are the Romans. Their temple, has been destroyed. They are scattered,  with little hope. The hope for the prophesized savior during the years of occupation had failed. The Messiah! They had pinned their hopes on a warrior who would overthrow the Romans. But 40 years ago one savior’s campaign ended with his death on a cross. And then just recently another messiah has died in an armed insurrection.

A group of scholars lives among the scattered groups of exiles. These scholars and storytellers, who call themselves The school of Mark, feel responsible for the spiritual health of their people. They want, desperately, to find a way to give hope. They seek for it in the life of Jesus, the wandering, pacifist, teacher. (They knew that focusing on the militant leader would just draw more oppression from the Roman government.)

They listen to the stories people tell one another. They read the letters of Paul. And they write their own version of the story. It tells of Jesus’ life, teachings, and death. And then, at the end, there’s a tantalizing little bit, something unexpected, that happens after his death.

Here is how it is told in “The Message” bible. This part begins three days after Jesus is declared dead and put into a tomb, a cave. His apostles and family had taken Friday and Saturday to observe their traditional religious day of retreat, rest, and renewal.
“Chapter 16, Verses 1-8 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so they could embalm him. Very early on Sunday morning, as the sun rose, they went to the tomb. They worried out loud to each other, “Who will roll back the stone from the tomb for us?”
Then they looked up, saw that it had been rolled back—it was a huge stone—and walked right in. They saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed all in white. They were completely taken aback, astonished.
He said, “Don’t be afraid. I know you’re looking for Jesus the Nazarene, the One they nailed on the cross. He’s been raised up; he’s here no longer. You can see for yourselves that the place is empty. Now—on your way. Tell his disciples and Peter that he is going on ahead of you to Galilee. You’ll see him there, exactly as he said.”
They got out as fast as they could, beside themselves, their heads swimming. Stunned, they said nothing to anyone.”

And there, the gospel, as written by those scholars from the school of Mark, ends.

What? Jesus just got up, rolled back his own stone, and wandered off to do, well, we aren’t sure what he’s headed off to do. But he clearly wasn’t interested in staying in the cave!

I love the way this story leaves out the details about the resurrection. There are no details about coming back to life. No proof. No grisly showing off of wounds. The rest of the story is left for us to create.

Maybe that is exactly what the writers intended! Perhaps the hearer was expected to fill in the end of the story themselves — specifically, with themselves. Jesus may have risen, but suffering and persecution remained realities for Mark’s community. Mark’s readers may have been expected to complete the gospel themselves by living their lives as Jesus had taught. They would create the rest of the story.

The Rest of the story. Paul Harvey was popular on the radio when I was in High school. He would tell most of a story, then go to a commercial break. Then come back with “The REST of the story.” Back in the centuries following the writing of the gospel of Mark, Matthew, Luke, John and others wrote about Jesus showing up and talking to Mary Magdalene, to Peter, to Paul, and to all the disciples. They wanted the REST of the story. In their stories Jesus promises the kingdom of heaven is coming….soon, to a community near you. Not later, but paradise right here, and right now. And he charges his followers to make that happen! YOU are the resurrection and the life!

Nine centuries later, those stories got rewritten again, and more stories were told. But that is the REST of the story according to those folks. What is the REST of the story according to you?

Jesus’s death and entombment CHANGED his followers’ faith in Jesus. They had to completely revise all their expectations. All the earth was made anew. The time in the tomb changed Jesus. One understanding is that he changed from his human self to his divine self. Loss changes people. And invites us to write our next chapter. The earth is made new.

The Jewish people lost their homes and their routines; Jesus’ family lost a loved one; His followers lost their hopes that a savior would magically make everything perfect; I imagine that for each person who went through those times he or she lost the old definition of who “I” am… These sorts of losses are not unusual. Human beings have been experiencing these changes since the beginning of time.

We are experiencing loss and change now. The last few years have been hard for too many of us. We have been experiencing losses as a planet, as a people, and as individuals. You know these things, you need only check your facebook feed, or watch TV and there is an endless parade of change, oppression, loss, death… It can get incredibly overwhelming. Honey bees, dying. Transgendered people being told they can’t use public restrooms. Gay youth kicked out of home and living on the street. The list goes on.

A friend of mine dug herself her own cave. In her back yard she escaped from the usual pre-teen troubles, and the dislocation of her mother’s terminal illness. Each day she dug, and finally had a room sized hole in the back yard, covered with boards she found at neighboring building sites. It was her retreat, her womb. It was her private space where nothing changed while all was changing around her. This cave of silence cushioned her in the soft, fragrant earth, and forgiving coolness, until she was ready to emerge once again. Luckily her father understood her need to take breaks from the family home while it was filled with pain and loss. Those retreats allowed her to return.

There are times when we will find ourselves in the cave. Maybe the cave is of grief. Maybe it is silence. Maybe solemnity. Maybe rage. But we must rest into the cave, as the seed sinks into the soil, in order to emerge once again. We emerge... Changed. All the earth is made new.

The cave is there for us in times of heartbreak, grief, and bereavement. The cave is there for us like the earth receives the grain when planted.

But sometimes that place of retreat and healing can feel like a trap. A breathless, weighty, vacuum. A place without Air.

As Musician, DOMINIC OUVRY sings:
Roll, roll, roll back the stone
Let me breathe ...
Breathe the sweet air once again

For some of us that enclosed feeling is more than enough to drive us back out into the light. For others the cave is seductive. There are so many reasons to stay inside.

When you’ve been deep inside yourself, coming out can feel risky. You can feel as fragile and as tender as the first tiny green-leaf in spring. But, look around. You have companions! Others who have had similar experiences, whether it was last week or ten years ago. Others who have retreated. Others who stayed inside during the long, dark, cold winter. Others have emerged as tender and fragile as you.

Maybe you are wondering “what’s the point?” I want to know the rest of the story before I start living the next chapter. Rumi promises: “As you start to walk out on the way, the way opens.” You will write the rest of your own story.

You may ask, who am I to write my story? I’m not perfect yet. Who am I to share myself with the world. You are perfect just as you are at this moment. St. Theresa of Avila invites you to roll back your stone, and to bloom.
 (she says)
“We bloomed in Spring.
Our bodies are the leaves of God.
The apparent seasons of life and death
Our eyes can suffer; but our souls, dear,
I will just say this forthright:
They are God...”

You may find the courage to come out of your cave simply because you have no other choices. You surrender to what is. That willingness to accept and start the new journey: that is grace.

I imagine that Amaterasu’s friends tried to remind her that she was of value, and that for her own sake she needed to stop punishing herself for something that was someone else’s wrong-doing. Maybe this time, that is what lures you out of your cave. But that didn’t do it for her.

What lured Amaterasu out of her cave was the promise of joy and mirth. What invited Amaterasu into her next chapter was the promise of paradise and the promise of being her full shining self and sharing that with others.

This is what sustained those early Christians. In the first ten centuries as Christianity was emerging there are no pictures of a Christ on a cross. There was no focus on death. There was a joyful focus on paradise. And that paradise wasn’t about the “after-death” heaven. That paradise was the one that was being created in the here and now.

The loss is not most important. We must give ourselves permission to retreat and renew, and then it matters what we do next. Write the rest of your story. Write the rest of our collective story. Create paradise, create the world we dream about. It takes every one of us. Each one of us becoming our full and shining selves. Every one of us connecting with another.

So. Roll back your stone. Maybe you’ll find out who you really are! See who walks with you. Discover the next steps. Your heart and soul will be changed during the period of retreat. Then as you emerge, you will be welcomed. All the earth shall be made new.
When our hearts are saddened, grieving or in pain,
By love’s touch You call us back to life again;
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green**.

You don’t have to roll back your stone just once. You have to do it over and over and over. Every year, every season of loss. Every time you sink down into your cave. You must roll back that stone anew. The earth does it with the spring.
Now the green blade rises from the buried grain,
Wheat that in the dark earth many years has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green**.

A savior isn’t going to show up and do all the work for us. We must roll back our own stones and rise for the sake of the love that he taught. We must retreat, change, then return, renewed, to the work that must be done. We don’t need a savior “out there”, be he Buddha, or Jesus, or be she Harriet Tubman or Elizabeth Warren. “YOU are, we all are, the resurrection and the life.”

We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to one another to treat each person we meet tenderly. Every person we meet is a walking miracle, just blooming. Each person is embodied in the green leafy aliveness of god. Perhaps just this morning she or he made the personal effort to make it back from heaven, or maybe from hell, but certainly from death, to be by our side***.

It may take a while to figure it out. But, what glorious shining light and joy when we can finally roll back the stone.

*Pagan traditional. no known author.
**Hymn in "Singing the Living Tradition"
***From a meditation by Rev. Victoria Weinstein

The Courage of Queen Esther, Arizona 2-24-13

Friend, I have lost the way. The way leads on. … Then I'll make here my place, (The road leads on), … I cannot find the way. The way leads on. … Have you ever had a fragment of something get stuck in your mind’s ear? A bit of song, a piece of poetry, a phrase from a book or essay or conversation? That happened to me with these lines from Edwin Muir’s poem, “The Way”. It perfectly expresses a feeling I often have. I wish to stay right where I am, and I hear the call, the invitation to take the next step. Things don't always work out perfectly. And…The way leads on. I can’t take one more step. The way leads on. Sometimes you get ridiculed. The way leads on. Sometimes the price is painful. The way leads on. Sometimes it takes years of baby steps. The way leads on. Sometimes you don't get credit. The way leads on (and it is worth it.) Sometimes it seems that nothing is accomplished! Is it really worth it? Yes, it is worth it. In an overcrowded world, it’s easy to underestimate the significance of one. There are so many people who have so many gifts and skills. Who needs me? What can I, What can Little ol’ me, do? What can our little congregation, do to help heal our hurting world? But the truth is, you are the only you in all the world. You are the one who is here, now. Nobody can do the things that you are called and gifted to do. What are you going to do with that one precious life that you have? What risk are you taking? What stand are you making? What action calls to you? How do you answer? As Reverend Channing, one of the founders of Unitarianism, said: Each of us is meant to have a character all our own, to be what no other can exactly be, and do what no other can exactly do. There is only one you. You’re the only person with your exact heritage, your precise series of events in the pilgrimage and sufferings of life that have brought you to this moment. You’re the only one with your personal convictions, your skills, your appearance, your touch, your voice, your style, your surroundings, your sphere of influence—you are the only one. The poet says: I am only one; but still I am one... I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. ... Find the full Audio version of this sermon on my website.

Ostara: Vernal Equinox McMinnville 3-17-13

"Ahhhh, Spring: a heart lifting in hope and a shoe squishy with mud." Today is St. Patrick’s day. It is a day to wear green in celebration of the Irish, of the Celtic heritage and to celebrate Saint Patrick. The story goes that Saint Patrick got his sainthood because he drove the snakes out of Ireland. There are pictures of him wielding a big stick and looking fierce. There’s even one of him punting that last snake off the shore. There’s a small problem with that story. There have never been any snakes on the island of Ireland. So… What “snakes” did St. Patrick banish? Well, we are talking about a Catholic Saint here. So, Hmmm… What is the most famous snake in Christianity? Yep, you got it. The snake who talked to Eve in the Garden of Eden. The snake who gave her the knowledge of good and evil. That snake gave Adam and Eve the power of using their minds to understand things. Who did St. Patrick drive out of Ireland? He drove out the druids and wise women. The cunning men, the hedge witches, and the midwives who had the power to ease the pains of childbirth and even turn a child in the womb in order to ensure a successful birth. He drove out those who practiced the old religion. Those disobedient “snakes” who related to the earth and the Goddess and didn’t accept the teachings of the invaders. So. In that case… I’m on the side of the SNAKES! I’ve been boycotting St. Patrick’s day for years. I’ve refused to wear green and instead I wear a snake. But…Turns out that Ireland is actually the place where the wisdom of the sages was preserved during the dark ages. While books were burned and mouldering in the rest of the former Roman empire, language, writing, the philosophers, Latin, and learning survived because of the monks in Ireland. Also, there is an Irish SAINT named for a Celtic goddess! Saint Brigit of Kildare, the other patron saint of Ireland, along with St. Patrick. The two of them, Brigit, and Patrick, are symbols of the old religion and Christianity. Two supposed opposites that each pass down their gifts to us. Today I’m happy to celebrate the gifts that the Irish passed down to us. They passed down a deep reverence for the earth, for learning, for poetry, and for a flexible and joyful spirituality. Today I’m wearing the Green, AND a snake! Maybe I should be wearing a snake wrapped around a green growing wooden cross. Both/And. The balancing act is difficult, but without both, we would miss out on half our heritage. ... look for the Audio on my web site for the REST of this sermon.

Nothing Better to do than Listen 10-21-12 in Astoria Oregon

Sermon "Nothing Better to Do Than Listen" Amy Beltaine

 In the Hospital a man lay dying in a room down the hall. His 5-year-old daughter and I played together with some brightly colored toys while her family paced, wept, and raged. This sweet little girl had pink and yellow barrettes in her hair. Her green lollipop had turned her mouth green. She said that her aunt had told her that her daddy was going to be an angel. I asked her if that would be OK, for her daddy to be an angel who watched over her. She said “no -- I don't want my Daddy to be an angel.” I had no words for her. I wished for words. I wished I could fix it or failing that, Run Away from this terrible situation! I wished that something I could say would make it better. I could not do either. Nothing would make it all better. It is a perfectly normal response, the fight or flight response. When something feels bad or wrong or scary, your instinct is to fix or flee. Luckily, we humans are more than just skills and instinct! What that little girl did need was a safe space where she could rest into her own truth. To allow, to let be. We both created that space as we played quietly together. We talked about the bunny rabbit we played with. I stayed open and calm and waited for her to share with me. I was a safe person, not falling apart or needy. I didn’t want her to do or be anything except herself. I began to learn to truly listen and not just wait for my turn to speak. My path to ministry required that I learn to actively listen. To succeed, I needed to wait for the other person to set the level of the encounter. Deep or Receptive Listening is a time away from time. A time when people meet one another, holding the awareness of the divinity within each. You may have heard it called Spiritual Direction. That term doesn’t quite work for me. The “director” in spiritual direction does not DIRECT! The spirit of Spiritual Direction happens when a person who is seeking, is companioned by a person who is listening. It’s when people encounter one another, without fixing or fleeing. A better term might be “spiritual friend”. Spiritual direction helps people tell their sacred stories, hear their own truths, make decisions, and take actions consistent with their best selves.. Like prayer, contemplation, and meditation, spiritual direction nourishes the spiritual aspect of being human. Each moment can be a moment of contemplative listening. It’s important after a national tragedy or when visiting a loved one in a hospital. It is also possible to have a spiritual encounter every time another person is met, not just during times of sorrow or loss. Often someone has asked you to listen, like your best friend’s latest tale of woe. You can practice deep listening during the coffee hour after the service, or when you arrive home. You can practice reflective listening at work this week, or the next time you answer the phone. How can we nurture an attitude of contemplative listening? We recognize sacred space. How can we listen to the soul and hear its truth? We create an… “atmosphere … of spaciousness and underlying peace; of openness and receptivity; of a kind of quiet clarity in which it is easier to allow and let be” (Gerald May) This can be really hard work! To allow and not to fix. To let be, and not to control. We need that space of listening when we get bad news or hear of tragedy. At times we all need a safe space to be our hurting or grieving selves. We need a safe space and a companion who doesn’t fix, or flee. (More on the Website: Amybeltaine.com... Preaching)

Class: the bleeding edge of social change

I've been having adventures in the meaning of class and how class privilege works in my own life. I was raised "landed class". My parents both grow up in families where they owned their own homes. Then, when they got married they bought a home. By the time I graduated from high school our family owned three pieces of property. I was raised "educated class". Both parents had bachelors degrees. My dad had a doctorate. I earned a bachelors (and when I decided to pursue a second career, earned a masters.) So I carry class power and privilege (along with my skin color privilege) with me wherever I go. However... Now I am an upperclass attitude inside a working poor body. I rely on food stamps and unemployment, my spouse, and piece-work to make the food and shelter and health care commitments I have. The first time my beloved went with me to a grocery store she was horrified. Watching me select organic vegetables. High end processed foods. Watching me walk past sale items and select products based on how much I enjoyed them, without once looking at the price tag. She recalls feeling physically ill. -I've had to learn that money isn't something that just automatically appears if you work hard. -I've had to learn that without money, it is hard to make money. -I've had to learn that if you spend money on priorities like organics, you might not have money for priorities like fixing a filling in a painful tooth. Slowly I'm learning to think like someone who needs to pay attention to money. Slowly I'm realizing that I hold the belief that paying attention to money is "crass" and is not done by civilized people. Slowly I'm learning to erase that old message. I'm wondering if unlearning that message, which is carried by people who share my class background, is a fruitful place for us to start unlearning classism. Maybe my next blog post will be about how the privilege operates in my life. Even now when I actually don't have the money, just the attitude!