Stumbling over Truth

 I spoke in meeting for worship Sunday.  It wasn't one of our more crowded meetings, but it certainly was a more diverse crowd.  Our demographics have shifted at Homewood.  We are at least half under 40 years old on most Sundays.  The number of people of color and trans and non-binary people are increasing and coming regularly. More Friends are speaking out of the silence, many of them new, and there are encouraging signs that they are "getting it."  

We are a diverse lot but you wouldn't know it by vocal ministry.  There may be mention of God, sometimes mention of Jesus or Christ or the Bible, but more often than not the messages are theologically neutral not based in any tradition or stream other than the Living Stream.

When I first started preaching (and yes, that's what it was even if we don't like to call it that among Liberal Friends) it was all standard Christian messaging. It's all I knew.  I was on fire for Jesus and my new found religious society.

Then decades of life hit, and as you can read in other blog entries, my Christian faith waned.  Ministry was definitely more theologically neutral (Light, Seed, That of God, Spirit, Divine) with some mentioning of Bible or the historical Jesus.  It was generally accepted if not encouraged.  The thing is I didn't choose to use neutral language. It's what was given.  It's where I was myself.

Then came this Sunday.  It began with that inner turmoil and the draw to go deeper.  I fidgeted in my seat wrestling with the thoughts in my head and trying to sink down to a place where I could get clarity. I was waiting on that prompting that I get before it's time to speak, but for which I'm often impatient. "Now?"  

No.  

"Now?"  

No, you just want to speak, let it go.  

"It's back. Now?"  

Not yet.

Then the song came. A song I sang recently at the BYM Spiritual Formation retreat alone at a gravesite.

I can't remember how the message started off or exactly what I said at this point, but it was interspersed with singing "I got a crown in that Kingdom, ain't that good news?"  

The message itself isn't important.  I can't remember while writing this exactly what it was about or what the point was.  But I felt myself stumbling, tripping over the words given to me and the desire to make them palpable for all those Friends who might object to the overtly Christian language that was being given to me.  The message was rough around the edges.

After meeting I was met with hugs and encouragement for being faithful.  I really wish Friends would not say they "like my ministry" or "like it when I speak." That's all great; for my ego.  My ego does not need any help.  What I need help with is being faithful.  Was I faithful? Did it speak to your condition? Did it answer a question or a problem you had? Did it help you go deeper?  Did it encourage you in your faith?  Cuz whereas some liked it, others may not have an would have kept quiet (or run off to M&C).  And sometimes we don't like what we hear, and it makes us go deeper, prompts us to seek, helps us to find.

I spoke to one Friend who's a very seasoned Friend about it. She came up to me to hug me and to elder me (in the best sense of the word).   I told her that others "liked"  it but that I felt like it was choppy, awkward and at the end I started to lose my discernment and so just sat down.  She mentioned that she could hear it but asked me what I made of that.  Was I faithful?

I was.  But it took me some time to realize something.  While I was trying to give the words given, I was dually trying to edit what I was saying. The message given was an explicitly Christian one but I was trying to buffer the edges in a way people would hear and tolerate. I didn't realize I was doing that at the time, until today, in fact, sitting at my desk and realizing I didn't come full up.  I didn't stand and deliver the way I was led but I tried to tame the message, whatever it was about.  And so I got caught up in the words, and the line to spirit was made less clear. 

So I was right to sit down and end it.

Not this again.  Please not this again.  I just need prayers and help to be faithful to the words given to the Source of those words, and let my ego go...