Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Showing posts with label Comfort in Mourning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Comfort in Mourning. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Pooh Bear and Mental Health

 


Pooh woke up that morning, and, for reasons that he didn't entirely understand, couldn't stop the tears from coming. He sat there in bed, his little body shaking, and he cried, and cried, and cried.

Amidst his sobs, the phone rang.

It was Piglet.

"Oh Piglet," said Pooh, between sobs, in response to his friend's gentle enquiry as to how he was doing. "I just feel so Sad. So, so, Sad, almost like I might not ever be happy again. And I know that I shouldn't be feeling like this. I know there are so many people who have it worse off than me, and so I really have no right to be crying, with my lovely house, and my lovely garden, and the lovely woods all around me. But oh, Piglet: I am just SO Sad."

Piglet was silent for a while, as Pooh's ragged sobbing filled the space between them. Then, as the sobs turned to gasps, he said, kindly: "You know, it isn't a competition."

"What isn't a competition?" asked a confused sounding Pooh.

"Sadness. Fear. Grief," said Piglet. "It's a mistake we often make, all of us. To think that, because there are people who are worse off than us, that that somehow invalidates how we are feeling. But that simply isn't true. You have as much right to feel unhappy as the next person; and, Pooh - and this is the really important bit - you also have just as much right to get the help that you need."

"Help? What help?" asked Pooh. "I don't need help, Piglet.

"Do I?"

Pooh and Piglet talked for a long time, and Piglet suggested to Pooh some people that he might be able to call to talk to, because when you are feeling sad, one of the most important things is not to let all of the sad become trapped inside you, but instead to make sure that you have someone who can help you, who can talk through with you how the sad is making you feeling, and some of the things that might be able to be done to support you with that.

What's more, Piglet reminded Pooh that this support is there for absolutely everyone, that there isn't a minimum level of sad that you have to be feeling before you qualify to speak to someone.

Finally, Piglet asked Pooh to open his window and look up at the sky, and Pooh did so.

"You see that sky?" Piglet asked his friend. "Do you see the blues and the golds and that big fluffy cloud that looks like a sheep eating a carrot?"

Pooh looked, and he could indeed see the blues and the golds and the big fluffy cloud that looked like a sheep eating a carrot.

"You and I," continued Piglet, "we are both under that same sky. And so, whenever the sad comes, I want you to look up at that sky, and know that, however far apart we might be physically...we are also, at the same time, together. Perhaps, more together than we have ever been before."

"Do you think this will ever end?" asked Pooh in a small voice.

"This too shall pass," confirmed Piglet. "And I promise you, one day, you and I shall once again sit together, close enough to touch, sharing a little smackerel of something...underneath that blue gold sky."

We all need a piglet in our lives.

- Joanne Wellington






* * * * * * * * *


Mental health matters.

I really, really think the secret
to being loved is to love.

And the secret to being interesting
is to be interested.

And the secret to having a friend
is being a friend.


* * * * * * * * *



We all carry a little something...











* * * * * * * * *





 by Jacqueline, May 18, 2018

This was posted on Facebook as part of Mental Health Awareness week. I felt I wanted to share it to help eradicate the stigma which still surrounds mental health issues. - Jacqueline

“Piglet?” said Pooh.

“Yes Pooh?” said Piglet.

“Do you ever have days when everything feels… Not Very Okay At All? And sometimes you don’t even know why you feel Not Very Okay At All, you just know that you do.”

Piglet nodded his head sagely.

“Oh yes,” said Piglet. “I definitely have those days.” 

“Really?” said Pooh in surprise.

“I would never have thought that. You always seem so happy and like you have got everything in life all sorted out."

“Ah,” said Piglet. “Well here’s the thing. There are two things that you need to know, Pooh.

"The first thing is that even those pigs, and bears, and people, who seem to have got everything in life all sorted out… they probably haven’t.

"Actually, everyone has days when they feel Not Very Okay At All. Some people are just better at hiding it than others.

“And the second thing you need to know… is that it’s okay to feel Not Very Okay At All. It can be quite normal, in fact. And all you need to do, on those days when you feel Not Very Okay At All, is come and find me, and tell me. Don’t ever feel like you have to hide the fact you’re feeling Not Very Okay At All. Always come and tell me. Because I will always be there.”

- Jacqueline











* * * * * * * * *





Eeyore and the Damp and Dreary Day


It was a damp and dreary day

and Pooh and Piglet were eager to get back to Piglet's house and warm their feet by the fire .

Nevertheless, the two friends trudged through the carpet of leaves which had begun to cover the ground of the Hundred Acre Wood and decided first to check on Eeyore.

"Hello Eeyore!" said Pooh and Piglet when they came upon him.

"Hello Pooh and Piglet," said Eeyore, in a sad, sorrowful kind of voice.

"Is everything okay, Eeyore?" asked Piglet.

"Oh," said Eeyore. "Well," said Eeyore. "No," said Eeyore .

"Oh Eeyore," said Pooh, looking at the miserable eyes of his friend. "Would you like a hug ? It would make you feel so much better"

"Absolutely not," said Eeyore, taking a step backwards.

"No thank you very much. Physical contact is Very Much Not My Thing." 

"Then how about a different kind of hug ," said Piglet.

"A different kind of hug ?" said Eeyore, intrigued in spite of himself. "Whatever do you mean?"

"A hug , you know," continued Piglet, settling himself down on a pillow of leaves on one side of Eeyore and encouraging Pooh, on the other side, to do the same;

"a hug doesn't have to be about physically touching someone. A hug can be a lovely cup of tea someone has made you;

"or it can be a friend popping in just to see if you are okay; or it can be a silent wish sent heart to heart ;

"or it can be sitting with your two friends, not really saying very much at all, counting the Autumn leaves as they fall from the trees ."

"Oh," said Eeyore. "Oh," he said again. "I had no idea, that a hug could be all of that".

He thought for a while, quite a long while in fact, and then said; “If a leaf is at the top of the tree it will take ages to fall to the ground, won’t it?”.

“I hadn’t thought of that”, said Pooh. “I can imagine we could spend all day looking at leaves falling”.

“Let’s do that”, said Piglet. For a long time there was silence as Pooh and Piglet and Eeyore sat together and counted the leaves as they drifted down, swinging from side to side.

"I think," said Eeyore, after some reflection, "that this is the very nicest hug I have ever had."

We can not hug at the minute but sometimes all it takes is to be kind we are all under one sky, it might mean the world to someone. 


Eeyore - Depression
by Yana Walljasper
Oct 23, 2014

This is a video I made for my Mental Health in the Media class.
I don't own any of the video clips, all rights go to Disney.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Woman, Why Are You Weeping?





Woman, why are you weeping? {when your kid becomes Episcopalian}
http://www.amypeterson.net/journal/2015/2/23/woman-why-are-you-weeping-when-your-kid-becomes-episcopalian

Amy Peterson
February 23, 2015
Dear Woman -
That’s what the angels said to Mary Magdalene at the tomb.  Dear Woman, why are you weeping? they asked.  
She wept because Christ was dead and hope was gone.
She turned from the angels.  She thought he was the gardener.  Woman, why are you weeping? He asked it, too.  
She wept because she didn’t understand, yet.
---
Dear Woman -
I saw you at church that day, sitting two-thirds of the way back on the left hand side. You were sitting next to your daughter, who is a student at the evangelical university where I work.  You were visiting her, and her church; your cheeks were wet.
Later I asked her about it.  My mom thinks I’ve lost my faith, she said.
I understood.  We attend an Episcopal church. Twenty years ago, most of the Christians I knew thought there was little true faith to be found in the Episcopal church, what with its rote prayers and female priests and politically liberal congregations. I understood, too, because I’m a mother, and I am beginning to see how impossibly fraught with emotion and responsibility and prayer and vulnerability it is to watch over your child’s spiritual formation.
Dear woman, I have thought of you most Sundays over the last few months. I've wondered what -if anything- I could say to put your heart at ease.  I know your daughter well, and I know her to be one of the most thoughtful, intentional, mature and spiritually grounded students I’ve worked with.  I also know a little something about what it means to grow up evangelical and what it means to move towards the Anglican tradition.  I can’t speak for all Anglicans or Episcopalians, but I can tell you from my own experience what it means and what it doesn’t mean that I’ve been confirmed in this church.


It doesn’t mean that I’ve rejected the authority of Scripture.

This is how we used to say it, growing up: "That church has female preachers- clearly, they don't believe the Bible!" While it's true that I've changed my mind about the place of women in church ministry, that hasn't happened because I chose cultural relevance over Scripture.  That change came slowly, and it came through careful study of Scripture. (Like this, or this.)

You may have heard that the Episcopal church's position on gay marriage or evolution or Iraq or any number of things shows that we don't respect the Bible.  But don't believe that until you talk to us about it.

We read aloud from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the New Testament, and a Gospel every Sunday.  I'm guessing that's more Scripture than is listened to in most non-denominational churches on most Sunday mornings. We have a high view of Scripture.

It doesn’t mean that I have stopped believing in Jesus.

Episcopalians are basically universalists (or so I've heard).  They believe all religions are the same, that all paths lead to God.

But every Sunday we recite the Nicene Creed, something Christians have held in common since 325 AD.  Part of that creed reads:
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.


One Lord.  One.  The only Son of God. We believe in Jesus.
(Read the whole Nicene Creed.)


It doesn’t mean that my prayers are rote and meaningless, that I believe in magical incantations, or that I worship the Book of Common Prayer.

Someone asked that once - why do we worship the Book of Common Prayer? She thought that when our rector walked down the aisle to read from the gospels, we bowed toward the Book of Common Prayer he held.  But it is a Bible he carries down the aisle.  We bow toward the gospels, humble in submission to the words of Jesus (see above: high view of Scripture's authority).

I love the liturgical prayers.  They are not the only way I pray.  But I've found that they instruct me, they form my soul, they shape me in ways I want to be shaped. They give me words when I don't always know what to say to God.

It doesn’t mean that I believe in transubstantiation.

But I do think there's something to be said about the Real Presence of Christ in the wafer and the wine. And there is something to be said for the way it nourishes me every week.  I love to take the Eucharist every week.

It does not mean that I have lost respect for the churches of my youth.

It does mean that my Sunday worship has a physical form.

One student at our church said it this way:

"In Desiring the Kingdom, James K.A. Smith puts forth the idea that humans are driven more by the desires in their guts than by the ideas in their minds. He encourages physical practices in worship to guide the direction of desires.

Since reading this article and book, I am aware that I have trouble making my mind focus on the readings or the sermon during church; however, when my whole body is called upon to take part in the Eucharist, I seem to wake up to the divine presence in the room."

We are not just minds and hearts and souls; we are bodies, too.  Kneeling, sitting, standing, moving up to the altar for communion -- these motions train our bodies in how to respond to God.

It does mean that I am seeking a long, enduring tradition within which to situate myself.

It does mean that I think the tent is wider than I used to think it was.

The older I get, the less I know, the more mystery I embrace. The less likely I am to build clear walls diving who is in from who is out. That doesn't mean I can't say anything about what is true (see Nicene Creed, above).  But it does mean that I am willing to say with St. Augustine, "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity."

One of those "non-essentials," for me, is mode of baptism.  I do believe in infant baptism, but it's ok if you don't.  You're still welcome here.

(Here are some more of my thoughts about the value of a wide tent.)

It does mean that my children have a spiritual home.

An early memory: our church is meeting in a rented space, a school building.  It is a small, non-denominational church.  My Dad leads the music. The six or so kids run wild around the building when the service is over, playing spies and hide and seek. It feels like home, the most comfortable place in the world.

I see my children having this exact experience at our Episcopal church now.

It does mean that I want a church that is intergenerational.
I want to shake hands with the little old ladies and hold the babies. I want my own children in the pew with me for at least part of every "big church" service.
It does mean that I want a service that is not sensational, flashy, or particularly “relevant”. 
I can be entertained anywhere. At church, I do not want to be entertained.  I do not want to be the target of anyone's marketing.  I want to be asked to participate in the life of an ancient-future community.
It does mean that I want coffee and donuts every Sunday.
Actually, the donuts I could take or leave, but the time shared over food every Sunday, ever Seder, every Mardis Gras, every Chili supper... I couldn't do without it.
It does mean that I like a short homily.
Let's be honest: I like that the sermon is not the main thing.  I can get biblical and theological instruction anywhere nowadays.  I can’t get the Eucharist or the community anywhere.
It also just means that I live in a small town.  Not every denomination is represented in this prairied part of middle America.  It doesn’t necessarily mean that the Episcopalians are the people I agree with most.  It isn’t about agreement, exactly.  It’s about rooting yourself to a people, saying that you are willing to take not only the good from them but also the bad.  It’s about where you pray best.
At least, that’s how Preston Yancey explained his movement towards Anglicanism in his memoir Tables in the Wilderness. (Maybe you’d like to read this story of a young person moving slowly from the Baptist tradition to the Anglican?) Another book that helps explain the movement toward liturgy in the Gen X and Millennial kids is Robert Webber’s Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail (I also like his Younger Evangelicals).  You might like this blog postabout the Episcopal church, this one from another student at our church, or this one from an Assemblies of God pastor who became Anglican. If you want, maybe another day I’ll write about the books that led me to the Anglican Tradition.


But for now, dear woman, turn around.  See your daughter.  Don’t you see Christ in her, in the words she speaks and the way she serves?  This isn’t death: this is new life. It just looks a little different.

With love,

Amy