Rectors Message
Sept 2010
Dear People of God,
All
summer and continuing into the fall we have been reading from the prophets
on Sunday morning. The prophets were not fortune tellers, they couldn't see
into the future, most of them were reluctant to begin with and several of
them argue with God over what God has told them to say. They do call the
community into account for behaviors and attitudes, things done and left
undone. They do pronounce God's judgment on God's people and call for a
change of heart, a change of attitude and behavior. They call for
repentance. I trust it has struck you how many things the prophets name as
needing reform or repentance from are things, attitudes and behaviors, we
ourselves have experienced. The prophets spoke in particular times and
places yet their message resonates with the human condition even today.
There are several points of Good News. First God always is more ready to
forgive than we could ever hope or imagine. Second, and this I think often
goes unsaid and so overlooked, repentance truly means ending behaviors or
attitudes that are harmful to us and beginning to take actions that lead us
into life and health of body, mind, and spirit. God's invitation to repent
is an invitation into becoming our true selves, those people God created us
to be and desires us to be. I hope that we will all heed God's call to each
of us and to us as a community that we might become that Light upon the hill
shining with God's Grace and Glory that God's people might be made whole in
all the earth.
Peace,
Battle +
Life at
St. Mark's . . .
Saint Mark's is, simply put, a wonderful congregation. I became
Rector in February, 2001.
back to the top
The
Rector's passion . . .
Family, the music of the Grateful Dead, justice, New Mexico [especially
the pueblo's , the Jemez mountains,
Bandalier National Monument, the church at Chimayo,…] Kentucky basketball, travel,
movies.
back to the
top
Provocative
Thoughts . . .
I intend to place a provocative thought here from time to time. This is an
invitation to you to engage me in conversation. I will respond as priest and person,
thoughfully and truthfully, to all comments sent to me in good will.
As we head into the season of
Lent I’m wondering why, generally, people view Lent as a time to beat
themselves up. Most of us look to see what we can give up during Lent or the
seeming opposite, what can we take on. Both of these activities presume that
by “Doing” more or less of something I will become a “better” Christian. Is
that really true or is it a case of the institution telling us to “do” because
the institution needs to justify its existence?
The west is one of two
cultures that believe we can make progress towards spiritual perfection over
time. (The other culture is Korean/Japan) Everyone else in the world believes
we simply are, and God simply is. We don’t get better or worse we just “Be”.
So perhaps this Lent we need
simply to make time in our lives to “Be”; to “Be” with ourselves, with God. No
expectations, no conditions, no improvement necessary, simply allow yourself
to Be.
Happy Lent.
Peace,
Battle - February 2002
Send your responses to or questions about this passage to Rev.
Beasley
|
"I
am dying
Because of a divine remembrance
Of who-I really am.
Hafiz, tonight,
Your soul
Is a brilliant reed instrument
In need of the breath of the
Christ.”
from
the poem, In Need Of The Breath. The Gift, Poems
by Hafiz, printed by permission Penguin Press.
|
What is your longing for God? We live in a country that claims great
belief in God, [80 + percent say they believe in God, fewer than 30 percent
actually worship anywhere] and yet there is very little "God talk"
anywhere outside the church. Further, most of the institutional God talk is
carried on by the "professionals", the ministers, Sunday school
teachers etc. And a lot of that talk seems to me to be its "my way or
the highway" pronouncements. All this makes me very sad. We are all
images of God, but we seem to take the importance of that very lightly. I
think this is in part because we are still so unconscious of our absolute
need for the breath of Christ to blow thru us. So I ask, what Is your
longing for God? If you don't know shouldn't you want to find out? And for
the church, shouldn't we be encouraging people to articulate this for
themselves instead of doing it for them?
Peace, Battle - January 2002
Send your responses to or questions about this passage to Rev.
Beasley
. . . It strikes me that the institutional church is sliding further and further
towards irrelevancy in the USA. Not as some would say, because of the "liberal
agenda", whatever that may mean: rather we are in danger of being irrelevant because
our religiosity in no way connects to people, where they live and work and play. Our
religiosity does not speak to the struggle to see, taste, feel, experience the presence of
God in their life, whether it fits our definition of God's presence or not. We have no
authentic voice articulating the life of the spirit in today's language. The word
"spirituality", much in vogue again these days, has been taken over by a wide
variety of folks, few of who have any connection to the institutional church. The serious
question for me is not how are we going to "convert " these folks but rather how
are we providing support & nourishment to any and all who are striving to articulate
their own spiritual journey? -July 2001
Rector's
Message