The Devil Is In The Details

I've taken a few days off to ponder what is occurring in cyberspace over the selection of a new bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan of which I am a member. For those of you unaware, this diocese is the third smallest in the entire (global) Anglican Communion. We have a total average Sunday attendance (ASA) of less than 600 people spread out in approximately 25 congregations (some of which are summer only) in a region that is roughly 400 miles from east to west. Our previous bishop, Jim Kelsey, was killed in a car accident roughly 20 months ago. Given the size and limited financial resources of this diocese, many of the congregations began practicing a form of "Mutual Ministry." That is to say, given the lack of funding to hire full time seminary trained clergy, the congregations developed ways to raise up members of the congregation to serve as presbyters, deacons, and preachers working with a regional missioner who followed a number of congregations. In the months that followed Jim's tragic death, the leadership of the diocese which included the man who was recently chosen to be the new bishop proposed significantly changing the manner in which an Episcopal diocese made this selection - actually the "significantly" came later, well after the "process" was in motion. The planners were careful to dance along just inside the church's canons ("laws") in order to pull this off. The man they have selected is strongly influenced by Buddhism and ascribes to a more radical (I don't like using that word) version of Christianity. I wince at saying radical because of the polarization we are experiencing which I will get to below. Perhaps, if I paraphrase from one of his sermons last Fall. Anselm was an early church theologian who strongly emphasized atonement, humankind had fallen out of favor with God by our sinfulness, Jesus' crucifixion was necessary to wash us clean of our sin and bring us back into God's favor. The bishop-elect rejects that theology and instead puts forth the beliefs of Julian of Norwich who says that we are always within the love of God, that we have never fallen out of God's favor and that a loving God would not require the execution of his only beloved son to bring humanity back into his favor. I may have gotten some of the subtlety wrong, but it's a beginning.

Once the news hit the blogosphere tongues began to wag - questions regarding his Buddhism (he received a Buddhist lay ordination) and questions regarding the process. Sadly many of the main players in my chunk of cyberland fell into their respective camps without regard to the actual situation. "Conservatives" jumped on the ANTI bandwagon because of his Buddhism and "Liberals" jumped on the PRO bandwagon, in many cases because of the reaction of the ANTI crowd. Such is the intense polarization that exists in the church these days. As one who has known and worked with the man and witnessed the development of the "process" over the past 20 months, I was aghast at the reactions I received as I tried to raise important issues and concerns at some of the blogs I regularly visit. Comments posted at some of the more left leaning progressive blogs were blasted - I was accused of being paranoid, reactionary, etc. - despite actually living in the midst of the situation. Attempts at raising questions about the process at some of the conservative sites were dismissed because many there wanted only to overemphasize the man's supposed Buddhist credentials. For me, Truth was simply getting lost if it was ever even present.

Which leads me my primary point. This whole experience has saddened and frightened me. What does happen to Truth? Is Truth relative? If so then there really isn't a way to coalesce as a group around Truth. In fact, the web appears to enable this relativity. It is very easy to find a blog that mirrors your own Truth. The posts and comments essentially bounce back and forth until the crystal vibrates in its only relative harmony. Understanding isn't broadened, it contracts until it's a white hot coal of belief. IMHO this is true on both sides of any issue and is certainly true at the various spiritually themed blogs I visit. Even television news is drifting this way. Want to only hear things from a conservative view, watch Fox. More liberal? MSNBC.

What I don't quite understand though is the realization that 100 years ago, print media was notorious for this type of thinking. Newspapers were sought out because of their viewpoints. What I can't quite put a finger on is how we got from there to here and why here seems so much more scary. How do we transcend the polarization if all we are doing is throwing words back and forth at each other? Words that are ignored by the enemy. Perhaps this is the real reason that the Episcopal church is in decline. This is a church that grew out of an understanding for the need for a middle way. For centuries there as been a healthy tension in the Anglican church between the Protestant wing and the Anglo-Catholic wing. That tension is still very much in existence but the force that keeps the two poles spinning together seems to be breaking down and I fear that the two poles will one day fly apart leaving only nothingness in the here and now.

Broken Hearted Melody...NOT!

See that gal there on the right? That's Dawn. She was a doll my sister had when we were but little wee ones. On many occasions I played with my sister with her dolls. Yes, how typical. Dawn was smaller overall then Barbie. The really cool thing was she came with this special stand that fit into the center of a 45 RPM record so she'd spin to the music. Well, if you haven't already clicked on the button above to listen, do so now. This cut is the "B" side to Misty and I have loved it since I was a small child. This was one of our favorite songs (OK, maybe it was MY favorite song) to have Dawn perform to. See the depth of it at even a young age - not merely playing with dolls but creating entire drag-like performance for them no less! Alright, so you're probably wondering what the hell my point is here and it's coming...just enjoy the music and keep reading.

This song has always been with me-it's a great break up song, keeps a good upbeat tempo, has a little sauciness to it, it's simply awesome. In no ways a crack-out-the-razor-blades-my-life-is-over dirge. Those who have only recently gotten to know me are aware of my staunchly single hermity side. There was a large period of my life, however, where that was not the case. For many years I was in the "I'm-nothing-without-a-boyfriend" camp. I pursued them with a vengeance - probably why they ran the other way most of the time. My inner lesbian was present even back then. You know, have you heard the joke? "What does a lesbian bring on a second date?......A moving van." Scared many of them off - probably with good reason. Finally, when I was 31 I met this sweet guy. I pursued him valiantly - he had many guys interested. He once told me that the reason I got through was because I was a "gentleman." Ironically that's how my grandfather succeeded in wooing my grandmother. Truth be told, he was a wounded bird. I specialized in wounded birds - was attracted to wounded birds almost exclusively. Wounded birds are folks that are hurt, insecure, injured in some way or just severely damaged or broken. Want a severe example? When I was 27 I dated an HIV+ coke addict who actually stole from me and I had moved him into my apartment because he got kicked out where he was staying. Mind you the first night he didn't come home, I called the police. (very humiliating in 1990) The second time he didn't come home I changed the locks. I took his cd's to a used record store and recouped the value of what he had stolen and put his crap on the back porch for him to collect when he finally contacted me. Now THAT'S a wounded bird! This other guy wasn't wounded like that - he was wounded because he had been abused. We were together for about 1 1/2 years. It's safe to say he was the love of my life. I have since figured out what my needs are and what freaks me out and have realized I prefer being single. It took me a long time though to get there. I grieved this lost relationship for years. I moved to the U.P. to get out of the same city, hoping it would help me heal. It did. (That and the Lexapro, I'm sure). So what the hell is my point? This...

After reconnecting via e-mail a few years back, we finally met face to face for the first time in over 10 years this week. I was very anxious about the whole thing. I mean, I'm big as a house now; he, of course, looks almost unchanged from 10 years ago. I was afraid that it would be like in many of the sad songs - I'd see him in person and all the grief would come back like a tsunami. It didn't. Not even a little bit. In fact, I felt very little of anything but relief. We had a lovely couple of dinners. We laughed and reminisced. He looks great. He's doing well. In the end I wasn't self conscious at all. I am who I am and it really didn't matter what he thought of how I looked or how my life is arranged or where I'm living. It just didn't matter to me. Today, I feel exhilarated by the complete freedom I am feeling. It's that last little bit of doubt that has been vanquished. This is not to destroy the memory of what we had. He will continue to be the love of my life. We were there for each other at a period where we both needed each other. It just had a very short lifespan before it played itself out. That's all. As I recall there are only two bits of fiction that caused me to weep as I read them. This is a small fragment of one of them from For Whom The Bell Tolls by Hemingway:

But Maria has been good. Has she not?...Maybe that is what I am to get now from life. Maybe that is my life and instead of it being threescore years and ten it is forty-eight hours...So if your life trades its seventy years for seventy hours I have that value now and I am lucky enough to know it. And if there is not any such thing as a long time, nor the rest of your lives, nor from now on, but there is only now, why then now is the thing to praise and I am very happy with it.

If you're not familiar with the plot, he is an American fighting in Spain and knows he is likely not to survive the mission but has met this woman Maria. He realizes that a love can be complete and not be a forever and ever thing. I have that value now...completely. Peace, friends.

Sermon for Sunday, February 10, 2008

This is my first (and only so far) sermon that I delivered last year. As we approach the season of Lent I thought I would share it with you to help transition to this important church season.

Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11

Good morning.

I’ve been reading this book—it’s a contemporary attempt at a Victorian novel—and in it is this very minor character, a former soldier of the crown, one Colonel Leek—today we’d call him a disabled veteran—He sits in his wheelchair day in and day out in the front hall of the dilapidated tenement where he lives; and as it happens, Colonel Leek’s true passion remains war, and other outbursts of violence and disaster. Throughout the book, whenever he appears he is shouting out the latest bits of bad news he has found in his daily newspaper…Disastrous overturn of train! Gunpowder explosion on the Regent’s Canal! Steamer gone down off the Bay of Biscay! --the people who walk by stare a moment and then go on about their business…well, more on Colonel Leek in a moment.

Today is Episcopal Relief and Development Sunday. ERD was established in 1940 as the Presiding Bishop’s Fund for World Relief mainly to assist European refugees fleeing the war. At General Convention in 2000, the name was changed to Episcopal Relief and Development to more clearly reflect its growing focus on proactive development projects.

In this diocese, Burt Purrington is our ERD Coordinator and he has done a tremendous job of keeping us informed of the many ways ERD makes an impact around the globe. ERD focuses on four program areas: emergency relief and rebuilding, food security, primary health, and HIV/AIDS. They partner with Episcopal and Anglican churches and ecumenical organizations to serve suffering people in Latin America, Africa and Asia. In this country, ERD works with local dioceses after natural and human-made disasters to provide critical supplies, such as food, shelter, and medicine.

So what you may ask has this to do with Colonel Leek? Well, as I chewed over what I might say today, I thought of all the disasters that ERD responds to, which in turn reminded me of Colonel Leek and all his disasters, and then I realized that many of us live with our own Colonel Leek, often times parked right in our homes…I’m speaking of course of the Internet – whether you use Yahoo or AOL or Google as your home page, you know what I mean. We log on and there’s Colonel Leek spouting off little headlines concerning the latest disasters to hit the globe—Earthquake hits Peru!... Touring bus falls into ravine!... Fire rages through poor neighborhood!…and just like the other characters in my book, more often than not we stare a moment, maybe shake our heads, and then go on about our business. Of course, if you’re not linked up to the Internet, most news reports on television and radio often sound a lot like Colonel Leek themselves—and our response or lack of response is essentially the same.

And you may rightly ask, “But what can I do?” The temptation to do nothing is often very seductive. We feel overwhelmed by the scale of the devastation, we feel overwhelmed by the tenacity of the corruption, we feel overwhelmed by the intensity of the violence and hatred…and so we despair, and we become numb, and we do nothing—we succumb to the temptation to do nothing.

Giving in to temptation…it’s part of our human nature. In the Genesis reading this morning, the story of Adam and Eve eating of the forbidden fruit, giving in to temptation – albeit with a bit of peer pressure from the serpent—I used to think this was a story of how we got to be bad—sinful—however, in many traditions this story is seen in a different way, that this is a story of how we got to be human. In many ways, Adam and Eve were more pre-human, metaphorically living naked in the womb that was the Garden of Eden. With the knowledge of good and evil they became truly human.

And then we have the Gospel reading, Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter’s son, newly baptized and awakening to his calling, goes out into the desert to pray and cleanse and seek a transcendental vision. For forty days, he exists on next to nothing—no food, no shelter—and then he has his vision. The adversary comes to him with temptation—temptations of the body, temptations of doubt, and finally temptations of power and control. Satan is offering Jesus an apparently easy path to address the injustices of the world – a way to feed the hungry by turning rocks into bread, a way to convert the masses by dazzling them with awesome displays of infallibility, and finally the immediate possibility of a world theocracy under his leadership—take the shortcut to success and bring Israel and the world home to God. And Jesus says, “No!” Or rather, instead of giving in to temptation, Jesus says Yes to God’s way…Jesus says Yes to God’s way.

Paul in his letter to the Romans sees these two stories as a way to explain the wonderful saving grace of Christianity. First with Adam and Eve we get unredeemed humanity, suffering, and death; and with Jesus we are all redeemed…we get forgiveness and life everlasting—all because one succumbed to temptation and another resisted it. Paul was making a dramatic point as he worked to build up the church – his letter to the Romans is very black and white—the very human Adam and Eve, the very divine Jesus, disobedience…obedience, death…salvation…but what about us?

Our lives are lived out in the gray area in between…Our temptations are more mundane—the child who whoops it up in church, the adolescent who sneaks out after dark, the grownup who parks illegally just for a minute, or the middle aged man who eats the box of cookies anyway…Is it evil to succumb to these temptations? I don’t think so…

Is it evil to succumb to the temptation to do nothing? It has been said that “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for enough good people to do nothing.” On a grand scale I embrace that belief—yet, on a personal level it begins to lose its meaning…Is it evil when we succumb to the temptation to do nothing?...to walk past that homeless woman? To toss the solicitation from UNICEF into the trash unopened? To hear news of the latest tragedy and feel numb? No, I don’t believe these to be evil either. We could obliterate ourselves responding to every request for our time or money or love or empathy…we are human, …we often give in to temptation and we do nothing…but we also have the knowledge of good and evil and we try to do what we can and we often wish we could do more.

Evelyn Massaro of Public Radio likes to remind her listeners that all pledges matter no matter how small—they all make a difference. So the next time you give in to the temptation and do nothing and you begin to feel bad about it, remember the things that you do…you give money to the poor when you can and say a prayer for those homeless men and women when you can’t; you feed the hungry—by bringing in groceries for the food pantries or by cooking a meal for the soup supper--or you bring your friendship and share in the meal when you can’t…and when you plan your charitable giving for the year, try to set aside some money to give to Episcopal Relief and Development—and remember every dollar makes a difference.

I will leave you with this story…About two weeks after the 9/11 attacks, the late Stephen Jay Gould had eaten at a favorite restaurant in Lower Manhattan…the chef game him a bag with 12 apple brown betty desserts and asked him to give them to the workers at Ground Zero. In describing his experience of the chef’s gift and the fire fighters’ gratitude, he reasserted what he calls “The Great Asymmetry:” that “every spectacular incident of evil will be balanced by 10,000 acts of kindness, too often unnoted and invisible as the ordinary efforts of a vast majority.

So in your lives as you contribute to the next 10,000 acts of kindness…keep in mind that, like Jesus, you are not only saying No to the temptation to do nothing, more importantly you are saying Yes, to God’s way.

Amen.

Musings On Light

I like horizontal light. Does that make any sense? Possibly not if you are an urban dweller, but perhaps if you live in a more rural setting you understand. Right now I'm sitting in my great room looking out through the windows at the trees - the windows face east and so the sun is slowly setting behind the house. There's this large stripe of light that is cutting across all the bare maple trees. The bottom third of the trees are already in late afternoon shadow. On my way home from work, Mangum Road cuts through this big open meadow, perhaps 5-10 acres lined by trees. A previous owner decades ago allowed them to run the road through his property but not the electric so the meadow is unbroken by poles and wires. On occasion the light will be just right. Low hanging dark clouds, grey sky, a big swathe of late afternoon sun running across the trees on the meadow's periphery, and the lower portion and snow in shadow. Perhaps some day I'll figure out how to paint and try to visually capture what I'm describing. I guess I have Monet to thank for teaching me about looking at light. I went to an exhibit many years ago at the Art Institute of Chicago and splurged on the audio tour. I had never understood why he did all those damn haystack paintings. This particular exhibit was the largest collection shown in one place of the haystack paintings. What I learned was that Monet was not painting the haystacks, he was painting the light. Morning light, winter light, midday summer light, rainy day light. I finally understood. The exhibit also included many of his famous water lily paintings. To the end of the exhibit you enter a gallery with enormous versions of these paintings. I actually started to weep - doesn't that sound strange? Monet was slowly going blind. The only way he could see what he was doing was to increase the scale of his paintings. I was very moved by these huge, beautiful canvases created in desperation due to fading sight, diminishing light.

A year or so ago we were having a discussion at this church gathering. One woman, a retired college professor, was sharing her struggles with her faith. She spoke of her doubt - in particular doubt over what is told in the gospels regarding Jesus' life. Because she did not completely accept what was told as "gospel," her faith felt diminished. Before you think I've taken too severe of a left turn here, my Monet experience came to me in that moment. I explained my faith to the group using the story above. For me, the New Testament stories are like the haystacks in Monet's paintings. Whether or not Jesus was actually born in a stable in Bethlehem, whether or not the miracles described occurred literally as written, the words ascribed to his parables, his death, the experiences of the resurrection...all of these are like Monet's haystacks. The point of the paintings is not the haystacks but the light. For me these bits of scripture are less important than the gospels' light - how do these stories reveal the love that is God? Don't worry about whether or not you believe these things happened, take to heart what they teach you about compassion, humanity, the Way. To me, THAT is faith. Well, now the horizontal light that triggered this has faded. Yet, it's already 6PM and still light. The light grows stronger every day. That is part of what occurs in the natural world as Lent progresses, bursting forth with the light of Spring on Easter morning. Life, spirituality, God - it works so much better as poetry, art, metaphor and emotion. Leave facts and history to Caesar. Peace.

St. Valentine's Day

At first I was going to simply ignore this day after my clever posts on Twitter and Face Book. However, as I stood sipping my coffee letting the dogs outside for like the twelfth time this morning and watching them romp I felt the love in my heart for them and reconsidered. In my New Year's Day post I touched on expectations and I believe this is yet another holiday fraught with unfulfilled expectations. How many folks manage to actually achieve a near perfect Valentine's Day and how many more go to bed tonight disappointed? There are, of course, those who are "ALONE" who are unhappy in that situation who spend the entire peri-Valentine's period feeling neglected and second hand. Then there are the multitudes stuck in unhappy relationships - do they go through the motions today or do they ignore today and underscore their bitterness and anger. We can't forget the newly dating - terrified of doing too much and appearing overly vested or too little and snubbing. The list goes on and on. What has happened, I think, is that in worrying about the symbols of love we have forgotten love on this day. In typical American fashion the day has become quantified into dollars and cents and then measured out carefully against relationships or the lack thereof. Isn't it ironic that such a holiday can, in the end, cause so much sadness?

I stumbled across the valentine above while searching for an illustration for this post. As often happens, I snatched it up and then as I began to write I could see the symbolism that spoke to me. In my other posts on secular monasticm I have stated that part of the gift of singlehood is the unbinding of love that can be shared with a multitude rather than feeling it has to be focused on a single partner. I saw then that this particular image spoke to my sense of love - Cupid on the dove (a lovely symbol of peace) scattering the hearts to the wind to fall where they may.

So as I watched my four dogs romp with the neighbor's dog, Cedar, I felt this profound satisfaction. I live on a maple wooded acre, Cedar's "dad" has about 20 acres, across the road is 120 acres of woods, and my neighbors' that live behind with Chance, Yonka and Zaki, have about 25 acres. The dogs all run and play like a little neighborhood of kids. Chance and Cedar often come over for a visit and hang out with the pack. They are so content in this natural environment where they can be all that they desire as dogs. I love my dogs - they are LIKE my children, though I recognize they are not children. They are dogs, but they are not "only dogs" as some would put it. The love and joy I share with them is canine not human. I am their Alpha and we form a unit. So I choose to reshape this holiday into a canine celebration of love and belonging. How might you reshape this holiday to better reflect all the love in your lives?

Peace, my friends.

Somewhere In Time?

I love movies and books. In books, I'm a bit of an English major snob - my favorite writers are Dickens, Hemingway, Atwood, James, Doig, Banks, Kundera, Faulkner - with Bernard Cornwell, Patrick O'Brien, and C.S. Forester thrown in for good measure. I am particularly taken with the 19th Century and even Edwardian 20th century. The same holds true for movies - I am a sucker for a costume drama, period piece. Every time Sug' Avery hugs her Papa in the church and he hugs her back when I watch The Color Purple, every time Emma Thompson finally figures out that it isn't Hugh Grant that has married in Sense and Sensibility - tears and chills! I believe I am drawn to this time period and representations of this time period because of the manners of the time. It seemed that all social interaction had a set of rules, guidelines and expectations that helped you to maneuver through society. I am envious of that kind of social organization. I realize that I can harbor such a fantasy because I am a white male. That same social organization kept women, people of color, and the poorer classes subjugated - so I realize that there aren't "issues" with my fantasy. I often feel overwhelmed by people and expectations and manners (or the lack thereof) in our modern culture. By nature I am gregarious and friendly and compassionate. I find it very easy to reach out to people - and living in the Upper Peninsula that includes complete strangers. It is not uncommon up here to greet complete strangers on the street, in the halls of the hospital, or even while hiking the trails in the woods. Yet once an individual becomes part of my regular circle, life seems to get infinitely more complicated and the rules of conduct often seem like "anything goes." If I was living in a period of greater manners, I would know how to react to given situations and most of the individuals that I interact with would also know. Now we tolerate all kinds of behavior and have little or no recourse to put a comfortable stop to offense. Where am I going with all this? Well, I could start harping about the rudeness of store clerks and the horrible behavior of teens...those issues, however, have been problematic from one generation to the next. I'm thinking mainly about cyber etiquette. I recently had to "unplug" someone on FaceBook - my friendliness provoked an inappropriate friendship response from someone I hardly knew - I know he meant well, but it was startling and a bit frightening to receive a relatively expensive gift from someone who was essentially a stranger. I have read on Dan's blog of issues he has had with individuals hounding him on FB and he feeling unsure of how to proceed. Most recently I was called an unflattering name in the comments section of another blog where the community discussion can run fast and fierce. The discussion triggered my potato chip posts below and I made reference to my post at my blog in the comments section of this other blog. This individual seems to have taken offense - in cyber land it is even more challenging to catch when someone is "just kidding" - essentially calling me to the carpet for promoting my blog on someone else's blog. I hadn't thought I had done anything wrong and neither did the blog owner. Which gets me back to manners and rules...rules of engagement. As with everything, it seems, these feeling probably contribute to my hermity behavior; why I prefer dogs to humans; etc etc etc. Then again, perhaps I'm just intrigued by the 19th century because everyone had house servants...

More Thoughts on Solitude

In my post below on defining Secular Monastic I started out by talking about solitude. I thought perhaps I'd elaborate more on some of what I said.

First, yes, that's my road looking up the hill towards the "main road" about 1/4 mile away. This was taken in October 2005 as the leaves were about to hit peak. Anyway, as I mentioned I don't have television. When I moved to the woods I was able to test my theory - that I wouldn't miss it if I didn't hook it up - I was never a big watcher, more of a big surfer. My motivation was more thrift than spiritual. Yet certain things became evident the more I lived without. I was not subjected to a constant barrage of commercials telling me how my life wasn't measuring up so I needed to buy their product. I found I snacked much less because I also wasn't watching commercials for food - burgers, chicken, Olive Garden, etc. Most importantly my sense of fear diminished. Have you seen Bowling for Columbine by Michael Moore? I suspected that the documentary would be against gun ownership but it wasn't exactly. What Michael Moore discovered and shared through this film was the culture of fear we live under. Medical studies that tell you X will cause increased stroke or that allowing your children to do Y shows a correlation with delinquent behavior. On the news The Summer of the Shark - when in fact the total number of deaths that season was less than the average. War, violence, death, destruction all packaged to make their "news program" sell better. The cumulative effect though is living in fear - fear of violence, fear of inadequacy, fear of sickness, fear of death. The simple elimination of television broke that media cycle for me. It was liberating. Now I happen to own this great flat screen; however, it serves as a high quality video monitor for me on which I watch DVDs. We are approaching the season of Lent and although I am not usually one for "giving things up" (a negative action) I suggest you consider "giving up" television for Lent. Now those of you with children or uncooperative spouses may find this difficult. That doesn't mean you have to watch though. If you just can't do it then at least rent and watch Bowling For Columbine. It will make you think about the ways we are marketed to in order to provoke a fear response. Peace, my brothers and sisters.

Michael Comments On Secular Monasticism...

Alas, my comment was too long to post directly to your blog!I love that you've paired together two words which to the ordinary eye do not belong together. Rich new meaning, and a touch of irony! The word secular comes from Latin "that which is sown." You live in a place where most everything around you is sown- albeit (and the better for it) naturally sown. Generally the word secular refers to the things in the mundane world around us, not the "sacred" stuff usually associated with the spiritual matter we create for our religions. Your mundane/secular world is the land and the creatures and creation upon it... but now we have the word monastic, which implies a spiritual lifestyle based on order. In your case, however, the order "imposed" upon you is not that of religious authority, but that which you have chosen your self (which you have described wonderfully in your four points) and which comes from the natural order of the world around you. I suspect that you find a great deal of spiritual connection in the place where you do your living. In that which is "sown around you" you find your deepest spiritual life- a secular monastic. n'est pas?

COMMENT: Mike and I were very good friends as children beginning maybe around 2nd or 3rd grade when we were in Cub Scouts together. Face Book and the Internet are bringing us back together as friends. I suspect we grew apart many years ago as we each took separate paths in dealing with sexuality. In using the "angel on one shoulder/devil on the other" image - he chose one path and I chose the other. However, the wheel can turn either direction and we both find ourselves now in very similar places. Thanks for the comments, Mike.