Finding Jesus, Discovering Self: Passages to Healing and Wholeness - Softcover

Goldman, Caren; Dols, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0819221996 ISBN 13: 9780819221995

Verlag: Morehouse Publishing, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

As we meet Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospel narratives, we come face-to-face with our own deepest selves.

Finding Jesus, Discovering Self invites readers to see Jesus with new eyes and then explore, know, experience, and live questions about how 2000-year-old stories and events happen in the world and in our lives today. Each chapter focuses upon a passage from the Gospels. A narrative by one of the authors recalls a personal experience reflecting the ancient text. Questions to which there are no "right" answers offer multi-dimensional opportunities to explore the stories and wonder. Contemporary poetry and prose open new doors to meeting Jesus as a first century Jew and discovering creative, compelling, and challenging possibilities for one's own story, self, and relationship to God.

Written by a Jewish author and an Episcopal priest, Finding Jesus, Discovering Self is a perfect volume for personal reflection or group study, and a unique resource for the Lenten season.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Caren Goldman is an award-winning author, retreat leader, consultant, and journalist who specializes in writing about spirituality, psychology, health, religion, and the arts and humanities. Across the Threshold, Into the Questions: Discovering Jesus, Finding Self was cowritten with her husband, Ted Voorhees, an Episcopal priest and also a professional writer and retreat leader. She lives in Florida and North Carolina.

William Dols, an Episcopal priest, has his PhD in Biblical studies and psychology from Graduate Theological Union and University of California Berkeley. He is the author of Just Because It Didn't Happen: Sermons and Prayers As Story, creator and editor of the Bible Workbench, an acclaimed preacher, and a popular retreat and seminar leader. He lives in Virginia.

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Finding Jesus, Discovering Self

passages to healing and wholeness

By CAREN GOLDMAN, WILLIAM DOLS

Church Publishing Incorporated

Copyright © 2006 Caren Goldman and William Dols
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8192-2199-5

Contents

About the Authors, viii, 
Acknowledgments, x, 
Foreword by Robert Scott, xi, 
Introduction, xiii, 
Suggestions for Using This Book, xix, 
1. Leaving Home, 1, 
2. Beginning the Journey, 8, 
3. Living with Wilderness, 15, 
4. Returning Home, 25, 
5. Weathering Storms, 33, 
6. Speaking One's Truth, 40, 
7. Loving with All, 47, 
8. Standing Up Straight, 54, 
9. Binding Wounds, 61, 
10. Crossing Boundaries, 70, 
11. Choosing Life, 80, 
12. Discovering God's Kingdom, 87, 
13. Entering the Heart of the Matter, 96, 
14. Betraying Trust, 103, 
15. Epilogue: Breeding New Algebras, 112, 
Endpapers, 121, 
Notes, 129, 
Resources, 133, 
Bibliography, 139, 
Permissions, 145, 
Index, 147, 

CHAPTER 1

LEAVING HOME

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. (Mark 1:9)

Reflections

BY CAREN

Not long ago, my husband, Ted, and I sat on piles of boxes we had just packed and wondered how many different ways we would or could say "Good-bye" to fifteen years of life in Toledo, Ohio, before saying "Hello" to a new job and other beginnings that awaited us in Northampton, Massachusetts. Smiling, Ted recalled that we originally planned to stay in Toledo only two years, but hour by hour, day by day, and eventually year by year we marked an additional thirteen off our calendars.

For us, the rust belt city of Toledo was only to be a stopping-off point where we would begin our relationship as husband and wife, advance our careers, and make plans to "get out of Dodge" and go to some unknown place. In retrospect, life in three different houses in Toledo became all of that. But it also became something we never imagined. It also became home.

Thomas Wolfe's heart-wrenching conclusion that "you can't go home again" assumes that for all of us naming that which we call home and then leaving it is one of life's defining moments. The decision to stay home or leave home reminds us that one of the blessings and the curses of having free will and being a choice maker is that there will always be roads not taken in our lives.

Most obvious during our intense rush to pack up and sell our house to get to Massachusetts in sixty days or less was the remembrance of leaving other homes as a part of growing up. Remembrances of physically leaving home as house, family, neighborhood, or country; remembrances of metaphorically leaving home as letting go and moving on from the emotional ties and spiritual bonds that define us.

From my past leavings, I now know that each of us must face decisions about our good-byes to places and people, jobs and careers, hopes and dreams, as well as to disappointments, hurts, rejections, and betrayals that may haunt us from the past. Indeed, sometimes we choose, unconsciously, to leave old assumptions about how life is and what God and religion and worship may be about. Other times, we leave and no one in the world knows we have left but us. And then there are those times when we ourselves may not even know we have departed. That happened to me in a previous marriage, when for years my mind and spirit resided elsewhere, in a job that had clearly not been me for a long time, and even in a pew where I sat for years without ever really being there.

By the same token I also know that because letting go can be difficult, painful, or inconvenient, we sometimes stay rather than say good-bye. We stay, holding on to old habits and hopes, longings and loves, notions and beliefs about manners and morals that are more in the marrow than the brain. We stay, circling around and ignoring the possibility that late in life fears, hopes, and certainties from childhood that still drive our adult decisions and fashion our attitudes will surprise us.

While making the choice to stay in Toledo or to leave for Northampton, Ted and I experienced tension in our relationship as well as within ourselves. To hold on or to let go became a yin-yang experience pulling our bodies, minds, and spirits in both directions. Good-bye and Hello both have a cost and a promise, we acknowledged as though for the first time. But it wasn't the first time. The thoughts, feelings, aha's, and unknowings were most familiar. After all, we experienced many variations on the theme when we each decided to be in relationship, marry, and create a home—when we each decided to say "Good-bye" to the last day of one life and "Hello" to the first day of a new one.

"In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee...." Not everyone assumes that Jesus experienced this tension of deciding about staying or leaving. There are those who read Jesus' life as carefully scripted by God from before the beginning and assume that he was simply being faithful to what was foreordained. But consider the possibility that Jesus, like you and me, was faced with wide-ranging choices about "Hello" and "Goodbye" in his life, and that like us he, too, experienced tension when deciding, "Should I stay or should I leave?"

Assuming that Jesus of Nazareth is like us, wonder about him deciding not to leave Nazareth but to stay there. Countless Sunday school stories and sermons have told us that he did not leave until he was an adult—perhaps thirty years old. Hence, it is reasonable to suppose that Jesus contemplated leaving Nazareth earlier and more than once but chose instead to stay.

The point of such an exploration is not to grade Jesus and judge whether he made the right or wrong choice. It is not about evaluating his timing or about whether he should have done it sooner or later. It is not even about our doing it the way Jesus did. What the Jesus questions can do is spotlight some of the Nazareths in my life and yours—here and now. Speculating on Jesus' choice-making process may well reflect the importance of our own Nazareths and thus awaken some new awareness of the ways you and I define who and what we are and who and what we will become.

Moreover, once we can name some of our Nazareths—especially the one that contains and holds us either secure and comfortable or trapped and bound—we begin taking our first step toward finding Jesus as a way to discover ourselves. A friend wrote a journal article entitled "It's Nice to Know What You're Doing." It is more than nice. It can be life saving and life giving to name our Nazareth and ask, "Is this nurturing or killing me?"

To stay or to leave? To hold on or to let go? To say "Good-bye" or "Hello"? In the midst of all those carefully labeled boxes, Ted and I knew it was not simply about geography or moving vans. Henry David Thoreau said that he "traveled extensively in Concord." Journeys that have been awaiting us for a long time often start and end in the same town or under the same roof, around a familiar dining room table, or standing before our bathroom mirror. The choice to stay or leave begins by risking consciousness of what our Nazareth is and whether or not to name it a city of Life.

Wanderings and Wonderings

"In those days Jesus came from Nazareth...."

If Jesus came from Nazareth, it means he left his hometown.

• Why might he have chosen to leave?

• Who and what did he leave behind?

• What could he gain by acting on that decision?

• What might he lose?

• What is the cost of his not leaving?

• And the promise of his leaving?

• Do you believe Jesus just picked up one day and left Nazareth, or do you believe he may have thought about leaving or actually attempted to leave at other times and then decided to stay instead?

Nazareth for Jesus was a geographical place, but Nazareth can also be a symbolic way of thinking about jobs, relationships, institutions, convictions, addictions, securities, obsessions, fears, and hopes.

Name your Nazareth—perhaps one of several.

• List the promises, benefits, and gains of staying there.

• List the costs, downsides, and losses of staying.

• And what about the alternatives—the costs, losses, and downsides of leaving as well as the benefits, gains, and promises?

Put a symbol of your Nazareth on the floor. It could be a drawing, a legal contract, a household or office item, a piece of jewelry, a rock, a rope, or anything that says "Nazareth" to you.

Straddle this representation of your Nazareth and close your eyes. Imagine yourself leaving it, and when ready, take some steps forward. Note how you feel.

Now once more straddle your Nazareth, and with your eyes closed imagine staying. Do not move. Stay as long as you want. Again, note how you feel.

Stand astride your Nazareth one more time. With your eyes closed, imagine you are a scale holding the option of staying in one hand and the option of leaving in the other.

• Which hand feels heavier?

• What might that weight tell you about your Nazareth?

• And concerning your Nazareth, what more might you now know about your choices and your process for deciding what to do?

Mirrors

For all that has been—Thanks!

To all that shall be—Yes! —Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers. —M. Scott Peck, Abounding Grace: An Anthology of Wisdom

When a dream takes hold of you, what can you do? You can run with it, let it run your life, or let it go and think for the rest of your life about what might have been. —Patch Adams, in the film Patch Adams

There comes a time in life when there is nothing else to do but go your own way.... He had to take the big leap into the unknown far away from the safety of his reef. In order to find the real purpose in his life, Daniel Dolphin had to set aside everything that limited him. —Sergio Bambaren, The Dolphin: The Story of A Dreamer

Variation on a Theme by Rilkeby Denise Levertov

A certain day became a presence to me; there it was, confronting me—a sky, air, light: a being. And before it started to descend from the height of noon, it leaned over and struck my shoulder as if with the flat of a sword, granting me honor and a task. The day's blow rang out, metallic—or it was I, a bell awakened, and what I heard was my whole self saying and singing what it knew: I can.

From Girl with a Pearl Earringby Tracy Chevalier

When her eyes fell on the palette knife a shiver ran through me. I took a step forward at the same time as she moved to the cupboard and grabbed the knife. I stopped, unsure of what she would do next.

He knew though. He knew his own wife. He moved with Catharina as she stepped up to the painting. She was quick but he was quicker—he caught her by the wrist as she plunged the diamond blade of the knife towards the painting.... Catharina struggled but he held her wrist firmly, waiting for her to drop the knife. Suddenly she groaned. Flinging the knife away, she clutched her belly. The knife skidded across the tiles to my feet then spun and spun, slower and slower, as we all stared at it. It came to a stop with the blade pointed at me.

I was meant to pick it up. That was what maids were meant to do—pick up their master's and mistress's things and put them back in their place.

I looked up and met his eye, holding his grey gaze for a long moment. I knew it was for the last time. I did not look at anyone else....

I did not pick up the knife. I turned and walked from the room, down the stairs and through the doorway.... I got to the street and I began to run. I ran down the Oude Langedkijck and across the bridge into Market Square.

Only thieves and children run.

I reached the center of the square and stopped in the circle of tiles with the eight-pointed star in the middle. Each indicated a direction I could take.

I could go back to my parents.

I could find Pieter at the Meat Hall and agree to marry him.

I could go to van Ruijven's house—he would take me in with a smile.

I could go to van Leeuwenhoek and ask him to take pity on me.

I could go to Rotterdam and search for Frans.

I could go back to Papists' Corner.

I could go into the New Church and pray to God for guidance.

When I made my choice, the choice I knew I had to make, I set my feet carefully along the edge of the point and went the way it told me walking steadily.

The Journeyby Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice— though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations— though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice, which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do— determined to save the only life you could save.

CHAPTER 2

BEGINNING THE JOURNEY

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." (Mark 1:9–11, emphasis added)

Reflections BY CAREN

As always, my heart began to pound when the phone rang at 10:37 on a frosty December night, just a fortnight into Advent, just a week beyond lighting Hanukah candles, just days before the winter solstice. Years of living with a clergyman had taught me that an unexpected late-night call rarely bore good tidings.

As I watched Ted absorb the news, drop his jaw, ask, "What happened?" and say, "Oh no," hang up in silence, and gather his thoughts, I held my breath. "A large bale of hay rolled on Harry's partner, Jimmie," he finally reported. "Jimmie is dead."

Forty minutes up the road, the police, emergency medical responders, and Harry stood waiting for us next to the dark red barn and white clapboard farmhouse that the partners had purchased a mere month earlier. Earlier enough for them to enjoy a first Thanksgiving on their Promised Land; earlier enough to resettle the three hundred Icelandic sheep that Jimmie shepherded 24/7 no matter what the weather in the outer world or in his inner one.

Back inside the house, Harry sat amid boxes and baggage still to be unpacked. "I know that I'll feel very small again in a few days," Harry said, nodding his head. "But right now all I can do is praise God. I feel so thankful for all of God's love and grace. It's big. It's very big and fills me."

Big? Love? Grace? What grace? What "grace" could one find in a place where the police wouldn't even allow Harry to kneel beside his forty-three-year-old companion because the district attorney had yet to "check it out"? And because the DA hadn't arrived, Jimmie, the retired ballet dancer, who was once limber, graceful, and able to leap above audiences and over hill and dale, now had to just be—alone and frozen at a distance—as Ted recited last rites in a deep, solemn voice. As the sheep in the barn bleated and as the dogs watching over them barked. And as a disinterested policeman held a lantern projecting a long beam onto hands enveloping a worn, rain-stained prayer book, and then continued on—onto, over, and past Jimmie and into the blackness beyond.

Because of health-related issues, Harry, a playwright and former New York ad executive, could neither tend the sheep nor drive a car. Dependent on Jimmie to drive him forty miles to supermarkets, to Ted's church, to other people, to the world at large, it seemed likely that Harry would be unable to keep the farm. So what was this quality Harry so poignantly and generously named "Grace"? And why couldn't I see her as he did in the midst of such an inexplicable tragedy?

"All Jimmie felt called to be at this point in his life was a shepherd. And he got to do that before he died. He got to do that and live on this farm for one wonderful month, and Jimmie felt blessed," Harry said. "He was blessed. He was blessed by God's grace."

Whenever I hear the hymn "Amazing Grace," I get goose bumps. I know I'm not alone when I wonder why it gets under my skin. But I assume it's because the words speak universal truths about my yearnings and yours. Truths that can lead us to real rivers flowing with healing waters as well as metaphorical ones. Rivers that flow in religious institutions, spiritual communities, or medical and recovery centers—places that invite us to seek a Higher Power for the sake of healing and wholeness. Rivers that flow through our towns and cities or through forests and even deserts and help to sustain us and cleanse our real and imagined wounds and transgressions. And rivers that take the form of the gushes of excitement we feel coursing through every fiber of our being when we stop and listen to still, small voices that call us to leave our Nazareths to become diligent shepherds of our wildest and deepest desires.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Finding Jesus, Discovering Self by CAREN GOLDMAN, WILLIAM DOLS. Copyright © 2006 Caren Goldman and William Dols. Excerpted by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Morehouse Publishing
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2006
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0819221996
• ISBN 13: 9780819221995
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 178
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar