My Wonderings

My seminary professor, Charlie Cook, always told us that the real Vestry Meeting took place afterward in the parking lot. It didn’t take me long to realize, once again, the truth and wisdom of another Charlie-ism. After the meeting is adjourned, people gather and say what they really think about the agenda. Thoughts are shared that were not expressed earlier because of any number of reasons. Maybe they didn’t want to be the only one to appear contrary. Or maybe they were confused and didn’t want to appear clueless. Sometimes, it might be because the person didn’t feel that their opinion would be heard in the meeting anyway or that they could influence the discussion with the previously gathered group.

Whatever the motivation or motivations behind this dynamic, the point is that many times the most critical conversations take place beyond the “official” setting of the conference room. What Charlie was not able to anticipate in his caution was that the parking lot would eventually extend into the virtual realm of the World Wide Web. But the power of social media and web 2.0 has proven to be a game changer. And it would be foolish and shortsighted for the Church to ignore this phenomena.

“Social media refers to activities, practices, and behaviors among communities of people who gather online to share information, knowledge and opinions using conversational media” (Safko & Brake). Web 2.0 refers to recent technologies developed on the web that enable average computer users to interact with one another easily and cheaply. One year ago, I only used my computer as a word processor and to occasionally research a topic to settle an argument with my husband . Today, I connect with long lost friends on Facebook, I meet fellow like-minded Anglicans all over the world on Twitter and I publish my thoughts and experiences, however un-extraordinary or un-clever they may be, on this blog to be read by anyone that has an internet connection. Today, I use my computer to engage others.

It is the ability to engage others, parishioners and seekers, that are meeting on the virtual church parking lot that makes learning about and participating in social media worth every Church leader’s time and energy. No one could argue that one of the primary purposes of the Church is to communicate; we are in the business of spreading the Word. Today, we can proclaim beyond the spheres of the pulpit, tracts, newsletters and even e-mail. From the first days of the Church’s existence, she organized in order to bear one another’s burdens, comfort and care for those in the community, and strive to solve social ills. Today, we can collaborate beyond geographical, financial, and organizational barriers of the past. We can exercise the ministry of teaching and counsel to more people and in more dynamic ways. And as anyone who has seen a LOLcats picture can testify, we can have fun doing it.

Businesses are scrambling to learn how to utilize these technologies to benefit their profit margins and there are a gazillion examples of successful social media campaigns. There are also a number of cases that demonstrate how social media can be harmful and destructive to the reputations of both products and people . Social media is the proverbial two-edged sword. But like fire, water, and the Holy Spirit, it is unwise to ignore it just because you don’t understand how to embrace it.

In The Social Media Bible, the authors provide a series of self-assessment questions for the business manager. I have adapted these questions for clergy:

Social Media Inside Your Parish:

• Would committees and guilds in your parish be more effective if they could communicate more quickly and precisely with one another?
• Would committees and guilds in your parish be more productive if they were able to work in a more collaborative environment?
• Could parish community life be improved by increasing the fun quotient?
• Could discipleship training and development be improved?
• Are your parishioners fully engaged in the mission of your Church?

Social Media Directed Outside Your Parish:

• Do you have a strong relationship with your neighborhood/town community?
• Do you know public names, preferences, and needs as they relate to your evangelistic and outreach goals?
• Do you know public feelings about your parish, the Episcopal Church or Christianity in general?
• Have you ever asked the public to tell you of opportunities through which you could provide hospitality or service to the town?
• Would the town welcome an opportunity to help you grow?
• Are there activities in your parish that would provide amusement or entertainment for the public?
• Do you currently do anything to educate the public about the programs offered in your parish?
• Would the public respond positively to an opportunity to learn more about the Episcopal Church?
• If asked, would the average parishioner strong recommend your parish to a friend?
• Do many of your parishioners strongly recommend your parish?

I am a cradle Episcopalian. This is a term some use in an elitist way, similar to FFV (First Families of Virginia).  It connotes a legitimacy, an authority, a  really real-nes. After serving on numerous Episcopal church staffs, there’s an additional connation to which I associate the label — a sense of stuckness, a rigidity, a conservative ecclesiology uninterested in new perspectives. And God forbid someone suggest to a cradle Episcopalian that the baptismal font be moved to another location in the church.

As a cradle Episcopalian, I was naively comfortable with my unquestioned, theological perspectives until I went away to college and met some evangelicals in Campus Crusade for Christ. They wanted to know if I was saved; if I knew Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.  I was baffled that my membership in the Episcopal Church did not satisfy their soteriological criteria.   Apparently, I needed to recite a formulaic prayer and if I didn’t remember the exact day that I had uttered this prayer, then I could bet my bottom dollar (or worse, my eternal life) that my name was not written in The Book. It didn’t seem to be relevent that I regularly prayed to God or received the Eucharist as if I thought Jesus was my Lord and Savior. That didn’t count.

By this time, I had eighteen years of experience as a girl, playing with other girls, and I knew that the strong and mighty of the playground could be quite tyrannical and gnostic about the rules that granted admittance to the In Crowd or relegated one to the Out Crowd of the stupid and uncool. Basically, I was being taught a theology of God-As-A-Mean-Girl. But what did I know? I was afraid I had been delusional in my snobbish sense of status or stuck in stupidity and it was possible that we cradle Episcopalians weren’t as theologically with it as my evangelical, mostly non-denominational or Baptist friends. So I wrote that prayer down and recited it very carefully, word-for-word, every dot and tittle attended to deligently. [Don't even get me started with how I learned how many water molecules a valid baptism requires! and yes, I got that checked off my Things To Do list as quick as possible.]

Years later, after spending time getting as many people off the divine hook with my handy-dandy prayer and 4 spiritual laws, I found my way back to the Episcopal Church. Imagine my surprise when I heard, right there in the middle of the liturgy of Baptism, very BillBright-ish language. Apparently, the Episcopal Church had been ‘with it’ all along. Of course, that didn’t resolve the problem that it was mostly little, tiny episcopalians of cradle-age that were being saved by these words; words being said by someone else on the behalf of another. By this time, I was comfortable trusting the authority and traditions of the Episcopal Church. But I wanted to know exactly what we believed the divine rules to be. And not just about salvation. I wanted to know the rules about what we can or cannot say about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit; about sin, satan, sacraments, truth, confession, forgiveness; about speaking in tongues, contemplative prayer, social morality and social justice.  I didn’t want to be caught short by the next inquiring evangelical, or fundamentalist, or pentecostal.

I wanted to represent the Episcopal church well. So I started asking … and I started hearing, over and over again, “read the Book of Common Prayer.” As a recently re-re-baptized, re-re-born, re-convert, I was more than a little uncomfortable with the fingers pointing me to the Book of Common Prayer rather than the King James. But that’s who we are! Literally. My advisors were telling me to go to the prayer book because of the ancient and abiding principle, lex orandi, lex credendi, what we believe is what we pray. At first, this was not very satisfying. I wanted something strongly confessional in nature. I wanted something very black and white, very simple and very straightforward. But the Church, in her wisdom, knew better.

What the Church knew and had prepared through her liturgy, traditions and sacraments was that eventually I would need the mature solid food that is the ambiguous, paradoxical,  yes – and nature of theological truths.  The Episcopal Church (Anglicanism) was born out of the tension caused by the extremes of catholicism and the extremes of protestanism. She knew that it was wiser to wax poetic when talking of things divine and mysterious and beyond comprehension. She knew that in every sentence uttered as Truth there is also a grain of  ’not so’.  So can we say nothing or anything about something as important as God and salvation and eternal life?  How do we speak of such slippery stuff? My seminary professor, Dr. Bill Green, said, with just a tip of his tongue in cheek, that we should always ’sing’ the creeds to keep us from ever forgetting their non-prosaic nature.  Otherwise, we find ourselves in cross-hairs of the heretic police.

The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, The Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori, found herself in the cross-hairs recently when she said:

The overarching connection in all of these crises has to do with the great Western heresy – that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God. It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus. That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of being.

I was listening to her address live via the internet and when I heard this I thought, “Halleluiah! There is a God!”  Then I thought, “Praise the Lord, maybe there is some theology out there that I can hang my hat on.”  Then, I thought, “Hell yeah, mamma said it ‘cuz it needed to be said.” Then, I thought, “Oh shit! It is about to hit the fan.”  For this and a few other reasons, the Presiding Bishop is getting vilified by the religious right. It’s the fear of that vicious and vitrioloic attack that has kept me silent in the past. But I am so grateful for her courage to speak out and risk sharing her understanding of the truth that I feel compelled to hereby, metaphorically, stand beside her and proclaim “Amen.”

Let me assure —  real quick and right now — to anyone who is ready to quote verses from the Book of Romans at me, that I, too, appreciate the authority of the Bible.  But we have to quote the entire Bible because the entire Bible is the story of salvation, not just Paul’s Roman Road.  And that biblical story is a story about a people’s salvation, not an anthology of individual salvations strung together like a pearl necklace. It wasn’t Mr. Abraham’s salvation that mattered so much. It was the entire nation of Israel. It mattered so much that narratives about it were remembered and passed down. It mattered so much that Jesus is proclaimed savior of the world.  It mattered so much that learned people would devote a lifetime to studying it.

It is the theological doctrine of salvation is called soteriology. It is big. It is complex. It is a doctrine that has developed for centuries and continues to develop. St. Paul was not the first soteriological theologian. He inherited some good material from Isaiah. Athanasius, Augustine, and Anselm did some pretty impressive thinking on the subject before Luther nailed his salvific thesis. And with all due respect to my friends of the reformed tradition, the subject of salvation was not closed on the Wittenberg door. Barth, Bultmann, Gutierrez, Kung and Moltmann are just a few worthy examples of the exemplary thinkers on the matter. And not one of them ever concluded that the Answer was as simple and as easy as swearing an oath-like-prayer. Nor did any of them imply that this was an individual, personal or private matter. There certainly is an element of  individual choice and free will that is relevent but it isn’t the only thing that is part of this subject. The entire created order is part of the subject.  Faith certainly is a critical element, but so is grace. Works may not be the sole criteria, but they are certainly a part. And part of the work we are called to do is to think and to think as well as we can, so that at the end of our days, we might hear the One who created us thoughtful folk say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” In the meantime, go “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” And I mean that in the poetic, lyrical, sing-y way that also includes me, and others, those who have gone before us, and those who have yet to come, working, collaborating together, God’s earthly think tank.

One of the most heart-wrenching, gut-wrenching aspects of hospital chaplaincy is watching the panic-stricken face of an elderly person who suddenly and unexpectedly loses their spouse of, say, fifty some-odd years. There is a moment in that early stage of the grief process that the survivor realizes that they don’t know how to live without their companion or even if they want to live. I don’t mean in the sense that the pain is so great that life is unbearable. That is a horror shared by many different types of survivors in sudden death situations. I’m talking about a realization that dawn on widows who have lived so long and so richly at the side of a life-partner, that their entire world-view is dependent upon their mutual perspective. I’m not talking about when a survivor becomes aware that there are certain life functions that they now have to learn, such as balancing the checkbook or doing the laundry. Though, that is a real and difficult aspect of loss. I’m talking about a dawning realization that one no longer knows how to be without the other.  I’m talking about something on the level of breathing; of involuntary biological systems.

When I first became aware of this dynamic I was awe-struck by the power of a love that is so pervasive and long-lasting. I was awed by the psychological defenses that are necessarily built up to protect one from ever imagining life without their lover at their side. These widows were all smart, grounded, psychologically healthy people. They knew that no one lived for ever. They had watched their friends die and their friends survive. But they didn’t know what they didn’t know. It is an impossible knowing in a love this profound. When I first became aware of this dynamic I was afraid to look at it, afraid to be in its presence; because I, too, could not imagine for them a future. I was afraid I would fall to pieces and add to their pain. But I could no more leave them alone or pretend I didn’t notice what I saw. I just had to take a leap of faith and go over the edge.  And when I did step into that scary, frightening free-fall space with them, I stepped in to the Kingdom of God.

I stepped into that absolute future, the sphere of the impossible, terra incognita. This is the realm that God beckons us to join her; where you must leave all your known resources at the door. In this kingdom, there is only room for faith, hope and love. None of our past experiences or knowledge can help us here; for each time we enter, we must go empty handed. For we cannot truly know hope if we have not known hopelessness; we cannot recognize love if we have never known utter disregard; we cannot know faith if we’ve never known doubt. It is in this absolute future where the wild things are. It is in this land of unlikeness where Beauty falls in love with the Beast, where things that were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new. It is where the Impossible becomes possible. It is where the lion lays down with the lamb.

Have you ever had to walk into this Impossible Future? When? What happened? What did you find there?

What other images (songs, photos, art, literature, poetry) can you share that helps us to understand this Absolute Future from the foreseeable kind of future?

Many people have been wondering with me about the purpose of Twitter. The Rev. Chuck Culpepper, of MS, likened it to the CB Radio of the Millenium; just a platform that allows many people to broadcast to many people. And it is that; but so much more. Back in the “BreakerBreakerGoodBuddy” days of old, one had to find a channel that was both static-free and one that your friends or others of value to you were also utilizing. With Twitter, static distraction is eliminated. Because of the search function, the number of available Twitter “channels” is equivalent to the total possible permutations of keys on the keyboard (letter/number/symbol.) Plus, there is no limit imposed by physical distance to a signal tower. Take a moment to wrap your brain around the implications! From anywhere in the world, anybody with internet access and a computer or smart phone can come together and have a conversation in real time. The only thing missing in Twitter (and I’m sure that will soon be resolved) is translating languages to your preference.

Those of us following the Episcopal Church General Convention 2009 created a “channel” entitled #ecgc. The acronym was for Episcopal Church General Convention. The # symbol is called a hashtag in twitter and it is used to indicate that this particular permutation of keystrokes is a deliberate combination formed for a specific group to track a conversation. We immediately realized that there were a few other streams of conversation about the convention being made so we formed a hub to gather all these streams together. Thus, the “Twub” was created at www.twubs.com/ecgc. This was a godsend for me; I didn’t have to remember to use my hashtag when I sent a message because it automatically added it for me. I could see the thumbprints of the pictures, videos and webpages that were linked with people’s messages without having to open the link at all. This made it easy to filter what I wanted to explore further. I could see a cool visual of our developing internet community through a grid of the faces/image associated with each Twitter account.

You may be wondering about the tweeps (people) who were part of this gathering. There were clergy and lay, conservative and liberal, young (20s) and not-so-old (60s), gay and straight, lovers of TEC and haters of TEC, attendees of convention and at-home folk like me. It was (go-figure) a gathering made up of folk much like the church! On the first day, we had a slam of porn spam that would have turned a blue-haired white. But that was quickly resolved by the Twub company who were probably more horrified and shocked than us Episcopalians! And we did have a “troll” try to impersonate “815″ but he or she was quickly exposed and we all campaigned to have that account terminated. If anything, that troll only accomplished bonding our group of disparate Anglicans together during a very contentious week.

And I know (from the many tweets of others) that I am speaking for many people when I say that there have been a lot of transformative moments in our little byte of the Twitterverse. Personally, I had an extraordinary exchange with a fellow priest from the diocese of TX who is a conservative greatly fearing the direction this convention is taking. We shared our stories, albeit in little 140 character chapters at at time. And in our exchange, I was healed a little bit more from some old wounds.

I witnessed folk ask for forgiveness when emotions got the best of them. I witnessed the previously uncomforted assure the previously comfortable that there would always be a warm welcome offered. I witnessed our group self-regulate by calling someone out when their tone became snarky. The group self-corrected when inaccurate information was given. The group collaborated when someone requested information that was not accessible to them. Our group self-organized with some folk volunteering to give play-by-play commentary for those without access to the GC HUB live feed. We even had internet DJs tweet dedicated song links to us. Some of our group were wondering if we could continue an online network of Episcopalians when convention concluded. To that I say: “That’s What I’m Talking About!!” Sign up at Episcopalians.pbworks.com to stay informed of our growing network.

And Warren, thanks for believing! Kurt and Joyce, thanks for making it happen. And to all my new friends: gideony, WhatOneCanDo, Kvoets, ktkimble, CarlosRAlvarado, scottagunn, JosephPMatthews, Liturgy, swancommarachel, gaytheologian, AuntScilly, bgclick, franklogue, davidrpeet, putmeinabox, GRobit625, loribythesea, FredinAtlanta, chaplain_mdiv10, mooregardening, Floridagordon, ktkimble, rrchapman, johnleesandiego, JeffreyShy, vagabondfaith, and a bunch more … thanks for being Church for me this week.

When I was growing up, the Sunday school children who were celebrating their birthdays in the upcoming week knelt at the altar rail for a special blessing by the priest. The priest would lay his warm, big hands on my head and ask God to “bless and guide me as my days increase; to strengthen me when I stand; comfort me when discouraged or sorrowful and raise me up when I fall.” What an amazing request: that God would pick me up if I fell down. Boy, that would help matters! I was so hopeful that God really would pick me up if I fell down. I hoped my brother and sisters would be there when it happened so they could see how much God loved me.  I hoped I’d remember to say “Thank You” afterward and  to be charming and memorable when we finally met.

Then I wondered why God hadn’t picked me up off the ground up to this point in my life if that’s what gods were supposed to do. I wondered if I had to fall in a terrible manner before God would take time out of (his) busy day to help me to my feet. Maybe I had to fall down a cliff and get snagged in a crag or something equally dramatic dramatic to warrant such extraordinary divine attention. After all, I had seen the picture of God’s son taking care of that lamb. I wondered if lambs were more worthy of God’s help than little girls like me who usually fell down because I was doing something stupid. Like running around the pool deck when I had been told many times that it was dangerous. Or falling out of a tree because I grabbed a limb that only a novice tree-climber would think could hold them. Or I was reading a library book while walking in line back to homeroom and tripped over a break in the sidewalk. I figured little girls fell and hurt their knee, elbows, and bottoms or their pride because they weren’t good girls. Lambs, on the other hand, seemed like innocent victims of circumstance. They just put their heads down and focused obediently on the task of munching grass when the ground suddenly disappeared beneath them. In my understanding, the lamb was in this precarious position because the shepherd had been negligent and not adequately supervised snack-time. God chose to intervene then because it was a matter of justice; a matter of restoring the balance.  

God never did pick me up like I wanted. And I fell a lot. Although mostly, other than scraped skin, the only thing that got hurt was my pride. That got bruised a lot. The only thing that helped my bruised pride was time and that didn’t work all the time. I still feel my face get warm remembering when I rode my bicycle straight into the back bumper of a car parked on the street curb. I had been looking intently to to the side at the tennis courts of the Pierremont Oaks to see if the love of my childhood was teaching a class. Unfortunately, he was. And my stomach still gets tight when I drive over the Horace Wilkinson Bridge to Baton Rouge. That’s the location of my first big-girl fall.

I had to drop out of college in October of my junior year because of clinical depression. For weeks I had been able to do nothing but lie in my bed and cry while my friends looked on in confusion and frustration. Eventually, the school authorities called my mother who had to drive the four hours from Shreveport to get me and my stuff and to help me officially withdraw from the university due to medical disability – sub-categorized “mental health issues.”  I was told I wouldn’t be able to return within a certain time frame without a psychiatric evaluation. As Mom and I were driving over that bridge, the shame of it all filled my stomach. I was crazy!  I was certifiable! I was a loser! I had failed. And everyone would now know that I couldn’t manage what was expected.  Where the hell was God now I wondered? Surely God could expend a little divine energy to set things right for me. Because, frankly, it did seem to me a matter of justice.

Prior to this depression I had become a fanatic of (His) Son. I had prayed the prayer of salvation. I had been re-baptized to get the immersion experience. I had prayed the Prayer of Salvation and followed the Roman Road. I had studied the Four Spiritual Laws and led numerous people to Christ. And now, when I’m in this much pain, couldn’t God bother to show up and pick me up? Really? What more did I have to do or be to be considered worth His time?

I am so human. And I hate that. But, I’m trying to learn to manage that disappointment. I’ve been trying to learn that since that day driving over the Horace Wilkinson bridge. The day I exposed my human-ness to my sorority sisters.  It’s been over twenty-five years now. A lot more people have found out I am human. When I’m not trying to keep that a secret, I feel free. Free to be me.  I eventually went back to college and did real well. I think I made A’s in part because I was free to fail since I knew I could survive it. God still hasn’t ever picked me up like I’ve always wanted — but I do get up. It just isn’t with ease or with grace or very quick. Have you ever seen a middle-aged, out-of-shape, never-ever snow skier try to right herself on a slope for the first time? Then you get the picture. It’s not a divine look if you’ll pardon the saying. Next time you have an opportunity, watch the adult never-evers on a bunny slope. And then ponder this: “God came down and was incarnate and made man” – just like that flailing fool in the powder blue parka. That makes me ROTFLMAO.

I feel free to laugh with my foibles because I take my freedom to be me very seriously. I take my freedom from depression with tremendous gratitude. I don’t always love my process but it is my process. It is a process that has taken me to where faith was not an experienced reality; to a place where I could do nothing but wait to see if God would pick me up. 

“Free To Be Me,” Francesca Battistelli

Reflection based on Center for Action and Contemplation series “Freedom”

• How has grace brought me freedom?
• How does one trust God’s process?
• What is free will to me?
• What experiences of love have set you free?

Our understandings of vocation as individual and corporate response to and expression of relationship with the living God move beyond a matter of compulsive obedience to superior order or an acquiescence to preordained determinism. As in any creative partnership, communication is central to the relationship, and it is vital to vocation and discernment. Commitment to mutuality in relationship entails commitment to a conversational imperative, a free, open disclosure of self to the other, without which intimacy cannot be sustained.

When I was growing up, children who tried to have a conversation with adults were often accused of back talk. Children had conversations with other children; those of equal status. Necessarily, if it was considered rude to talk back to adults, it would have been blasphemous to talk back to God in conversation. When I came of age to have a mature relationship with God, I was heavily influenced by evangelical and fundamental movements that emphasized prayer as what one did to try to understand God’s will for one’s life; for understanding the preordained determinism. My vocational call, then, was interpreted under these filters. I didn’t approach the discernment as a conversation, as a place where my will was valid, respected or relevant. Little wonder, I came to resent God and my vocation when the circumstances surrounding both became painful and difficult.

This conversational imperative is in lively evidence in the stories and lives of Moses and the prophets, of Jesus and Paul. In theirs and countless stories related in the scriptures, in Hebrew midrash and Christian patristic writing, in the witnesses of saints, in sermons and songs ancient and modern we experience this lively, living conversation among partners intimately caught up in and bound to committed relationship. . . .

God and I have been in a lively, living conversation for a while now. Ironically, it would be fair to describe my tone and attitude in this conversation as back talk, even insolent. But I suppose that is a necessary corrective to my earlier compulsive obedience. During this time away from the church, there was never much doubt in my mind that my faith was alive and well; even though, to many, it appeared lost or dead. My spiritual friends who were well versed in the stormy faith journeys of the patriarchs and saints were less concerned for my spiritual welfare.

Jesus was at pains to insist that he neither wanted nor had followers, but friends. “I have called you friends,” he explains to his disciples, “because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father” (John 15:15). Those who sought to learn from him would not copy his attitudes and behaviors, but would undertake the more difficult business of plumbing their own depths, exploring and embracing their own selves, and shouldering full responsibility for their very being. Or, as he famously expressed it, they would take up their own cross—a cross that was distinct from his.

This was the paragraph that made me stop and pause. As I read it, I had an “ah-hah” moment. Is that what these last five years have been about? Is this a plausible meaning for the aridity I have experienced in the sanctuary lately and finding connectedness and understanding only on the therapeutic couch? Is this why finding sobriety through Alcoholics Anonymous felt wrong for me in spite of the profound respect I have for the program? Is this why I needed to find sobriety solely based on my own will and responsibility for my behavior — to declare that I have power over choosing alcohol or not? Is my greatest spiritual struggle not in knowing God’s embrace but in coming to embrace myself?

This learning process, this discipleship, is dynamic and subject to constant variation, consistent with any relationship between and among living beings. . . . The process of daily, constant learning about self and one’s world is a demanding discipleship and the central activity of discernment. Understood this way, we see that any so-called discipleship that obscures or escapes such learning is not worthy of the name; it is just evasion, denial, busyness, and distraction, and ultimately, destructive dishonesty. True discipleship not only dirties the hands, it breaks the heart, opens the mind, and stretches the nerves, as all good learning does. Yet, paradoxically, it is this very dangerous conversation that constitutes the core of discipleship and the intimate heart of relationship with God.

From Transforming Vocation by Sam Portaro, a volume in the series Transformations: The Episcopal Church of the 21st Century, edited by James Lemler. Copyright © 2008. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org