Snake handling 1 (walks with God)

Posted on June 13, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I’m going to start sharing stories of when God has called me with the hope that these stories resonate with you. I want to inspire you to be able to answer the call. It is hard to hear, and hard to understand. Perhaps we can muddle through together.

I consider this like “Post Secret” but for hearing from God. Or maybe it is like AA. I’m admitting that God talks to me. I think God talks to everybody, but they just don’t have their radio receivers tuned clearly. Maybe if I share some of what I’ve experienced you’ll realize that you have been through similar experiences. The purpose of AA is to let others know that they aren’t alone, and to give them strength on their journey. I have the same goal.

So I’ll start with this story, and add more later.

Many years ago I was walking with friends in downtown Chattanooga. It was late, probably 10 pm. We were walking to our favorite hangout, The Pickle Barrel. It was mid-November, and chilly enough for a jacket, but otherwise pleasant. This was not uncommon to walk at night in downtown Chattanooga. It was a safe town.

I caught a glimpse of a guy sitting by himself in Miller Plaza. This is an open area where bands sometimes play on the weekends. He was sitting by a fountain that had been turned off because it was winter. Something about him caught me. I felt instantly that he needed help of some sort. I told my friends that I’d catch up with them in a little bit.

It was as if there was a hand on my head and it turned me in that direction. The entire time I was walking across the street I was arguing with God. What are you doing!? I don’t know this person. It is late at night. I am a small white woman!?

Chattanooga in general was safe to walk at night, but I’d been cautioned about strangers my whole life. My parents meant well with their concerns and fears, but they themselves were ruled by their fears. Fear is what killed them, ultimately. I wasn’t rebelling against them by doing this, but I knew that I had to do something. I had to get over my trained fear and listen to that voice that compelled me onward.

As I got closer to him, and saw that he was probably 6 feet tall, maybe 140 pounds. He was pale, and had dark hair. He also had a silver ring on his wedding finger that could have been a wedding ring.

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t have a script or training for this. I was terrified. But I felt like I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I was there already. I was looking at him, and he was looking at me.

I asked him if he was OK. He said he was. I knew he wasn’t. I kept talking with him. I wasn’t prying, and I certainly didn’t tell him that God sent me over because something was wrong. I just made light conversation.

We exchanged phone numbers and parted for the evening. It was months later that he told me that he was going to kill himself that night.

It was because I came up to him and distracted him that he didn’t.

This story has stayed with me for over half my life.

I still feel that pull to go up to strangers and ask them if they are OK. I still don’t know what to say or do. I don’t always go up to them. I wait to see if the pull is really there or if I’m just imagining it.

I don’t want to seem crazy.

It isn’t normal in our society to go up to strangers and talk to them. We are told not to. We are cautioned daily about how dangerous it is.

And then I remember this story. Normally we are told we might die if we go talk to strangers. Yet in this story, the stranger would have died if I hadn’t gone up to him.

It was a weird feeling, this pull. It was as if I had no say in the matter. I was as if I was a puppet. It was kind of unpleasant. It certainly was going counter to anything I’d been told by my parents or priests.

Yet it is everything.

We are told that if we are acting in accordance in the will of God, we are safe.

This is what snake handlers do. You know, the ones you’ve heard about in rural parts of the South or in the mountains of North Carolina. The ones who use snakes as part of their worship service.

They take their lead from the words of Jesus in Mark 16:17-18 “17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In My name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new languages; 18 they will pick up snakes; if they should drink anything deadly, it will never harm them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will get well.” And also these words from Jesus in Luke 10:19 “19 Look, I have given you the authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy; nothing will ever harm you.”

I want to take that bravery out into the streets, into the market place. I want to take that and make it useful.

Snake handling done for the sake of snake handling is pointless.

But I also say communion for the sake of communion is pointless.

They both might make you feel closer to God. They both might make you feel connected, and may remind you of your covenant with God.

But they don’t mean anything if you can’t or won’t take that energy outside.

I don’t do this a lot. I saw a guy yesterday at my doctor’s office that I felt a small pull toward. I thought – what should I do? I walked out of the foyer, and I stopped for a moment, standing a few feet from the doors. I waited for the pull again. I waited for the hand on my head, directing me back.

It didn’t come. I don’t know if I missed it, or if it wasn’t something that I HAD to do.

I don’t know. I’ve not found books on this. I’ve not found a teacher.

Perhaps the experience itself is the teacher. Perhaps I need to just let God guide me through this. Sometimes this walk of faith feels like walking in darkness, with tiny pools of light to guide me. When I’m brave enough to step forward into the pool of light, another lights up before me. I don’t know where I’m headed, but I trust who is leading me.

I test everything. Does it feel crazy? That isn’t enough. Look at Moses – he talked to a burning bush. Look at Mary – she talked to angels who told her she was going to bring forth the Messiah.

Am I being asked to do something dangerous? That isn’t enough. Look at Peter – he walked on water. Look at Abraham – he was asked to sacrifice his son.

It is totally crazy to follow God. No wonder non-Christians feel like we are zombies. We pray about everything, asking God for guidance. We don’t rely on our own knowledge, because we realize that it isn’t enough. We are trying to tap into a bigger source. We aren’t lessening ourselves, we are plugging into Source. We are trying to upgrade from a 110 to a 220. We are trying to upgrade from a water hose to a garden hose. But it is hard, and confusing, and weird because there aren’t that many guides on this.

Here’s a test – is it for me? Or is it for others? Who will benefit from this action? If it is selfish, then run away. If it is self-less, then run towards it. If you are serving others, you are safe. Now, this doesn’t mean that nothing “bad” will happen – but it means that if it does, then it is also part of God’s will.

Confusing? Sure. But the Bible is full of stories that are confusing and yet many of us use them as the basis for our faith. I’m just bold enough to think there is some truth in these stories, and that it applies to us, right here and right now.

Waking up (answering the call)

Posted on June 12, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I’m often very slow to answer a call. Whether it is a call from nature or a call from God, I’m slow. I’ve just realized this. I’ve just put these things together. I’m figuring that by working on one, I’ll be working on the other at the same time. At the very least, noticing where there is a weakness means that it doesn’t have control over me.

I used to think it was just that I was slow to answer God’s call. After all, I’m bipolar. How am I supposed to know if it is God talking or if it is the disease talking? Now, bipolar disorder doesn’t usually manifest with hearing voices, but I’m just being careful. How do I know I don’t have an extra twist to my diagnosis? There are enough people who say they hear from God and it is more than obvious in their actions that they are making it up.

I think our society has done an amazing job of teaching people to question hearing from God. We joke about hearing voices in your head. Even mainstream church has taught people that hearing from God is something only prophets in the Old Testament did. It isn’t something that is done today.

I’ve long questioned what I’ve heard. I’ve long fought against it. I know things before they happen. I feel compelled to go up to total strangers and ask them if everything is OK, only to find out that it isn’t and they need help.

I’ve long fought against this, and been slow to respond. My church didn’t teach me how to recognize the voice of God, and that is the one place that should have. When I did finally come to accept what I was hearing, I was very slow in responding. I didn’t act. I feel that I’m going to get in further than I know what to do. I’m going to show up to something like a spiritual heart attack and all I have is a band-aid.

This is why I went to get training. I went to my minister three years ago and asked for training and oversight. I keep coming across people who are broken and hurting, and I want to help but I don’t know how. I want to gain the skills necessary to be helpful to them in their time of emotional crisis. I want to learn how to provide spiritual first aid. I figure training would help me to get over my hesitancy to answer God’s call. I’d know what to do. I also asked for oversight, so that others would make sure I was on the right path. Again, I didn’t want to be misled by my mind.

But my motives were questioned. I was put on hold. Three years went by before the process (the priest decided I was being called to be a deacon) even began, and then when it did I had to provide proof of when and where and by what priest and I was baptized. I had to provide proof of when and where and by what bishop I was confirmed. I had to provide certified copies of my college transcripts. I had to write my spiritual biography. I had to provide my financial records, to prove that I was a good steward of money.

This is all for a non-paying position. This is all for a job that would be over and above my real job that paid the bills, which was 40 hours a week already.

And I still hadn’t learned in that time how to discern if that voice I was hearing was God’s.

I did get to go to a Pastoral Care class, and that was helpful. On the surface, it was learning how to be a chaplain in a hospital. Deeper, it was about learning how to listen to people, really listen, in a deep way. It was about how to set aside my own fears and concerns and provide a safe place for the other person to get out their fears and concerns. It was like learning how to be a spiritual midwife.

I also got connected with a spiritual director. In order to go through the process, I had to meet with a spiritual director once a month. The fee for that is out of my own pocket. A spiritual director is kind of like a guru. She or he is trained in a divinity school usually, and the goal is intimacy with God. I’ve learned more from my spiritual director than I’ve ever learned from any minister in any church.

But I still haven’t learned how to determine what is God and what is in my head, and then to respond faster. I’m relaxing into it, however. I’m becoming my own teacher. This isn’t what I wanted, but it has to happen somehow. I’ve not gotten the help I wanted or needed from supposed experts, so I’ve gone off on my own.

It is sad that I asked for training on how to help people and I got challenged on it, and then I got delayed. I’d think that the desire to help people wouldn’t be so special that it needs a committee and assignments and paperwork. I think of all the people who are still just as lost and broken three years later, who still need help and didn’t get it because I was delayed.

I’m hurt. I’m angry. I feel deceived. I feel like I’ve been insulted and my time and energy has been wasted. I feel like I was being trained to wedge myself into the machine that is the church, to learn how to wait and respond to the bureaucracy of the church rather than how to wait and respond to the voice of God. The church would tell me that the two are the same, but you know a tree by its fruit, and something is rotten here.

I’m frustrated when I see someone who is homeless. I want to treat the cause, not the symptom. To give them a banana and a $20 bill is only going to help them right then. What about tomorrow?

There is a program in Nashville called Thistle Farms. It takes women off the streets, women who are drug abusers and prostitutes, and teaches them how to be human again. It is a two-year program, where they detox and learn job skills. While I admire the efforts of this program, I want to go backwards. I want to prevent people from becoming drug addicts and prostitutes to start off with. I want to prevent homelessness.

I don’t want to treat the symptom. I want to treat the cause. And I don’t know how.

And meanwhile I’ve left church because they not only didn’t support me but delayed me in my journey to understanding my calling. I’ve left church because the priest told me to not talk about God. I’ve left church because when I posted a blog about how far off the track I think church has gotten from the message of Jesus I got attacked instead of listened to.

I understand, a little. I understand how hard it is for members of the church, especially the priest, to accept that we are going in the wrong direction. I understand, because I felt that in church. I felt that I’ve wasted a lot of my time in church listening to somebody else’s interpretation of the Bible rather than being taught how to interpret it for myself – how to make it real, how to make it applicable to daily life.

It’s like I was given a really tasty cake every week but not taught the recipe. I want to learn how to make that cake myself. Then I want to share it with others.

That is part of what I’m trying to do here, with this blog. I’m trying to replicate what I’ve tasted, what I’ve experienced without a cookbook. I’m winging it. I think that just trying to figure it out on my own I’m getting pretty close to what it is.

I’m angry at every church I’ve ever been in for standing in my way. I’m angry at them for clipping my wings. I know it isn’t personal and it isn’t intentional. I feel like it was done to them too, so they didn’t know any better.

So in the meantime I muddle along. And I think there is something in the idea of getting faster at answering any call.

At the risk of getting too personal, I have a hard time waking up and going to the bathroom. I tend to lie there, in a mild state of discomfort, rather than getting up and just going. Or I have a tendency to be really cold and unwilling or unable to move enough to get a blanket to cover myself. I’m wondering if working on these things, these known physical needs, will help me with the rest. I’ll lie around, quietly miserable, and not do anything to help myself. I feel kind of paralyzed.

It is really hard to get disciplined when you are asleep.

It is hard enough when you are awake. It is hard to stop any bad habit and start a good one. It is hard to make time to exercise. It is hard to choose nutritious food rather than junk food. It is hard to divorce yourself from mind-numbing television shows and soul-eating relationships.

I feel that many of us are waking up, now, to ourselves, to our callings. I’m grateful. Our energy will carry over to others.

Fear is a terrible motivator. Let’s try love instead.

Posted on June 8, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Not too long ago I realized that fear was a terrible motivator for change. If you used fear as a motivator to lose weight, your fear usually ended up making you seek the very things that you didn’t need. You’d be afraid of diabetes or cancer but instead of using healthy coping mechanisms like exercise or meditation, you’d go back to smoking cigarettes or eating “comfort food” which is sadly never healthy. And then you’d be stuck in that ugly cycle again.

Love is a better motivator. You love how you feel after you eat a well-balanced meal. You love how you feel after you have a good night’s sleep. You love how you feel after you’ve had a walk around the block. Or you love your granddaughter, and you want to live long enough to see her get married and graduate from college. Or you love the book you are working on, and you want to finish writing it.

If you are working towards something, rather than running away from something, you are more likely to have good results.

I think the same thing is true with following Jesus. So many people try to sell the idea of Jesus as the boogeyman. They use him as a guilt trip, and try to drag you along for the ride.

They will say that you are going to burn in hell if you don’t follow Jesus. Or they will say that you can’t go to their church if you don’t follow him the way that they follow him. Or they say that you will be condemned by God. They are motivated out of fear. They will do what their pastor says, they won’t question anything, and they will stay within the lines of whatever proscription their church has set up for them.

I don’t know about you, but that kind of motivation never worked well for me. I’m a questioner. I’m a person who likes to ask “why”. In fact, I need to know the reason why I have to do something in order to know how to do it. It isn’t that I’m being difficult. I’m not trying to get out of whatever task I’ve been assigned. I just need to understand the “why” so I can understand the “how” and the “what”. Fortunately I had teachers who translated this as “gifted” instead of “obstinate”.

I never wanted the Jesus these fear-lead people were selling. The mean, overlord, high-school principle Jesus. The micromanaging boss Jesus. But sadly, these were the loudest people. This version of Jesus wasn’t what fit with what I read in the Gospels either. I needed a Jesus who was about love and service. I needed a Jesus who taught me how to humble myself, but not in a way that was belittling. I mean humble in a way that lets the light of God shine through, but using me as the lens. This way, I’m still there, but I’m not in the way. I become a vehicle, rather than a driver.

Consider two dogs. One is a service dog. He’s been trained to help a blind person with their daily life. He resists his own inner nature to chase the squirrel when he is crossing the street with his companion. This keeps his companion safe and headed in the right direction.

Or, alternately, there is a stray dog that got yelled at all the time by her owners. She was never trained how to behave properly, and she just gets yelled at every time she does wrong. All she hears is yelling. So this dog ran away from home and now cowers in fear all the time, never knowing when she is going to get yelled at.

The service dog has been humbled, but it is out of service and out of love. He resists his own inner nature that causes him to stray and act without thinking of the consequences. He serves another person, helping that person throughout the day. He is a guide in the truest sense. And it all started with proper training. The trainer taught the dog how to be the best dog it could be, with positive commands and encouraging desired behavior and ignoring unwanted behavior.

The other dog has been humbled, but not out of love. There is no direction or goal in that humbling. It is a scattered and destructive kind of humbling. That kind of humbling is a lessening. Sadly, that kind of humbling is what many churches want to do. They want to focus on sin rather than redemption.

If you yell at someone for doing something bad, then that is all they will be able to think about. It ends up becoming pathological. We all desire attention. But if we don’t get attention for what we do that is good, and we only get attention for what we do that is bad, even if it is negative attention, then that is what we will continue to do.

Jesus took away all the “don’ts” in the commandments. He gave us what to do. We are to love. We are to love God and our neighbors with all our heart and soul and strength and mind.

Now, personally, I’m the kind of person that needs a little more instruction than that, so I supplement my Christianity with Buddhism and Judaism, with a little bit of Hinduism and Sufism thrown in for flavor. Some Christians would cringe at that, but I hope to change their minds. We are told to love our neighbors. How can we show them love if we don’t understand anything about them? The more I learn about other faith traditions, the closer I get to God. It is all motivated out of love. God made all of us different because he needs us that way. God doesn’t want us to all be the same. That would be as boring as garden full of the same kind of flower or an orchestra with just one kind of instrument. I like daylilies and piccolos, but I also like roses and kettledrums. I think God does too.

I love the fact that I can take a yoga class (Hindu) in a YMCA (Christian), while listening to music that has Caribbean steel drums and Tibetan throat singing and Chinese hammered dulcimer. I love that I can go to a Chinese buffet and get Japanese and American food too. I love that we are waking up to the beauty of each other and celebrating our differences. I think this is part of what the Kingdom of Heaven is all about.

Thankfulness or Blessing – what comes first?

Posted on June 7, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

What comes first, the thankfulness or the blessing? We give thanks for our food before we eat it. It is sitting right in front of us. But we normally give thanks for our blessings after we receive them, if we remember to give thanks at all. Often we are so caught up in the fact that we finally have what we want that we forget to be thankful.

But what if we are thankful before we get what we want? What if we pray our prayer of thankfulness even before we can see what we are going to get? What if we are thankful even before we know what we are going to get?

Jesus tells us to pray as if we already have received. In Mark 11:22-24 “22 Jesus replied to them, “Have faith in God. 23 I assure you: If anyone says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I tell you, all the things you pray and ask for—believe that you have received them, and you will have them.” (HCSB)

Then you may think, but I don’t have that much strength in my prayer. I can’t pray that well. I have doubt. It is hard to believe. In Matthew 17: 20 we learn from Jesus that not much faith is required. “For I assure you: If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” (HCSB) Just pray for it, and know that God will do the rest. A tiny bit of faith is a lot in God’s hands.

Does God need us to pray before we get our blessing because it is already on the way? Might it be that we need to be prepared to receive our blessing?

I have noticed that when I pray before anything, I’m the one to change first. I start looking for God. I start looking to see where God is going to pop up and surprise me. I pray before helping patrons at work. I pray before leaving my house. I pray before meeting with friends. I am trying to be in a constant state of prayer. I’m not very good at it, but I’m trying.

I remember when I used to smoke pot. I’d smoke, and I’d wait to see what happened. Food would taste better. I could hear parts of an album that I’d never noticed before. In reality, all of that was already there. I just put myself in a position where I was looking for it. I expected to experience life in a different way. I think prayer is the same way. I think prayer opens us up to receiving God. We open the door and God steps in.

I think that God was going to send us that blessing anyway, but we just wouldn’t have noticed it. How often do we take things for granted? How often do we think that what we have is just OK and not that much?

I heard once that praying before meals proves that we are not animals. One goal in Judaism is to be a mensch, a real person. We need to become human, to win over our animal nature. The goal of true alchemy is to transform the lead of our animal nature into the gold of our human nature.

Praying makes us human. Praying makes us better.

So what should we pray for? A new car? Extra money to pay off our mortgage? The get-rich-quick pastors of the megachurches would tell you that. Their message is the “prosperity gospel”. The fact that it has to have an extra word to describe it should be a clue that it isn’t the Gospel of Jesus.

Pray for big stuff. Pray for things not for yourself. God is big. God wants to hear from you. That is part of why God made you.

Pray for nuclear disarmament. Pray for peace and understanding among the nations. Pray for an end to war and greed. Pray for people to wake up to their true nature. Pray for us all to take care of ourselves and our planet.

Don’t be hesitant. Pray hard. Pray without ceasing. Pray as if we already have it. And remember that God always answers prayers. Sometimes it isn’t what we want it to be – but it is always what is needed. Pray for the grace to be able to accept God’s answer. But most importantly, pray.

“In Full Communion”

Posted on June 5, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Why would anybody want to even think about joining the Christian church with so much animosity going on between the different denominations? We can’t agree on how we are supposed to love God and serve our neighbors. We can’t agree on how we are supposed to live our lives. We can’t even agree that everybody who is baptized can take communion. We don’t even call it “communion” in all churches. In some it is called “the Lord’s Supper”.

I’m going to use the word “communion” here because of the full meaning of the word. Not only does it refer to unity with God, but it also refers to the Body of Christ, which is the membership. The Body is made up of every person who believes in Jesus as the Son of God. In communion we are symbolically all eating at the same table as a family.

There is a concept that some churches are “in full communion” with other churches. In the Catholic Church, for example, only a few other denomination’s members can take communion at a Catholic church. Not Episcopal or Lutheran or Baptist or Methodist or Jehovah’s Witness, for example. In the Orthodox Church there are similar rules. This is really odd to me, since Jesus didn’t make up any rules as to who could take communion.

I can understand if they feel like they need to deny communion to people who aren’t baptized. I personally think everybody who feels called to the table should get communion, but I’ve already written about that. But going with the basic premise of baptism as being a public declaration of membership into the Body of Christ, then I don’t understand why a different part of the Body would say that another part isn’t included.

And there are other rules. Some say women should dress modestly and cover their hair. Some say that it doesn’t matter. Some say that it is OK to drink, while some say drinking will lead you to hell. Some discourage their members from questioning anything. Some allow questions but they are short on answers. Some are not allowed to vote, while some use their ability to vote to lobby for the social causes they feel are in line with their faith. Some are vegetarian as part of their observance. Some are heavy on the meat casseroles for potlucks.

Each different church has its own way of doing things and we end up focusing on the differences rather than the unity. And sadly, these divisions are what people who aren’t Christians see the most of. Christians are rude and divisive and judgmental and condescending with other Christians. They are exactly the same to non-Christians. Who would want to join such a dysfunctional family?

I remember when I was working at a craft store in Chattanooga and a coworker said that I should go to her church. I told her that I already went to church. She said she knew that, but she thought there was better preaching at her church. By “better” I got the idea that she meant “more accurate”. As if God can only be found in one place. As if God’s Word can only be found in a few locations at a time.

I went with another friend to her church one day and a lady in the pew invited me to become a member there. When I told her that I already had a church home I got the same kind of reply. It was that I needed to go to this particular church because the Word was spoken more clearly there.

God is so much bigger than that. When we reduce God to only being able to get his message across in only one denomination or only one building, we are doing ourselves a huge disservice. We are reducing God to our size, and forgetting how infinite God is. We are playing petty politics with God.

I’m embarrassed by Christians all the time, and I am Christian. These women were being rude and exclusive to me, and I’m in the club. Imagine how non-Christians would feel. Imagine how they feel when they see a person waving a sign saying that God hates anybody. Imagine how they feel when they hear a Baptist say that Catholics aren’t Christian. Imagine how they feel when they see how one church has rules on how to live life that another church laughs at. They have no idea what being “Christian” means, and I’m starting to think that we don’t either.

There are so many different denominations that the faith looks schizophrenic. Sure, we are all different members in the same body, but this body has a bad case of a seizure disorder. It does not work as one. We aren’t going anywhere. We are fighting against ourselves.

It is as if there is a three-legged race going on and the two people are trying to go different directions. But this race is divided up between a hundred different denominations. And even different parishes within denominations have the opinion that they have it right and the others don’t. If you say that your parish or your denomination has it right and the others don’t and just need to catch up with you, you are part of the problem.

What did Jesus say? Love. If it isn’t loving and kind, don’t do it. And I don’t mean “telling others they are wrong so they can get back on the right track” kind of loving. Remember the verse about the speck and the plank? That isn’t love. “Do unto others” is a good start. If you don’t want other people bossing you around, they probably don’t want it either, so don’t do it.

Let’s consider all those different rules the different denominations have about how to live your life. Concerning what to eat, whether to drink alcohol or not, how modestly to dress, or how to style your hair, just measure it against Jesus words. Does it show love? If you need to refrain from eating meat or you need to cover your hair to remind yourself to love your God and your neighbor, do it. But if these actions cause a division between the two of you, don’t. But then remember that none of this really matters. None of this has anything to do with what Jesus wants us do.

Forget about world peace. We need to get our own selves together first.

On interdependence – God needs us and we need God.

Posted on June 4, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

We need God, but likewise, God needs us.

Carl Sagan tells us that “We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” We are part of the cosmos – we are created from tiny bits of stars that exploded long ago and far away. We are undeniably part of this universe. We are created from its very essence and we also seek to understand it.

Likewise, we are part of God. We are a distillation, a permutation of God. Now, don’t get me wrong. In no way do I believe that we are God. There are plenty of people these days who say that simply because we have the light of God within us, we are God. I think it is essential to not confuse the creation with the Creator.

In Jeremiah 18:6, the Lord says “…You are like the clay in the potter’s hands, and I am the potter.” And in Isaiah 64:8 we hear “Yet Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You are our potter; we all are the work of Your hands.” We are vessels created by God, designed so that we can share the light and love of God in this world.

But it is also essential to not think of ourselves as dirt either. We are, every one of us, every person on this planet, precious children of God. We are forgiven and blessed and freed. We are created and called by God.

God needs us to do His will. We were created as the arms and legs of God. We are essential to bringing forth good in this world. Just like with vessels, we are meant to hold the God essence within us and take it to others and share it. We are meant to share love and hope and healing with the world.

It is all too easy to say “How could God let that happen” with whatever fill-in-the-blank atrocity or disaster has occurred. But really, the answer is “What are we, agents of God, going to do about it?” We are God’s agents in this world. We are the people who raise others up, who feed them, who clothe them, who comfort them, who teach them. We are the ones who stand up against injustice. We do this because God is moving within us, whether we realize it or not. Jesus tells us in Matthew 12:50 “Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother!” (NLT)

I think it is helpful that we choose to do good in this world and that we choose to align ourselves with God. But the best part is that God is using us even if we don’t know it, and even if we don’t want it. I find it makes things easier if you know that God is in charge, that God is driving the bus.

In Deuteronomy 11:13-15, we learn this. “13If you will only heed his every commandment that I am commanding you today-loving the LORD your God, and serving him with all your heart and with all your soul-14then he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, and you will gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil; 15and he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you will eat your fill.” (NRSV)

So love and serve God, and God will love and provide for you. It is reciprocal, and mutually interdependent. Just like we need each other for survival, so does God need us. We are essential.

Remember God is always with you.

“It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” (Deut. 31:8)

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9)

”Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20)

Every day is the Sabbath.

Posted on June 2, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

We are told to keep the Sabbath holy, but which day is that? Is it Sunday, as most Christians observe, or is it Saturday, as Jews and Seventh-Day Adventists observe, or is it Friday, as Muslims observe?

The early Christians decided to set aside Sunday to worship because that is the day that Jesus rose from the tomb, and they were getting a lot of flack from the Jews. They were convinced that Jesus was the Christ, so in their minds they were simply Jews who had found the Messiah. The Jews didn’t agree that Jesus was the fulfillment of the prophecies, so they chased them out of their synagogues. So the Sabbath got shifted a day. The Seventh-Day Adventists are Christian but follow the original Jewish Sabbath observance. Then we have Muslims, who pray every day but choose Friday as a special day of observance. It isn’t seen as a special day of rest so much as an obligatory day of prayer.

But then we have Psalm 118:24 “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Holman Christian Standard translation)

I tell you that every day is the Sabbath. Every day is a day to remember that God made you and everyone else and everything. Every day is a day to give thanks for all the many blessings of this life. Every moment of every day is a time to be filled with the knowledge and love of God. It is good to live your life full of thankfulness and awareness of God.

Why wait for only one day a week to praise God? Why wait for only one day a week to uplift your soul? Every moment can be a time of communion with God, even in the middle of a routine transaction at work. God is constantly seeking us, constantly desiring for us to be in communion with him. You don’t have to quit your job and join a monastery or a non-profit to focus your heart and mind on God. It can be done right now, right where you are.

Jesus in disguise.

Posted on May 31, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Mother Theresa suggests that we try to see Jesus in every person. She said that it was her privilege to wash Jesus’ festering wounds and to feed him as a tiny abandoned child with AIDS. Essentially, we should serve each person as if they are Jesus in disguise.

I’ve tried this for the past few years at work and it is pretty amazing, and yet very difficult. Every now and then I want to say, hey, Jesus, can you stop being so weird?

It isn’t all weird. Mostly, there is a lot of good in this practice. Because I have changed how I approach people, they have changed towards me. I used to have a lot of people yell at me. They would come in already loaded up with problems, and they were ready to share. Anything and nothing would set them off. It always seemed random when a person would yell, and I began to get very hesitant around everyone. I expected to get randomly yelled at, and they would read my fear and oblige me.

So I tried Mother Theresa’s approach, with a little bit of “The Dog Whisperer” thrown in. Work with me here. People are animals. We are civilized animals, mostly, but we are still animals. We forget this. We respond to the same cues that animals respond to. So showing calm, positive energy is going to result in better results than showing fear.

Being interested in and calm around every single person I help is honestly overwhelming to do for hours at a time. I am a huge introvert. I like people and am constantly fascinated by them, and I like serving them. But I need a lot of quiet and calm to recharge after a day at work.

The difference in patron’s reactions to me is amazing, though, so it is worth it. It is as if I’m playing a “hide and seek” game. I’m looking really hard for the good, the light. I’m trying to see their soul, the spark of God that is within them. They respond to my curiosity by opening up. Their light may be buried under years of abuse or self-hatred or illness, but it is always there. Where there is life, there is light. Just searching for it can bring it out and make it brighter.

Jesus in disguise can be really overwhelming, however. Gender and age are illusions. She can be lonely and I’m the only person she’s got to talk to. He can be a new widower and on the brink of tears while he is signing up for his library card. He can be really smelly because he walked to the library on a Tennessee summer day because his car broke down and he doesn’t have air conditioning at home. She can be a young mother with more children than she has patience for.

Jesus can be a real pain when he is like this. I want to say, hey, Jesus, can’t you show me your nice side sometimes? Why do you have to be cranky and smelly and mean? Can’t you just be normal for a change?

And then I pray again. I ask him to show himself to me again. I ask him to work through me. I ask that my words be what this cranky, smelly, mean person needs to hear. I ask that I’m able to offer them a bit of healing in the time we are together. I try to be mindful and fully present.

It is hard. But it is everything. It is what each of us is made for, this reality, this presence, this moment when we stop being machines and we start being human. It is beautiful and real and aching and sad and overwhelming and everything we need to make this place we call Earth a home. Because ultimately it is all about a connection between people. It is about incarnate love, this love made real and tender and fragile and beautiful.

But it sure would be nice if Jesus would take a bath and use a breath mint every now and then.

On communion for non-baptized people.

Posted on May 26, 2013 by betsybeadhead | 2 Comments

I was talking to a friend a few months back and I decided to mention that I’m opposed to people having to be baptized before they get communion.

To say he was opposed to my idea is putting it mildly. He strongly feels that people must be baptized before they get communion, and anything less is fraud. He got a little hostile in his response, and very defensive.

He compared it to when his sister got a mail order ministry certificate and a journalist press pass. She didn’t go to school for these things, so she is saying she is something she isn’t in his opinion. To him, to take communion without being baptized is to say that you are a Christian when you aren’t.

Who would be hurt by a non baptized person taking communion? Who is defrauded? What would be taken away from a person who was baptized if a non-baptized person took communion? And what is the definition of “Christian” – someone who has had the sacraments, or someone who acts in the manner of Jesus?

He got really angry about this topic. I’m starting to learn that anger is a sign of fear, and of a sign of feeling a lack of control.

I wonder what he was so afraid of. I wonder why he feels a need to control who gets communion. Perhaps one day I’ll ask. Perhaps one day I’ll be brave. I’m not sure how to explain my view on this so I’m still working it out. It has taken me several months of working on this to get to this point. I probably have more to say on this subject later.

Baptism is a public declaration of membership into the Body of Christ. Communion is remembering the sacrifice that Jesus made and it is reuniting with him, so that he abides in us, and we in him. It is reuniting to the vine, as we are the branches and we cannot bear fruit if we are not connected to the life-giving vine.

If people can be baptized as infants – this decision is made for them – then why do others have to be baptized to take communion? Baptism is a passive action in denominations that allow infant baptism. Communion is active – you have to intentionally do it. It is something that can’t be done to you or for you. I feel like the very act of wanting to take communion means that you were called to it.

There is a Christian author I like who is named Sara Miles. Her parents are atheists and she was raised to be highly skeptical of organized religion. Sara decided to walk into the church near her house one Sunday. She went in, participated in the service, and when it was time to take communion, she did so. This was a church where you have to get up to go get communion – it wasn’t one where the plate comes by you while you sit in your pew. You have to make an effort. She felt called to take part in this sacrament.

When she took the bread and the wine, she got “it”. She got it harder than people who have been raised in the church. She got it harder than most people who go every week. She met Jesus there at that altar rail, and started a food bank. She realized that it is all about feeding people, about taking care of people. That it is all about love and healing and compassion. Nobody is turned away, and nobody has to “prove” that they are poor. Anybody who wants food gets it, and it is real food, not canned.

Here’s the point. She wasn’t baptized. She continued to go to church for a year before she decided to get baptized.

What if the minister had said beforehand – by the way, you have to be baptized to get this? She most likely would have stayed in her pew, feeling like an outsider. She wouldn’t have had that conversion experience. The food bank wouldn’t have started.

Part of the reason you have to be not only baptized but Catholic to get communion at a Catholic church is the idea of transubstantiation. Transubstantiation means that you believe that the bread and the wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus. The problem is that the majority of Catholics don’t even understand this or believe this – but they still get to take communion.

But forget it if you are from another denomination. I wrote a local Catholic church once and asked if I (at the time an Episcopalian) could take communion there. I was sent a link that explained that because of “the sad divisions” in the Body of Christ, only Catholics could take communion at a Catholic church. The part that drives me up the wall about this is that it is because of rules like this that we have “sad divisions.” Get rid of the rule and stop being sad.

Look at the story of the loaves and fishes. Jesus blessed what was offered, and broke it, and it multiplied. This is a miracle, but it is also real. It is to show us to not be stingy with our gifts. The same message is throughout the Gospels. Give what you have away. Don’t hoard it up. Let your gifts (which are freely given to you by God) be multiplied and then give them away.

God gives us what He gives us because he wants us to give it away to others. It isn’t for keeping. The light of a candle is not diminished by sharing.

So why has the church put a rule on who can take communion? How is the church hurt by a non-baptized person taking communion? Let’s turn that around and ask what is the harm in refusing communion to someone who isn’t baptized? Everything.

We are called to welcome the stranger. We are called to build bridges, not walls. Anything we do that excludes is bad. We are to gather up the lost sheep.

I remember one time I was on a road trip with a boyfriend. We were both kind of hippy-looking, with long hair and tie-dye t-shirts. We stopped at a truck stop to get something to eat and to use the bathroom. Out of the blue, a huge gruff man came up to us and told us that we weren’t welcome there. He was a customer, not an employee. He made it very clear that we weren’t part of the mix of people he expected to see there.

I feel like we are doing the same thing to people when we say they can’t take communion unless they are baptized. We are saying that we are in a special club and it is very nice and you can join too but only if you do it our way. We are in, and you are out.

I don’t want to be part of a club that does that.

I feel that if a person feels called to take communion, they should take communion. Who are we to stand in the way between a person and Jesus?

Now, it isn’t like they check baptism records at the door. It isn’t like there is a mark on you that lets others know that you are part of the club. There isn’t a secret handshake. So you could take communion and not be baptized, but that isn’t the point. The point is that officially, you aren’t supposed to. And that is hurtful.

And it isn’t Christ-like.

The Christian church has to stop acting like it is part of a special exclusive club where we’ve won the game of musical chairs. So sorry – we’ve got it and you don’t. Too bad.

That isn’t what this faith is supposed to be about at all.

If church isn’t about love, and I mean real, deep-down, honest to goodness nonjudgmental welcoming love, then it isn’t really what Jesus died for.

Notes from the Dalai Lama’s talk, May 19th, 2013

Posted on May 26, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I went to Louisville, KY on May 19th to hear the 14th Dalai Lama speak on “Engaging Compassion”, along with about 14,000 other people. These are my notes from that public talk. My comments are in parenthesis.

This is the century of dialogue. More and more people from all over the world and all religions are talking with each other.

America is the leader of the free world, so it is possible to lead the world in compassion.

It would be good if America could import its democracy style to China.

He is Buddhist, and he prays every day, but he accepts the limitation of prayer. Real effect comes through action.

To make the entire world better, start with yourself. Your actions make a difference.

If you have respect for other’s well-being, then there is no room for violence.

Peace starts within you, now. It creates a ripple effect.

When we are born, our survival is based on other’s care and affection. This continues to be true as we get older. The survival of humans and the planet is based also on care and affection from others.

If you have a healthy mind, you will have a healthy body. If you have a peaceful mind, you will show compassion. If you show peace towards others, you will be healthy. Showing compassion is a benefit to yourself as well as the world. Anger is self-destructive. The counter force to anger and hatred is tolerance.

Attachment leads to bias and a loss of objectivity.

It is possible to have faith in your tradition, and still have respect for all traditions.

On war – If one person kills another person, he is a murderer and goes to jail. If a soldier kills a thousand people, he is a hero. (Killing is killing, no matter who does it.)

The biggest moral and social problem is the gap between the rich and the poor. It is similar to the caste system in India.

There is a oneness within all human beings. We all have the right to be happy.

It is possible to oppose another person’s attitude but still love them.

Instead of anger, have pity. (It is more compassionate to feel sorrow at another person’s bad choice of behavior than to be angry.)

Have a genuine concern for other’s well-being.

Separate action from actor. Oppose the action, forgive the person. People are not what they do.

We must respect all of God’s creation. So environmentalism should be part of your faith.

There are over one billion non-believers, so we must find different ways to help them to understand how to have a “happy life and a happy body.”

In India, “secular” means “respect for all religions,” as well as “respect for non-believers.” (It is not negative like in America, where “secular” means “not religious.”)

Thomas Merton was a bridge between Buddhist and Christian monks. If you follow your own tradition, you will discover that we are all following the same practice.

Politically, His Holiness the Dalai Lama is Marxist. He believes that in capitalism, if profit is the goal, then humans suffer. Humans are more important than profit.

(Edit) – I’m adding some pictures to this, since I’ve figured out how.

On the way to the event –