Wild Goose Festival 2019

What a beautiful day!  You can see our blessed greeting in the morning as we approached the festival grounds - God’'s promise of love for all creation.  The beauty of that rainbow carried careful strands of hope throughout my day. We began with the gifted music leadership of Mark Miller!  He led us into the message from William Barber who charged us to unite as the flames and wind of a moral Pentecost sweep through our land so that we rise for the poor and the marginalized.  Standing with a great cloud of witnesses who have shown us the way in the midst of great struggle, they too had to rise as the rejected to redeem hearts and systems of oppression. How and where will we stand in solidarity, unite and be a stepping stone in the moral Pentecost?  The strands of hope continued to guide my day with wisdom from Barbara Brown Taylor and a financial workshop. I participated in a workshop with Rev. Darci Jaret as she led us through a practice of visual narrative pastoral care that moved my soul and gave me creative ministry ideas! And then things got interesting as I encountered Bushi Yamato Damashi among the trees as he spoke of the making of a Christ Sangha (Buddhist understanding of community).  His calming energy and gentle presence was an invitation to encounter wisdom in a new way for me. He encouraged us to work at coming back to our true selves. One way to find that, he says, is to engage in Buddhist practice of mindfulness and full presence and then to live out Christ’'s truth of love. Together Beth and I concluded our day with Mark Miller and Draw the Circle Wide. What a day of hope and blessing, promise and challenge!  

Wild Goose Festival 2019

                                 Wild Goose Festival 2019 

                                                Day #2

Today began with Diana Butler Bass totally excavating the biblical account of Jesus - post resurrection - greeting the disciples with a feast in the face of the empire.  The Sea of Tiberius was named after the emperor who sentenced Jesus to death.  In this place of Roman control the disciples caught a lot of fish, some even large enough to be shipped directly to Caesar.    Jesus invited them to dine on the catch that belonged to the powerful.   The powerful require blind loyalty.  But Jesus asks "Do you cherish me."  The imperial feast is one of fear and the Jesus feast is one of love. How can we embody the kind of love that invites the most vulnerable to dine on the feast that defies the empire?  Like the disciples I often find myself at the edge of the sea of despair where the rulers of the day claim the earth's resources, control the marginalized with a regime of fear, and seek to silence the powerful narrative of love and hope.  There at the edge is where Jesus shows up spreading out the table cloth, inviting all to partake in a feast of resistance, and whispering in the seat of our soul - "Do YOU cherish me?"  -  Feed my sheep.  So may it be blessed ones.

Wild Goose Festival 2019

Wild Goose Festival 2019

Many of you have asked me, "where are you going?" "what is this festival all about?"  So each day I will give you a glimpse into my experience here.  So let us begin with Wild Goose itself.  When I took my Resurrection Pilgrimage to Ireland and Scotland this winter I traveled with Celtic Spirituality as my companion.  As we got to know each other better, I found myself recommitting to my baptismal vow to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.  Back to the wild goose ... which according to Celtic Spirituality it is a symbol for the Holy Spirit rather than the dove.  I connected to the Wild Goose podcast and here we are!  The theme at this unconventional (thanks be to God) Holy Spirit gathering is CoCreate! Spirit-Justice-Music-Art.  It is here that I intend to nurture my spirit and prophetic call to be a voice in the creation and distribution of a hopeful narrative that claims God's life-giving justice - without asking permission.  Ottis Moss III brought us powerful words of challenge and inspiration this first night - let God be God, by any means necessary.  Which means that our limited human imaginations cannot dictate the ways and places God is at work in our world - stop blocking the front door, bring those in from the margins into the presence of the holy, and use the roof when necessary - by any means necessary (Luke 5:17 ...).  

....   Blessed Be   .....

Resurrection Pilgrimage

"I reaffirm my commitment to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves ~ By the freedom and the power God gives me."

As I have expressed, this commitment has bubbled up for me with every source of water I have encountered, and there have been many.  Each time I reached into the waters of a sacred well that has brought forth sustaining nourishment and healing since the ancient of days, I remembered this commitment.  Each time I lifted my water dripping hand to my forehead (in typical Pastor Drew fashion) I remembered each word of this vow and proclaimed it out loud.

Resist.  Resist. Resist.

It is so easy to go with current that flows onward into each tomorrow without taking notice of the direction I find myself going in ultimately.  On a daily basis I check my calendar and to do list and move forward. I move forward into what needs to be done in that moment. As I do the direction somewhat gets lost much like the scenery that passes me by.  

Resist.  Resist. Resist.

To change things up one must stand still and let the current pass by in all it’s urgency and pull.  Standing still brings about a new perspective and changes the current about ones feet. The perspective shifts into an awareness of where the currrent has come from and where it is going.  The question arises in the heart is this the current that will take me where I am called to go - not pulled or urged - but called into a life giving purpose that dares to resist the flow.

Resist.  Resist. Resist.

That is the call of my heart to honor this spiritual practice of holy resistance against the urgency and the pull of fear that drags us into currents of exclusion or complacency.  Either one is not the way of the Gospel and not the current that was where Jesus came from or where he was going. His movement, his ebb and flow, was brought from a call of his heart to the life giving force of God that gave him the courage to be an incredible witness of holy resistance.  It is in the same baptismal waters we each emerge with the One who saw the power of the Spirit fall afresh and heard the very voice of God proclaim- "This is my beloved. With you I am well blessed."

“ I reaffirm my commitment to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves ~ By the freedom and power God gives me.”

Resurrection Pilgrimage

The water and the wells.  

As I have been grieving what felt like the death of my hope that love would prevail above all else within our denomination, the clarity of the water has been calling to me from the planning to the footsteps of this pilgrimage.  A little over two weeks ago the church that I have dedicated my heart and soul to once again broke my heart and grieved my soul. Over and over again I have hoped that change would come, over and over again I have prayed for the Spirit to breathe into us the life giving force of infinite love, over and over again I have stood weeping with those who have suffered the most harm by our exclusive stance in the world.  With this on my heart I roamed the streets of Dublin. I encountered the Book of Kelly’s and a portrait of Jesus with the words "turning Darkness into Light.” I stood in a 3,000 year old structure that was built to let the glory of the sun penetrate the inner chamber and I saw the light. At the Cliffs of Moher I felt the power of the mighty waves and the midst of the wind that embraced me. I lit a candle at the Hill of Tara and prayed for the hearts that were heavier than mine that the church has harmed in body, mind, and spirit.  As the flame grew on an altar where all traditions found their place, I found myself taking in the light - the light of the Divine that knows no bounds, has no beginning or end, and is without human words or limits. The conviction began to take root in the space of deep grief and a sigh too deep for words and rose up from the center of who I am - you know that space where God speaks… It was there and then that my baptismal covenant rose to my attention - “I will resist evil, injustice, and oppression in WHATEVER forms they present themselves." And I knew pilgrimage journey began.  

The water and the wells.  

Resurrection Pilgrimage

Wells … Since the planning phases of this grand adventure I have had this leaning toward finding sacred wells in Ireland.  Here on the Aran Islands two weeks into my trip it has all come full circle and I can now put into words this leaning or drawing me in has been about.

The Holy Well (An Tobar Bheannaithe) in Celtic mythology is sacred because it is the entrance into the womb of Mother Earth, a feminine symbol.   Wells are seen as healing, life-giving sources that reconnect us with the earth, the sun, the seasons, and our very own life rhythm ~ "The Unforced Rhythms of Grace.” (Peterson, The Message, Words of Jesus)

Reminiscent of the Samaritan Woman at the well, I have found Jesus greeting me with life giving water each time I made my rounds (the ancient tradition of walking and praying around the well 7 times) and touched the healing waters that come from the nourishing earth that I often take little time to notice in everyday rhythm.  The Samaritan Woman needed an encounter that would interrupt the irresistible current of daily living- habits and rituals that go unnoticed day after day until the pattern is so consistent that it is no longer life giving. Jesus often does such radical intervention in our lives, calling us out of stumbling through and into wide eyed awakening where we embrace those unforced rhythms of grace that become life giving water from a well that needs no bucket and flows without beginning or end.  

"Come thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace …"

Resurrection Pilgrimage

  I have spent many moments along this journey breathless.  At first i wondered if it was nervous energy as I took this new adventure without any safety net - I just took a leap of faith and here I am.  On one of my numerous walking journeys I took a moment to rest along the way and thought hmm… perhaps I am just so out of shape that I am having a hard time catching my breath.  It has also been extremely windy at most of my high peak destinations towering over the ocean deep. And then yesterday it was revealed to my heart as I finished reading Richard Rhor's, Silent Compassion:  Finding God in Contemplation, as again I found myself breathless on the couch, under a fuzzy blanket, and in the lodge where I temporarily call home. I have been, without naming it, practicing spiritual silence that demands a deep presence to oneself in the moment.  This internal silence of my heart and soul gave me the space to be fully open and present to the sacred in all things as I encounter them. As Rhor indicates in his book, I have been drawing from a deeper well and this has left me breathless. The climb to Dun Aonghusa marking each stone that has felt the steps of countless souls for literally thousands of years, to walk through the sacred site to the cliffs edge took my breath away.  Embracing the profound beauty, feeling the power of the ocean below and the might of the wind along the ridge of the Cliffs of Moher took my breath away. Resting my feet along the grass that monks traveled to speak to the angels, touching the ancient stones of their altar, climbing past the round tower that marked the ground of St. Enda's first moninstay on the Aran Islands dating back to 485 AD., and finally making it to the inside of the stone church of St.  Brenan and touching the walls that hold memories since the 11th century took my breath away. Gathering water from a sacred well took my breath away. Taking in the sight, sound and feel of the ocean's life giving force took my breath away. It will take me days, weeks, months, to convey in words all my breathless moments along this pilgrimage. For now I am thankful that I am uncovering words to convey the ways in which I am drawing from a deeper well than I ever have before.  Thanks be to the God of Awe, Wonder, and Mystery.