Abi Ponders Perichoretic cHesed...again!

My new Facebook friend, James Paul, asks great questions. I am wanting to learn to ask better questions myself so I appreciate hanging out with him on FB...this was the question he asked:

Flat Hierarchy

Are flat hierarchies tenable in the real world? The Superbowl XLVIII Champion Seattle Seahawks think so ... Danny O'Neil, Mike Salk and Dave Grosby discuss the outlier relationship between coach Pete Carroll and GM John Schneider. What are your thoughts regarding top-down vs. flat models of power distribution? Is consensus building worthwhile? What, if any, are the implications for the church? Leave a comment - let's have a conversation!

After reading through a number of comments about mutuality and consensus building and collaboration, I chimed in with this:

Organizational Management is my corner, in degree and work experience. One of the most powerful experiences I had was during a management workshop, where we were divided up into group of four or five and given a list of 100 tasks that must be done to start an organization. We each had to work alone to put them in order -- what came first, etc., all the way to what was the last thing you go. It took a bit of time to get your head around all 100 items and think through the process.

After everyone was finished, the group was tasked with negotiating a group order. The kicker was that everyone had to agree. No one could sit out and no one could give in. Everyone had to share why they picked the order they did and be convinced that they were wrong or convince others that they were wrong in order to come to a true consensus of which steps should be taken in which order.

Then, once that process was finished -- which took about twice as long as our personal ones -- we were given the "correct" order. We "graded" our individual efforts and then our "collaborated" effort. The results were striking.

The group got 95 out of 100 in the correct order. I got 95 out of 100 in the correct order. The interesting thing was looking at the precise ones each missed.

The five choices I made that were wrong were catastrophic. Like, what I put at 45 should have been at 3 and so on. They would have been difficult to recover from. It's not always how much you get right, but the nature of what you get wrong, eh?

Well, the group's five errors were all just one place off. Like 4 and 5 were transposed, or 33 and 32, or 73 and 74. None of those were even remotely catastrophic. It took the group to see where my five were so far off (and I had the best stats of the group) and negotiate together to see why a different order was better. We had one quiet person -- with great intuition but not much confidence -- that we had to remind many times not to cave to peer pressure...and it was this person's ability to articulate why they thought the way they did -- and the requirement that the rest of us HAD to listen and consider -- that brought us to the better decision almost every time.

That's a long example, but it has been a powerful lessons to me, almost 24 years later.

When Jesus, Creator and Sustainer of ALL, chose to be first among equals, it was the most important (and regularly the least recognized) example he set.

And he is still to be first. He is the source, the head, the initiator...but he includes us in each step of the process. He leads...so that we can follow and exercise all our gifts together. If we don't follow, he doesn't fire us or punish us or have a tantrum of blame and guilt. Because, in the end, he knows that it is our participation that is the real point.

This is the reality of perichoretic hesed -- the interpenetration of selves with one will, without loss of self, that moves with gracious loving-kindness for the best interest of the other...this is the Great Dance of the Triune God into which Jesus has brought us through his life, death, resurrection and ascension.

Jesus said we are to call no man "Father", because we have one Father in Heaven -- so the prestige and iron rule of patriarchy was set aside.

Jesus said we are not to be called "Teacher" or "Lord", because he is both Lord and Teacher ... and after his ascension, he sent the Spirit to continue educating the human race concerning our adoption as joint heirs with Jesus. [It is a long process, because we are not always apt students, eh?]

Jesus said we are not to lord it over one another. We are to participate in the Perichoretic cHesed of God, so that we might see each other in that same light and learn to dance in that same manner together in all our dealings.

It is breath-takingly simple, but also the most difficult of things to do, because it seems so counter-intuitive to those who have come to rely on experts to tell them what to do, instead of using their gifts and brains and hands and feet and hearts to see and hear with the Spirit is teaching them...so that they might be able to share it with the rest of The Body of Christ.

It's simple. But it's not easy...at least not at the start. Not until you have experienced your own five single-point failures, and have learned about your own blind spots, and have embraced with your whole heart that every person has an important perspective to contribute...but Jesus, with the Spirit, is the quiet voice of the Truth that we must train our eyes to see and our ears to hear and our heart to resonate with and follow.

James asked where he might read more about Perichoretic cHesed...so this is what I said:

I started thinking about perichoresis from the early days of Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed blog, back in early 2007. There were pieces of it floating around in my mind, but always just out of focus. I played with it, but just had to wait. The number of times I blogged about "I'm getting ready to blog about perichoresis" is pretty funny.

My long study of cHesed took an interesting turn in June of 2009, when I met Wayne Jacobsen at a weekend retreat for my small house church...and we talked about cHesed a bit and he said I had the order wrong...that cHesed is not something we do, it is something that we receive from God. My whole world began to spin as I pondered how I had managed to miss that we are to live loved by God first and foremost before we can ever respond to that love appropriately -- either to Love God or to Love Others.

Then, I had been introduced to C. Baxter Kruger and his Perichoresis organization, but it was not the right time yet...until his book, The Shack Revisited, came out in the Fall of 2012. It was then that the other shoe began to drop -- both for getting perichoresis to focus in my mind, and for cHesed to be married to it. I had not seen, previously, that they are interconnected.

That's when I coined the term Perichoretic cHesed as the reality of the Triune God, into which Jesus has brought all of creation through the Incarnation of the Father's Eternal Son.

It is as though Perichoresis is the Music of the Great Dance (as it has been often called, and Baxter has a book called The Great Dance), whereas cHesed is the steps of the Dance itself. The melody calls forth the footwork, as it were.
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So, there it is...the work on sharing Perichoretic cHesed begins in earnest.  I ran it past my Hebrew scholar cousin the other day and he thought it was on track. Not that I need approval, but it is nice to have every once in a while.

Of course, none of this will be new to those of you who have been hanging out in my wee purple corner of the interwebs, but I wanted to share the conversation with you.

Slowly but surely the concepts are beginning to gel well enough to be able to talk about them in a free-flowing manner.  This is good. It means it is making itself at home in my heart and mind.

Enough for today...off to do neurological exercises....

Be blessed!

Abi

Abi and May's Synchroblog..."What the hell?"

Update 6/10/14 -- interesting chart over at Jesus Creed.  Why am I not surprised that I don't seem to fit any of the options?

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Update 4/25/14 -- added another blogger at the bottom...

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This post of part of May's Synchroblog.  Please see the listing of other bloggers at the bottom of this post, and take the time to read the variety of responses with as much openness as your heart and mind will allow.  

I encourage you to follow J.R.R. Tolkien's advise and "suspend disbelief" long enough to enter into the narrative and let the Spirit speak--either to confirm what you have come to suspect (but thought you were the only one) or to challenge your own belief in what you have been taught.

If there were ever a time to be Berean, it would be for such a time at this!

Be blessed....

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As with just about everything else, my ideas about wrath and hell have changed significantly over the past five years. It has been a slow and confusing process of looking at things that I hadn't really thought about--just taken them for granted as they had been taught.

When one's foundational ideas shift, the whole house shifts....

So I need to start with wrath as an aspect of love. I started thinking about this after reading The Shack and meeting Wayne Jacobsen. There was plenty to ponder about in these conversations...and ponder I did.

But there was something that just wasn't setting right...and it wouldn't be until I finally took the time to read and listen to C. Baxter Kruger that things began to fall into place in a way that really helped my ideas about wrath and hell shift. I started sharing that shift in the April Synchroblog. A shift that I have begun to talk about as Perichoretic cHesed.

Perichoretic cHesed is all about the very nature of God as Father, Son and Spirit. But that nature has been clouded by an infiltration of pagan Greek philosophy by some of the most influential church fathers--like St. Augustine and Martin Luther.

Baxter Kruger has done a tremendous job of documenting this subtle infiltration--and I'm so very grateful to him! In a nutshell it comes down to this:

• A Deistic GOD which is basically solitary, distant, impersonal, disappointed and angry--among other things--is mostly a reflection of Greek ideas about god. Those ideas made a lot of sense to people steeped in the Greco-Roman culture of Western Civilization. But those ideas appeal to the fallen mind...and that is problematic. A solitary God does not love by nature. 
• A Trinitarian God which exists in the loving relationship of the Father and the Son in the Spirit, that I have come to describe as Perichoretic cHesed, is consistent with the realities of the Hebraic culture of covenant that God developed as part of what Baxter calls "the womb of the Incarnation." This Triune God loves by nature.

And this is where all the troubles arise....

When God does not love by nature and is cast in the most of humanity's fallen mind, we're going to get an angry judge, offended and looking to punish sinners.  Jonathan Edwards did an unfortunately great job describing that God.... It is this God of wrath who condemns sinners to a Hell of eternal punishment and torment, as Dante's Inferno popularized.

But what if that God is not what God is really like?

What if God, dwelling eternally as Father, Son and Spirit, are a community of self-giving and other-centered love that always looks out for the best interest of the other? What if they planned, from before they even created, to include their creation in their relationship of Perichoretic cHesed? What if that is what Jesus took on human flesh to accomplish--our adoption? What if the task of the Spirit, for all these centuries, has been one of educating the human race concerning their inclusive adoption into the very Family of God? And what is part of that education is the pruning away of ideas and habits that hurt and destroy us and keep us from living in the truth of who we are in Jesus? What if the things we have build in this world have been made from wood or straw or stubble rather than gold and silver and precious stones...and when the fires of trials in this world burn up that which is flammable?

What if the fires of hell are not ones of eternal torment and punishment but rather are ones of purification and restoration? (HT: Wm. Paul Young and C. Baxter Kruger)

What if hell is what we experience when we separate ourselves from the love of God...and the fires around us are a way of herding us back to the Shepherd?

Hour #33, starting in minute 43:35, in Baxter's "Big Picture" series of lectures gets to this definition of hell:  "...it is the form of human existence that takes shape in wrong-headed believing...it takes shape in the "I am not".  It is false religion. It's the misery of your own soul because of what you believed under the lie and harassment of the Evil One. And that can be extended indefinitely. But even though we suffer eternal  hell and misery, it doesn't change the fact of who we are. Who we are is beloved children of the Father. The Spirit's been sent to us to help us know the truth.  Whether we believe it or not doesn't change the Real World. It just means we are living in an illusion. And, to me, as the New Testament testifies, we can live in that illusion for eternity. That's the scary part."

That means that heaven is living in the reality of the Good News that Jesus has laid hold of us and brought us to live with with him and his Father and the Spirit. We hear and receive by faith what Jesus has done, and if we believe it and repent (change our minds), we experience heaven.  If we don't believe it--because "I am not" ... you fill in the blank--then we experience hell, because of what Baxter calls "our stinking thinking."

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I think there is a lot of room for more thinking about this, especially because we just do not have that much really clear teaching about hell and a lot of murky teaching has resulted ... and I am looking forward to the rest of the folks writing about this.

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Here's the collection of links from the May participants in this Synchroblog:

Jeremy Myers – Does Jesus Talk About Hell More Than Heaven?
Wesley Rostoll – Hell, thoughts on annihilationism
K. W. Leslie – Dark Christians
Angie Benjamin – Hell Is For Real
Paul Meier – Hell Is For Real – I’ve Been There and Came Back
Glenn Hager – Abusing Hell
The Virtual Abbess – What The Hell?
Kimbery Klein – Hell, if I know.
Michael Donahoe - Hell Yes…or No?
Liz Dyer – Hell? No!
Margaret Boelman - Hell No I Won’t Go
Loveday Anyim – Why the hell do you believe in hell?
Linda - If you died today, where would you go?
Edwin Aldrich – What the Hell do we really know.
Mallory Pickering -- The Time I Blogged About Hell
Elaine – What The Hell?

Abi ponders the roots of sin....

With gratitude to Mont Smith, Scott Bartchy, Scott Peck, Alan Hirsch, Paul Young, Wayne Jacobsen, Penelope Wilcock, Baxter Kruger...and so many others who have challenged my thinking. Thanks be to God....

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I have come, over the past 20 years, to believe that understanding sin requires that we back up and understand the primary will of God...so that we see clearly the target that sin misses.

Belief is certainly part of the will of God, but perhaps that is too narrow, or not specific enough. What is it that we are to believe?

Scripture tells us repeatedly that God is love. Love is a relational term that needs the context of the Trinity --Father, Son and Holy Spirit -- for proper understanding. Too many see God as alone and distant in his holiness (Greek thinking) rather than engaged as an eternal relationship of love that includes all creation.

If God is by nature a loving relationship of mutuality and equality, where there is such unity of desire that can only be described as Oneness, then we have to ponder the meaning of creation.

I believe They created in order to share Their life of loving relationship with humans. History has been the process of humanity's education. And this is where sin comes in.

I believe that the problem of human sin is one of laziness -- of taking the easy way rather than embracing the necessary work of growing through loving relationships. This laziness partners with a desire for independence, because it seems easier (better!) to do things our way instead of entering into the growth required by love that fosters the other's best interest and finds a way in unity. This is why sin almost always is manifest as coercion -- trying to get our way by force.

This coercive way is sin because it misses the mark of loving the other as we love ourselves. It weakens or destroys relationship and introduces fear...and I don't mean holy awe....

And when we are afraid, we trust less...and, boom -- we get unbelief.

The serpent sowed seeds of fear by suggesting that God was not to be trusted -- that he was holding something back -- and the rule against eating of the forbidden fruit was a form of coercion. Laziness took that seed and gave it place instead of running straight to God for the truth.

The serpent stole their innocent dependence on God as Guide and they turned to independence instead of growing toward greater interdependence.

I have come to realize that much of Western Christianity is mired in the unfortunate blending of Roman/Greek philosophy, which forms a pair of legal/rational information-as-knowledge contextual glasses. This moves away from God's Hebrew experience + information = knowledge philosophy, which is founded on cHesed -- gracious loving-kindness -- within God's series of covenants. When that happens, misinterpretation will follow about the very nature of God and humanity...with the horrific results too many accept today as God's will. So very sad....

Only by the continual renewing of our minds by the Spirit will we have eyes that can see the Truth in Jesus, and this calls us to die to self so that we can be alive in Christ.

Lord have mercy on us in our blindness...and lead us out of the darkness of our own fallen thinking!

Amen!

Abi has finally come Home for Christmas...

Update:  I have added the rest of the posts for the Synchroblog at the bottom.  Please do check them out as you have time.  You will be blessed!  Abi

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It has been a very long time since I participated in any Synchroblogs out there ... but I had a feeling that I might have something to say this time around.

I grew up in a pretty tight knit family -- Thanksgiving and Christmas and (usually) birthdays were always family time. Family time for our family almost always included the church family's activities ... because we were the church-planting minister's family. If we weren't there and involved, well, things didn't happen....

There are lots of ups and downs to being a PK (preacher's kid)...and this post is not going to talk about any of that. But I have to say that this Christmas will be the first year that I will really "be" home. And that will need a little unpacking....

Regulars of The Virtual Abbess will know that I have been processing heavy things for many years ... and that this past year I've been processing what I have just recently come to call Perichoretic cHesed.  The reason things have finally come together is that I have finally unpacked the last piece of the puzzle (should I more humbly say the next piece?!?) as I continue the process of reconstructing what the journey of Kingdom Life is supposed to look like -- for me, at least.

Home is where family is -- and where one is always welcome. Home always means extended family, too. While I love my biological family, I have lived very far away from them for 22 of my 57 years. Most of the past 18 years have been spent away from them as our nuclear family left Southern California for Washington State.  I had no idea how difficult raising children would be without my extended family in a church family that was not full of relatives ... or people who knew me BK (before kids).

The sad thing that I have come to realize is that I, somehow, did not carry away many "traditions" ... because they were anchored in people who were not where I was.  When I was with them, the traditions lived on. But not here.  Not at the place I called home.

As I have pondered this source of grief, it has finally occurred to me that somehow, I have never really been "home" anywhere ... because I never felt like I fit in. I was useful, most of the time. And that's part of the problem.  Rather than relational, family had turned out to be something more utilitarian. And when you are a broken down person, as I have been for much of the past 18 years, sometimes you're not as useful as folks think you should be. Maybe you no longer fill roles that have come to be expected of you -- in the way that is expected.

Yes, I actually said that out loud....

But I have been pondering a different foundation for family.  One that has been seemingly lost to much of humanity for much too long. I have found that the truest foundation for family comes from the original Family: The Holy and Eternal Trinity.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit have been recognized as the Triune God for a very long time ... but I think that the familial nature of their relationship has not been.  And I think some of that comes from the fact that many have seen the Holy Spirit as either male or gender neutral. I, however, have joined forces with some who have embraced seeing the Spirit as female -- as God our Mother ... or perhaps, as our Grandmother.  There is lots of evidence in the Hebrew for the terms used for the Spirit as being female or feminine.  We know that there are many images of God which are maternal.  I'm not going to argue that here.  You will have do your own searching.  (But both of Wm. Paul Young's books, as well as Baxter Kruger's book, The Shack:  Revisited, may help you as they have helped me.) But in order for the image and nature of God to be seen in humanity, it needed to be expressed in what we know as male and female.  Both are necessary -- one is not more important the the other.  (It seems that even in the Trinity, there only needs to be one female to two males ... please be smiling!!!)

Of course only Jesus, the Father's eternal Son, is actually human and male -- since that first Christmas so long ago.  The other two members of this triad are still whatever it is that they have all been for all eternity. We have been dressing them up in language and images that help us relate to them ... and it is only in Jesus that we have definitive answers.  So, I am finding it terribly helpful to relate to God as Father, Brother and Grandmother -- because of the reality of the new family forged in the New Covenant in Jesus Christ.

[It's okay ... no bolt of lightening has struck me.  God can handle this. It's all good.]

In this Eternal Family I have found my truest family -- the family that is always with me...from which I cannot be separated. They are the Truth about family as it is intended to be.

• I have a Father who loves me with deliberate affection regardless of what I do or don't do.  He is "especially fond of me" as Young has made so famous with his Papa from The Shack. He sees my true self and calls it out into being bit by bit -- regardless of what others think I am or should be.
• I have an Elder Brother who extends me the unmerited favor of grace because I am his little sister and he has crossed all worlds to joyfully bring me -- with  my Adoption Papers -- home to his Father and the Kingdom. He walks with me at all times -- he holds my hand (he holds everything in his hands!)
• I have a Grandmother who breathes wisdom and power on my baby steps -- while showering me with gifts of kindness and mutuality -- so that I make a difference in the family.  I have a part to play in each interaction with my brothers and sisters. I participate in the Eternal Will of God as it is lived out moment by moment. She isn't harsh with me when I don't do things "correctly" ... she is happy that I engage and embrace life.

This family reality I have described is, in essence, what I mean by perichoretic cHesed.  It is being part of the family while still being myself. It is resting -- relaxing! -- in the love of Father, the grace of Jesus, the mercy of Grandmother -- knowing that They are holding everything together, making everything work together for good, teaching me the family recipes and traditions.

This Christmas, I will be home for the first time.  I'm not quite sure exactly what it's going to be like compared with the previous 56 experiences ... but I do know that it will be filled with more hope and love and joy and peace than any Christmas I've known. I'm going to relax into it and be surprised by joy....

I am reminded of the line from Sleepless in Seattle, when Sam is describing to Dr. Marsha what it was like when he first held the hand of the woman who would become his wife:  "It was like coming home, only to no home I'd ever known."

As I finish typing this, I can almost hear them clapping and shouting:  "Welcome home, child.  We have been waiting for you for so long. Come on in and join the dancing and singing ... and you don't really need your dancing shoes anymore!"

Be blessed this Christmas -- may you find yourself coming home to no home you've ever known, too!  I'll see you there...  ;^)

Abi

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Other bloggers writing so far about “coming home” this advent:

• Christine Sine - Is There Room for Jesus to Find a Home In Your Heart?
• Jeremy Myers - It Sounds Like Christmas
• Nathan Kitchen - Coming Home
• Michelle at Moments with Michelle - Home 
• Mallory Pickering - I’m Kind of Homesick 
• Bobi Ann Allen - Coming Home 
• J.A. Carter - Going Home 
• Glenn Hager - Where the Adventure Begins 
• Marta Layton - Can You Ever Come Home Again? 
• Peggy at Abisomeone - Abi Has Finally Come Home For Christmas 
• Amy Hetland - Coming Home 
• Coffeesnob - Home 
• Carol Kuniholm - Advent Three: Redefining Home 
• Liz Dyer - Advent 2013 The Way Home 
• Harriet Long - The Body and the Sacred: Coming Home 
• Edwin Pastor Fedex Aldrich - Who I Was Made to Be 
• Emkay Anderson - Homemaking
• Anita Coleman - At Home in the Kingdom of God
• Kathy Escobar – Mobile Homes (Not That Kind) 

Abi and Brokenness....

Updated...see below!

I have written about Oprah a couple of times.  I have tremendous respect for her, although I do not agree with everything she says or does.  That's normal, I think.  If you have problems with Oprah, I humbly ask you to suspend disbelief (J.R.R. Tolkien's lovely term) long enough to hear what I'm saying.  You'll be okay.

Anyway, today's lead article in her Spirit Newsletter struck me as timely.  It came as an answer to a fervent prayer.  It is not perfect, either; but it gave me several bits of encouragement.  These I will share with you. Some come right out of the article, others are my thoughts that came from reading.  Please read the original article first, if you haven't already ... the rest of this post will still be here when you get back.  Go ahead; it's not very long.  ;^)

Here's the stream of consciousness that made me get out my pen and paper and capture some thoughts:

• Everyone is broken from time to time.  Um, this would resonate with the abbess of the purple martyrdom.
• Breaking is necessary for enlargement.  I could write an entire series on this profound thought.
• Enlargement comes by being present in all ways, in all directions. I struggle with this and I am astounded by the variety of ways this little gem keeps popping up in my journey.
• Being present is the practice of holding nothing back.  Dr. Brown would call this part of the courage that comes from being wholehearted.  Her thoughts have been echoing Dr. Kruger's thoughts, especially his teaching on the "I am not..." problem, which she states as "Never enough."  Profound.

He then gives four steps to finding wholeness and health and growth:

Accept the weather

• It is what it is....
• Every "crack" is an opening
• ...The Light of Jesus, there in the deepest darkness in our souls, shines out through our cracks.  Makes me think of this passage.
• ...What is opened is always more important that what breaks us.
• ...Don't get stuck in your list of legitimate grievances.  Yeah, this is very big.

Lean into the tender places

• Letting the wind of life rush in and tough the tender spots is the beginning of resilience.  This is very deep and I'm still processing it....

What kind of "part" am I in what kind of "whole"?  This is the whole "identity crisis" issue, right here!

• My response:  I am a daughter of the Heavenly Father, sister to Jesus, the Father's Eternal Son, and dancing partner with the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Blessed Trinity.
• This Truth is foundational and is what has been undermined by the "I am not..." and "Never enough" curse of human culture.  Sigh...it is pernicious!
• When blinded by the pain and darkness, I need to remember to look for the Light shining through those broken, cracked spots.
• ...Embrace what can emerge by allowing Jesus to clean away the broken bits.
• ...Sometimes we emerge like those beautiful Oriental bowls that have been repaired with gold....
• ...Sometimes we emerge like butterflies struggling to escape from their cocoon. Transformation is often mistaken for rejection or heresy by those who do not have eyes to see what the Spirit has been doing.

Look beyond the broken

• In each of us, the Holy Spirit has planted a unique seed.  Different seeds go through different processes of germination.  They remain dormant until the time and environment are right ... the fullness of time, as it were.
• ...what is too dry for some is just right for others
• ...what is to warm for some is not hot enough for others
• ...what is nutrient-dense to some is too rich for others

Sometimes I think I am one of those seeds that need a hot fire to neutralize my cocoon of enzymes and allow the seed to germinate.  Yeah, burning down the forest is not a good time. but if that is the only way to awaken the sleeping life inside my soul....

Be blessed as you persevere on your journey.  

• May the Light shine through the cracks of your broken heart. 

• May the Light that is in you overpower the whispered evil of the "I am not...never enough" that has flourished in your darkened soul.

• May the sweet burn of the cleaning pool restore you to your True Identity after Aslan's powerfully sharp claws have torn away the knobby dragon hide that imprisoned you.  Love C.S. Lewis!  Do you know Eustace?  (And, yes, I will forever be sorry that they did not put that powerful scene in the movie of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader....)   Update:  you can listen to the chapter here!

• May the great I AM embrace you in Their cHesed and gently lead you into Their Great Dance.

Year Seven Begins!

Well...I was so busy listening to Baxter and Paul and John from the Open Table Conference, that my Sixth Blogiversary passed on October 19th without my notice.

It is impossible to express what an important thing it has been for me to write my wee purple posts here in my little corner of the Interwebs, as my friend Bill Kinnon would say.  Whether or not it has been of use to anyone else, I cannot say...but it has been good for me to process my journey.

I am in such a different place, in just about every way, than I was back then.  But that is the whole point of a journey, isn't it?  To travel from where you are along the meandering path that life takes is how we participate in the life of God in Jesus.

There is quite a bit of dancing along the way.  I've gotten a good deal of use out of my purple dancing shoes. ;^)

Be blessed, precious companions!

Abi and The Open Table Conference

It has been almost seven years since I attended the Missional Orders conference at Seabeck, Washington -- out of which this blog was birthed!  To say that I have gone through enormous changes during these seven years would be the grossest of understatements.

What is interesting, though, it to see how much I "knew" -- even just a few months ago, even -- that seems, well, rather Greek in it's knowing about ... instead of Hebrew and it's knowing by experience. We never do stop growing in our understanding.  There is so much to be experienced on this journey in Jesus -- in ways that we have not experienced before.  I am learning, still, to relax....

I spent this past weekend in Oregon's central desert with an interesting and eclectic group of folks at The Open Table Conference.  This was my first conference since Seabeck ... and it was just as (if not more, actually) life changing.

I did not know what to expect.  I only knew that Papa was asking me to just go.  I'm not sure exactly what my expectations were, but I tried to lean into the living verb and wait in expectancy for what Grandmother had waiting for me.

One of the things I learned at Seabeck, which was sponsored by Alan Roxburg's Allelon, was the importance of listening to one another.  (Allelon is Greek for "one another".)  They had a saying that remains so meaningful to me:  "Listening one another into free speech."

I don't know about you, but sometimes this very extroverted Abbess doesn't really know what she thinks about something until she is able to talk out loud.  This requires someone to listen.  And we humans tend to be less than stellar listeners.  Sigh....

One of the things I received this past weekend was the opportunity to listen and be listened to.

First thing Saturday morning, I was talking with Marilyn and Gordon ... and the next thing I knew, I was telling them things most would not be comfortable hearing.  Especially as related to my string of horrible injuries leading up the the last one four years ago.  The one I affectionately call The Fall...

Marilyn's ears perked up and she said:  "You haven't had just a concussion.  You have a TBI."  She and Gordon began to ask about problems that I was having without my saying anything.  Wow...it is truly rare to talk with someone who knows what I'm dealing with.  Their son fell from a horse 17 years ago, and they have been walking this harrowing journey with him.  Their encouragement alone made the trip worthwhile....

The worst part of most of my injuries has been that they are not necessarily visible -- or not for long.  But the cumulative effect of these injuries over the past 13 years has been fairly overwhelming ... because folks have a hard time understanding that the process of healing can be very slow.  I am in year four of this particular mid-brain TBI ... and have realized that I had suffered seven head injuries in my life -- at least two of which would also be considered mild TBIs.  It sometimes takes 10 years for even a mild TBI to resolve.  If you know someone suffering this way, be gentle with them....

Under the wonderful care of my homeopath and my chiropractic neurologist, I have truly made remarkable progress.  But I have come to a kind of crossroad of my own:  my level of stress has been so high that my brain is unable to heal...and it actually being damaged by the over-stimulation that comes from being in a fairly constant mode of Fight or Flight.  The reasons are many and I'll not burden you with them...but I did have to do something to bring the stress down.

Into this place of chaos, Papa brought Baxter Kruger and his series called "In".  I have already shared about his amazing book, The Shack Revisited.  Now he has released his Study Guide.  I can't wait to work through it!

Anyway, please download his "In" series -- I don't know how long it will remain up on his website -- I have been listening to it since the end of February.  Sometimes daily.  Do this while you're waiting for your copy of the book to be delivered (unless, like me, you got the Kindle version)....

Building on the important work of Wayne Jacobsen, Paul's and Baxter's work have helped Sarayu make another significant shift in my journey.  What I so appreciate about all three of these men is that they are humble and hold their knowledge and experience gently.  They want to encourage you in your journey with Father, Son and Spirit -- they don't want to be your leader.

Baxter, in person and in his writings, is my kind of folk:  say it simple with as little religious jargon as possible.  Having listened to him for so long, I can "hear" him in his books.  Love that....  I am so very grateful for you, Brother Baxter!

Anyway ... I am processing so much right now that I am a bit in overload -- and my brain is complaining!  But I did want to post this update and let you know how grateful I am for the faithful cHesed of the blessed Trinity.

More later....

...oh, yeah -- my eldest son graduates from high school this Friday, so it's a little busy around here.

Be blessed!