My spiritual journey began, like everyone else's, at my own beginning - but I was one of the more uncommon ones who realized it, talked about it, and focused on it at an early age. Some of the first stories shared to me about my childhood were the steps of my tiny feet in tights and patten leather shoes, carrying a Bible to Sunday School that was almost as big as I was. The family and community that I was born into practiced a form of fundamental, Methodist, Christian faith - and so did I. From infant baptism to vacation bible schools to church choirs to youth group president, I was all in. And while I truly loved the community and practices it offered, beyond this, what I loved even more was the place and the chance to think, feel, dream, and live big and deep. Church, and more specifically faith formation was a place where I felt truest and free.
Each step of the seasons of my faith journey moved me through different practices, people, awarenesses, and places. The seeming certainty and safety that my childhood offered faded into a complicated "gray" that my former Christian fundamentalist beliefs could not contain. I emerged into a place of spiritual wilderness. While I could easily let go of the former spiritual yokes and bindings, I still could not release the reality of Jesus Christ. I have been a Jesus-following nomad ever since.
While the wilderness was initially shocking, disorienting, and lonely, I've grown to see just how free and sacred the wilderness is - where peace and truth come - both from the surrounding universe that is rooted into my centered internal. Experiences of graduate study, deep love, prayer, study, family brain injury and anomaly, meditation, therapy, reading, and community have all been some of my closest guides as I have traversed this personal and universal wilderness - into the truth and love of the Infinite. I hold close to the pursuit of Christ through the Universe, and yet I hold space for the whole Universe.
Now, it is my honor and privilege to share space with others who are on the journey of spiritual growth. Spiritual companionship, the place to freely uncover one's self, in the midst of the universe, and to connect with one's place and purpose, is one of the most powerful human experiences. While my personal journey has moved through Christian traditions and beliefs, I welcome and honor all humans who seek to pursue spiritual formation and the Divine.
Each step of the seasons of my faith journey moved me through different practices, people, awarenesses, and places. The seeming certainty and safety that my childhood offered faded into a complicated "gray" that my former Christian fundamentalist beliefs could not contain. I emerged into a place of spiritual wilderness. While I could easily let go of the former spiritual yokes and bindings, I still could not release the reality of Jesus Christ. I have been a Jesus-following nomad ever since.
While the wilderness was initially shocking, disorienting, and lonely, I've grown to see just how free and sacred the wilderness is - where peace and truth come - both from the surrounding universe that is rooted into my centered internal. Experiences of graduate study, deep love, prayer, study, family brain injury and anomaly, meditation, therapy, reading, and community have all been some of my closest guides as I have traversed this personal and universal wilderness - into the truth and love of the Infinite. I hold close to the pursuit of Christ through the Universe, and yet I hold space for the whole Universe.
Now, it is my honor and privilege to share space with others who are on the journey of spiritual growth. Spiritual companionship, the place to freely uncover one's self, in the midst of the universe, and to connect with one's place and purpose, is one of the most powerful human experiences. While my personal journey has moved through Christian traditions and beliefs, I welcome and honor all humans who seek to pursue spiritual formation and the Divine.
Εὐαγγέλιον…. The good news
by Melinda Humbert
I want for a gospel for the single parent, who is working three back-bending, hand-wringing, all-consuming schedule jobs, just to keep a roof over her head and food in the bellies of her babies.
I want for a gospel the speaks to the trans woman, in loving ways she has never fully heard, acknowledging the fully beauty of her existence.
I want for a gospel that calls to the burka-covered heads of beautiful sisters who are seeking to work and build their place in the world.
I want for a gospel that holds the hands of gay men headed towards the alter to marry the love of their life.
I want for a gospel that offers healing to the tortured addict who knows with her head that her behavior is killing her body and torching life around her, yet her knowledge cannot save her.
I want for a gospel that speaks to the police officer driving the beats of the streets, who sees that there are layers of complication and trauma that he moves through each day, who genuinely wants to be a part of the solution to the pain, but is tempted to act as if there is a simple solution of just rounding up the bad guys, and making them disappear, with the might of their hand or weapon.
I want for a gospel that speaks to the academically pedigreed professional who has been striving her entire life, who has arrived at the place where she realizes no amount of thinking, working, or striving is going to meet her body’s needs as she lives through a cancer diagnosis.
I want for a gospel that speaks to the young adult who has lived through a barrage of sexualized images, expectations, rules, and social consequences, who fully wants to be healthy and whole, who knows that his/her sexuality is a gift and not a scarlet letter, but who realizes the fear and misogyny of generations past seek to strike out in shaming judgement against the fullness of their sexuality.
I want for a gospel that speaks to the young male Latinx nursing home care giving assistant, struggles to envision the actuality of all he knows he is capable of because of the closed gates of economic opportunities around him.
I want for a gospel that speaks to the adolescent who has already lived the entirety of her years as a social outcast, because her experience of life with Autism creates multiple differences and barriers that those around her do not or do not want to understand.
I want for a gospel that speaks with the leathered-hands plumber who has a 30 year hard working history, who looks at the prospective ledge of retirement, and struggles to consider how he is going to provide for his wife’s medical care needs, let alone, spend the minutes of his unplanned retirement days.
I want for a gospel that speaks to the social justice worker who has been on the front lines of strategizing and organizing for just inches of relief for those who are suffering around him, as he feels the landslide of pressure for the painful realities that no amount of advocacy is going to tackle.
I want for a gospel that speaks to the boy on the playground who is mad as hell that his dad is routinely drunk or gone, and his mom is sad in all of her waking moments.
I want for a gospel that speaks to the female of color who is busting her ass in college to stay on top of her economics and finance classes, as she moves to define her own identity and her future.
I want for a gospel that speaks to the foster child who has to focus on the immediate realities of coping, and does not live the luxury of living the life where his choices could actually build and grow a successful life because he knows that the choices of those around him could wreck his efforts at any moment.
I want for a gospel that speaks to the Chinese mother who lives meager moments in her kitchen, amongst the steam and the dishes, who considers the importance of her aging parents life, knowing that their days of health are fleeing, and she wishes to honor them in all the ways possible.
I want for a gospel that speaks to the traumatic brain injured patient who knows that brain science is morality’s kryptonite, because he literally cannot stop the tirade of profanity and anger that explodes when he is triggered.
I want for a gospel that speaks to the bed-headed programmer who is brilliant enough to create something from nothing, yet is oblivious to how opening his bills and actually paying them is important to his life.
I want for a gospel that speaks to the artist who goes to and through the creative processes with her and does not shade in judgement, as she communes with all of art and life.
I want a gospel that speaks for the New Delhi bicycle taxi driver whose calf muscles are numb from just half the day's labor, but who knows he must persist if his family is to pay the.ir rent this month
I want for a gospel that does not have gates to say who is in or who is out.
I want a gospel that offers the Christ of the universe, one who is beyond gender, who is beyond time and space, who is not defined or held by any one person or tribe, doctrine, practice, or religion.
I want for a gospel that dwells in the universe, dwells in the creation, dwells in the possibility AND in the actuality.
I want for a Gospel that is not bound by language, that is not hostage to behavior, but is lived in each moment, free of definition from the contextual circumstances.
I want for a Gospel that is not defined by the reality of the moment, but is fully present, always.
I want for a Gospel that is not reduced to the self serving, individualistic behaviorism
I want for a Gospel that constantly shapes its followers to be transformed across the full spectrum and planes of existence as they pursue the fullness of a resurrection existence.
I want for a Gospel that recognizes equally the individuals place within the greater whole I want for a Gospel that recognizes the both/and of life and death and points to the Shalom that is the already present Christ.
I want for a Gospel that recognizes that rules are a time bound, “miss the mark” attempt to culturally contain that which moves beyond human capacity and knowledge and is a completely inadequate substitute for the entirety of the Christ.
I want a Gospel that acknowledges that humans exist with the entirety of morality’s scope, in potential and actuality. We hold life and death in our very cells, organs, bones, hands, hearts, and heads.
I want a Gospel that acknowledges the Holy Spirits revelation and movement in and through all time, all space, all culture, all people - with one hope - resurrection.
I want for a gospel that authentically meets humans in the being, that acknowledges we are all matter and dust, that we are disordered and moving towards death, that we live the either/or human accommodations to an existence that is fully both/and, infinite spectrum.
I want for a Gospel that acknowledges the reality that human brains create the basis of human reality and functioning and that the Gospel is big and broad enough to hold neuro-science as a reflection of God and not an adversary.
I want for the good news.
Love 1 Corintians 13 1 If I speak in the tongues[1] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[2] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
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