Today after lunch, Bishop Joe, Mother Cait and I discussed
the nature of God, the identity of matter and energy, and how our first
conscious memories color our concept of God.
This evening, Cait is interviewing Joe for her book about their lives
for the history of the Celtic Christian Church.
Cait writes like the Bard her heritage has prepared her to be. And I am happy. My whole life has been a preparation for this
lovely, peaceful season of prayer, contemplation and community.
An examination of the way modern people are attempting to be
“spiritual rather than religious” led me to watch a show on Netflix called Wake Up. I highly recommend it and am preparing a
review of it for my other blog, “Critical Eye.”
What I want to mention here is the vision that the young man (Jonas Elrod) had. He saw an empty big-top-style tent, supported
from within by a structure that slowly collapsed, taking the tent down with
it. His eventual understanding of the
vision was that the tent was institutional religion. I would say that was a prophetic dream.
What are we leaving behind and towards what are we
moving? What do we lose if/when the
institutional church disappears (either from our lives personally or
actually)? What do we gain if we
personally leave the institutions behind?
For me, the genius of the Celtic Christian Church lies in
its monastic orientation. We can discard buildings without losing community; we can serve
upper class, middle class, even gangsta’ class people according to our
individual vocations. With the guidance
of our Bishops, we range from academic circle communities to street people
communities, to serving at science fiction conventions! We can support ourselves by working in the
real world and still minister according to our gifts, in such diverse places as
baseball stadia and radio stations; as spiritual directors and as hospital
chaplains.
We come with an array of backgrounds, from Bishop Joe’s
Ph.D. to those who graduated from high school and then went through our
formation program. We come from Roman
Catholic, Old Catholic, Independent Catholic, Episcopalian and Baptist
traditions, among other things.
We are a diverse group of married, single, straight, gay,
lay, religious and clerical people who love one another in an extraordinary way. And even if the Celtic Christian Church does
not survive the current generation of adults and elders, I believe the Celtic,
monastic model will carry on serving the body of Christ because those who fall
in love with God simply must share that love by serving others. Love gives out of its abundance, requiring
nothing in return. “Without money,
without price, why should you give your life, except for the Lord.”
In other words, from this point in my journey, it is clear
that all will indeed be well. Alleluia!
