Left CT about 8:30; took the truck so we could take a load of firewood back. Hadn’t bothered to investigate the state of the situation up there – assumed there might be washouts on Captain Copeland but that main roads (including I91 south) would be passable by now. Around Greenfield MA there were signs that said 2W was closed; entering VT there was a route 9 closed warning. Otherwise the drive was uneventful – until we were about to take a break at the VT welcome center just outside Brattleboro.

While slowing down on the long grade before the entrance the brake peddle went to the floor – and didn’t come back. Got the truck slowed down and made my way to an empty corner of the parking lot. Looked underneath and didn’t see much. Several people stopped by to see if we needed a jump start. A sweet young women mechanic stopped by to check things out. She crawled under while I pumped the brake and she found it: the flex line to the left front wheel was broken off.

That’s good fortune Item #1 for the day! When I think back over my life I can see how lucky I’ve been. From gift grades in grad school to serious falls without serious damage this was one more gift of good fortune. When you drive a ’93 pickup you’ve got to expect stuff to break and under what better circumstances could you blow a brake line? To illustrate: Last week we came home heavy with a load of firewood. We get on Dover Hill Road near the top and it’s a long, steep drop to East Dover village – with a hard 90 degree corner near the bottom. If we had lost brakes then could I have got us around that corner?

Good fortune item #2: Called AAA for a tow. Since it was late morning on Friday of Labor Day weekend we expected to leave the truck at some garage and rent a car to get home. The local AAA garage was a rather ramshackle rural operation (kind of reminded me of Gary’s in Ashford).  My kind of place.   They were very nice, the line was in stock in Brattleboro, they put it in ($81) and we were on our way!

Meanwhile we had gotten a much better picture of the local road situation. (For example, the water level in Wilmington reached 2′ above the 1938 high water mark – a mark impressively high above the stream) and a lot of the center of town was wiped out.) Our turnoff from 30 would be just before a closed bridge so we would be able to reach Williamsville and we might make it from there to South Newfane and East Dover village and Dover Hill road.

Stopped in Burglar King for a late lunch. Broke a front tooth crown on a veggieburger. Don’t consider that particularly good luck… Back on the road: The West river was HIGH – and the color of milk chocolate. From the mud lines you could see where it had been. In the delta where it joins the Connecticut – at the place where we have launched our canoes and where the fish houses go out in the winter – the level must have been very close to or over route 30….

Got to the turnoff on 30 and then to Williamsville with no problem. Coming off the old concrete bridge our planned left towards South Newfane and East Dover was blocked by “local traffic only” signs and a sheriff. It was a “you can’t get there from here” moment! He didn’t think we could get there but said the best chance was to go to Newfane (on the the other side of the closed route 30 bridge) and try Wardsboro Road. While looking for Wardsboro Road we parked to study some maps and a man stopped to see if we needed help. Told him where we wanted to go and his opinion was that we probably wouldn’t be able to get through.

Marianne really wanted to keep trying but I figured that being unfamiliar with the roads, having no detailed maps, and no knowledge of local conditions our chances of making it were were not good. I was driving (and tired of driving) so I got to make the decision…. Back to Williamsville and the detour to 30, then to Brattleboro and I91.

The trip back was uneventful till we got to X26 in Greenfield. I had assumed I91 south had been reopened. Bad assumption. Off 91, creep down the hill to good old US 5; roll a few tenths of a mile at up to 20 mph and then stop, wait, creep, stop, wait, creep…. About an hour and a half later we reached X24 and got back on 91 (the last 1-1/2 miles took 24 minutes – painful). A few minor traffic issues later we made it back to Ashford. It was about 6:30.

St. Paul’s — by a combination of necessity and good fortune – developed web skills in-house. We were able to do this only because we found the open source community and built on the powerful tools it provides. The internet is a complex structure involving many very different skill and knowledge sets. We make no claim to broad, general expertise – only to some useful knowledge in certain areas of considerable utility. The following is an analysis of where we are and where we’re heading. Comments, as always are welcome.

The web can be used in many different ways to support the parish and parish ministries. The most obvious – and certainly a very important use — is for storing and transmitting information relevant to the parish. This function can be expected to grow in importance as more people get comfortable with the web. It also will be made easier by the ongoing trend towards computing and data storage on the web (“the cloud”) rather than on your PC.

The other obvious use for a website is to show people looking for a church home what they can expect from the parish. It’s like having a giant, greatly expanded yellow page ad – but the problem is that there aren’t very many people out there looking for a church home! And it’s those not-looking people we need to reach…

Among others, this includes all of the people working to support the greater local community. Willi has lots of people in this category – and they’re doing all kinds of different things. Some are more or less tied to the religious communities (eg via WAIM, First Baptist suppers, Covenant Soup Kitchen) and some are not. So what should we do?

• The first thing is to support the people and organizations in any ways that are open to us – and without consideration of any return. Support of various WAIM programs is an obvious example.
• Develop connections with the various communities and the individuals that make them up. We need to know more about who’s doing what and they need to know what we are doing and what we can offer.

As an indirect result of this kind of activity people with assorted spiritual needs will see what we have to offer – and some likely will be attracted to our community. Some may see enough worthwhile programs to justify providing some financial or other form of support whether or not they’re attracted to the spiritual aspects of St. Paul’s. (Remember that our 2011 budget calls for us to find almost $9,000 of additional income just to continue our present level of ministry.)

By that fortunate combination of circumstances we do have rather extensive internet capability. For some time I have considered ways to offer this capability as support to the community – and in the process develop and strengthen connections to a wide variety of people. Our website provides significant opportunities for this with the forum a prime example. It’s open to everyone and discussion categories are easily added. Andrew Seeling is the forum’s general caretaker and posts very regularly. However, it’s very difficult to get discussions started without a core of regular contributers so he needs help – we really need more participation by the parish to make this an effective tool.

We always are looking for ways to make our website more effective. Our concentration generally has been on providing solid content and clear ways to find it. In our latest rebuilding effort we tried to add a little excitement in order to get people’s attention when they hit the home page. I am grateful to Jean Henderson and Andrew Seeling’s for taking on the “flash rotator” module now showing images related to Black History Month. In the near future I expect we’ll be seeing some of Jean’s gorgeous photography in this position.

Last May, after a good deal of discussion with some young community activists, we created the WilliTalks subdomain (willitalks.stpaulswillimantic.org). This was conceived as both a vehicle for communication and a source of directory information for Willimantic area nonprofits. Jason Ortiz, a UConn student leader with ties to the Willimantic support community, was going to take the lead in developing the site. However, he decided to run for the vacant Mansfield Representative seat (he lost with a respectable showing) so there was not enough time and energy left to develop WilliTalks. In retrospect, the plans for the site were vague and undefined enough to make successful development difficult at best.

For now the WilliTalks site exists but is undeveloped. As we work in the Willimantic community the kinds of services this site could provide become clearer. A simple example: we need easy ways for a church to invite the local church community to special services and events. When the appropriate opportunity arises – and we find the time – we will continue the development of this site.

A different, easy – and significant — opportunity did arise. A few months ago, Tom Ford co-founded the Connecticut Coalition of Gay Adults (CCGA), a social and support network. The LGBT community has been and still is mistreated by many churches. We have parishioners who came to St. Paul’s because they were made unwelcome in their previous church. If you look at the list of Connecticut “Believe Out Loud Episcopal Congregations” — those that officially welcome LGBT people – you’ll only find one parish – St. Paul’s Willimantic. Those issues that are tearing some congregations apart were settled at St. Paul’s years ago – well before the time I arrived. As a result, we are in a unique position to welcome this community.

LGBT people have spiritual needs just like everyone else. However, the church’s history in this area does generate suspicion. This is especially true for people with fundamentalist background as well as older people who remember that for the most of their life the church was telling them that their basic nature was sinful. They are safe to be themselves at St. Paul’s — but we need to do whatever we can to convince them that this really is true.

Supporting Tom’s new network gave us an opportunity to do just that, to reach out and demonstrate our sincerity. This is a small organization that needs some basic web presence – so we gave it to them. We created another subdomain, ccga.stpaulswillimantic.org, and put together a simple independent site with their information. (Subdomains are treated by search engines and such in much the same way as an independent domain. We can create as many as we want at no cost.) Our blogs have an LGBT category so we linked that to give them some more content and us some more exposure. St. Paul’s is part of the site URL so to make sure there is no confusion we added a site link, contact link and explanation on the CCGA page tops: “St. Paul’s Willimantic is providing web help to CCGA as part of our ministry – working with and supporting Willimantic area communities; need help? Contact us”. A bonus for us: CCGA generates its income through ads in its monthly print information guide and has decided to donate a portion of the net income to St. Paul’s. Thanks Tom…

Sharing knowledge is another form of ministry. At some point after we get settled down in our new Community Room offices we probably will get the opportunity to offer lessons in basic computer skills. It could be a program analogous to the Thread of Warmth ministry, very useful for many in the Soup Kitchen community – as well as for a number of our parishioners. Beyond that we could offer more sophisticated web related knowledge particularly targeted to the local provider community. That probably would be web based, maybe use WilliTalks, but at this point is just a collection of vague ideas.

Jean and I have been putting together “how-to” notes to support both future web knowledge sharing ministries as well as our own need to develop the long term capability required for our web efforts. Building the CCGA site provided a little bonus in this area. Usually I start on a site with stuff from a previous site and dive in without much of a plan. The CCGA site is completely new and small enough to be manageable so we could start with a clear organizational plan – an ideal way to develop a “lesson plan” for the how-to notes. They aren’t completed yet, but the notes and other web related conversations are available by joining the ww listserv.

Our office move from the old parsonage building to the newly partitioned space in the Harry Crowther Community Room will be happening before long.  We just learned the layout of our new office so space planning has begun.  Based on my experience in design/build construction I’m sure we can make the space work well for us. Moving always has its traumatic aspects and our office move is no different. It also provides all sorts of opportunities: To make more workable and efficient use of space; to get rid of stuff you don’t need and haven’t used in years; to find interesting stuff you didn’t know you had (historical stuff, blueprints that no one could find when I needed them…).

The kitchen operation is working out reasonably well and getting better. We still haven’t fully recovered from the mess created by the peak construction activities when everything in the kitchen that wasn’t in a cabinet had to be moved into the robing room for temporary storage. At least we’re back to the point where we mostly can find the stuff we use regularly!

Big move coming and at this point we have way to much stuff (in the office, in the kitchen and in the robing room)!  Getting rid of the excess is going to take some work. Some is trash, some we can give away (anybody want an electric slicer?), and some we probably can sell on craigslist.  Lots of help needed!

Gender identity is a complex subject with a wide range of issues. Just consider some of the the descriptive labels, such as Tgirl, drag queen, or shemale. Then there’s the associated alphabet soup – TG, TS, CD, TV. Issues can range from relatively mild (CD, TV) to complete identity with the opposite gender (TG). (See the following wikis for a more extensive discussion of the LGBT label, and the transgender community.)

Gender identity problems are much more common for males (M to F) than for females (F to M). In general, masculine women are more accepted by society than feminine men. Tomboy is ok but sissy is not. (You can make the argument that in a male dominated society, the less common F to M person can get away with a little bit because that’s going from a lower to a higher status. On the other hand, the more typical M to F trans-person is perceived as rejecting the position of strength and power and becoming a vulnerable “girl”.)

Gender identity issues for a person can change a great deal with time. For example, a boy doesn’t want to be tagged as a sissy – there are a lot of the problems that go with that designation! He may try hard to not act the part and to deny that part of himself. Later in life, he may accept and become comfortable with that part of himself. However, he still must deal with society and how it views and treats him. He also must deal with family issues which also change with time.

A lot of this is particularly difficult for older people; after all, not too many years ago the possibility of these issues was not even acknowledged, never mind discussed! This tended to leave a T person feeling isolated – that they were the only person in the world who felt the way they did. At least nowadays the subject is out there and can be discussed…

However, coming out completely is still very difficult and very dangerous – especially for the male to female T person. For most of them, passing as female is not possible, and they will be read as a guy in a dress. There are lots of times and places where being perceived as a guy in a dress is very dangerous.

Spiritual issues also can arise. If God made me this gender why do I want to be the other? Am I violating God’s intent for me? Specific answers depend on one’s concept of God. (In the Episcopal church there is no single answer to this question. Visions of God range from the hard line biblical literalism of those on the far right to the non-deist view of Bishop Spong.) My short answer is that we are what we are. Then, if we believe in a loving God, we accept who we are and trust that our mission and ministry will be found in living a useful and honest life.

However, what really matters to us as individuals is the parish itself. In most ways a parish is quite independent and sets its own agenda – including its view of the LGBT community. Here at St. Paul’s our basic view was settled a long time ago when an openly gay priest was installed. Those offended by the LGBT community left – and controversy left with them.

We have gay, lesbian and transgender parishioners and our previous priest was a lesbian. However, we are not a “gay church” we are a diverse church. You will find poor and rich (actually more like middle class comfortable), different occupations, different backgrounds (including different religious backgrounds), some racial diversity, and the full range of sexuality and gender identity. All this in a small, friendly church where everyone is a full member of the family (of course this includes a few slightly strange relatives)!

Large organizations, such as the Episcopal church, like to be safe and not make the membership too uncomfortable (remember the civil right era when the mainstream churches mostly had to be dragged into the struggle?). As we can see, the right wing does not compromise. It also does not allow for the possibility of any scriptural interpretation besides their own. As a result, those of us on the opposite side are expected to make all the compromises in order to keep the organization together. Under many circumstances compromise can be a very reasonable thing. However, no compromise can be justified when issues of justice are at stake. Although our main concern is what happens here in Willimantic and its surroundings, we do add our voice to this ongoing battle when possible. To illustrate, the following is a resolution passed by the vestry (Episcopal-speak for the council or board) in October 2006:

I. Resolved: that the Vestry of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Willimantic, CT, urges the Rt. Rev. Andrew Smith, Bishop of Connecticut, to lift immediately his inhibition regarding the blessing by clergy of same-sex unions and their officiating at civil unions.

II. Resolved: that the Vestry of St. Episcopal Church, Willimantic, CT, affirms our shared mission of Christian inclusiveness by endorsing the following paragraphs from a resolution recently adopted by the parishes of St. Francis Church, Stamford, and St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk:

We are committed to full inclusion of everyone, no matter who they are or where they may be on their faith journey, and we oppose any attempt to discriminate against any person based upon race, gender, age, sexual orientation, physical ability, or socio-economic status.

We will continue to invite those who are not yet here to experience God’s radical welcome as an Episcopal church doing church differently and functioning as the kind of Episcopal church we believe God expects us to be. We are firm in our understanding that in God’s economy there are no outcasts. And we welcome dialog with those who disagree with our perspective.”

If you have questions of any sort please contact us at questions@stpaulswillimantic.org.

EMERGENCE

Traveling into the desert – as did Jesus – is a practice of devotion. Diana Butler Bass noted that “it is an act of leaving behind the known world for the unknown journey to God.” We are emerging unto a new plane, a new horizon, and an unknown desert landscape. Upon entering and undertaking these travels we ask, “Where do I find myself ?”; “Where do we find ourselves on this journey and path ?”; “Into what are we emerging ?”
Our theme on recent afternoons has been “Emergence” or more specifically “Emergent Theology” and I hope our readings and reflections have offered a glimpse of this on-going conversation through the eyes of some of those who are and have been part of this process. That is, I think, what we are considering and meditating upon here. It is a process and a conversation that has been going on for a very long time – since the beginning, we might say, without exaggeration. We could all offer our different observations and specific focus and lens through which we perceive this process I’m sure. Briefly, this is what I would offer.
Having passed in recent history through the age termed “the Modern” in which we thought to possess the means and ability to discern and dissect the objective and “the real” with proven methodology, we have more recently still used that same method to tear down that “concrete reality.” We developed a new model for “that which is” based, instead, on a relativism of perception and value. We entered – by means of the same technique – the “Post-Modern” (the end of modernity) and have resided there, uncomfortably for the most part, until this moment.
Many of our philosophers, theologians, and more contemplative thinkers and mystics throughout these and many preceding ages have thought this to be mere (though perhaps useful) meanderings. Attention to the “here and now” in clarity of vision before God is not new although always “new”. Deconstruction of “the real” is an ancient endeavor. What may be new is our particular use of language and terminology to describe this. What we are talking about, to my mind, is “Reconstruction”. The real, the “isness”, may be both unknowable and in the realm of objective Truth – with a capital “T”. God may, in our limited capacity, be thought of as both absolutely transcendent and absolutely immanent and present. I pray that, through Him, we might see more clearly our own participation. That reconstruction, that reconciliation, is what the emergent conversation is all about. It is so, at least, for me.

We had a bit of an introduction to emergent thought and theology a few weeks ago and this is a continuation of some of those ideas and that “ongoing conversation”. One of the great things about this topic is that some fairly diverse and eclectic material can be incorporated while still lending themselves to the larger whole. This interweaving of ideas, disciplines, and experiences – of relationships – is, I think, a large part of what we are addressing here. They speak of our story. They speak, hopefully and through grace, to us.

We have heard from and will continue to revisit some current thinkers – lay people and religious, activists and contemplatives (often all of these and beyond categorization) – in emergent circles. We will hear as well, as we continue this journey, from some of the Desert Fathers and perhaps see that from even the third century and long before there have been these voices. They speak to us from the wilderness and “the edge of the enclosure”. They remind us that it is about a “shift in perspective”, “states of being”, and “Being to God and one another” in love.

By Andrew Seeling

“True, whole prayer is nothing but love.”  So says St. Augustine, and Richard J. Foster begins and concludes his book, “Prayer – Finding the Heart’s True Home” with that very concise quote.  What, then, does he imagine by this term “radical prayer” in his concluding chapter? I believe he is saying that this very radical notion of prayer itself is to be lived out in one’s everyday life – in community as we are taught – and that there are implications to this for our very way of being. “Pray without ceasing,” as St. Paul reminds us.

Radical prayer is the hope of our transformation in God and the faith that it will be so. In His love, it already is if we but turn and know it to be. This prophetic love alters the way one “sees” or “touches” the fabric upon which all of our relationships are sewn. The way in which we relate to others, to our more or less formal groupings, and to society as a whole is forever different. It is radically inclusive. It is ever expressive in new ways in which to tell this – the story of God ever present in our lives. The wine is always replenished anew. “God is in the business of breathing new life into dry bones,” Foster notes.

It is also true, however, that the practice of radical prayer holds fast by its nature to the unbroken worship and the ancient ways of prayer – individual and communal – that give testimony and witness to this lineage of love and to that most radical of events in the remembrances of our sacred tradition in which we are all renewed.

In the Preface to his book, Richard J. Foster writes: “Prayer ushers us into the Holy of Holies, where we bow before the deepest mysteries of faith, and one fears to touch the Ark.” I feel a bit like that, as well, in presuming to write anything about this deepest of experiences in our relationship with God. As I ponder the chapter on radical prayer with which Foster concludes his book, I find myself returning to these first pages. He starts at the very center with the wonderful analogy of prayer as it may be seen to relate to the Holy Trinity. This is his description of the gift of love and of its receiving in oneness – the root of contemplation.

Thus, we begin with the transcendent love of God, with agape, in motion and stillness. Foster describes the movements of prayer – inward, upward, and through the Holy Spirit outward – in the infinite returning cycle of that love. This is no static movement, though its center is one of quiet and divine stillness. This is conversion, a changing, metanoia, a constant turning towards God. In openness to God, our “minds” and, indeed, our being may be changed through grace. It is a progression and journey upon which we are each embarked and in which we journey together witnessing, ministering, and growing together. It is to this we refer, I believe, when we speak of radical prayer and the gift of prophetic love. “God’s love demands expression,” Foster writes. “It is how God ‘breathes’”.

Karl Barth has written: “To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.” As Richard Foster points out, the “radical” in “radical prayer” is from the Latin “radix” for root. It is from the base, from the core itself. “Radical prayer refuses to let us stay on the fringes of life’s great issues,” Foster says.

This is a love that is not ashamed or embarrassed or afraid to speak truth to power, for it is not a truth that I may “know” but rather the Truth of God. Prophesy, on a certain level, is a kind of “holy rage” – holy in that it comes from a place of love, of stillness, and beyond any notion of “self” but “rage” none-the-less. “Our spiritual defiance leads to firm, aggressive action against all injustice and oppression,” says Foster. It is not detached from the world but cries out for justice and in solidarity with those who are suffering. It is the antithesis of violence. This is not the lack of a preference in this life, as is aspired to in some honorable traditions, but rather a deliberate choosing of love – of God’s love; of agape.

Just as we are called to conversion, that process by which we are led toward wholeness, so are we called to be the prophetic messengers of God. Foster writes: “These are the ones who can envision a new future, a future of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. They are being taken over by a holy power to do right. They are being brought out of bondage to human beings. They cannot be bribed or manipulated or flattered. They love their enemies and pray for those who despise them. In time their very presence and actions will bring down those structures that are sustained by greed and pride and fear. Their simple noncooperation with the oppression, prejudice, and class strife of modern culture will transform the world almost beyond recognition.”

The practice of spiritual defiance in the face of opposition to the way of peace, love, and wholeness in God is itself a practice of healing. It is a defining characteristic of the Judeo-Christian tradition. As in all things, this begins with our practice of prayer. Many a well intentioned activist has succumbed to a methodology of violence – in thought and word as much as deed – and idolatry of self in the name of righteousness. Only in listening to His will do we move forward confidently in the Spirit. We may recognize this by the love one brings, through grace, to our endeavors and from which one proceeds even when we are in anguish, pleading, or arguing with God. Foster writes, “The true prophetic message always calls us to a spiritual defiance of the world as it now is. Our prayer, to the extent that it is fully authentic, undermines the status quo. It is a spiritual underground resistance movement. We are subversives in a world of injustice, oppression, and violence. Like Amos of old, we demand that ‘justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream’ (Amos 5:24).”

“Jesus was, and is, a social revolutionary,” Foster reminds us. “The true prophetic message always calls us to ‘social holiness’”, in the words of John Wesley, and social holiness breaks down all distinctions of class and social status. It leads us out of our usual and comfortable routines in which, often without consideration, others are excluded.

“But for the children of the kingdom it is not important who a person is, only that a person is”, Foster writes and, from Acts 10:34b-35, “God shows no partiality, but in any nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” This includes our prayers first and foremost. We must pray for the peoples and the nations of the world, for the “others,” and especially for those who might be considered our enemies. We must pray for our immediate neighbors and those farther away; for those known to us and for those not. We must repent in our name, in the name of our individual nations, and in the name of those nations thought to be our adversaries. We must ask for forgiveness. As we repent of our own sins, so too is no nation “blameless before God.” Thielicke writes: “The world lives by these uplifted hands, and by nothing else.” This is to embrace the whole world, Foster points out. “In holy boldness we cover the earth with the grace and the mercy of God.  This is a great task, a noble task.”

So, too, we pray for the renewal of the church, for all of God’s children, and for all of His creation. It is our task to bring the liberating message of the Gospel forth into the world. This, of course, begins with us and the community as Richard Foster observes. It starts with our prayers and with our commitment to the community of Christians dedicated to living out lives of contemplation and action as Jesus taught; to living life, as best as we are able and granted through grace, in the footsteps and example of the Great Teacher.

Foster indicates four areas in which to address this commitment to radical prayer and radical grace. These are: the reform of the church as an institution – which is making leaps and bounds in the emergent and other movements though still (and perhaps fortunately) under “the radar,” the participation in communal life – which is burgeoning in a vast variety of forms from traditional religious communities to the “new monastic movement” (and everything in between!), and to spiritual direction, both individually and in small groups.

These all overlap and are interwoven into a complimentary post-modern explosion of new and ancient forms of worship and gathering. Small groups engaging in discussion and the discovery of centuries old liturgies side-by-side with exciting new ways of bringing worship to our communities is, for me, one of the most exciting developments. “It is of utmost importance that we pray in community.  While prayer is often private and personal, it is never outside the reality of the worshiping, praying fellowship.  In fact, we cannot sustain a life of prayer outside the community.  Either we will give it up as futile, lacking the support and watchful care of others, or we will make it into a thing of our own,” Foster tells us.

This brings Foster, and us, to what he terms “The Royal Law.” As agape love is the foundation upon which is the Kingdom of Heaven, so too it is the foundation of prophetic, radical prayer. This is something that, I feel, very much sets the Christian tradition apart in that this love is more than compassion or loving-kindness. This is the love of God. In our lives this gift is manifest on a “level” beyond intellect or emotion. It is here that our own spirit or soul – however one hears that to be – mirrors that of the Holy Spirit in that “motion” that flows from God’s eternal fountain and is “love itself.

Love of God and love of neighbor are linked together inextricably. This is, as Foster says “the heart of the Gospel.” He quotes Dallas Willard: “The aim of God in history is the creation of an all-inclusive community of loving persons, with himself included in that community as its prime sustainer and most glorious inhabitant.” So as we approach the conclusion to this final chapter in Foster’s book on prayer, he brings us back to the point at which we started with St. Augustine’s observation that “whole prayer is nothing but love.” “Just as our blood must flow from our heart to our lungs,” Foster writes, “so God’s love must flow out to his creation.”

We have come full circle. We receive this gift of love unconditionally and unearned that we might turn toward God in faith and, through our selves and our neighbors, offer that love back up in prayer and service. This movement of Spirit from stillness stands at the center of our tradition. This is love freely offered and set in motion like ripples on a pond gently returning upon themselves. We listen for the “voice of God” – however that may be made manifest – that we may turn and re-turn to Him always in love and the process of conversion as Jesus teaches. We are asked to change our way of “seeing” – or perhaps more properly “hearing,” listening that we might see anew, hearing that we might be sent forth. It is in that love and trust in God that we no longer fear to live a contemplative life in radical engagement with our community in whatever way we may be called to do so. It is this prophetic message, I feel, that Richard J. Foster leaves with us in this amazing book. This, I believe, is what is meant by radical prayer.

The first thing we have to realize is that being gay, lesbian or transsexual is not a lifestyle choice. The Lake Wobegon motto fits: “Sumus Quid Sumus” – we are what we are. Does anyone really think that someone would choose to be gay with all its disadvantages and risks just because it would be fun? How about those gay people in places where it was or is extremely dangerous? In some parts of the world it’s the death penalty if you’re found out! Furthermore, there is evidence of physical differences in the brain associated with homosexuality. Animals have been known to display homosexual behavior (New Scientist, Biological Exuberance). The claims that gay men can be made straight by proper training are nonsense – they merely show that there are circumstances under which we can suppress our true nature – at least for a while – and usually at considerable cost to ourselves!

If we accept God as a loving God then would this God create a whole class of people who are doomed to spend their life suppressing their own God given nature? This hardly is a vision of a loving God!

If we look to Jesus, we see someone who often hung out with assorted marginalized people to the scandal of the proper and respectable citizens. He suggested that one had better be careful before judging someone else. Who did he condemn? It’s summarized in the judgment section of Matthew 25: It’s not gays and lesbians – no, the fire and brimstone are reserved for people who ignored those on the bottom. “I was hungry and you didn’t give me food, thirsty and you didn’t give me drink, a stranger and you didn’t welcome me, sick and in prison …..” Not a word about “you were gay…”

The sanctity of marriage issue also is subject to all sorts of distortions. The view that the “one man one women” marriage is a sort of universal concept is nonsense. Marriage is a social construct that varies with time and place and can have many forms. Marriage evolves – look at the changes in our own society in just the last hundred years. How many people want to go back to the form of marriage in Jesus’ time? One man and possibly many women; the women basically property; different definitions of, and punishments for, adultery applying to husband and wife….

The bit that gay marriage is a threat to traditional marriage also is pure nonsense. Yes, the institution of marriage in our country has major problems – but these problems have nothing to do with civil unions or gay marriage. For children one can see some advantage to having parents of different genders – but the advantage of having two parents instead of one is of much greater importance. Research in this area has been distorted by some on the right. In any case, the difference between individuals far outweighs everything else.

The argument that the purpose of marriage is to have children – be fruitful and multiply – may have had some substance a few thousand years ago. However, we are supporting our present population levels through the unsustainable consumption of resources such as oil, gas and water – all combined with enormous environmental damage. Therefore it is in the best interest of God’s creation that we stop multiplying! (See our blog, The world in transformation, on this subject.)