Wise Women

This meditation I received today from the Center for Action and Contemplation really touched me. In the paragraph below, "Ever since I was a young girl...", could have nearly been my statement if a few things were changed.  Continue reading, and at the end I will add my final comments.

From Franciscan Richard Rohr, who suggests that there are good, beautiful, and true gems worth holding on to. At the same time, there are many unhelpful and even harmful parts of what has passed for Christianity that we need to move beyond. In his Daily Meditations, Father Richard helps us mine the depths of this tradition, discerning what to keep and what to transcend.

Friday, June 14, 2019, Feminine Incarnation, Wise Women, For the full posting go here.

Today’s reflection is by Mirabai Starr, drawn from her article in the Center’s spring newsletter and her new book Wild Mercy:*

Ever since I was a young girl, I have been irresistibly drawn to every religion I encountered. Born into a non-religious Jewish family, I had embraced multiple spiritual traditions by the time I was twenty and integrated them into my daily life: a deep devotion to an Indian saint, a daily Buddhist meditation practice, initiation into multiple Sufi lineages, a reclamation of the ancient beauty of my ancestral home in Judaism, and an unexpected friendship with Christ through the mystics, whose words I have since translated. Each of these paths has comingled in my being, creating a rich and robust spiritual soil.

Final comments
I rewrote this paragraph from my perspective,

Ever since I was a young man, I have been irresistibly drawn to every religion I encountered. Born into a less-religious LDS (Mormon) family, I had embraced multiple spiritual traditions by the time I was twenty-five and began to integrated them into my daily life: a deep interest in Buddhist meditation practice, investigation into Taoism, a reclamation of the beauty of my ancestral home in Mormonism, and an unexpected friendship with Christ through the (Catholic) saints, the Blessed Mother and modern theologians such as Nouwen and Merton, whose words I have since contemplated. Each of these paths has comingled in my being, creating a rich and robust spiritual soil. It is my desire to use this fertile soil to grow into a deeper relationship with my Father and begin to bless others like I have been blessed. - g. koerner


* Mirabai Starr, Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics (Sounds True: 2019)

Image credit: Our Lady of Guadalupe (detail of the original image as it appeared on the tilma or cloak of Juan Diego when he experienced a vision of Our Lady on top of Tepeyac Hill, outside of Mexico City). The tilma is enshrined within the Minor Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

Task Force for the Family

I sent this to the president, Donald J. Trump today...

Dear Mr. President,

President David O. McKay, president of the LDS Church (serving from 1951-1970) taught that our most precious possession is our family and that home is the chief school of human virtues. Of the home, he declared: No other success can compensate for failure in the home. (This quote was on our family wall when I was a child.)

Home, its responsibilities, joys, sorrows, smiles, tears, hopes, and solicitudes form the chief interest of human life. When one puts business or pleasure above his home, he that moment starts on the downgrade to soul-weakness. When the club becomes more attractive to any man than his home, it is time for him to confess in bitter shame that he has failed to measure up to the supreme opportunity of his life and flunked in the final test of true manhood. The poorest shack in which love prevails over a united family is of far greater value to God and future humanity than any other riches. In such a home God can work miracles and will work miracles.

Our country is being torn apart from its very roots (the family unit) upward. We see it in increased crime, mass shootings, the opioid epidemic, disdain for human life, common decency and upheaval in our schools.

Please create a Task Force for the Family, which could be called The Parent Commission, to encourage mothers and fathers, grand parents and relatives to step up and raise our precious young children in American with values of kindness, generosity, and decency. This task force would be lead by clergy, major service organizations and academia to help American families to reinvigorate our youth with positive values in and from the home. This would be an investment in America, that will save the country billions of future dollars.  It would reduce crime, creating honest, healthy of mind, body and spirit the youngest of our citizens, which are our most impressionable today. 

I would be honored to lead this committee. Please contact me for my resume and references.

With deepest respect,

Gus Koerner

My Spiritual Journey - My Acknowledging Christ, Part 3

Mormons don’t call God, God much; they refer to Him primarily as Heavenly Father. They call Jesus - Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost. The strongest influence upon my spirituality from the age of eight to fourteen was the Boy Scout program. My troop taught us to live true to the Scout Oath, Law and ideals, among which was “a Scout is reverent”. I was also very active my 10th through the 12th grade in Young Life and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA). I have to admit my attendance was initially for social reasons, not spiritual. Soon though I loved the stories and how much happier I felt when it was over. I felt peace and hopeful. I remember vaguely one evening, sitting on the floor and then standing up when the Youth Minister called people to come forward, who wanted to accept Christ as their Savior and follow Him. I did that evening thirty-eight years ago when I was fifteen. I continued to be active in those organizations, taking a leadership role in FCA. My junior and senior year, the entire starting lineup on our football team were Christians.

In the 10th and 11th grade Kelly was my girl friend. I became very close to her entire family. She helped me get to know God and what it meant to be a Christian by our talks and Bible reading, associations with her friends and family and by going to her church, Ridglea Presbyterian in Fort Worth. I eventually joined the church because it felt like home. To this day the fellowship I received was the most wonderful thing I had experienced to that point. We eventually broke up because my family was Mormon and she kept degrading and criticizing the faith of my family. It was devastating. Also traumatic was the reaction my family had when they learned of my joining the Presbyterian church. I never felt “Presbyterian”, but as a member of a body of believers. Even the next year when I dated Tina and attended the Methodist church, I felt like a Christian, and that I was loved and accepted. I think because they were Methodists, they loved and accepted me, and tolerated my family’s religion. Methodists seem one of the most tolerant religions.

I never felt that my new faith was accepted by my family members, or my old faith accepted by my high school friends except for Tina and a few others. My brothers and sisters preached to me about how wrong I was, and wept for my leaving the Mormon faith. My mom was sad that I did so, but my father never expressed his opinion. My sense is that he loved me, and knew I was on my own journey. This was a whole new experience for me. I really loved God, but felt so conflicted by those around me.

My Spiritual Journey - My Upbringing, Part 2

I was born in 1959 to the parents of Karl and Irene in Salt Lake City, Utah. I am the youngest of six children. Both of my parents were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) or Mormon church. As an infant I was blessed and named in the church shortly after birth. I do not remember ever being associated with any other faith or religion. My mom was a devout member of the LDS church from my earliest memories until she died in 2001, as was her entire family in Utah and Idaho. My dad was raised as a Minnesota Lutheran and later converted to the Mormon church not long after he married my mom. I have two brothers and three sisters. From oldest down, they include Karl, Kristi, Julia, John and Irene.

The three oldest children I know were active LDS. Karl and Julia served as missionaries for two or three years when they were in their twenties, both in Taiwan. My oldest sister Kristi married a returned missionary and has always fully embraced her faith. Growing up we lived in Texas, and I recollect my sister Irene going to church quite frequently growing up, and her having friends there. My brother John went to church as I recall, but with our age and interest difference (~8 years), we didn’t communicate very much. My attendance at the Mormon church was much less than my siblings. I recall not wanting to go, my dad not going very often, and sometimes my mom dropping me off at Wednesday night meetings. The talk of going to church virtually always produced an argument in the family. The reasons for me not wanting to attend were not philosophical, but social. I didn’t have any friends there. There may have been one other kid from my school there, but we weren’t good friends.

During that time I knew of God. At eight years old, I was baptized on a Saturday afternoon. I was wearing all white clothes, and so did the man who baptized me. I think it was my dad, but I am not sure. To this day I remember the man saying a prayer, and dunking me fully under water. LDS people baptize by immersion, and do so in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. I remember two witnesses watching real close, and how clean I felt afterwards. After I dried off and changed clothes, I sat in a chair in front of a small group of friends and some men put their hands on my head, and said a prayer including the words “receive the Holy Ghost”. I know my dad was one of the men this time. This is not a unique experience for young Mormon people. It happens this way with most LDS children at the age of eight, when they are considered the “age of accountability”.