Archive for the 'Cheryl Woelk' Category

End-of-Summer Worship

Published on September 1, 2010 by Cheryl Woelk. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

After the sum­mer of peo­ple com­ing and going, hol­i­days, and uncer­tain sched­ules, we finally returned to wor­ship. Although it felt strange com­ing back up the hill after so many weeks away, enter­ing the space of wor­ship and excit­ing greet­ings of old friends and a few new faces, I sensed famil­iar­ity, warmth, and rejoic­ing in community.

The theme of wor­ship through the sum­mer had con­nected with gar­den­ing. From prepar­ing the gar­den soil, to sow­ing seeds, to nur­tur­ing plants, to the har­vest, we jour­neyed through the metaphor of our lives and spirit. Some­times we were the gar­den­ers, some­times the soil, some­times the seed, and some­times the weed.

On this week of return­ing, though, the final cel­e­bra­tion had come. The har­vest! One by one, mem­bers brought bas­kets and plates and bowls filled with colour­ful fruits, veg­eta­bles, and flowers.

We sang and danced, giv­ing thanks to God the giver of all good things: for the har­vest of food in our gar­dens, but even more for the har­vest of God’s work in the life of this community.

Rela­tion­ships sowed in ready soil, nur­tured over the past year as we fel­low­shipped together, and a har­vest of joy at being reunited in wor­ship to the One who enables us to call strangers, “sis­ter” and “brother.” A true cel­e­bra­tion of thanksgiving.

The Miracle of Rest

Published on August 30, 2010 by Cheryl Woelk. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Photo by Scott Kim

There’s some­thing about being in God’s cre­ation that seems to stretch time. I feel a sense of abun­dance and re-connection with the Cre­ator of all. Time taken in rest, away from the people-creations which focus on time, money, pro­duc­tion, and con­sump­tion, I remem­ber who I am, I re-centre my self and life in Christ, and I re-commit myself to the com­mu­nity of faith which seeks to live in the king­dom of the Creator.

I might just be ready for a new semester.

The Labyrinth

Published on July 26, 2010 by Cheryl Woelk. Closed Tags: , , , .

I began slowly, step­ping one bare foot at a time along the care­fully laid stones.

I had planned to come here. It was not by acci­dent that I was now prepar­ing myself for this wind­ing, silent jour­ney. I had planned for at least a week. A phone call and some stalling put me off, but still, I was there.

As I walked the stones, turn­ing at their lead, I began to notice. I breathed deeply and stepped for­ward. I noticed the feel of the stones on my bare feet. Some were lighter-coloured and the darker ones sent waves of sun­lit warmth through the soles of my feet and up through my legs. It would have been too hot if it weren’t for the teas­ing of wind tick­ling my ankles and calves and send my pulled-back hair into fly-aways.

I breathed deeply and stepped for­ward. I smelled the fresh­ness of the thyme grow­ing between the stones, the green on the wind, and dust gath­ered from days with­out rain. The city’s poul­try plant aroma set­tled sub­tly on the background.

I breathed deeply and stepped for­ward. I heard birds chirp­ing, singing, whistling, caw­ing, and sigh­ing in the trees around me. Two of them echoed each other across the meadow where I stood. A car passed close enough to hear the laugh­ter and shouts from inside, chang­ing pitch as it left into the dis­tance. Crick­ets, the hum of bugs, the slight rus­tle of the my feet against the grasses, all drowned out the sounds of sirens, traf­fic, and a train in the val­ley city below. A plane left it sound lin­ger­ing in the sky above, but I didn’t look up.

I breathed deeply and stepped for­ward. As I came nearer the cen­tre, only to turn away at a twist in the path, I saw the tex­ture of the stones with shad­ows and patchy sun­light, the hint of colour from tiny grasses bloom­ing, and a string from someone’s cloth­ing — bright pur­ple. I looked to the sky and felt the blue sink into my eyes until the wisps of clouds on their palette stayed even as I closed my eye­lids. The val­ley extended below with the cop­per brick of the school under­lin­ing the city. A purplish-blue haze in the shape of the moun­tains framed the image.

I breathed deeply and stepped for­ward and took a final step into the cen­tre. I had arrived. The sense of all flooded into my being, feel­ing warmth, see­ing light, hear­ing music, smelling fra­grance, and tast­ing beauty. Prayers flowed out of my cen­tre and back in. The ground felt firm and I rejoiced, spin­ning with my arms spread wide until the world stopped.

A moment of med­i­ta­tion, then the joy­ous going out, return­ing to the world, to the nor­mal and yet per­ceived dif­fer­ently. I breathed deeply and stepped forward.

Mennonites in the Shenandoah Valley

Published on July 20, 2010 by Cheryl Woelk. Closed Tags: , , , .

Cross­roads Val­ley Brethren-Mennonite Her­itage Cen­ter (from www.vbmhc.org)

The Men­non­ites and Brethren in the Shenan­doah Val­ley have been here a long time. A recent visit to Cross­roads Val­ley Brethren-Mennonite Her­itage Cen­ter gave a glimpse of how the his­tory of this area has been shaped by the early Brethren and Men­non­ite farm­ing communities.

The Men­non­ite groups that came to this area were Swiss-German and arrived as early as the 1700s. Brethren groups came about the same time, and the com­mon­al­i­ties of the two com­mu­ni­ties pro­moted coop­er­a­tion in estab­lish­ing farm­ing set­tle­ments in the area.

Dur­ing the Civil War, the peace posi­tion of the two groups was not pop­u­lar. It also became a chal­lenge for indi­vid­u­als and church com­mu­ni­ties who expe­ri­enced pres­sure of the soci­ety, but also the judge­ment of the com­mu­nity. James O. Lehman describes the diary of one Men­non­ite bishop as “most inter­est­ing on the ques­tion of loy­al­ties” but empha­sis how most of the groups clung to the peace position.

The visit prompted reflec­tion on my own com­mit­ments and caused me to ques­tion the lengths that I might go in keep the faith of my her­itage cen­tred in peace. It also gave me a new per­spec­tive on the Har­rison­burg area, influ­enced so pro­foundly by the “quiet in the land.”

Scarcity and Abundance

Published on July 8, 2010 by Cheryl Woelk. Closed Tags: , , , .

An enter­tain­ing yet thought-provoking film in the ‘teach­ing diverse learn­ers’ class prompted dis­cus­sion about assump­tions, habits, and the auto­matic responses of human beings. What causes us to react with self-preservation instincts to a per­cep­tion of scarcity? What allows us to share gen­er­ously with oth­ers out of a knowl­edge of abun­dance? Is it some­thing within us? Is it in how oth­ers respond to us? The sur­round­ings we’re in? Or is it the work of the spirit build­ing com­mu­nity within and across bound­aries? Just a few ques­tions to ponder….

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An Encounter with Times Square

Published on June 18, 2010 by Cheryl Woelk. Closed Tags: , , .

New York CityIt was my first real trip to New York City. Part of me felt thrilled with vis­it­ing one of the most famous cities on the planet, while part of me dreaded the oppres­sion of traf­fic, sky­scrap­ers and crowds remem­bered from life in Seoul.

I tried to keep a pos­i­tive out­look and pre­tended to be a char­ac­ter in a Holly wood show, pos­si­bly in  sit­com with my bud­dies, a roman­tic drama with the  dom­i­neer­ing sky­scape in the back­ground, or wait­ing for the end of the world (because that always seems to hap­pen first in a city like New York). I felt a twinge of excite­ment to be in such a place.

As we arrived at Times Square, I stood on the piece of side­walk as seen in so many pic­tures, and looked around me. The mes­sages blared out in flash­ing, blink­ing, scrolling, bril­liant scripts.

“Buy this!” “Fear that!” “Women are objects!” “Money makes happiness!”

I sud­denly real­ized I was in the heart of an empire. Mate­ri­al­ism, cap­i­tal­ism, con­sumerism, sex­ism, greed, idol­a­try lit the mes­sages I saw around me. The build­ings began to feel even more tow­er­ing — threat­en­ing to smother and con­sume. In this moment, peo­ple dis­ap­peared and all I saw were the sym­bols of empire.

Reflect­ing on my expe­ri­ence, I remem­ber Jesus’ response to encoun­ters with empire  dur­ing his life­time. Not only did he refuse to be dimin­ished or over­whelmed by the empire’s mes­sages, he fought back by rad­i­cally human­is­ing each per­son he met.

After Times Square, I took the train to a friend’s house in Flush­ing. Return­ing to the life-sized one and two-storied build­ings, and greet­ing my friends, human­ity returned. As we fel­low­shipped over a deli­cious meal, I won­dered about the myth of the city’s pull and decided that this com­mu­nity thrilled me more than any New York City.

It was my first real trip to New York City. Part of me felt thrilled with vis­it­ing one of the most famous cities on the planet, while part of me dreaded the oppres­sion of traf­fic, sky­scrap­ers and crowds remem­bered from life in Seoul.

I tried to keep a pos­i­tive out­look and pre­tended to be a char­ac­ter in a Holly wood show, pos­si­bly in sit­com with my bud­dies, a roman­tic drama with the dom­i­neer­ing sky­scape in the back­ground, or wait­ing for the end of the world (because that always seems to hap­pen first in a city like New York). I felt a twinge of excite­ment to be in such a place.

As we arrived at Times Square, I stood on the piece of side­walk as seen in so many pic­tures, and looked around me. The mes­sages blared out in flash­ing, blink­ing, scrolling, bril­liant scripts.

“Buy this!” “Fear that!” “Women are objects!” “Money makes happiness!”

I sud­denly real­ized I was in the heart of an empire. Mate­ri­al­ism, cap­i­tal­ism, con­sumerism, sex­ism, greed, idol­a­try lit the mes­sages I saw around me. The build­ings began to feel even more tow­er­ing — threat­en­ing to smother and con­sume. In this moment, peo­ple dis­ap­peared and all I saw were the sym­bols of empire.

Reflect­ing on my expe­ri­ence, I remem­ber Jesus’ response to encoun­ters with empire dur­ing his life­time. Not only did he refuse to be dimin­ished or over­whelmed by the empire’s mes­sages, he fought back by rad­i­cally human­is­ing each per­son he met.

After Times Square, I took the train to a friend’s house in Flush­ing. Return­ing to the life-sized one and two-storied build­ings, and greet­ing my friends, human­ity returned. As we fel­low­shipped over a deli­cious meal, I won­dered about the myth of the city’s pull and decided that this com­mu­nity thrilled me more than any New York City.

Nonviolence in an Age of Trauma

Published on May 19, 2010 by Cheryl Woelk. Closed Tags: , , , .

Iden­tity. Com­mu­nity. Trauma. Non­vi­o­lence. Healing.

What does non­vi­o­lence look like in response to trau­matic vio­lence? Cyn­thia Hess’ lec­ture on “Non­vi­o­lence in an Age of Trauma” at the sem­i­nary prompted thoughts about the church com­mu­nity and its role in healing.

While tra­di­tional views of non­vi­o­lence in peace churches have focused on respond­ing to exter­nal vio­lent acts, Hess sug­gests that non­vi­o­lence should also include responses to inter­nal vio­lence, that is, the last­ing effects of trauma on indi­vid­u­als and communities.

In her book Sites of Vio­lence, Sites of Grace Hess describes the nature of trauma and its impact on iden­tity. After expe­ri­enc­ing vio­lence, peo­ple carry with them a nar­ra­tive of trauma which impacts their iden­ti­ties as vic­tims. Trauma heal­ing works at trans­form­ing these nar­ra­tives to restore iden­ti­ties to wholeness.

The church, though, goes beyond restora­tion of indi­vid­ual iden­ti­ties to a larger sense of heal­ing and trans­for­ma­tion in com­mu­nity. A com­mu­nal nar­ra­tive shared by the church, cen­tred around the life, death and res­ur­rec­tion of Jesus, can pro­vide a con­text for re-constructing iden­tity. The new iden­tity has the hurt acknowl­edged and also renewed hope for the future.

The com­mu­nity can be a safe con­text for re-structuring or inte­grat­ing the indi­vid­ual nar­ra­tive into the com­mu­nal nar­ra­tive. A ques­tion arises, though, of whether the cross is seen as a re-enactment of the expe­ri­ence of trauma or as a source of heal­ing. This may be dif­fer­ent with dif­fer­ent peo­ple, Hess sug­gests, and would rec­om­mend that this be a point of sen­si­tiv­ity in the community.

I won­der, though, can churches really be this kind of safe and heal­ing com­mu­nity? How does this hap­pen? What does this look like in real­ity? I sus­pect that more than sim­ple atten­dance at Sun­day wor­ship would be nec­es­sary for nar­ra­tives to be trans­formed. How can we, as mem­bers of a church com­mu­nity, cre­ate this kind of space and relationship?

As peace churches empha­siz­ing and teach­ing non­vi­o­lence, per­haps this is another way to view min­istries of heal­ing and to con­sider how all might be wel­come to this transformation.

(See here for another arti­cle by Cyn­thia Hess on col­lec­tive trauma and non­vi­o­lent response)

Pray the Devil Back to Hell

Published on April 21, 2010 by Cheryl Woelk. Closed Tags: , , , , .

I first saw Leymah Gbowee on The Col­bert Report and was impressed by her keep­ing Stephen Col­bert in his place dur­ing an inter­view. I think she’s prob­a­bly one of the few peo­ple who actu­ally spoke her piece fully with­out Col­bert inter­rupt­ing. She also man­aged to get him to say “I’m not going to argue with that.”

I only later found out that she is my ‘seon-bae’ by a few years. She grad­u­ated from the Cen­ter for Jus­tice and Peace­build­ing in 2007 and she vis­ited EMU again at the show­ing of the doc­u­men­tary about the peace­build­ing work she lead with women in Liberia.

She spoke at the EMU chapel time. Shar­ing her story of strug­gle and trans­for­ma­tion on her jour­ney of faith and peace­build­ing, I was inspired. She is cer­tainly a leader; I could see that when she spoke, peo­ple lis­tened. I felt that she was speak­ing to each one of us in the audi­to­rium on a per­sonal level.

The doc­u­men­tary was mov­ing (you can watch parts of it here) and moti­vat­ing. Yet she reminded her lis­ten­ers, the work of peace­build­ing is never fin­ished. In faith, we con­tinue in obe­di­ence to the call to pray for peace.

“Pray the Devil Back to Hell chron­i­cles the remark­able story of the coura­geous Liber­ian women who came together to end a bloody civil war and bring peace to their shat­tered country.

Thou­sands of women — ordi­nary moth­ers, grand­moth­ers, aunts and daugh­ters, both Chris­t­ian and Mus­lim — came together to pray for peace and then staged a silent protest out­side of the Pres­i­den­tial Palace. Armed only with white T-shirts and the courage of their con­vic­tions, they demanded a res­o­lu­tion to the country’s civil war. Their actions were a crit­i­cal ele­ment in bring­ing about a agree­ment dur­ing the stalled peace talks.

A story of sac­ri­fice, unity and tran­scen­dence, Pray the Devil Back to Hell hon­ors the strength and per­se­ver­ance of the women of Liberia. Inspir­ing, uplift­ing, and most of all moti­vat­ing, it is a com­pelling tes­ti­mony of how grass­roots activism can alter the his­tory of nations.” ~ from the offi­cial website

The Sparrow

Published on April 12, 2010 by Cheryl Woelk. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

I recently read a novel for the sec­ond time. Mary Doria Russell’s “The Spar­row” caught my eye on the shelf and I picked it up again after read­ing it once about five years ago. To my sur­prise it still engaged and chal­lenged me.

In this sci-fi style story, music is dis­cov­ered com­ing from a dis­tant planet and a Jesuit mis­sion group goes to make con­tact with intel­li­gent life. The story pulls in themes of lan­guage, cul­tural com­mu­ni­ca­tion, mis­sion, and sus­tain­abil­ity while also prompt­ing thought about the uni­ver­sal reign of God and faith as they encounter the new soci­ety in a new world.

An essen­tial ques­tion through­out the book asks about God’s role in suf­fer­ing. If peo­ple can give glory and credit to God for good things, why can we not blame God for all the bad that hap­pens in the world? Chris­tians claim that God is our shel­ter and strength. Yet what about those who have no shel­ter? Does God not care about them?

Or per­haps God’s shel­ter is in the midst of suf­fer­ing. This is “The Spar­row” story. The spar­row falls. God’s eyes are on it, but it still falls. Maybe God’s promise has been mis­un­der­stood. Maybe it’s not that peo­ple won’t suf­fer or have dif­fi­cult times, but that God will suf­fer with us in the midst of it.

Although some parts were dis­turb­ing even a sec­ond time, most chal­leng­ing was a ques­tion­ing of my expec­ta­tion of God’s pres­ence in the world and the real­ity of suf­fer­ing. How can I make sense of all that goes wrong in a world cre­ated by a lov­ing and mer­ci­ful God? Through this reflec­tion, though, I returned to the con­vic­tion of God’s pres­ence in the suf­fer­ing and through it. Even beyond human (or alien) understanding.

An Ocean Prayer

Published on March 16, 2010 by Cheryl Woelk. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

We watched for two and half hours for whales off the coast of Vir­ginia, but saw only the awe­some cre­ation of sea, sky, birds, and the glow of wind on my face. A breath of ocean air. A prayer.