Archive for the 'Cheryl Woelk' Category

An Ocean Prayer

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.

Beautiful Judgement

Scrip­tures for wor­ship recently have brought out themes of judge­ment for me… some­thing that I’ve wres­tled with and tried to leave alone in the past. This time, though, I decided to fol­low the scrip­tures and words from wor­ship a bit further.

How do Chris­tians under­stand God’s judge­ment? My first impres­sion is a stern fig­ure who pun­ishes and rewards arbi­trar­ily, based on largely unknown and unde­fined fac­tors. I mean the first rule of thumb for edu­ca­tors in grad­ing is mak­ing very clear what the grades are for — rubrics, qual­ity indi­ca­tors, all those are stan­dards, but it God some­times is por­trayed as ran­dom with pun­ish­ment and rewards.

And this is just it. So often, I think I’m stuck on the idea of judge­ment as dish­ing out pun­ish­ments and rewards based on what peo­ple deserve. There’s lots to sug­gest this in the Bible too… espe­cially Psalms talk­ing about God going after the ene­mies of the Psalmist. But there’s another judge­ment… one to cel­e­brate and for which to give thanks; one that peo­ple and all cre­ation waits for with anticipation.

I won­der about these two views of judge­ment. They don’t seem to con­nect. Is this per­haps because judge­ment as pun­ish­ment and reward is a human con­cep­tion of judge­ment, not God’s? After all, God’s thoughts are not human thoughts, nor are God’s ways human ways. What if God’s way of judge­ment really is beau­ti­ful and some­thing to be adored and admired? What if God’s way of judge­ment looks ridicu­lous some­times and is filled with irra­tional grace, for­give­ness, and sec­ond and third and fourth chances? What if God’s judge­ment is not whom to rebuke and whom to reward, but how to restore all peo­ple and all cre­ation back to right-ness?

The story of the prodi­gal son read in today’s wor­ship ser­vice affirms this view of judge­ment. Both of the sons expect pun­ish­ment and reward based on actions and choices. The father’s response, though, comes from a dif­fer­ent par­a­digm — a par­a­digm of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. Judge­ment here is choos­ing to cel­e­brate the return of the son and decid­ing to work at the restora­tion of relationship.

This seems to be God’s judge­ment — cer­tainly thoughts that are not human thoughts of deserv­ing and weigh­ing scales and ways that are not human ways of ret­ri­bu­tion. God is not puni­tive. God is restora­tive, mer­ci­ful, for­giv­ing, abun­dant in grace, and trans­forms even tragedy into goodness.

Think­ing of God’s beau­ti­ful judge­ment that restores, I too can cel­e­brate and wait with antic­i­pa­tion for God to bring all things back to wholeness.

Holding on, five times a day

Reflect­ing these weeks on “hold­ing on and let­ting go” as part of Lenten devo­tion­als, I notice yet again my urge to con­trol everything.

Even in writ­ing about choos­ing a per­sonal focus for Lent, my jour­nal records my unwill­ing­ness to let go — all of my Lent ideas involve hold­ing on, work­ing harder, try­ing again, push­ing and forc­ing myself to do what I think is good. Hold­ing on to every­thing with tight fists. There may be times for this kind of tenac­ity. After re-reading my brain­stormed list, though, I real­ize the most impor­tant thing I could con­cen­trate on this Lent is let­ting go.

Now I’m prac­tic­ing. I’m let­ting go of expec­ta­tions of per­fec­tion in my work and study. I’m let­ting go of judge­ment of myself when I don’t exer­cise and eat as well as I know I should. I’m let­ting go of try­ing to fix every­thing and of tak­ing on respon­si­bil­i­ties that are not really mine. I’m let­ting go of legal­ism, per­fec­tion­ism, and crit­i­cism, and begin­ning to see what remains that I need to hold on to.

A friend shared his expe­ri­ence of how he holds on. As a Mus­lim, he fol­lows the tra­di­tion of pray­ing five times a day. These moments become daily mark­ers of time and space for the essen­tial. A reminder of what he needs to let go and what he needs to hold on to. Hear­ing his expe­ri­ence, I rec­og­nize a need for  these reminders myself.

One step fur­ther. In addi­tion to prac­tic­ing let­ting go, I’ve started to stop at moments through­out the day (thanks to the mul­ti­ple alarms on my phone to alert me!) to remem­ber and pray. Every­thing else seems to slide into place and I feel cen­tred again. I remind myself too, like my friend says, that it’s not about legal­ism. If I miss a time, I “jump up” to the next, know­ing that I am free in God these moments are a gift, not an obligation.

Lent moves on another week and I keep try­ing to hold on, let go, and con­tinue the journey.

A Collective Work of Art

One of my edu­ca­tion assign­ments involved iden­ti­fy­ing a metaphor for edu­ca­tion and the jour­ney of teacher. Below is my response. Read­ing it again, I’d like to empha­sis even more that the work of art is a col­lec­tive effort — co-artists with learn­ers and the learn­ing com­mu­nity. I also rec­og­nize par­al­lels to other areas of min­istry and ser­vice. It’s not so much about the skills and tools as the Spirit.

Edu­ca­tion requires an artist’s touch. In my jour­ney as a teacher I have come to see learn­ing as a work of art cre­ated by the learn­ing com­mu­nity. A suc­cess­ful artist pos­sesses a com­bi­na­tion of a love of the art, tools and tech­niques, exten­sive expe­ri­ence in mix­ing colours and paint­ing, and oppor­tu­ni­ties to share ideas together with other artists. I expe­ri­ence a sim­i­lar jour­ney as a teacher. While I began with a love of the art of learn­ing, I con­tinue to acquire strate­gies for teach­ing, expe­ri­ence in cre­at­ing learn­ing envi­ron­ments, and shar­ing through dia­logue with other edu­ca­tors.
Palette

The artist’s palette as a per­sonal sym­bol reminds me of the art and sci­ence of teach­ing. Artists pre­pare a vari­ety of colours on their palettes, based on their vision for the work. They know about the sci­ence of art, includ­ing what results would likely occur when mix­ing colours, the effect of pro­por­tion and line, and the tex­tures of dif­fer­ent strokes. They can pre­pare the appro­pri­ate brushes, can­vas, and paints. Yet no artist can pre­dict the exact out­come. It takes a cer­tain sense and spirit to respond to the can­vas. In the same way, the learn­ing com­mu­nity cre­ates the learn­ing expe­ri­ence together. While the teacher-artist may have skills to decide when to use which instruc­tional strate­gies, the stu­dents, other teach­ers, and the school envi­ron­ment also shape the learn­ing expe­ri­ence. Despite the best les­son plans, the vision that the teacher-artist had in mind may turn out very dif­fer­ently. The teacher’s role con­tributes to the learn­ing expe­ri­ence as a work of art, high­lights points of beauty, and iden­ti­fies areas that “work.” As the colours, shapes, and ideas flow into one, the learn­ing expe­ri­ence becomes a beau­ti­ful piece of art.

No Dual Citizenship

pasport1Last week Greg Boyd spoke at Park View Men­non­ite Church in Har­rison­burg, about his book The Myth of a Chris­t­ian Nation. His main idea was that there is the king­dom of the world, and the king­dom of God and that they are dif­fer­ent. You can tell because the king­dom of God on earth looks like Jesus. So if you ever want to know if some­thing world king­dom or God king­dom, just check whether it looks like Jesus or not.

The Anabap­tist tra­di­tion has cen­tred on this fairly closely, his­tor­i­cally. Boyd urged the Men­non­ites in the audi­ence to keep this voice strong, while at the same time chal­leng­ing to be flex­i­ble and open on every­thing else that is not about God’s king­dom. A chal­lenge, to say the least.

He empha­sized how God’s king­dom is inclu­sive, rad­i­cally inclu­sive, so much that the Matthews (tax col­lec­tors) and Simons (zealots who “some­times assas­si­nated tax col­lec­tors”) could fol­low Jesus together in the same group of dis­ci­ples, dia­logu­ing, inter­act­ing, and focus­ing on liv­ing the God’s king­dom –kind of life.

As fol­low­ers of Jesus, we can have dif­fer­ent opin­ions and view­points on pol­i­tics and the way the world should go, but ulti­mately we are gath­ered together as one in the king­dom of God, which takes pri­or­ity over all other issues.

So this is my cit­i­zen­ship. I need to remem­ber this and not be con­fused while liv­ing in a ‘for­eign’ king­dom of this world. I was reminded that while I can dia­logue and chal­lenge and engage the world king­dom, my iden­tity and pri­mary alle­giance lies in God’s king­dom. If I choose to fol­low Jesus, I give up my cit­i­zen­ship to the world. There is no dual cit­i­zen­ship here.

Truth and Lies…

InventionI watched “The Inven­tion of Lying” the other night. Despite the trite descrip­tions of “the man in the sky” and the obvi­ous Moses-mocking with pizza boxes in either hand, the movie prompted some inter­est­ing thoughts on the nar­ra­tives humans tell our­selves and the role that those nar­ra­tives play.

The main char­ac­ter, Mark, lives in an alter­nate real­ity where peo­ple can only speak the truth in full, com­plete with embar­rass­ing an d hurt­ful details. One day, he dis­cov­ers that he can speak some­thing that “is not” while at the bank. He starts out by using this new abil­ity for his ben­e­fit, but soon real­izes that some­times speak­ing what is not can bring hope, hap­pi­ness, and encour­age­ment to oth­ers, includ­ing telling his sui­ci­dal neigh­bour that “every­thing is going to be alright.”

In his book “Help­ing,” Edgar H. Schein describes the cul­tural norms and social lan­guage Helpingwe fol­low in help­ing one another, includ­ing sto­ries, roles, and nar­ra­tives as depicted in the film. In fact, he uses the term “the­atre” as a metaphor for the pat­terns of human inter­ac­tion that we depend upon to keep func­tion­ing socially. Mark’s use of these nar­ra­tives even in his world that usu­ally doesn’t fol­low them pushes him up in social sta­tus and admi­ra­tion of oth­ers. Aware­ness of these nar­ra­tives and their emo­tional impact can empower us to help and be helped and to avoid caus­ing hurt through our help­ing attempts.

I’m reminded of the pas­sage in Eph­esians describ­ing unity in the body of Christ, and the growth of fol­low­ers of Christ, “speak­ing the truth in love” along the way. This requires an inves­ti­ga­tion of the nar­ra­tives we use and to what extent they con­sti­tute “truth” while at the same time “in love.” Words of encour­age­ment, affir­ma­tion, and hope do not nec­es­sar­ily stem from what “is not” but from the truth framed in Christ-like love for others.

By the end of the film, Mark real­izes that lying holds no appeal when with some­one he loves. Instead, he learns to look for the affirm­ing truths in oth­ers and to speak those in place of truths that hurt. Not bad for a sim­ple comedy.

Space Discoveries

As the new year begins, I find myself reflect­ing on the year that has passed and plan­ning for the year to come. Like many peo­ple, I’m sure. Set­ting goals and res­o­lu­tions, renew­ing com­mit­ments and promis­ing to change usu­ally come to mind.

Recently, though, I’ve been think­ing about my need for space. Prompted by a study of Barry Hart’s “Peace­build­ing Wheel” in rela­tion­ship to peace edu­ca­tion in a class last year, the con­cept of phys­i­cal, emo­tional, and rela­tional space con­tin­ues to come to my attention.

I know that I need phys­i­cal space. I real­ized the extent of my claus­tro­pho­bia in Korea on the packed 11pm under­ground trains where my breath­ing was inter­rupted by the push of peo­ple against me. What does it mean, though, to have emo­tional and rela­tional space? How does that relate to time?

In the last year, I expe­ri­enced the loss of a good friend. Through the grief process, I’m start­ing to under­stand the need for emo­tional space. While I rarely give myself the free­dom to just feel what I feel, I see the neg­a­tive impacts this lack of space has on me and the peo­ple close to me. When I do give myself space to grief, to lis­ten to my feel­ings and how my body is telling me it needs me to lis­ten, I come to a sense of release and renewal. If I have emo­tional space, the griev­ing process can con­tinue in healthy and life-giving ways.

The rela­tional con­cept of space cre­ates a place for friend­ships and con­nec­tions to be nur­tured. When I have my to-do list and I am so busy check­ing off on thing and the next, being pro­duc­tive, I more than likely will miss the nuances of my spouse’s facial expres­sions and for­get to ask how his day has gone. I tend to rush out of the stu­dent lounge after say­ing hi to a few from my class to get back to my office and “get things done” rather than sit together with hon­esty and pres­ence. Rela­tional space draws me into the lives of oth­ers, and makes their sto­ries my own. It cre­ates the oppor­tu­nity for authen­tic encounters.

So per­haps this year my res­o­lu­tion is not doing some­thing new, but let­ting go and cre­at­ing space. I seek to focus less on doing and more on being. In some ways, it’s eas­ier to resolve to add more com­mit­ments and promises to my sched­ule than to hon­estly reflect in space which may frighten and threaten me with its empti­ness. I find it more dif­fi­cult to stop, release, and be present. I sense, though, that Hart’s “Peace­build­ing Wheel” has some­thing that I’m miss­ing as one who seeks to cre­ate peace. This year, I’d like to dis­cover some space.

Live” a Merry Christmas!

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I noticed my fam­ily talks about “hav­ing” Christ­mas. We’ll have our fam­ily Christ­mas on the 24th, then go to my grand­par­ents to have Christ­mas on the 27th, and have Christ­mas with the other side on New Year’s. Yet when we sit down to “have” Christ­mas, what does it mean? We open gifts, eat lots of choco­late, read the story in Luke, sing a carol or so. It’s nice. Its nice to “have” Christmas.

I won­der, though, what is the main point? Is it exchang­ing gifts and eat­ing lots of food? Even pop­u­lar cul­ture is start­ing to real­ize this is not the cen­tre of Christ­mas. Is it spend­ing time with fam­ily? Soci­ety would cer­tainly iden­tify that as a “rea­son for the sea­son.” Is it that Jesus was born? Churches and pop­u­lar Chris­tian­ity might empha­sis this. Yet that gets com­pli­cated. The scrip­tures don’t talk so much about that Jesus was born, as about how Jesus lived.

What about if the point of Christ­mas is to remem­ber to live as Jesus lived, with the out­casts of soci­ety, the weak and oppressed, serv­ing oth­ers, not rely­ing on mate­r­ial goods for secu­rity, and using love instead of weapons even in the face of death. This is a fright­en­ing image of Christ­mas, risky, and filled with fac­ing dark­ness. It’s not the kind of Christ­mas most peo­ple would like to “have.”

Per­haps this can become part of the Chris­t­ian tra­di­tion, though. Remem­ber with Jesus’ birth, with fam­ily gath­er­ings and gift exchanges, how Jesus lived. Per­haps then we can shape our tra­di­tions and gifts to his model, car­ing for the least, giv­ing not just to loved ones but even to ene­mies. Maybe then we’ll talk not about “hav­ing” Christ­mas, but coura­geously  “liv­ing” Christ­mas, empow­ered by the spirit to walk in the way of the one whose birth we celebrate.

A Mysterious Appearance…

DSCN8961

The snow came Sat­ur­day with thick fast falling flakes fill­ing the crevices and hol­lows first then set­tling in, pil­ing in, tree boughs dip­ping under the weight of millions.

Some­one appeared out­side our door, smil­ing mys­te­ri­ously.… and has already gone.

A glimpse of a North­ern home.

Humans and their Needs

yourNeedsWhat do you need most in your life? What would you do to make sure that need is met? Would you con­tinue to go after your need even if you thought it might cause conflict?

Recently, I’ve been think­ing about human needs. In my edu­ca­tion class, we recalled Maslow’s hier­ar­chy of needs, which sug­gests that human’s require cer­tain needs met before oth­ers. For exam­ple, basic phys­i­cal needs such as food and safety come before needs esteem and self-actualization. In edu­ca­tional set­tings, this the­ory often sup­ports pro­grams such as pro­vid­ing break­fast at school for chil­dren to meet basic needs.

While these pro­grams may be help­ful, my Con­flict Analy­sis class dis­cussed an alter­na­tive per­spec­tive which divides needs into mate­r­ial, social, and cul­tural cat­e­gories. In actu­al­ity, basic human needs do not lie at the root of most con­flicts, but rather issues of iden­tity and secu­rity. Peo­ple may even give up basic needs in order to achieve a sense of secu­rity or to main­tain their cul­tural identity.

I won­der about human needs as I see the work of the church. Out of a desire to fol­low Jesus’ teach­ings of car­ing for neigh­bours, it seems the church has been quick to respond to phys­i­cal and basic needs, such as send­ing aid and engag­ing in devel­op­ment work. More dif­fi­cult, though, is response to needs of iden­tity and secu­rity. Car­ing for our neigh­bours in rela­tion to these needs more closely con­nects with active peacebuilding.

Next time a con­flict arises, I’ll  try think­ing about needs. My needs, oth­ers’ needs — how our needs can con­nect. Per­haps we can find ways of car­ing for one another even when our inter­ests conflict.