Update from Pastor Nate - October 2021

“Apprehend God in all things, for God is in all things. Every single creature is full of God and a book about God. Every creature is a word of God. If I spent enough time with the tiniest creature—even a caterpillar—I would never have to prepare a sermon. So full of God is every creature.”

These lines from the 14th century German mystic, Meister Eckhart von Hochheim, make for powerful medicine in a concentrated dose if you sit with them long enough—if you allow them to catch you by surprise and work their way into your very being, inching into your heart and psyche like a caterpillar dutifully wiggling its way up the trunk of a tree.

One of the things that I’ve come to love about Michigan in the last twenty months is the great love that so many of you have for spending time in the other-than-human world, whether that’s Up North™, Out West™, on the Lakes, or right here in our own backyard in Cereal City. 

Michael and I are continually wowed at the sheer amount and diversity of plant, bird, mammal, insect, and fungal people who make their home in our backyard. It’s as though each passing day gives us a new opportunity to fall in love with the divine shining through All Things: the oyster mushrooms growing out of a forgotten stump by our neighbor’s falling-down fence, the chipmunks and black squirrels that dwell in the shelter of the century-old white oak by our front curb, the intricate tapestries woven by Arachne’s eight-legged daughters in the boughs of our whitecedar trees, right across the alley from the dumpster behind Rite-Aid. 

We haven’t always been so good at seeing the divine in All Things, though; I know I have been just as susceptible to the fast-paced, overly saturated stimuli of our tech-driven worldview, and I lose myself in a doom scroll on Twitter every now and then. It has required concentrated, focused effort to pump my own brakes long enough to slow down, to not miss what new words the Divine is speaking at this very moment.

I can also tell you that the practice of slowing down long enough to be present with my neighbors, human and otherwise, has been some of the most life-changing medicine I’ve taken in a long time. To do this has required an inner gentling of my tendency to redline my way through the day with blinders on. It has required me to root my sense of Self in a place deeper than my rushing thoughts and desire to be seen as competent, wise, or holy. 

And it’s my heart-level belief that, as we face the ravages of climate crisis and economic uncertainty on a global level,  and as we navigate the process of discerning a future of sustainability in service as a congregation, it is more imperative than ever for each and every one of us to allow this inner gentling to happen with us, and to learn to seat our Selves in a place deeper even than our desires for comfort, community, and a place to belong.

One of the most exciting things that we’ve begun here at FCCBC in recent weeks is the inaugural session of what I’m unofficially calling the “Cereal City Wisdom School.” On Wednesday nights throughout the fall, folks from FCCBC and the larger Battle Creek community gather in our chapel to chant, meditate, be present, and to engage in thoughtful, spiritual conversation around Matthew Fox’s 1991 book, Creation Spirituality. Creation Spirituality lays out a roadmap for a reawakened spirituality, rooted in the 14-billion-year-old story of this universe, joining the best of contemporary science with the best of the world’s great streams of wisdom, in order to open our eyes and our hearts to our interconnectedness and interdependence with All Things. 

The path of “creation spirituality” is quite a bit more involved than just “being out in nature” and calling it “spiritual,” despite what it may seem like at first glance. When we understand deeply that our story as a species is simply one small chapter in the story of the universe that nevertheless seems to want us to be here, it elicits nothing short of awe. The Swiss psychoanalyst and philosopher C.G. Jung writes poignantly: “If our religion is based on salvation, our primary emotions will be fear and trembling. If our religion is based on wonder, our primary emotion will be gratitude.” And when we are rooted in gratitude, the outflow of creativity, compassion, and vision has the ability to transform who we are and the world around us.

In our Wisdom School, we are not content just to state these deep truths and acknowledge them cognitively. For Wisdom is not a different religion, nor is it a philosophy, nor is it about knowing more. “It is about knowing with more of you,” as the writer Cynthia Bourgeault puts it. It is a way of knowing that engages our thoughts, our emotions, and our physical sensations to ground truths in our being on a holistic level. So, in our Wednesday gatherings, we are engaging the head, the emotions, and the body through conversation, chant, breathing, and other practices that help us inhabit ourselves fully, as we engage with the text and with one another. 

Why all this fuss? Why wouldn’t we just have a “book study” and call it a day?

For one, I don’t think just having more “book studies,” just sitting around and talking, is doing us (or the world) any good when it comes to the project of changing who we are and how we show up in this world. As we cultivate our being through these practices, our ability to hold empathetic presence deepens, as does our ability to respond to the crises and pain that wrack this world with clarity and patience, allowing the gratitude we feel for the Divine in All Things to be the gas in our tank for justice and action instead of quick-burning outrage or insipid white guilt.

As the French Jesuit scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin puts it, “To understand the world, knowledge is not enough. You must see it, touch it, live in its presence.” And we cannot see, touch, or live in the presence of the Divine or even the presence of our fellow human being if we’re stuck in our head, or whipped around by our emotions, or concerned only with our physical comfort. But when we are able to bring ourselves into a centered, balanced, holistic awareness, we can see with Eckhart that each and every creature—even a caterpillar—is a prophetic word to our world through which God calls us and empowers us to be a people of justice and joy. 

This work is what’s getting me out of bed in the morning, it’s what shapes how I show up with you all on Sunday morning, and I believe that it might be a powerful medicine for us as we discern our next faithful steps as a community. I’ll share more on this in future Congregationalist articles, but for now, I invite you to check out the first two sessions of our Wisdom School on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/showcase/8899584

Peace,
Pastor Nate