Chaplaincy and Spirituality at TMI

The essay found here originally appeared as the description of the Spirituality Pillar at TMI - The Episcopal School of Texas in San Antonio. It outlines my philosophy of school chaplaincy, and my vision of the basic dimensions of student spiritual formation in Episcopal Schools.

"May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1Thessalonians 5.23

Spirituality can be a very difficult term to define. For some, spirituality means almost the same as "organized religion": It refers to the collection of beliefs, values, practices, and rituals we use to connect with God. For others, spirituality means precisely the opposite: It refers to our feelings of being attached to God or Spiritual Reality, without defining that feeling with practices, rituals, or beliefs.

In Christian Scriptures such as that quoted above, the word "spirit" is used to refer to that part of a person that is spiritually aware and responsive. Just as the "body" is physically aware and responsive to the physical environment, and the "soul" is internally aware and responsive to our inner desires, so also our "spirit" is that part of us that can connect to, and communicate with, spiritual reality.

Thus, at TMI, spirituality refers to our human receptivity to God's presence, and our yearning to be connected at a deep level with the Meaning, Purpose, and Source of our existence. Spirituality is like an appetite, or a hunger, to be fed by "spiritual food", just as our physical appetite is fed by physical food. Spirituality is also like a muscle: The more it is worked, the stronger it gets. Thus, spirituality is not just something static in humans. It is something that can be fed, and strengthened, and grow over time.

Another way to look at Spiritual and Ethical formation is to think in terms of developing a "map" for our journey through life. In Spiritual formation, we help students get a "Big Vision" for the meaning and purpose of their life, and the Overall Goal toward which their life is headed. This vision in turn gives them a map on which they can chart their activities and interests intellectually, emotionally, personally, socially, physically, and religiously. Ethical formation then is about helping students develop a "Moral Compass" which helps them navigate the map of their lives, so that any point on their "life map" they know when to turn left or right, go forward, or in some cases, turn around. 

Because of this, our "Spiritual Pillar" at TMI focuses on practical ways to feed, and strengthen, the spirits of our students. The three main ways that we put our spirituality into practice are our Daily Chapel Program, the Academic Study of Religion, and our Community Service program.

Forming Servant Leaders at TMI Episcopal

The following is a proposal for a comprehensive program of spiritual and ethical formation centered around "Servant Leadership" at TMI Episcopal. The concept of becoming a Servant Leader is at the center of TMI experience, and is the ultimate goal of the TMI Mission statement: 

TMI provides an exceptional education with values based on the teachings of Jesus Christ that challenge motivated students to develop their full potential in service and leadership.

Although we speak of "servant leadership" all the time, and encourage our students to become servants to others, and teach them skills to develop their ability to lead, many of us do not really have a definition of what a "servant leader" is, nor do we know how this can be operationalized in practice. And while we espouse core values that are central to servant leadership, and we have a role model for servant leadership in the person of Jesus Christ, we often struggle to say exactly what qualities we are looking for in the servant leaders we graduate from TMI and send out into the world.

Core Values at TMI Episcopal

The following is a statement of the Core Values of TMI Episcopal which I developed over a period of several years while working with our Administration and Board of Governors. The Mission of TMI states that we are rooted in "values based on the teachings of Jesus Christ". The following five values are central to Christ's teachings, and form the Foundation that the Pillars of TMI are built upon. So these values can be adapted for presentations, publications, prayers, and programs, they are presented "telescopically": Each includes a memorable word, short definition, several bullet points of description, action steps, and a Scriptural study to illustrate what these values are. The purpose of these Core Values is to create a "moral compass" that guides our students to grow W.I.S.E.R. day by day, so we may become an excellent educational community which develops their full potential in service and leadership.

A Provocation on Individualism

Western individualism, in which the self is essentially divorced from communal interconnections and social responsibility, is nothing more than an advertising ploy: By getting you to focus on your rights, your needs, your pains, your pleasures, your freedoms, your entitlements, your grievances, your opportunities, your gratification, the Market turns you into a cipher, a vacuum, a perfect Void which seeks to ever consume and yet never be filled, so that you become another cog in the Engine that produces endless profit and power for Mammon. The solution, like most solutions which flow from Christ, is paradoxical, because Christ himself is the paradox of full humanity and full divinity united in one person. And this paradoxical solution is solitude and solidarity. On one hand, to recover our true self in Christ, we must retreat from the incessant Engine of consumption into the stillness and silence of solitude. By being able to be alone with Christ we will still the violently aggressive noise of the Market marketing to our hunger for incessant gratification. On the other hand, to recover our true self in Christ, we must also join in solidarity with others in the joys and pains of life together, in the service of their needs and hopes, in the healing of their wounds and sufferings. And through this self-giving dance of solitude and solidarity, we will learn to become fully human and fully alive with the life of God, as incarnations of the Incarnation, uniting humanity and divinity in our self as we find our self in Christ. 

The Way of Christ is Progress

Recently, as people on social media are wont to do, a long time friend of mine posted a really reductionistic meme about the "unchanging" nature of the Way of Christ. It said: 

"Christianity does not 'progress' with the times. If it did, it would be a false religion. Do not be deceived into thinking there is a progressive form of Christianity. It doesn't exist because the truth never changes. Jesus is the same yesterday today and forever. Amen"

I used to fear change and progress, and I was also committed to a really simplistic and reductive understanding of the Church as "the pillar and foundation of the truth" (cf. 1Timothy 3.15).

A Provocation on the Constant of Change

The common sense insight that “the only constant is change” may have more going for it philosophically than we give to most platitudes. If change is constant, absolute, and unchanging, then let us take it as such. There has to be an unchanging Reality which is the engine driving all change which itself does not change. Because if change were to change, it would have to change into “not change”, into static unmoving immutability. Which would be to say it would change into nothing: Non-Being. But if beings exist and change, they must be upheld by a Dynamic Being, a Transcendent Life, which keeps all other things in motion around it and alive within it. This eternal constant of Change must therefore give Being to beings that they may exist and have life. This diffusing self giving for the Good of others is what we call Love. The Dynamic of Change is the Love that moves the Stars. Call it Love. Call it Life. Call it the Source. Call it Reality. Call it Change. Call it the Self. Call it God. But whatever you call It, call on it to make Its Self known to you in the depths of your self. 

Living Vine, Dead Trellis

A poetic reflection on John 15.5 and institutional religion.

Theology and Compassion, Objectivity and Subjectivity

One of the pastoral and practical tools I use to evaluate theology— besides whether it is Biblical and Creedal and rooted in the Trinity and Incarnation— is this:

If you cannot preach it to hurting people, or pray it with a forgiving heart, it’s bad theology. If you won’t preach it, and can’t pray it, you shouldn’t believe it.

This is to say that our theology must integrate Christlike Compassion as its first and foremost effect on our life for it to be healthy theology.

Two kinds of Mystical Experience: Ecstasy and Emphasis

Let all that you do be done in love. (1 Corinthians 16:14)

There are at least two kinds of mystical experience of God: Ecstasy and Emphasis. Ecstasy is to take you out of yourself. The Greek word "ekstasis" literally means to stand ("stasis") outside ("ek") of oneself. Ecstasy is to experience self-transcendence, and often to have some kind of visionary experience that is utterly unlike everyday life. Perhaps a luminous Divine Darkness that envelops us, or a Divine Light which is infinitely brighter than our normal sight, or a vivid sense of the Personal Presence of God. In Ecstasy we experience rapturous personal union with God in Love on a separate plane of Reality than the normal and mundane plane of existence we are accustomed to. And that transcendent experience is often interpreted through symbols we know and understand, such as the "seeing" or "feeling" or "hearing" the personal presence of Jesus, or even his Mother Mary. 

The other kind of mystical experience of God is Emphasis.

Speed Wobble

You know that feeling

When you are cruising down a hill

On a skateboard

Or maybe a scooter or bike

And you get going

Faster

And faster

And faster

Until you are far beyond

Your ability to steer?

A Prayer for Teachers in Spring 2021

I prayed this for our faculty and staff this morning, and I pray it for all teachers going back into this semester as well:

Lord of Love, God of New Beginnings, we come this morning seeking your blessing as we begin the second semester of a challenging year in difficult circumstances. 

For some of us, we begin this New Year refreshed: Filled with energy and restored from a blessed Holiday Break. Lord, thank you for this refreshment.

For some of us, we begin with heavy hearts filled with worry for loved ones who are sick, or sorrow for loved ones who have passed away. Lord, be with those we care for and embrace them in your undying Love.

And for all of us, we come before you with a mix of energy and apprehension, wanting to do the best we can for our students, but not entirely sure the best way to do that. Lord, fill us with Faith and Hope and Love. 

Fill us with Faith in your sustaining strength, and faith in our abilities as teachers and advisors and educational leaders. 

Fill us with Hope that our world will experience healing, that our lives will experience healing, and that our work with these students really makes a difference. 

And fill us with Love: Love for the students you have entrusted to our care, Love for each other as we support and encourage each other, and Love for the challenges and delights of education. 

With this Faith, Hope, and Love, send us into this new year, confident that you will work through us and our students. It is in Christ's Name we ask all of this. Amen. 

Glimpses of the Sacred

Where is holiness to be found?

Where are the thin places

The fjords between

This shore and that Great Beyond?

Where is the fabric of reality

Most easily rent 

To reveal the Ultimate Reality

Behind the curtain of space and time?

My First Dark Night of the Soul

The year 2020 has been a Dark Night for so many people in many ways: Material, Spiritual, Mental, Emotional, Social. Since it is coming to an end today, I thought I would reflect on the very first time in my life of faith that I remember encountering a "Dark Night" of faith. 

All Yang no yin

Proclaim Hope and you are adored. 

Explain despair and you are ignored. 

Preach Meaning and be applauded. 

Examine meaninglessness and be criticized. 

The Beast Box: DIY Homemade Strongman Stone Simulator

For years I have wanted to create a homemade device that would simulate some of the heavy lifts that are popular in strongman competitions. Since I already have a selection of heavy barbells and dumbbells, it would seem like I would not need any other implements. And some strongman exercises, such as Farmer's Carries and Deadlifts and various kinds of Clean and Press movements, are fairly easy to duplicate with Dumbbells and Barbells. But other movements, such as the Husafell and other stone lifts, are impossible to simulate with even heavy barbells.

But I did not really want to purchase a $200-$700 metal stone simulator, such as the Titan loadable Atlas Stones, Husafell Simulator, or Husacross. They are expensive and single use. And if the steel gets dented or has a crease, it can easily create a nasty gash. Likewise, I did not want to mold my own stones, because they would be single use, non-adjustable, and take up lots of space (as well as time to make). Finally, while I like training with Sandbags, they are impossible to quickly change weights with. You have to pour them out, seal them up, and weigh them if you want to change weights.

So, basically, my design specifications included the following: I wanted something that was cheap; Something that I could make at home out of wood; Something that wouldn't rip my skin up; Something that offered a variety of hold and carry options; And something that was easily loadable for doing strongman conditioning work. So, after having the idea rattle around in my head for a couple of years, I developed the Beast Box. Here are the plans I created:

Durkheim’s Ghost

At this time of social distance, 

We need shared rituals 

Now more than ever

Even if they are shared 

At a distance 

Over an internet connection 

Or in a choppy livestream. 

.

In an age of 

Alacarte 

Individualized 

Atomized

Disconnected 

Consumerism

We have very few communal rituals 

To bind us together

To remind us

No one is an island

Separate from the main. 

.

And the ersatz rituals we do have

Seek to monetize us

Commodify the experience 

For passive consumption 

As a lifestyle product: 

A sportsball game 

A lackluster blockbuster

A concert of prerecorded audio loops. 

.

So let us embrace 

The communal

The collective

The old fashioned

The traditional

The ritual

The participatory 

As an act of resistance 

Against the totalitarian hedonism 

We are immersed in

And the nihilistic anomie 

It inspires.  

The Bodyweight Quotient -BWQ- A tool for lifelong lifting

Note: The material here has been incorporated and enlarged into my comprehensive Training Program and Principles, as well as my thoughts on the Spirituality of Physical Training. 

I first fell in love with lifting weights at age 12, when my dad enrolled me in a weight lifting course at our local community center. That followed with a summer in a non-air-conditioned hardcore gym near my mom's house on the coast. I was hooked. I felt awesome, I looked good, and I enjoyed the ability and resilience of my body. By the time I was 18, I was benching just less than 400 and squatting just less than 700. Weight lifting followed me through college football and into young adulthood.

Then, as often happens, life got in the way. Career. Marriage. Divorce. Marriage. Grad School. Child one. Job change. Child two. Move and job change. Child three. Keeping up with a busy family of five. I would hit the gym a few weeks a year. But for the most part, I lapsed completely, became very over weight, and generally uncomfortable in my own skin. Then, right before turning 40, and after my Dad was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes (like many others in my family), I decided I wanted to lose weight, and get in shape, and return to a habit that was as spiritually formative as it was physically helpful: Weight lifting.

A Textual Meditation on Theosis

This is mainly a collection of texts from across the first three centuries of the Church which speak about Theosis: Our destiny to be divinized by our Lord Jesus Christ working through the power of his Spirit, so that we may become godlike as Children of God. Theosis is typically an Eastern Orthodox way of describing salvation in Christ, but it is also taught under such ideas as Divinization, Deification, Apotheosis, Union with God, Communion, Sanctification, and even Glorification. While I have written several times about Theosis, I have never really made a catalogue of the main texts that inspire the concept. 

Noah's Flood and God's Justice

Lots of people have lots of questions about the flood of Noah in Genesis 6-9. Why did it happen? How did it happen? And who were those pesky Nephilim? I have answered many of these questions in another article. But another perennial question is how does the God of Wrath displayed in the Flood story relate to the God of Love seen in Jesus Christ. How can the evil of the Flood be justified in the light of the Goodness of God? Although I have touched on this in other articles on Divine Violence and Divine Sorrow, I would like to write more here on how the Flood connects with the larger problem of God and Evil.

On Grace and Faith and Works

There seems to be a great deal of interest and controversy parsing the exact position and proportion and progression of the roles of grace and faith and works in accomplishing and maintaining and completing our salvation. So what is the role of human effort in solving the human plight? Does salvation come entirely from God, or is human belief or action necessary to complete God's work of salvation? The Christian Scriptures offer perspectives such as the following: