. . . A river flowing with the grace of God, a river full of life and vitality for thirsty souls and hungry hearts, a river of Jesus' love. The Psalmist writes, "There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God." (Ps. 46:4a)
This is the river we seek in an increasingly multicultural and interreligious world. Some respond with fear, but as people of faith we know that differences can lead to discovery. Diversity is an invitation to dialogue. In the spirit of Jesus, who was always venturing forth to meet others, A River Deep and Wide will be an opportunity to learn, to grow, and to relate to one another, overcoming divisions and discovering our oneness in community.(from the information about A River Deep and Wide: Christian Spiritual Practices for the 21st Century which I chose for my annual continuing education experience this year.)
Since our Pacific Northwest Annual conference is wise enough to insist that its pastors engage in continuing education annually and since you good people of APUMC are kind enough to budget for it in the Pastor's Professional Reimbursement Account, I think it is good to share with you what I was doing last week at the Scarritt-Bennett Center (owned and operated by The United Methodist Women) in Nashville, Tennessee.
A River Deep and Wide was offered by The Upper Room Ministries of the UMC. The theme of the five day experience was what could be called "Inter Spirituality" or perhaps "Depth Spirituality." ARDW started from an understanding that today's world requires a rethinking of the attitudes and practices of all the world's religions toward the others if we are ever going to live in peace and practice the love of neighbor that all religions espouse.
Keynote speakers and various workshop sessions gave the participants the opportunity to struggle together with the many issues that arise from dialogue with different religious faiths.
The morning keynote speaker was Dr. Barbara Ann Holmes, VP of Memphis Theological Seminary. She is an African-American Pentecostal theologian and ordained in the Disciples of Christ denomination. Her topic was African American Spiritual Traditions. The evening keynoter was Dr. M. Thomas Thangaraj who taught World Christianity at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta for twenty years before returning to his native India to teach there. He is the author of Relating to People of Other Religions: What Every Christian Needs To Know. Both of these presenters were excellent. I have purchased Dr. T's book and the DVD's of his presentations. I think they would provide good material for a class at APUMC.
There were many workshop sessions to choose from. I enjoyed all of mine. A Jewish Rabbi from Nashville taught us on: "Doing Bible Study the Way Jesus Would Have Done It." In this method, two "scholars" paired up across from one another, read a passage together and proceeded to vigorously challenge one another's interpretations. Great fun, but no place for the meek.
In other workshops I listened to a brilliant young Moslem Immam from Cape Town, South Africa, who is currently teaching Comparative Religion at Notre Dame U. explain Moslem Spirituality. Likewise, I listened to a Hindu professor tell us about the Hindu religion and some of its spiritual practices. A Klinkit Native American UMC lay man told us a story of his life and tradition each evening and I attended his workshop to learn the history of our nation's, and even our church's, sorry history of the genocide of native peoples. Two other workshops dealt with teaching spiritual practices in the congregation. They were taught by two personal friends and colleagues I had not seen in many years, so that was a special blessing. The final workshop I attended dealt with the cutting edge ways The Upper Room is preparing to use the internet to share its published materials with the world. It left me all "atwitter." (If you don't get the joke, too bad. I don't know enough about it to explain it to you.)
If it sounds like I was busy, I was! The only thing that toned down the pace was the leisurely mealtime conversations and the excellent worship services. We had morning prayer, Eucharist, and night prayer each day.
I thank you for the opportunity and I thank Tom Kraus for preaching to us on Sunday. Didn't he do well? He sounded much less "jet-laggy" than I would have sounded.
See you in Church, APUMC!
Pastor Carl