The Reverend Battle Beasley

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Provocative Thoughts . . .

I intend to place a provocative thought here from time to time.  This is an invitation to you to engage me in conversation.  I will respond as priest and person, thoughfully and truthfully, to all comments sent to me in good will.

As we head into the season of Lent I’m wondering why, generally, people view Lent as a time to beat themselves up. Most of us look to see what we can give up during Lent or the seeming opposite, what can we take on. Both of these activities presume that by “Doing” more or less of something I will become a “better” Christian. Is that really true or is it a case of the institution telling us to “do” because the institution needs to justify its existence?

The west is one of two cultures that believe we can make progress towards spiritual perfection over time. (The other culture is Korean/Japan) Everyone else in the world believes we simply are, and God simply is. We don’t get better or worse we just “Be”.

So perhaps this Lent we need simply to make time in our lives to “Be”; to “Be” with ourselves, with God. No expectations, no conditions, no improvement necessary, simply allow yourself to Be.

Happy Lent.  

Peace,

Battle - February 2002

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"I am dying Because of a divine remembrance Of who-I really am. Hafiz, tonight, Your soul Is a brilliant reed instrument In need of the breath of the Christ.”  from the poem, In Need Of The Breath. The Gift, Poems by Hafiz, printed by permission Penguin Press.

What is your longing for God? We live in a country that claims great belief in God, [80 + percent say they believe in God, fewer than 30 percent actually worship anywhere] and yet there is very little "God talk" anywhere outside the church. Further, most of the institutional God talk is carried on by the "professionals", the ministers, Sunday school teachers etc. And a lot of that talk seems to me to be its "my way or the highway" pronouncements. All this makes me very sad. We are all images of God, but we seem to take the importance of that very lightly. I think this is in part because we are still so unconscious of our absolute need for the breath of Christ to blow thru us. So I ask, what Is your longing for God? If you don't know shouldn't you want to find out? And for the church, shouldn't we be encouraging people to articulate this for themselves instead of doing it for them? 
Peace, Battle - January 2002

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. . . It strikes me that the institutional church is sliding further and further towards irrelevancy in the USA. Not as some would say, because of the "liberal agenda", whatever that may mean: rather we are in danger of being irrelevant because our religiosity in no way connects to people, where they live and work and play. Our religiosity does not speak to the struggle to see, taste, feel, experience the presence of God in their life, whether it fits our definition of God's presence or not. We have no authentic voice articulating the life of the spirit in today's language. The word "spirituality", much in vogue again these days, has been taken over by a wide variety of folks, few of who have any connection to the institutional church. The serious question for me is not how are we going to "convert " these folks but rather how are we providing support & nourishment to any and all who are striving to articulate their own spiritual journey? -July 2001