SSUC Spiritual Seekers United in Community

I Once Believed: Re-Framing a Traditional Christian Past Part 4

Even though the Christian church turned a common cultural practice of ritual washing into an exercise in “sin management”, there are still remnants of something else, something simpler. There is still a hint of the first century teacher and his followers who had something completely different to say about this experience. This is from the community of Mark who shared and wrote these words: In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan River. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens open and the spirit, as like a dove alighted upon him. And he heard a message: “You are my son, beloved; a source of pride and pleasure.” (Mark 1: 9-11) This baptism contains no negative talk, no self-loathing. There is no derision for being less than, or a call to be washed of what came before. As Jesus comes out of the water, he experiences a vision – a positively delightful vision – of affirmation, of acceptance. The whole event is an allegory for what it means to be human. To be fully alive, to be fully spirited, each of us declared to be a child of god or ‘child of the universe' as we would reframe it, beloved by the very fact of our living. Instead of pejorative, soul-killing labels of unworthiness the church was to devise and that many of us need to un-learn, this story is a metaphor that has miraculously survived the power and patriarchy to speak loud and clear that there is pleasure and pride in each of our wondrous lives. Imagine how differently millions upon millions would have felt and would now feel and behave if they were told from the very beginning: “You are much loved, you are spirit-infused, you bring pride and pleasure to the world. To create loving people, we need to have children who are told of their true nature and potential – and then are truly loved. To begin healing for ourselves, WE ALL need to hear these words also. Listen: Your nature and potential is love, is beauty, is brimming with an amazing spirit, and you bring pride and pleasure to the world. May the source of love be your strength. May the love we learn from each other be your guide. May the spirit of love in which we're immersed be your wisdom. Welcome beloved. www.ssucedmonton.com

I Once Believed: Re-Framing a Traditional Christian Past Part 2 Many of us who, either long ago or more recently, have found our way to SSUC have come from very different spiritual experiences. Some have come from other traditions entirely, some from a more evangelical upbringing, many from what you might call a liberal Untied Church tradition or similar, and some weren't raised in the Christian tradition, but have come with ideas and notions from pop culture of what the Christian church is. For some, this might be a positive memory and experience; For others, a more negative or traumatizing past. Either way, it's important to always be evaluating what we learned early on, what we've unlearned, what we now understand in light of where we are now on our journey…regardless of where that is. For as much good as the writings of any text might inspire, promote social justice and positive change, dogmatic belief statements have more frequently been used or misused to exclude, to uphold evil, unjust, harmful and violent programs and empires. Many in our community have been harmed by the exclusion, the rigidness, the hatred, that's born of that kind of dogma. And if not us directly, then we've witnessed it and needed to act as a result. Social issues, areas of justice, acceptance of people just as they are – decisions to shame or exclude: these are painful and lasting wounds. We know that the more fruitful direction is in having conversations around what informs my behaviour? What am I giving my time and energy to in order that I make of my life a positive influence in the world? What standards do I use everyday to ponder my relationships, my financial decisions, my standing up for another? What motivates me to work for justice or peace in whatever small or big ways I'm able? None of us can ever inherit some belief, some idea, some set of values that we “ought to believe”. It just doesn't work. We can't inherit it from the previous generation, but neither, and maybe even more importantly, can we inherit it from our past selves. We can't presume that something true will always be true. There are things that are true for us as children, as teens, as young adults that we then outgrow. There are coping mechanisms that are helpful when there are no other answers, but when others are found, these first ones are no longer needed. www.ssucedmonton.com

I Once Believed: Re-Framing a Traditional Christian Past Part 1 Beliefs and understandings are always evolving in a healthy spirituality. We all change and grow, finding that things we once believed have needed to be put aside, rejected, or allowed to evolve into something new. There is no one right place to be on that journey: from those beginning to sense that something feels different in their relationship to their beliefs, to those who've been through this process many times over many years…and everything in between. For all of us, it's healthy to assess our beliefs regularly. This series will examine a number of beliefs that were/are common in traditional Christianity, the potential harm they can cause, possible expansive alternatives that don't leave us rudderless, and concepts that may have relevance for our living today. Find more at www.ssucedmonton.com facebook.com/ssuc_yeg instagram.com/ssuc_yeg

Part Three: The Grief of Change "Some things cannot be fixed, they can only be carried."

The Paradox of Change Mere change is not growth. Growth is the synthesis of change and continuity and where there is no continuity there is no growth. - C.S. Lewis This audio taken from a live gathering. Join us every week at ssucemonton.com/live at 10 AM (MT) for our weekly spiritual reflection. Follow us at facebook.com/ssucedmonton instagram.com/ssuc_yeg

Finding our footing: Obstacles and opportunities of change. This audio taken from a live gathering. Join us every week at ssucemonton.com/live at 10 AM (MT) for our weekly spiritual reflection. Follow us at facebook.com/ssucedmonton instagram.com/ssuc_yeg

Pondering Every Sacraments Part Thirteen – Birds “The treasure we seek requires no lengthy expedition, no expensive equipment, no superior aptitude or special company. All we lack is the willingness to imagine that we already have everything we need. The only thing missing is our consent to be where we are.” - Barbara Brown Taylor This audio taken from a live gathering. Join us every week at ssucemonton.com/live at 10 AM (MT) for our weekly spiritual reflection. Follow us at facebook.com/ssucedmonton instagram.com/ssuc_yeg

Pondering Everyday Sacraments Part Twelve – Circle of Time "Take care of yourself. You never know when the world will need you." – Rabbi Hillel This audio taken from a live gathering. Join us every week at ssucemonton.com/live at 10 AM (MT) for our weekly spiritual reflection. Follow us at facebook.com/ssucedmonton instagram.com/ssuc_yeg

Pondering Everyday Sacraments Part Eleven – Seeds "For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn't understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.” - Cynthia Occelli This audio taken from a live gathering. Join us every week at ssucemonton.com/live at 10 AM (MT) for our weekly spiritual reflection. Follow us at facebook.com/ssucedmonton instagram.com/ssuc_yeg

Pondering Everyday Sacraments Part 10 – Signs of Justice “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” – Martin Luther King, Jr This audio taken from a live gathering. Join us every week at ssucemonton.com/live at 10 AM (MT) for our weekly spiritual reflection. Follow us at facebook.com/ssucedmonton instagram.com/ssuc_yeg

Pondering Everyday Sacraments Part Nine – Fog "Baptized into fog, we die to designations, definitions, that we may dive deeper to where the hidden dwells." Ron Atkinson This audio taken from a live gathering. Join us every week at ssucemonton.com/live at 10 AM (MT) for our weekly spiritual reflection. Follow us at facebook.com/ssucedmonton instagram.com/ssuc_yeg

Pondering Everyday Sacraments Part Eight – Water "In one drop of water are found the secrets of all the endless oceans; in one aspect of you are found all the aspects of existence." -Kahlil Gibran This audio taken from a live gathering. Join us every week at ssucemonton.com/live at 10 AM (MT) for our weekly spiritual reflection. Follow us at facebook.com/ssucedmonton instagram.com/ssuc_yeg

Pondering Everyday Sacraments Part Seven – Wind "And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair." -Khalil Gibran This audio taken from a live gathering. Join us every week at ssucemonton.com/live at 10 AM (MT) for our weekly spiritual reflection. Follow us at facebook.com/ssucedmonton instagram.com/ssuc_yeg

Pondering Everyday Sacraments Part Six – Stones. "Life is a journey with big rocks to climb, little ones to trip over, and milestones to mark where we have been." - David Cuschieri This audio taken from a live gathering. Join us every week at ssucemonton.com/live at 10 AM (MT) for our weekly spiritual reflection. Follow us at facebook.com/ssucedmonton instagram.com/ssuc_yeg

Pondering Everyday Sacraments Part Five – Quiet “I put my head under my pillow and let the quiet put things where they are supposed to be.” - Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower This audio taken from a live gathering. Join us every week at ssucemonton.com/live at 10 AM (MT) for our weekly spiritual reflection. Follow us at facebook.com/ssucedmonton instagram.com/ssuc_yeg

Pondering Everyday Sacraments Part Four – Stars. "I am a drunkard from another kind of tavern. I dance to a silent tune. I am a symphony of the stars. - Rumi" This audio taken from a live gathering. Join us every week at https://ssucemonton.com/live at 10 AM (MT) for our weekly spiritual reflection. Follow us at facebook.com/ssucedmonton instagram.com/ssuc_yeg

Pondering Everyday Sacraments: Smoke This week we look at the place smoke has in our lives. From the increasing presence of summer smoke from catastrophic forest fires, to the cleansing smoke of ritual. We ask that our throats burn with truth, and our eyes sting with compassion. “Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.” ~ William Shakespeare

Pondering Everyday Sacraments: Clouds “The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson Why do I love clouds? Because you can't save a cloud like you can save a leaf or a flower or a rock – clouds are now.” - Terri Guillemets

Pondering Everyday Sacraments: Flowers. "I wonder how we missed the forest for the trees? How did the Christian tradition come to think we could ever count sacraments? That on one hand, or two hands, we could count all the number of sacraments, the number of sacred moments, the number of sacred things that dispense grace." Minister Nancy Steeves. A Sacrament Become that high priest, the bee. Drone your way from one fragrant temple to another, nosing into each altar. Drink what's divine— and while you're there, let some of the sacred cling to your limbs. Wherever you go leave a small trail of its golden crumbs. In your wake the world unfolds its rapture, the fruit of its blooming. Rooms in your house fill with that sweetness your body both makes and eats. —Paulann Petersen

This week in our Dinner Table Wisdom Series, Chris brings the dessert. That's what dessert means to me: a dollop of sweet love in an otherwise cold world. ~Sarah Strohmeyer

The meal is done, Nancy and Chris are here to portion out the leftovers and take care of the dishes. “Life is amazing. And then it's awful. And then it's amazing again. And in between the amazing and awful it's ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That's just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it's breathtakingly beautiful.” - L.R. Knost

Nancy digs into the main course in this episode from the Dinner Table Wisdom series.

The greatest wisdom is to be able to be satisfied with little. www.ssucedmonton.com

“If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” Shirley Chisolm Chris and Nancy talk about what it means to find a place at the table, and how to approach those times we find no space has been left for us. www.ssucedmonton.com

“Cooking demands attention, patience, and above all, a respect for the gifts of the earth. It is a form of worship, a way of giving thanks.” – Judith B. Jones www.ssucedmonton.com

In honour of Earth Day, Nancy Steeves discusses eating mindfully, and how to see what's on our table as a way of healing the earth and preserving our future. “Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.” ― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

Over the next few weeks we'll explore what lessons our time at the table has to teach us. From choosing the menu, to choosing the guest list, to the ingredients we choose and their origins, there are lessons sitting down for dinner with us if we choose to look. www.ssucedmonton.com

Welcome to the first episode in our new series, Dinner Table Wisdom. Over the next few weeks we'll explore what lessons our time at the table has to teach us. From choosing the menu, to choosing the guest list, to the ingredients we choose and their origins, there are lessons sitting down for dinner with us if we choose to look. www.ssucedmonton.com

Geography of the Heart: Refuge Nancy Steeves reflects on finding refuge, protecting the places that life can flourish in nature and in our spirits. “There's always a sunrise and always a sunset and it's up to you to choose to be there for it,' said my mother. 'Put yourself in the way of beauty.” Cheryl Strayed - Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Geography of the Heart: Prairie “To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few.” ― Emily Dickinson "Keep your hands open, and all the sands of the desert can pass through them. Close them, and all you can feel is a bit of grit." ~Taisen Deshimaru "Freedom is the capacity to pause in the midst of stimuli from all directions, and in this pause to throw our weight toward this response rather than that one. … In the pause we wonder, reflect, sense awe, and conceive of eternity." ~Rollo May

Geography of the Heart: Wilderness Like the wilderness of the Jesus story, traversing the topography of mirage, we learn humility. Living with the extremes, we learn gratitude for the simplest and smallest things. Our wilderness holds wisdom that counters smooth talking seducers inviting us to resisting the illusions tempt us and every generation … the wilderness removes our illusion that we can endlessly turn stones into bread … that everything can be mined, melted, made into something that serves our species. The wilderness teaches us a new respect for limits … that thriving and surviving depend on our commitment to honor limits. It also invites us to resisting the delusion that some god, some saving force is out there, up there somewhere in charge of it all ready to pick us up if we so much as stub our toe on a rock (lest we dash our foot against a stone) absolving us of any and all responsibility for ourselves and our world. Our wilderness teaches us responsibility … collective responsibility … for each other … a responsibility we have learned well in this pandemic … that we each must do what we can to keep another safe and healthy. Page Break And the wilderness invites us to unmasking the greatest lie of all: “all this will be yours, if you will just …” “you can have it all, as far as the eye can see, if only …” … the great lie of privilege … the great lie of exceptionalism … the great lie that some of us are exempt from hardship, sacrifice, and loss.

Geography of the Heart: Rockbeds Once you leave the sidewalk up on the embankment, you soon discover that this isn't a hospitable walk down the beach. This is a landscape with sizeable rocks making up the terrain. On our trek to the cliffs and the caves, it is slow and deliberate journey. One wrong move and you've twisted an ankle. One careless step and your foot has slipped off the slick uneven surfaces. We think of a rock bed and we often think of rivers and the smooth rocks we find there. If you've ever crossed a creek or a small river, you know the difficulty and the danger is just as real.

Geography of the Heart: Shore The shore is the landscape made by the deep communion of two distinctly different elements, a sometimes quiet and gentle communion, a sometimes wild and forceful communion, but always it is the landscape where each element is changed by the other. One of the deep spiritual needs of our time is our genuine human need to meet one another on a shoreline, like water and land, two unique elements forged in the same stars, to meet one another with respect and curiosity

Geography of the Heart: Borders This episode Chris New and Nancy Steeves reflect on the borders that meet us in natural landscapes, and those we create between each other and within ourselves.

Geography of the Heart: Forests Chris New and Nancy Steeves share poetry and reflect on the community of forests, and what it looks like in our internal landscape.

Geography of the Heart: Waters

Geography of the Heart: Desert Find more at www.ssucedmonton.com Instagram: ssuc_yeg

Geographies of the Heart: Thresholds Find more at www.ssucedmonton.com Instagram: ssuc_yeg

In this episode Nancy explores her relationship with the fog growing up on the east coast of Canada through the story of Moses and his 40 days and nights in the Cloud of Unknowing. Music: Robert Farmer - If we knew all the laws of nature

This episode we are joined by Cree Metis Elder Elsie Paul. Elsie shares stories from her life and talks about the role of an Elder in her culture. Chris reads a poem from Joy Harjo, and Nancy reflects on the renewed interest many people have found in their roots.

This week we are joined by acclaimed director and educator Greg Dowler-Coltman. Micah Pawluk shares the importance of the forest on his life and his music, and performs all of the music heard on this podcast.

This episode was recorded on May 31, following the police murder of George Floyd and the rebellions and protests that took place across the globe. We continue the theme of looking to the forests for wisdom, and finding the beauty and unity of all beings. Music: Blue Dot Sessions - Campfire Interlude

This episode Nancy reflects on what it means to be "here," and how we might change our relationship to the present tense or where we are--with trees as our guides. Chris reads Lost by David Wagner. Music: Chad Crouch - Cove

In this episode Chris gives a reflection from the grove of trees near his home where his children used to play, Nancy gives a reading of Rachel Ehrenberg, and Curtis Tufts joins us with some special insights. Music: Chad Crouch - The light filtering canopy

This week Chris and Nancy continue the Wisdom of Trees series with readings from Parker Palmer and Howard Nemerov. Charles Bidwell joins us with a reflection about the need to go to the forest and much more. Music: Robert Farmer - Every path but your own is the path of fate. Get in Touch: https://www.facebook.com/ssucedmonton ssucedmonton.com

The Wisdom of Trees Ep. 2 - Pride Sunday Music: Borrtex - You&Me (live)

The Wisdom of Trees episode 1 Music: The Owl - Dream of Trees Get in touch! https://ssucedmonton.com/ https://www.facebook.com/SSUCedmonton/

Featuring Nancy Steeves, recorded on April 12, 2020. Music: Chad Crouch "The Spring" Used under the creative commons license.

Episode four in our Isolation Insights series, featuring Ministers Nancy Steeves and Christopher New. Recorded April 5, 2020. Music: David Horowitz "Equilibrium I (Cello Version)"; "First Day of Spring" Used under Creative Commons License.

Episode three in our Isolation Insights series, featuring a reflection given by Minister Nancy Steeves on March 29, 2020. "Lockdown" by Fr. Richard Hendrick https://gratefulness.org/resource/lockdown/ Photo: Jesse Yelin Follow Spiritual Seekers United in Community: facebook.com/ssucedmonton www.ssucedmonton.com Twitter: ssuc_yeg Insta: ssuc_yeg