This reflection was given by Patrick Baggett, a high school freshman, during our annual Youth Sunday.

When I think of where I find God in my life, I usually think of two different feelings I have that define God for me. One of those is when I am completely at peace. I usually find this kind of peace in the water, when I’m swimming, snorkeling, or even boogie boarding. My Mom always refers to me as a “water baby,” whatever that means. She says this because ever since we went to Panama when I was five (where Mom did Chris and Carla’s wedding), she’s seen that I really love the water, especially ocean water, and I tend to agree with her.

It’s a different type of feeling when I’m in the water. The ocean is so vast, and I feel so small, held by something much bigger than me. I recall one time when my family was in Crete for another wedding my mom was doing, this time Kearstin and Sophie’s. I remember we went to this one beach where the waves were so calm, and me and my Mom were just floating on the water with our snorkels on face down, looking at all the rocks swell on the ground beneath us, while the steady waves pushed us up and back and up and back.

Another way I find peace in the ocean is when I am boogie boarding or body surfing. I am aware that many other people might find this experience to be exciting or even scary, but I find it peaceful. I think I find it peaceful because the ocean feels like it’s carrying me and supporting me, and the power of the waves aren’t overwhelming me. it’s a power I’m able to be a part of. The ocean, I think, is a very good metaphor for God. Like the ocean, the powerful God surrounds and supports me, and the power of this God doesn’t overwhelm me. Instead, it allows me to participate in something much bigger and more powerful than myself. 

Another place where I find God is when I feel most alive. One of these instances is when I am playing a competitive basketball game — not just a casual pickup games with my friends, but a game that actually counts for something. The higher the stakes, the more alive I feel. Some people would find that more pressure comes with the higher stakes. I’m not saying I don’t feel pressure, but when the crowd is really loud and when people are either chanting for you or against you, I feel like I feed off the energy of the crowd and play much better.  I actually feel like I feed off the negative energy more than the positive.This is especially apparent when playing against a hostile crowd, like when my freshman basketball team played at Encinal High School, our cross-town rival. I started the game off with a three, and from that point on I heard stuff like “#10 can’t shoot” from the Encinal crowd. I really feel like this propelled me to have a much better game. 

I also feel alive when playing with my band. Again, the crowd is the main contributor to that feeling. We could be playing terrible, but if the crowd is into it, that gives us more energy to play much better and give a good performance. There’s just something about being up on that stage that I can’t describe. I wish we could play in front of thousands of people nightly. I feel like this is very similar to when I am playing basketball, as I’m feeding of the crowd’s energy both times. 

When I think about it, my love for playing basketball and performing is very similar to being in the ocean. It’s all about participating in something bigger than I am. And I guess that’s what the experience of God is for me, too.

By Maggid Andrew Ramer (author of author of Fragments of the Brooklyn Talmud)

Once, a very long time ago and very far away, a woman named Miriam was pregnant, very pregnant. It was a bad time, with a very bad king, and pregnant as she was, the woman and her husband Joseph had to leave their home. They were poor. The land was hilly, the roads were rocky, and it was hard for her to sit all day in the heat, on their old old donkey, bumping up and down, up and down, as Joseph led them on their way. 

Days and days and days later, they arrived at a village where some of Joseph’s family had once lived, but all of them had died, and being refugees, no one would offer them a place to stay, till an old woman quietly told them that they could sleep in her barn. And that was where Miriam gave birth to a little baby boy who she and Joseph decided to name Joshua, after the follower of Moses who once helped to lead their people home.

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This is a reflection written by Carmen Pauls Wiens — a shorter version of which she shared with us on Sunday, April 19, as part of our Eastertide sharing on where we see “signs of the new world.” It is based on the Gospel passage for that, SundayJohn 20:19-29.

On March 13 when San Jose Unified closed the school doors, our world became suddenly much smaller and much bigger.  The Financial Times article by Arundhati Roy which came out recently, speaks of the “Pandemic Portal” inviting us to think clearly and critically in this moment, to leave behind what we know is not working and walk through the portal into a new day carrying only what we know will truly sustain us.  I have an increasingly clearer picture of what I will carry through the portal, not because of Arundhati Roy’s take on it, but because of my connection to this community we share, and the way in which the messages articulated by Sheri, Joanna and others since the day our church went digital have so powerfully met me exactly at the point of my fear and my curiosity.

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By Joanna Lawrence Shenk

Pentecost Sunday, Acts 2:1-21

There is so much going on in this text that it’s hard to know where to start this sermon:

• with the violent wind
• or flames of the Spirit
• or people speaking in other languages
• or the prophetic words from Joel, with their apocalyptic imagery…

So I will start at the very beginning, “When the day of Pentecost had come.”

What was Pentecost to the Jewish people who were gathered? We know what Christians say about it. That it’s the birthday of the church, but it was a holiday long before Christianity existed.

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By Joanna Lawrence Shenk

Luke 3:15-22

Today I want to pick up where we left off last week with these words at the end of Sheri’s sermon: “In our present time, when paranoid kings rule, and when the life of the planet is literally at stake, I think it is more important than ever that we come together to listen for the Spirit and to seek the Spirit’s guidance.”

She continued, “I think we need more than our conscious intellect, our rational mind, to get ourselves out of this mess we are in. I think we need to hear the Spirit’s voice in many ways, new ways, perhaps ways we haven’t been as attentive to before, as we observe the glimmers of light that have appeared in the dark and move toward them, together.”

What does it mean to listen for the Spirit and seek the Spirit’s guidance? How do we do this with more than our rational mind? What might the Spirit illuminate and how will we respond in this season of Epiphany?

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During our “Speaking the Truth in Love” series, we talked about the importance of sharing our feelings rather than our thoughts (or judgments) when speaking our truth. It is sometimes difficult to figure out the two, however! This Feelings List from the Bay Area Nonviolent Communication chapter can be very helpful with that. You can find out more about their work at www.baynvc.org. The List is used with permission.

Much of this content comes from a course on “Mindful Communication” taught by Oren Jay Safer. Much of it will be in his book, Say What You Mean, which will be released in December.Intro:

Don’t try to internalize all this information — you can’t all at once. Take the one piece that really makes sense to you and run with it. Obviously, in the flow of a conversation we’re not able to think through all this. But the purpose of doing this is to train. Just like we do with any other task. 

Quote: “Under duress, we do not rise to our expectations, but fall to our level of training.”  (Bruce Lee)

When we are trying to learn how to play an instrument, we slow things down — we play scales, we learn the fingering.  All this is meant to give you a structure to practice with when you have the time and space. It develops your capacity to do it in real life within the flow of a conversation.

Why Am I Talking?  Continue reading →

Most of this content comes from a course on “Mindful Communication” taught by Oren Jay Safer. Much of it will be in his book, Say What You Mean, which will be released in December.

To come from curiosity and care, to understand, means to be able to listen. It feels good to be listened to! To be heard. This is absolutely universal. Listening is usually where the bottleneck happens in a conversation. It’s not in the fluency or skill of our speech. Listening well can take us really far in a conversation. If we really know how to listen, we can help clean up a mess or de-escalate a conversation.

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Most of this content comes from a course on “Mindful Communication” taught by Oren Jay Safer. Much of it will be in his book, Say What You Mean, which will be released in December.

Intention is the motivation or inner quality of heart behind our words and actions. Where we’re coming from in a dialogue is going to determine where things go.  We can say the same words with very different intentions.

Intention is not: I want to get there on time. That’s a goal. Intention is where we are coming from inside, rather than a specific outcome or goal. Our intention determines the way the conversation is going to go — perhaps even more than the actual words I’m using. There’s a big difference in the quality of my conversation with my husband when we are in conflict if I come into the conversation with an intention of trying to restore connection between us than when I come into the conversation with an intention of blaming him or judging him or “making him see the light.”  If our intention is off, other people feel it. They can tell if we are coming in with an intention that’s perhaps unconsciously set on blame or judgement or control or subtle coercion or defensiveness. They can also feel it if we come into a conversation with the intention to understand or another healthy intention like openness or collaboration or patience.

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Our “Back to the Basics” series this year is “Speaking the Truth in Love.” During our Education Hours, we are focussing on building skill and capacity for having difficult conversations.

This first Education Hour delves into the skill of “Leading with Presence.” I heard of some difficulties people were having with the content of this Education Hour, and so I’m also including some further clarifications about that presentation below. If you have difficulties with any presentation or sermon, please let us know! We can’t learn and grow as a community unless the “shared pool of meaning” is enlarged by all of our feedback. 

Also… Throughout this series, we are mostly referring to situations where we are in conflict with people with whom we already have a relationship of some trust and safety — a spouse, a sister, a parent, a good friend, and (we hope) people within this community. In fact, one of the impetuses for doing this series is to build skill around “speaking the truth in love” within this community.  Though many of these “speaking the truth in love” principles and practices might also apply to conversations with people with whom we have less trust or safety or where there is a large difference in power, we are not primarily referring to these sorts of conversations within this series.

In last Sunday’s Education Hour, I defined “presence” as an “embodied awareness of our direct sensory, mental, and emotional experience.” When we are present, we are better able to stay in the room when conversations get heated and not spin off into “fight, flight or freeze” responses. (See the “Conflict Styles” blog post.) We are also able to be more aware of the wisdom of our senses, emotions and intellect, which gives us more information about ourselves and others and also gives us more choice about how we respond. The more present I am able to be when conflict arises, the better I am able to be authentic to my truth and also be open to the other person’s experience. Continue reading →

By Joanna Lawrence Shenk

Excerpts from Ephesians 4

Thank you Diego, for that reading. I wish we would had time to hear the entire chapter of Ephesians 4 because it’s chock full of wisdom for discipleship. Paul was writing to the Ephesians as a prisoner due to his association with Jesus’ revolutionary movement. He was writing to the Ephesians who were a largely Gentile community and therefore experiencing more social privilege than he was as a Jewish person in the Roman empire.

He was calling them to ethical living which was personal, communal and political. “The calling to which they had been called” as the church was to deep personal and political maturity. “To grow up” the text says “into Christ.” As a part of Jesus’ movement they were called to be, as Ched Myers puts it, “a social experiment in reconciliation between ethnically, politically and culturally alienated groups.”

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