Conflict

In our modern Christian Church we are experiencing schism over issues that tend to center around the notions of Gay Ordination and Gay Marriage.  Those on the affirming side, which i consider myself to be on, there is the notion that the church's call to radical inclusiveness overarches the few places in the bible where male homosexuality is condemned (only male homosexuality is condemned).  On the other side, there is strong feeling that affirming homosexuality in the way that allowing gay ordination, and even more so gay marriage, weaken the church and pull it away from the bible.  There is very much a hate the sin, but love the sinner approach to many on this side, but they are unable to affirm homosexuality in a way that counters their interpretation of the bible, in other words, the church must keep standards even if it is not always pleasant.  

It is not uncommon for the church to be divided on issues, dating from at least the second century there is clear evidence of schisms and strong handing by those in position of authority and influence.  Even in the letters of Paul (dating from as early as 40 AD) we see obvious signs of differing opinions on how to interpret chrisitainity.

Most schisms have occurred over purely theological concerns, where the arguments never leave the discussions of academics and church leaders, rarely affecting the day to day life of most believers.  There have been other times though when people were unduly affected by the controversies.  Notably, in paul we see discussions of the way to include gentiles, eventually including gentiles.  The arguments over abolition caused schisms, eventually sided with abolitionists.  I have to believe that the church will eventually side with gay rights, as it has in the past with other civil rights.  If we are truly a church that is reformed and always reforming, then we will gather a common understanding of the full inclusion of gay members.

That being said, schism and controversy are a central element of the christian church, and maybe all faith traditions.  We have to learn to be at peace with that schism.  When it comes to people's lives, i believe that the christian idea of inclusion will prevail, but when it comes to theological concerns, we will never all fully agree.

Christianity is really a collection of churches or villages, that each exist in a different set of realities.  A small rural church exists in a different world than a large urban church.  This is OK.  We as christians are allowed to disagree, we as different faith traditions throughout the world are also allow to disagree.  How to we truly draw lines in the sand, each village(church) must exist with itself, with all the diversity and all the reality it faces.

If we are on the left handed path we have to remember this, we have to remember that there is no one absolute way that will work for everyone.  There are archetypal similarities that exist amongst religions, and there are broad stroke themes that are crucial, but the specifics vary, regardless of denomination, culture or religion.  Our job becomes to listen and to discover, not so much as a complete outsider, but as a welcomed visitor, to discover what it is that is unique about that village(church) and why they believe what they believe.  Questions help people better understand their own traditions, the answers may not come easily, but if they are asked out of love, they can only help.  Asking questions though that lead a person to think a certain way are useless, they can only come from a genuine place of curiosity and love.   When we can gain a greater understanding of traditions, and why they exist, then we grow stronger in faith.

Dangers

Any faith tradition that feels it can't let people experience the fullness of the world is destined to fail. We can not protect people from the world, we have to be able to live in it fully, to engage in mysteries, not to try and avoid answers.

If a religion feels like it needs to hide things, to keep things from its members to proclaim nessecary rituals for existence, then it is failing.

Religion must be able to confront all the harsh realities of the world. It does not need to have answers to those mysteries, but it should not shy away from them.

importance of language

Each village has its own "language", even when villages share a common tongue.  When we venture outside our village, we must be open to learning new languages, new ways of speaking, new terms.  Language holds the central key for narrative.   Each language offers us a new path to expression to understanding, to be being human.   Sometimes it is the subtle differences that can throw us off the most.  We are required to undo ourselves, to learn a new language, we have to be immensely familiar with our own.  Even when we leave the village, we have to be acutely aware of what we learned in our village, we have to be willing to accept that it is not common everywhere, we need to be sensitive to the differences of othere village, even when it appears exactly the same.

Sometimes studying other cultures and distant religions appear to yeild more information, we fail to acknowledge what we can learn from the village next door or even our own.  Studying a faith tradition very similar to our own is more difficult than studying distant religions, but can yeild information that is just as meaningful and enlightening.  When we study far different traditions we come into closer accord with our own, when we study similar faith traditions, we challenge our own faith tradition in ways we never would be able to in distant religions.   Study distant religions, but dont' miss the ones that are close by, for they offer the same wealth of information.

What is the role of two paths

Why do people leave the safety of the village and go on the left handed path?  I have to imagine that when people leave for the left handed path, it has a grounding ability to those in the village.  Any group of people has the tendency to run away on its own, lose sight of what is important, lose focus.  Having people go out, learn and discover on their own, and come back and tell the story can help focus that community, help it remember what is important.  These are all euphemisms, but they get to a kernel of the truth.  In Christianity, we see in Christ a figure that came to liberate his people from the oppression of the roman, but not only the romans, but those in power within the jewish community that had focused so much on the law and the specifics of the ritual that the true power of religion was being lost.  Religion was becoming a club of the powerful instead of a balm to those in need of help.  Since religion is a human endeavor, it is prone to having this happen, and those that journey outside the village are the best suited to come back and correct the path of the village.  Remembering that the path of the village should be spiritual support, not oppression.

Each time in human history has had to have had its fair share of left handed sojourners, but we see many today, fleeing from organized religion, traveling away from home.  If all these that leave the village fail to ground themselves into a faith tradition, the sojourners run the risk of fail to teach their village anything.  If those that leave can not come back at some point, whether they speak to their specific village or not, and tell their journey narrative, even in mythical proportions, then nothing is gained, and villages will continue to slide into oppression and the paler side of human experience.    And the villages need to stay in tact to some extent, even if they are imperfect, because when folks have no village to leave from, and no village to tell a story too, then we start to enter into a real heap of trouble.

For those in the villages, listen to those who journey outside your comfort zones, for those on the left handed path, don't be afraid to talk about what it is you see, whatever it has been.  For both routing ourselves in tradition, ritual along with the history and context of a faith tradition helps, willing to always ask why we have those traditions and rituals, and maintaining the narratives and the myths that exist around them.

The Role of Narrative

Narrative is something that defines us as humans. Telling our story is elemental to our being, if we do not speak in narrative, we can not get to understanding what it means to be human, what it means to live.

Science is not narrative. Science is important for understanding our universe, and is infinitely valuable, but it can not replace narrative and myth, which does a better job of discussing our humanness.

Those of us on any spiritual journey are well served studying myth and narratives. This includes scripture, whether it's the Bible or the Tao or the Koran, these are ancient texts that have lasted for good reason. Even when we commit ourselves to one faith tradition, we gain knowledge from other texts.

Committing to a tradition is good, we gain more when we are committed to one tradition and can live inside it, if we are lucky enough to grow up in a tradition, we can gain value through those rituals in ways we can almost never gain from a "new" religion.

But it's not just about scripture, every story has something to teach us about being human.

differing paths

The right handed path happens in community.  There are standards, there are common achievements, there are ways to measure yourself against others.  On the left handed path you are very much alone.  On the left handed path each individual's development is different, it is unique, based on the experiences that one encounters, which will always be unique when one leaves the village.  On the right handed path there are rituals to mark important moments, there is a sense of collective experience, a way in which people can share in their spiritual growth.  This is not to say that the left handed path can't be routed in a faith tradition, mystics have been attached to faith traditions for ions, but the left handed path offers a different way of experiencing a faith tradition

I was asked not too long ago if i thought i was more spiritual than the person asking this question.  I answered of course not, but this was not to imply that this person was more spiritual advanced than I was.  As a pastor, i can only take people where i have gone, but at the same time i have to be willing to let people take me where they have gone.  If i fail to acknowledge the spiritual wealth of another person, then i cease to grow.    It is of course a major aspect of my job to develop my own spiritual wealth, but  i am not better or higher or more advanced than anyone i meet, regardless of what path they are on.  

Even though i am a represenative of religion, some times i am very uncomfortable with aspects of church that work in the right handed path.  I sometimes see this in my congregants.  The rituals of the right handed path can appear to us outside the village as confining, as a hinderance, as a barrier.  This may be because we are often deemed dangerous by the village,  our very existance leads so often to change, testing the foundations of the village.   These rituals have a way of making us feel uncomfortable, often forcing us to move along.  

Sometimes we can become attached to a particular village though, and even though there is tension it can be a valuable experience. What is interesting is that each village has a different right handed path, so even though i was nutured within a village, a church to be more specific, one that was full of people on the right handed path, i can not recoginize that path in another village.  They can be similar, but they are never identical, and it is hard to become a part of a village when you are an outsider.  

On the left handed path, you can converse with a village, you will never be a full member of the village (other than the one that nurtured you, or if you decide to end your left handed path and join the right handed path, but i don't think that those on the left-handed path always have a choice), but you can learn from the village.  Engaging with the villages that let us in can be insightful and instructive, it teaches us, we can see a particular faith tradition in action.   As an outsider you can challenge the village, and help to ensure that its traditions and rituals are healthy.  I think that the more spiritually healthy the village, the more accepting they will be of the outsider, the left handed journeyman.    

Christianity allows for this duality, i believe the Islam does too -- possibly buddhism, the duality of being able to encompass the left handed path of the mystic or the artist, and the right handed path of the village.  Having never truly encountered a religious tradition that is truly unique to a village, like i hear they have in India, or native american religion where there were commonalities, but it changed between tribes, i wonder if the mystic had its place.  Or did the mystic exist completely outside the village, making it up as they went along.  Can the mystical elements of christianity be a complete path to discovery within the left handed tradition.   Religion must be able to capture this duality for the left handed path is as central to the human experience as the right handed path. 

an introduction

Joseph Campbell speaks of their being two major mythical archetypes, the right handed path and the left handed path.  The right handed path is one where myths create stability and comfort and protect the village compound.  The left handed path is one of the journey, typically outlined by quest narrative's or hero's journeys.  We can live our lives on the right handed path or the left handed path, and both are important and valuable.  I have found myself on the left handed path.  I do not consider myself a hero, but i often understand myself in the mold of a mystic.  I am left to wonder, why are so many in our culture today on the left handed path.  In New York and New Orleans and even during my 4 month journey through europe, i met so many that were on the left handed path, it seemed normal.  There are so many who have set off from home, in search of something, something they can't find.  By those on the right handed path, the left handed path seems selfish and dangerous, and quite frankly it is, we are testing the boundaries of what is "acceptable"  we are engaged in creative vision in opposition to rational vision.

My path has led me to Amite Louisiana where i am the pastor of a small Presbyterian church, full of folks who are on, for the most part, the right handed path.  I struggle with what it is that i have to offer to them.  This is compounded by the fact that each village is different, the village supports the right handed path, and the village that I grew up in, the one in Rochester, NY, is very different than the one in Amite.  

I know there are others on the left handed path, and maybe they struggle with a right handed world.  Since on the left handed path we are not guided by the village in the same way, we must rely on defining our paths for ourselves, and to explore and trust in ourselves and develop ourselves, it is scary.  Since, while on the left handed path i can only truly define myself in hopes of it being valuable to others, i will write of my experiences.  I will write daily (or as often to daily) as i can about what i discover, what i find, in hopes that it will mean something to someone some where.  I am a christian pastor, and unabashedly so, so i plan to write from a Christian Perspective.  although i am essentially alone on this journey, i am throughly and comfortably guided by the life of Christ, who in many ways also took the left handed path by leaving Galilee behind and leaving his family behind.  I also believe in our role as christians to be the body of Christ in the world, which i have always interpreted as spreading love and service and compassion, and lifting up those that have been disenfranchised by society.

May these postings offer love and compassion to those that find themselves on the left handed path, for it is a scary place, and we don't have the safe haven of a village, or in modern terms: a church.  While we are out on the road, left us find some refuge in each other.  While we seek, let us seek in communion.   Let our church be beyond the walls of a physical structure, let our church be universal.