Sunday Song is back...

9/26/2021

This is my first Sunday Song and Rumination since springtime, and it shares a bit about what has been coming up for me. The nature of this talk runs the risk of rejection, but my hope is that because I've let it steep for a long time, and at times in silence, (letting go, allowing, letting go, allowing, returning), that it will at least be received as sincere, hopeful, and maybe even some much-needed fresh air.

Not sure about that, but that is the hope.

If you feel reactive when you hear it, I would ask that you take some time to sit in silence too, so we're not merely feeding the frenzy. Our time on earth together is too precious and of the essence to waste any more of it, with frivolous, hurtful words.

This is not meant to diminish any person's experience in these times, but is an attempt to maybe examine our behaviours from a bit further back.

8 Comments

Carrie Lahain

9/26/2021 07:30:41 pm

Thank you. It took courage to speak the way you have here. Your words echoed many of my own feelings about where we are now. My own reactivity and a tendency to slip into a scarcity mentality is a source of great pain, especially after such deep work in Christian mysticism and contemplation. Sometimes the only way I can regain a sense of stability is via full retreat, and I don't mean in the sense of spiritual renewal. More like running for my life. Shutting it all out. I do NO social media. I got rid of my television. And still I can seethe with suspicion and crass judgement of those who don't agree with me. Daily Centering Prayer, Lectio Divina, and time outdoors help me reestablish my calm center and soft heart, but I'm not so sure it contributes much to solving the larger problem. Except, maybe seeing this personal weakness, naming it, touching it, releasing it, does in a way help cleanse a bit of toxicity from the shared energetic atmosphere. I hope so.

Anne-Marie

9/26/2021 08:13:50 pm

Hello Alana
Although I am not a patron due to circumstances, I enjoy following your work. In enneagram language, you express the depth of God’s kindness. More than that, I think of Love wanting to continue to be that for you and through you.
I love Patrick Oliver’s work from whom I have gleaned the above understanding.. He has been a spiritual director in Queensland, Australia for many years. His latest book (self-published) is called, ‘How true this is: A soul approach to savouring the Scriptures’. I could read it again and again. It is a very hopeful book. I’m sharing it with as many people as I can as we, so often, have forgotten who we are meant to be for the sake of the community. Many thanks for all you do.

Sheila Hagan-Bloxham

9/27/2021 08:01:57 am

Thank you for helping me to define my deep sorrow and my confliction at the fracturing of some of my community this at the same time as I have bee nbecoming much more aware of my privilege.
I would like to open the question of progressive Christianity as a single entity. There is much to be repented of in our hubris and I had only recently learned of the FB page the Christian left when I quickly left it because of the divisive comments. I wonder if your prophecies, which I value, may have a touch of dualistic thinking within it? Nothing is entirely black or white (no pun intended). We all come to decisions partly because of our own experiences. Whether our scientific paradigm explain s for some the value of vaccine is understood from that paradigm does not negate the value of energy workforce healing. I hold both values. I miss you. Much love, Sheila

Alana

9/27/2021 09:52:04 am

Hi dear friend,

yes you have a point. I was hoping it would come across that I have begun to notice the three fingers pointing back at myself. Or trying to throw a wild card into my own group... name some of the very justifiable reasons we might be guarding ourselves with patronizing tones, the trauma, etc, But was hoping I was preaching to my own choir as it were!

And I also didn't want to come across as dualistic about medicine... but wanted to express that the work toward integral thinking around all this feels at least in the public square, to have taken a turn toward no room for discussion or dialogue. This lack of openness, alienates more types of people than the media would have us assume, and pushes them further away. I haven't seen a whole lot of real humility about this.

Thank-you for your insight - I will continue to do a fierce inventory of my intentions and that little patch of impartiality I hope I can love from. I miss you too.

Mary D. Travis

9/27/2021 08:34:14 am

Alana, I am deeply moved by your vulnerability, honesty, and words. Your own inner work has given you deep insight and clarity into scarcity as the root of the current state of division. Perhaps disintegration is the word I want to use since our economic systems/social systems are build on division (scarcity) and they are fragmenting and collapsing under the weight of their own unsustainability. Your truth telling may be hard to hear for some to hear, not because you are wrong, but because the fear of letting go of what we have been convinced will keep us safe can overwhelm what our heart's witness that we have heard truth. It strikes me that humility is the antithesis of scarcity. Humility springs out of some inner awareness planted deep within each of us that there is enough love, acceptance, and place for us to honestly look at what we are doing/saying and where we have come from and how that has impacted others. The work Presence is doing in and through you seems to connect deeply with the work being done in and through Bill Redfield (https://www.williamredfield.com) toward moving unitive (Wisdom) teaching into practical application, into living and being in a time of fragmentation and that volleying you so aptly describe as shouting up at the sneer down., patronization/provocation. I deeply appreciate your "confession" of seeing shamanic/natural/alternative and energetic medicine as emerging, something I am also finding myself moving toward. There is an urgently resonating response in my heart to the comment that white people need to get it together (I may not be quoting correctly :) - we must look honestly and deeply at what we have spent such energy ignoring (at great cost to indigenous and people of color) for it is destructive to us, others, and our very planet. Thank you for your sharing today, for your courage in risking for the sake of love and truth.

Sally Brower

9/27/2021 12:37:41 pm

I am also deeply concerned about division in all our places of 'community.' I am feeling called to do some group processing about ways to listen to each other across our differences and listen to God with the ear of our hearts. The hope is to take seriously my sending from the Living School and help others also find ways to live into their own belatedness so they may more readily also see others as beloved.

Dawn

9/28/2021 04:14:00 am

Dear Alana-
I honor so deeply your heart-felt and heart-shared words that have come with such long and deep intention. You have spoken to many things I’m still in the early stages of putting words to and I am so grateful for your thoughtful and hard words. As a physician from the Deep South of the US, who spent most of my medical training and time in the US military, only to wake up one day wondering “how did I get here?!” as I realized both of those professions required me to ignore the deepest parts of my own felt/known truth, I am not unaware of the potential cost of aligning with/believing/living out your words. And yet I find myself at times defensive, at times so tender with, my identity and family in both of those destructive systems. I am beginning to see in a deeper way, how these systems and our own interactions with such systems (these are just my pertinent examples) reflect our own inner battles and shadows that we must also learn how to be gentle with, show compassion towards, learn to learn from and use as impetus to move toward love. What is the invitation, in my life, to engage with the systems yes, but more specifically with the beautiful, creative, broken, lovely people within them- myself included- AND those the systems harm, sometimes kill? I do not know all the answers to these questions but it’s good to not be alone in asking them.

Deep gratitude for the invitation and challenge to humility and love,
Dawn

Joan Peyser

10/1/2021 11:29:47 am

Dear Alana: Thank you so much for your heartfelt, broken hearted articulation of what is moving in you to speak these words so lovingly and humbly. I, too, feel a deep, deep sadness for how we are all behaving during this time. I seem to have no way to express that sadness openly and honestly as you have done here so I appreciate so much your bravery and willingness to speak in such a way. I will continue to try to listen in the ways you have suggested!.

Sunday Song is back...

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