How we pray

Last week we shared some of the ways that we pray into the world.... sometimes (most times) not even with words. Sharing these stories helped us uncover some of the connections we can make with God outside of the traditional church setting. We even received prayer images from our community that were outside of Sandy Springs - in the mountains of North Carolina and the streets of Ghent, Belgium. Inspired by the real time connection over 1000's of miles, our lesson today will be built around our prayers outward for the world - what we wish and how we can take some small action to walk with Jesus in the world.

The Babel Fish

In Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, there is a unique little creature called the Babel Fish: a small, yellow, leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the universe. If you stick one in your ear, you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. When its comes to the adventures of Arthur Dent, this means translating a myriad of languages spoken by aliens. A little closer to home (but no less universal), it means translating how the royal vibes of the Spirit speak to you.

Our first ever babel fish is Ruth. Thanks, Ruth!

We started off listening to 'Mr. Blue Sky' by the immortal Electric Light Orchestra and studied a painting called the 'Freshness of Cold' by Leonid Afremov. 

[Editor's note:how royal is this combo, galacticaly speaking? ELO was way into all things outer space and Leonid is also the name of an annual meteor shower]

To get the full vibe effect, give 'Mr. Blue Sky' a listen while looking at the painting below. It's OK, we'll wait until you are done before we go on. 

Freshness of Cold

Sun is shinin' in the sky,

There ain't a cloud in sight
It's stopped rainin'
Everybody's in the play
And don't you know
It's a beautiful new day.

Runnin' down the avenue,
See how the sun shines brightly
In the city on the streets
Where once was pity,
Mr. Blue Sky is living here today.

For Ruth, the song and the painting both speak to a renewal of the spirit. In the time before, it was cold and rainy, but now the rain has stopped and things are bright again.

Which brings us neatly to our continued discussion of the Noah story from Genesis, where I guess you could say rain played a small part in the story...

Yes, that is an ark... go with us on this one

Some profoundly weird things happen in the story of Noah, so we set about reading it, collecting questions, and placing them into one of three different categories: collywobbles, good vibes, and bad vibes.

NEW VOCAB WORD ALERT! A collywobble is an intense feeling of anxiety of nervousness, especially with stomach queasiness. In the Royal Club of Friendly Vibes, we are using the word to describe the feeling of "what the heck!?!" we get when we hear something that does not vibe with us.

Even setting aside the Nephilim, there are some things in the Noah story that give us the collywobbles. For example, Noah was 500 when he had children... and he named one of his sons after lunch meat. Ham, delicious!

On the good vibe side, God is trying to start over and is willing to save at least some living things . But on the bad vibe side, before deciding to save Noah's family and two of each animal, God not only regrets creating humans but is willing to destroy the human race AND all the animals and every living thing? Really?

The group had a major case of the collywobbles over this: If God is all-knowing and had first deemed everything in creation 'good,' wouldn't God know that humans were going to turn out this bad? Did this mean that the all-perfect God made a perfectly catastrophic mistake? One of our youths even compared God in the Noah story to an 'emotional teenager' who is over-reacting when things do not go his or her way.

We probably should not think of the Noah story as a literal retelling of history. Scripture was written by inspired human hands and not by God. That's why, as responsible readers, we should always question how accurately the writers depict God and the events in the stories. This responsibility is especially important when the writer's account of God or what happened is contrary our experience of God or the world.

Like most Bible stories, the story of Noah was handed down orally, generation upon generation for many, many years. The writers are writing from a specific time and place in history, and thousands of years ago they were working with very limited resources. Their grasp of the world was much simpler, much smaller, and much flatter than we now know it to be in the 21st century.

Coming full circle to the babel fish, the writers are trying their best to communicate their vibes so that readers can better understand God's relationship to human beings. Like all things, humanity's understanding of God evolves. This is why, thousands of years later, it's natural for us disagree with certain parts of the story (like God's extremely questionable impulse to destroy everything) while affirming other parts (like the God-given responsibility of caring for the future of creation).

And to get to THAT point, we'll finish up next week with the conclusion of the Noah story. We hope you all can be there because we are going to have a fun lesson - make sure you have your creative writing pencils sharpened!

With royal vibes to all!

Chris & Timothy

Vibes in Art

What’s a painting, poem, or song that helps you vibe with the Spirit?

I originally asked the HIEC youth this question because my spiritual awakening was born alongside the conviction that the glory of God shines through creativity. Church is one place to discover that glory; but I’m always asking myself, 'How and where do we find access to God’s glorious vibes when we’re away from church? What forms of creativity does your faith vibe with most?'

To understand how art draws our souls, minds, and bodies closer to God, members of The Royal Club of Friendly Vibes are volunteering to discuss how specific works of art give them a deeper understanding of God.

Because it was my idea to begin this practice, I went first.

Vibes in Painting and Poetry - Birches

I began with the paintings from two of my favorite 20^th century artists: Wallisy Kandinsky and Gustav Klimt. When looking at their paintings, what comes to mind is the Christian concept of sacraments. Sacraments are visible ways of expressing God’s invisible love and grace.

While Kandinsky and Klimt’s paintings differ greatly in style, I view them both as sacramental artists because their paintings reveal far more than what we normally see when we look at the world. For me, this beautiful ‘more’ in their artwork is a visualization of the inward and spiritual grace. Far from only replicating objects, Kandinsky and Klimt paint emotions. When looking at their paintings I see grace, beauty, freedom, goodness, love, growth, sensitivity, pleasure, glory, experience, and imagination.

Consider these Kandinsky paintings…

...and these from Klimt.

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The paintings visualize vibes that, for me, have their source God. There’s something unrestrained, something in-the-making, something bursting-forth, something more than what we see happening in our everyday fields of vision. As I understand it, this ‘more’ is an attribute of God, and it’s always present for those who are prepared to see it. Paintings like these help us to see the world through the vision of faith.

I began to train my eyes to see differently when I was 15 years old. I purchased a print of Klimt’s ‘Birches’ (see above) and hung it on my bedroom wall. I’ve always considered trees as having a sort of divine quality to them. As a kid, I remember feeling a playful peace and calm when I would go outside and climb trees. Whether walking through the woods, watching the leaves change and fall and bloom, or piling leaves together to play in, trees somehow make me aware of God’s presence.

The graceful birch trees in Klimt’s painting always brings to mind the final lines of Robert Frost's poem ‘Birches’:

…Earth's the right place for love:

I don't know where it's likely to go better.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

My soul has always vibed with these words and the image of movement between heaven and earth. It reminds me of the idea within Celtic spirituality that angelic messengers of God's glory are continually ascending and descending between earth and heaven. More than that, the movement reminds me of the part in the Lord’s Prayer ‘Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’

Klimt’s birch trees are one version of what I imagine the Kingdom of God is like, and when I look at the painting I hear an echo in my soul saying ‘earth's the right place for love.’

Vibes in Music - 'Skeletons' as a Song of Creation

When I wondered what music draws me closer to God, I immediately though of two songs: ‘Impossible Soul’ by Sufjan Stevens and ‘Skeletons’ by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I went with ‘Skeletons’ because it’s shorter—but not too short. I like when songs are on the longer side because there’s more space to explore the vibes, more time for deeper things to surface and come into focus. Where shorter songs tend to be like ponds, longer songs are more like seas for me—they take more concentration to navigate and often have the effect of making me feel like I'm in the midst of something greater.

‘Skeletons’ is a minimalist song that progressively adds layers of sound onto it, one at a time. It’s a song that resonates with the first creation story in Genesis, and each sonic layer feels like another day of creation. As the layers and days are added, the song of creation blooms with new life.

The song begins in deep electronic hums. A stripped-down female voice breaks the swirl of musical formlessness reminding me of the the dawn of time: when God's ruach hovers across the void of empty nothingness and turns it into the pulsing somethingness that is creation. (Ruach is the Hebrew word for breath, spirit, wind, and mind.) The hauntingly beautiful vocals carrying the song teeter between sweetness and sorrow, vulnerability and power, timidity and self-assertion.

In addition to the creation story, as the musical layers are added on during ‘Skeletons’ I cannot help but recall the prophet Ezekiel’s vision of The Valley of the Dry Bones. During the vision, God uses the prophet to revive skeleton bones that are scattered all around. One layer at a time—from bones to tendons, tendons to flesh, flesh to breath, and breath to life—the bones are transformed into a vast multitude of people who are finally renewed by being filled with the Spirit of God. Along these same vibes, ‘Skeletons’ ends with the sound of a sort of sonic wind containing the multitudes of layers that have been created throughout the song, and as a listener I feel as though the song itself engages me in a process of spiritual layering and renewal. A critic once said, “Kandinsky is painting music.” I agree, and I think his painting below shares royal vibes with ‘Skeletons.’ Just as I see the painting as 'sacramental,' I hear the song as 'incarnational' ('incarnation' means the embodiment of divine qualities).

These are some examples of how art helps me vibe with the Spirit and recognize the glory of God. 

Join us Sunday morning to discover a piece of art that vibes with Ruth and draws her closer to God.

With Prayerful Vibes, 
Timothy

How do you let good vibes flow?

In case you missed it, we’ve given ourselves the new name The Royal Club of Friendly Vibes. An awesome name obviously needs an awesome logo, so we came up with this temporary one until we can vote on a winner:

Our latest lesson revolved around the question: How do you let good vibes flow?

Another way of saying this is, How do you let the Spirit of God—the Holy Spirit—move in and through your life?

To answer this question of flowing vibes, we imagined God as the fountainhead -- the source and the carrier all divine vibes. Just as God is the source of all love, goodness, justice, and beauty, the Spirit of God is like the rivers that carry the contents of the source out into the world. Living faithfully is dependent on God’s constant flow into our hearts and actions.

Imagine there are Friendly Water Fountains next to the Spirit River from which we drink. The better the flow of the Spirit River, the easier it is to drink from the fountains and grow in friendly vibes. Sometimes our spiritual lives are like water fountains with bad water-pressure (you know, the ones where you press down and nothing really shoots up and you basically have to make out with the spigot to get anything to drink).

Without intending to, we often allow things or habits into our lives that clog up the good vibes and reduce the flow of the Spirit. These obstructions aren’t necessarily bad or negative things. They only become problems when they get in the way of God.

We identified some of the things that, though fine in moderation, prevent God’s good vibes from freely flowing through our lives: spending too much time on our cell phones, computers, or social media; playing too many video games or watching too much TV; having too many unused clothes or being surrounded by unwanted clutter.

The season of Lent is kind of a ‘spring cleaning of the soul’ or an annual Spirit River pick-up where we prayerfully identify and remove the excessive things in our lives that pile up. Removing distractions is only one way to let vibes flow better. You can also add small habits or things to help generate God’s friendly vibes.

The challenge this week is to help the good vibes flow by attaching a small prayer onto something you do every day—like saying a prayer each time you wash your hands, make your bed, before you eat, etc.

Whatever we come up with will be slow-jammed by Chris and Timothy when we return.

Peace Out, 

Timothy

The Royal Club of Friendly Vibes

For the past few weeks, we've been considering what type of club Jesus would have belonged to as teenager. This Sunday, we took the idea a bit further. As an extension of the club Jesus started, we considered what sort of teenage club we would want to start at Holy Innocents'.

First, the name. 

We agreed that we'd call ourselves The Royal Club of Friendly Vibes.

• 'Royal' means awesome. Since God is royal, and all people are made in God's image, everyone is essentially royal and awesome even if they fail to recognize it. Our Royal Club would be devoted to recognizing God's awesomeness in our lives and the life of the world.
• 'Vibes' are the shared feelings, intuitions, and emotions inspired by the Holy Spirit. Good vibes are always Friendly Vibes.

Second, what would people actually do when The Royal Club of Friendly Vibes (TRCFV) got together on Sundays?

The list of activities we came up with includes the following: 

• playing games, 
• engaging technology, 
• making info-graphs on the white board, 
• interactive learning,
• taking turns letting members share what song, poem, or piece of art best represents his or her faith.

Third, what sort of faith-related topics would members of The Royal Club of Friendly Vibes discuss?

We only scratched the surface of answering this, but some topics of interest were:

• religious themes in pop culture, 
• the history of the church, 
• finding the sacred feminine,
• the afterlife.

Last, we considered what events and get-togethers The Royal Club of Friendly Vibes might have outside of Sunday mornings. 

This possibilities included:

• going to movies and ice cream/froyo,
• playing ultimate frisbee at the park,
• laser tag and whirly ball,
• Braves games,
• visit to the aquarium and World of Coke,
• local scavenger hunt,
• church lock-in where we have a marathon watching Dr. Who, Sherlock, or Lord Of The Rings.

Stay tuned and begin to image what The Royal Club of Friendly Vibes at Holy Innocents' would look like to you?

Irrelevant Challenge of the Week:

• Do the 'no dance' (if you do not know the dance then make up your own 'no dance'). 

Timothy and Chris

Holy Innocents' Episcopal Church 

March 16, 2014

BTW: We apologize for the lack of an update last week. Not only was it Spring Break Sunday, but, just moments before class began, one of our fearless (youth) leaders opened a very special box of donuts (see below).

Needless to say, Timothy accepted his beloved's proposal and we spent the next hour celebrating and eating.

Jesus' Club and God's Kingdom

What kind of leader was Jesus? What did he offer people that made them decided to follow him?

These were the two main questions we discussed during during Faith Formation on Sunday (which was Part 2 of  last week's conversation about what kind of club Jesus would start if he were a modern teenage student). 

For those with ears to hear, the quickest answers are these: Jesus was a royal leader and the vibes he offered others were so holy and good that he was quickly identified as the Savior who would redeem the world.

Jesus led by persuasion; he relied on actions over arguments. Instead of merely talking about love, peace, forgiveness, and justice, he embodied these divine qualities in the life he shared with those around him. Like Jesus, God never forces us to do anything. We have the freedom to either enter into a relationship with God and help heal the world, or we can choose opt out of this.

Jesus led by invitation; he invited people into a different way of living. The youth at Holy Innocents' try to practice this different way of living too. This life involves being down-to-earth, open minded and open hearted, helping and showing kindness to everyone, having royal vibes and feeling loved, and seeing God in yourself, others, and all creation.

This way of living was definitely risky for the early followers of Jesus. He told the disciples that if they truly wanted to follow him they'd have to "take up their cross," which was another way of saying "you'll have to be shamefully and gruesomely executed as a criminal." Not something you'd expect to find on an invitation.

When we considered what we'd ask Jesus' club of early followers, we came up with this question: "What did Jesus have to offer that's worth dying for?" 

They probably would have said that Jesus offered an irresistible vision of the kingdom of heaven. 'The kingdom' is not a specific place -- it's not a realm up in the sky; and it's not necessarily in the future either. Instead, the kingdom comes about when people come together to join God in making life better by filling it with love, justice, mercy, and beauty. The kingdom begins to come each time we open our eyes up to God's awesomeness working in our lives and through creation. The kingdom comes each time we vibe with that awesomeness and share those godly vibes with the world and people around us.

What divine vibes drew you to Holy Innocents'? Why do you continue to come? What vibes do you look forward to experiencing week? How do you vibe (or pray) with God when you're not at church? What are some ways our group can be more intentional about sharing Godly vibes with others?

These are some of the questions we'll try answering this Sunday. Until then, find your vibe with God and also attempt these two irrelevant challenges:
1. Do the 'yes dance' (if you do not know the dance then make up your own 'yes dance').
2. Sing the second word in the next sentence you use when talking with someone.

(Vibe antennas can sometimes resemble the ones in the photo.
Don't judge. Don't be jeally. Just vibe.)