Friday February 11, 2011

insight on authors - Bob Thompson

by Tim Scorer

Bob Thompson was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1973 and for 30 years was Senior Minister at the Lake Street Church in Evanston, Illinois. He retired in 2010 following a year of intentional transition for him and the congregation.

In the early 1990's Bob began to explore the richness of other spiritual traditions, including indigenous and Eastern spiritualities, along with the Christian mystics. From 1999-2004 he served as Chair of the Parliament of World Religions. Bob has been active in the sphere of social justice, and speaks out on a variety of issues including homelessness, politics, the Christian Right, interfaith engagement, spirituality, and advocacy of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people.

In 2007 CopperHouse published his book A Voluptuous God: A Christian Heretic Speaks. Concerning this book, Deepak Chopra wrote, “A Voluptuous God speaks not only to Christians seeking a deeper Christianity but to all who search for deeper spiritual meaning.”

insight invited Bob to reflect on the transition to a new time in his life and on some of the issues that are hot in mainline Christianity in 2011. Excerpts from the conversation are presented below and are followed by (1) suggestions for reflection and discussion on leadership, and (2) conversation starters for small groups in congregations.

BOB: In letting go of my 30 years at Lake Street Church in Evanston I've discovered that I'm no longer carrying around the preoccupation of the institution. One always carries around responsibility at a subconscious level and sometimes, I suspect, at a very unconscious level.

Now, in this time of transition, I'm no longer having to hold all that together. That does allow me to experience the proverbial “now” in a liberating kind of way. That's how I understand divine intoxication: the mind is quieted and the heart is open. Ever since my last Sunday at the church, I've spent a great deal of time with my family. I've noticed that I've been present in a way that is more unguarded than was my experience before I retired. People have commented to me, “You seem so relaxed.” Not having to carry the responsibility allows me to be calm and present in the moment with the people I am with – to open to the possibilities. My mind is not shouting to me to the degree it once was. I'm more aware of the unity of experience and consciousness.

Spirit-Centred Leadership Question
Are people in ministry leadership doomed to carry around “the preoccupation of ministry” 24 hours a day, seven days a week? What are some ways that ministers can be wholly absent from the demands of ministry so that they can more often experience the divine intoxication to which Bob refers?

Small Group Discussion

1. How are you doing in relation to the kind of dilemmas that Bob names: never leaving work behind; losing the balance between being “on” and being “off”; missing the connection to those most dear to you; feeling unhealthily responsible; and not having time to see the larger project of human consciousness?
2. What practices do you follow that enable you to address some of these tendencies? What practices might you adopt to make divine intoxication a more regular feature of your life?

BOB: I grew up in an Evangelical Christian household and accepted Christ at the age of ten in a Billy Graham crusade in San Francisco, then went to seminary to avoid the draft and ended up in my first church in a small town in Eastern Kansas. In seminary, the shell of ideology and dogma wasbroken open for me and I began to explore new paths and new possibilities. I eventually picked up the dogma of the social justice gospel which is fine, but I went through a personal crisis in the late eighties – a divorce – and that experience broke me open in ways that I had never been broken open.

After these years of being a minister, a practitioner, and a seeker, what strikes me is that the core of the matter is to celebrate our humanity, to see that we are all human here. However dogma gets strung out, it can become a defence mechanism against the vulnerability of our humanity. What I've discovered out of my own experience of these last several decades is that as I become authentically human and available to myself, I become authentically human and available to others; there's no need to hide. I've developed spiritual practices such as deep listening compassionate speaking because it is in those things that trust is born; without trust, “we ain't got nothing.” I'm so conscious of the fact that we all cling to one form of dogma or another and it's really out of a need for a sense of security; it's a defence mechanism. But the more we can allow ourselves to be broken open – to become wounded healers – that's where the hope is and the promise lies.

Spirit-Centred Leadership Question
As you read Bob's reflections you begin to get a sense of what he means by dogma, especially when he contrasts dogma to authentic human presence and practice. He clearly articulates for us the insight of many great spiritual teachers: that hope is born from our capacity to let our vulnerable human experience be our guide.

1. In your reflection, or in conversation, consider the extent to which dogma is still “a defence mechanism against the vulnerability of your humanity.”
2. Where do you see opportunities today for giving birth to hope through the vulnerability of your own leadership?

Small Group Discussion

1. As you read Bob's reflection, where does he strike a chord for you? What insight will you take from paying attention to that chord?
2. Bob shares a little of his own story in naming the kinds of dogma that he experienced in fundamentalist Christianity, in seminary, and in the social justice gospel. Ultimately, he was broken open and liberated into the authority of his own living. We know this aspect of the human journey because we all live it. Where do you see yourself on this path from dogma to authenticity?

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insight on spiritual practice - meditation on leadership

by Lois Huey-Heck

In the pattern of lectio divina or "praying the text," read the following words from Bob Thompson. Begin with prayer for deep hearing. Then read the selection slowly and out loud three times. Meditate on it as a reflection on servant leadership.

After the reading take a time of prayer and focus on any word, phrase, or idea that "shimmers" for you. End with a time of silence – contemplatio – to rest in the Divine.

We’ve heard celebrities talk about what it feels like to be in the limelight. They say that at first it feels great. All that personal attention is seductive and intoxicating. Then comes the realization that the moments that feed the ego are hollow and fleeting. The bloated sense of self importance is just like hot air, quickly gone and as just as insubstantial.

True greatness, rather than mere importance, comes from the soul, the source of our connection to others.

This fundamental spiritual truth is one to which Jesus points to in the story of James and John, the sons of Zebedee. James and John go to Jesus and say, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”

Jesus answered, “What do you want me to do for you?”

"Grant us to sit one on your right hand and one at your left when you come into your glory,” they replied.

Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you’re asking. Whoever would be great among you must be your servant.”

…It was Mahatma Gandhi who coined the term satyagraha (soul force) which …means selfless service without any thought of personal gain. A satyagraha is someone who has surrendered to a greater truth than one’s own emotions or ambitions.

Dag Hamnmerskjold once said, “…at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone – or Something – and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.”

To what exactly was Dag Hamnmerskjold surrendering himself? To what did Gandhi, Mother Theresa, and Martin Luther King surrender themselves? At some moment each one answered yes. They didn't surrender themselves to being self-important. They didn't even surrender themselves to making a difference in the world. Somehow, at some point, each one surrendered self-will and said yes not to saving the world, but to serving the human race, no matter what.

...Surrender requires us to live out of a deeper place than the feeling of the moment.

…Truth be told, the word servant can be a problem. We are conditioned to think of "servant" as synonymous with "slave'" but there is a difference. A servant is free to say yes or no, free to come and go. A slave is a doormat. A servant is a doorway.

General Jan Smuts, who was the head of the Transvaal government, really had it in for Gandhi when he was in jail. But Gandhi decided not to become a slave of Jan Smuts. He chose to be a servant. So rather than spend his time in jail fretting and fuming, he spent his time making a pair of sandals for Jan Smuts.

…There is a greatness that awaits each one of us. No matter whom we are, greatness awaits us. Greatness is a journey of surrender, not a final destination in the limelight.

Say yes.

And then perhaps ask, “Who is my General Smuts? For whom shall I make sandals?"

From A Voluptuous God: A Christian Heretic Speaks
by Robert V. Thompson, Chapter 17.

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