How to break free from the madness

My wife, Patty, and I are just back from a week along California's Big Sur coastline, one of the most astonishingly beautiful places on earth.  Just type Big Sur images into your web browser and see what I mean.  

Nature is God's art and it nourishes something deep within us.

Today I stumbled on a piece by Daniel Ladinsky who's spent his life writing contemporary renderings of the ancient mystic poets.  Here's what Ladinsky says about nature; his description gets at what I feel when I am drawn into the vast, Divine canvas: 

"Nature and art are sacred breasts we can feed on to grow. They are vital to our evolution. They offer a jailbreak or leave from the madness and demands we can get caught in. Of course love does that, too. Love dissolves boundaries and ultimately removes any contour that is not luminous." 

For more on the nature of nature and art and love, and especially poetry, see Ladinsky's full blog post on Huffpost here. 

Go there, because if you can't get to the Big Sur coastline or any other place of extreme beauty, you can pick up a poem and it might carry you into ecstasy.  (And Ladinsky's got a couple great poems in his essay, especially the spiritually flirtatious poem by Rumi, The Body is Like Mary). 

"A Table for All": Announcing the Launch of My Newest Book

While more and more people are changing their minds, homosexuality remains a lightning rod issue for Christians. A few years ago I decided I needed to get clear myself about what I believe as a person, informed by the Bible and Christian history.  My newest book, A Table for All: How I Came to Understand the Gospel Means Full Inclusion of Gays and Lesbians, is just out.  It’s the story of my journey.  It also tells the story of the congregation I’ve served for many years and how that congregation influenced that journey.

[ Order it here, or if you live in Fresno, I'll have copies for sale at my farewell party at University Presbyterian Church on Sunday, March 8th following a combined unity service at 10am (a lunch, celebration, and book signing will follow the service) ]

This short book offers a deeply personal testimony to the way people across the spectrum might listen together to both the human drama and the divine desire for wholeness and holiness with respect to homosexuality. The book covers: the nature of the gospel, the authority of the Bible and its interpretation throughout history, the pastoral needs of LGBT persons and their families, and the missional issues facing the church today. In addition, I explore the theological core of Christianity found in the teachings of Jesus and Saint Paul. It is this core, this rule of faith, that makes it possible for Christians today to keep faith with historic Christianity and find in it a vision for the full inclusion of those the church has too long marginalized and excluded.  

The book includes an extended study guide for personal reflection and group exploration. At a time when major denominations are struggling to find ways to engage in constructive dialog, this book may well help struggling congregations and concerned readers find a way forward. 

Here are some endorsements and reviews:

"We need lots of help in thinking through the subject of full inclusion of all people in Christ's body, the church. Chris Neufeld-Erdman gives us a pastoral perspective on this contentious subject. His journey is one many church leaders must take if we are to be faithful leaders of a church with a truly open and welcoming table."

—William Willimon, United Methodist Bishop, retired, Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry, Duke Divinity School, Durham, NC

"I'm grateful for the serious way Chris and his congregation engage Scripture as a living tradition. Chris builds bridges between the ancient world in which Scripture first emerged and our postmodern world. This book makes you both think and feel--which can only strengthen the witness of the church to God's liberating good news of the gospel."

—Shannon J. Kershner, Senior Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, IL

"Prophetic, insightful, and thoroughly gracious. Following the noblest tradition of Christianity, A Table for All opens a door too long barred. If your church has tiptoed around the issues of homosexuality and marriage equality, this book is as fine a conversation starter as any I've read."

—Philip Gulley, Quaker pastor, Danville, IN

"Instead of keeping difficult conversations off the table or pushing thosemost impacted by them under the table, Chris Neufeld-Erdman draws upon religious history, biblical exegesis, and personal experience to put them on the table. Then he invites us all to sit, share, and sort out how to make space for each other so we can relate and flourish as a full family of faith."

—Sharon Stanley-Rea, Director, Refugee & Immigration Ministries, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Washington, DC

"A Table for All delivers an objective and scriptural focus on how gays and lesbians fit into the plan of God. Neufeld-Erdman's work ties together history and Scripture for a comprehensive view of Christ's mission. The result is a read--or really a debate--that engages us to think and re-think a topic we might have thought we'd mastered."

—Timothy Pestotnik, Partner, Pestotnik + Gold LLP, Attorneys at Law, San Diego, CA

"The more books we have that testify to the full inclusion of GLBT persons in the church, the better. And the better books we have, the better. If they're written by thoughtful, reflective pastors, all the better. Chris Neufeld-Erdman has joined the rising chorus of church leaders calling for marriage equality and full inclusion. This is a highly readable, small group friendly book, and I heartily recommend it."

—Tony Jones, theologian and the author of Did God Kill Jesus?

"Neufeld-Erdman invites those who embrace biblical authority to journey with him as he comes to a new understanding of God's hospitality. Along the way, he extends a special welcome to those who disagree with his conclusions about God's inclusion of same-gender couples within the marriage covenant. This makes the book a helpful conversation starter for all those wrestling with this very important matter."

—Lynn Jost, Mennonite Brethren pastor and parent of a gay son

"A helpful and easy read for congregational members and church leaders struggling to find a way forward. The book is highly accessible, while providing a biblical, historical, pastoral, and theological path for engaging this issue. Even better, it comes from the extraordinary depth of the author's own wisdom and experience of discerning the nature of the gospel from within a vibrant congregation. It's a testimony that's overdue. Would that many congregations had had it a few years ago! But it will likely help save many from the fracturing that's plaguing the church today and marring its witness."

—Justine Spurlock, Executive Pastor, Columbine United Church, Littleton, CO

"Neufeld-Erdman writes, 'If God can get along as three Persons, yet one Being, fully differentiated yet united, then we can too!' This hope for the community of faith, expressed through his enthusiasm for the doctrine of the Trinity clearly lies at the heart of A Table for All. Indeed, it lies at the heart of Neufeld-Erdman himself. God's unity has become a reality for him as he and members of his congregation have studied and discussed how the gospel relates to LGBT individuals and as he has been challenged to contemplate the Word and words with new eyes. This book is particularly helpful for groups--and many a pastor or group leader will be grateful for the probing discussion questions offered for each chapter."

—Mary Lynn Tobin, Presbyterian Minister, Leadership Consultant and Coach

"The debate on homosexuality divides the church--a division Jesus prayed against in his high priestly prayer (John 17.20-24). Could it be that the real problem is the division rather than the issue at hand? It's for this reason that the church needs a book like this to help us engage in peaceful dialogue. Neufeld-Erdman has given us a thoughtful and personal reflection that I pray will aid us in becoming the church that Jesus had hoped and prayed for."

—Danny Cortez, Pastor, New Heart Community Church (Baptist), La Mirada, CA

"A Table for All spills over with the very essence of Jesus's teaching, as Chris Neufeld-Erdman reminds us that to love God and neighbor is the commandment above all others! This heartfelt and slim book calls us back to the basics of our faith; to embrace the essence of the gospel."

—From the Preface by Colleen Townsend Evans, actress (retired) and author

Six Things I've Learned These Last 16 years

Don McCullough "Morning Fly By"

Don McCullough "Morning Fly By"

After almost sixteen years as a pastor at University Presbyterian Church, Fresno, I am beginning a new adventure in a new congregation, the Davis Community Church in Davis, California.  Parting with friends who have become family is not easy.  We've been part of each others' lives for a significant part of our lives.  So, as much as I feel this summons by the divine for a new adventure, I also feel grief.  Below is my last newsletter article to the congregation.  It's kind of a Credo, or summary of my faith at this hinge in my life.  This transition has given me the chance to reflect on the key learnings this last decade and a half.  And while I grieve this departure, I am also full of gratitude for what I've learned among this remarkable group of people.  

This is my last chance to write to you, my last opportunity as your pastor to put words onto the page and to say something that might endure—at least for a little while.  I recall other last words.  Jesus’ to his friends: “Go and make disciples of all nations”; Saint Paul’s to his disciple, Timothy: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race”; and the saintly Albus Dumbledore’s to Harry Potter: “Of course it’s happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”  

These famous last words were brief.  I ought to follow that pattern and say one thing.  But I’m not nearly as wise as Jesus, Paul, or . . . Dumbledore.  Instead, I’ll give a short list of the six key things I’ve learned among you since since I came among you in November of 1999:

First, “God is nearer than we think.”  For too many people God is an idea, a doctrine, a belief system.  But among you, I’ve experienced God.  God is not up and out, some Great Being who created the world and now stands aloof from it.  God is intimately involved with us and within all created things.  God is Presence.  God is as close as the beating of your heart, near as your next breath.  

Second, “God’s mischief.”  I suppose this is my signature phrase, and most of you love it.  I love it because it reminds me not only that God is big and, in the older language, sovereign.  But God is also playful.  I’ve suffered greatly in my life, but I’ve nevertheless experienced this odd and delightful Presence who seems always intent to work good in the world no matter how much bad there is. God’s goodness has come to me despite the fact that goodness didn’t often march into my life like the Fresno State marching band.  

Third, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”  This is a famous phrase from Saint Irenaeus of Lyon (early 2nd century, Gaul/France).  Lots of religious people think the Christian path ought to carry them away from life, their humanity, and toward a spiritual existence in heaven.  I take it on faith that there’s something beyond this life, something we call heaven, but it’s not at all clear to me what that is.  Though I’m quite sure Jesus did not intend us to spend this life thinking about it or working to get there. Jesus was about this life and about living it well.  Heaven is a bonus not the goal.  So, I think Ireneaus, the great theologian of the early church, got it right when he taught that Christianity ought to help us live a red-blooded life now and not wait for some big event later in the sky.  The goal of Christianity is living well now, here.

Fourth, “The church is the place where everyone, without exception, receives an unmistakable and unqualified invitation to come and feast at the Table of God’s abundance among an ever widening circle of friends.”  This quote is more recent.  And I don’t think I’d have come to this big and dreamy sentence if it hadn’t been for you.  There are people here who have lived this before I ever put it into words.  And they’ve done so against the backdrop of those rather troublesome Christians who put up the kind of barriers and walls Jesus came to tear down.  In a world where barriers and walls, suspicion and hostility and violence separate people, we must follow Jesus more radically, more boldly, taking our place at the Table, welcoming others, and offering our gifts for the healing of the world.     

Fifth, “If God can get along then we can too.”  I’ve said this about the Holy Trinity—God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or Mother, Wisdom, and Sacred Fire (metaphors that ensure we don’t conceive of God as merely male, but, somehow, according to the Bible, as both male and female; remember, in Genesis 1 we learn that God made human beings in God’s image, male and female; God therefore isn’t one or the other, but both).  God is naturally both diverse and unified—simultaneously.  So we must honor our differences even while we treasure our unity.  What a dull place this would be if we were cookie-cutter Christians, trying to shave off our differences, manufacturing some faux facsimile of one another.  God loves a riot of color, not the drab gray of sameness.   

Sixth, “Risk everything for love.”  I’ve borrowed this from the 14th century Sufi mystic poet, Rumi.  And isn’t this exactly what Jesus did?  It is.  And so, it’s what I aim to do.  And when I pray the phrase each morning, I carry it a little further.  But I don’t think for a moment that Rumi would mind, for he knew the expansive heart of God.  “Risk everything for love,” I pray, “‘till Love is All and All is is Love.”  By praying this, I’m drawing myself into the future of God, the future of the cosmos, a future that helps me live and love now, here.  “God is love,” wrote Saint John.  And one day love is all we’ll know, for it is the divine Fire that holds all things together.  So, why not live it now?

Six things.  Not the only things I’ve learned.  But for me, the most important.  Things I’ll carry with me into this new adventure of faith. 

I’m grateful beyond words.  I couldn’t be more blessed.  Thank you for calling me as your pastor so long ago and for loving me as a human being.  Together we’ve touched the face of God and I don’t think any of us will ever be the same.  And that’s a very good thing.

RIP James Allen Erdman (1935-2015): Father, Naturalist, Teacher

A service of celebration is planned for Saturday, July 25th at 2:30pm at Montview Blvd Presbyterian Church in Denver,

Dr. Jim Erdman, Sacquoy Head, northcoast of Rousay, Orkney

Dad died Wednesday, February 4, after a battle with cancer (see the obituary I've written further down below). Immediately below is a tale about my dad and a window into what he taught me: what I will always carry with me, the riches received that I get to pass on to others.  It's an excerpt from a book I started a half-dozen years ago but haven't touched since 2010 (other book projects bumped this book on spiritual practices and put it on the back burner).  The book's provisional title is Sainte Terrer: How to Make an Altar of Every Day Life.  The excerpt will explain the odd French title.

I grew up hiking and fly-fishing, backpacking and picnicking in the Colorado Rockies.  My father is a scientist who’s spent his life in a love affair with these valleys, streams, and peaks—the granite and pine, trout and Columbine that populate this magnificent part of the Earth.  When he and I stand in the same valley we experience it very differently.  He sees the subtle moraine laid down eons ago by some vast, retreating glacier.  He feels the mighty forces that belched this rock from Earth’s belly billions of years ago.  He imagines the achingly long, painful processes that twisted and tilted this ancient rock into the peaks we now traverse.  He can tell me exactly why a certain conifer grows on this side of the valley and not on the other, why schist appears here and not there, what we might expect when we cross over yonder pass between those two ten thousand foot spires. 

Dad will correct you if you call what we’re doing “hiking”.  And because of the way he loves this land, he’s got good reason to.  We’re walking, he says—or better, “sauntering” . . . not hiking.  To support his argument, he’ll paraphrase Thoreau and shout something like this over his shoulder as you follow him along the trail:

I’ve only met one or two persons in my life who understand the art of Walking—people who had a genius for sauntering.  Sauntering’s a word that comes from what folks used to call those fools who roved around the European countryside in the Middle Ages asking charity, pretending they were going a la Sainte Terre, that is, “to the Holy Land.”    

The village kids would laugh and point at these crack pots saying, “There goes a Sainte-Terrer!”  

A Saunterer.  A Holy-Lander.  

Know this, my son, there are those who never know the ground beneath their feet as holy; they’re mere idlers and vagabonds, not true saunterers.  What we’re doing now, if you’re aware of the ground beneath your feet, is what true sauntering is all about. (Adapted from Henry David Thoreau's little book, Walking)

Sauntering’s what my father aims to do.  When he does, and I’m with him, I can see it in his eyes—that misty-eyed gaze of those who, after a long journey, finally glimpse the Holy City rising before them in the distance.  He is a Sainte-Terrer.  These mountains, trees, and rivers, lazy fawns and ambling bear are his Holy Land.  And each high mountain stream, teeming with brook trout, is Jerusalem to him. 

But there are many who never go to the Holy Land in their walks.  They hike.  It’s not that they intend to miss the mystery that is this Holy Land.  They know there’s more here than meets the eye; they just don’t know how to see it.  They’ve got no real training in sauntering, in holiness.  They are “idlers and vagabonds” across these mountains, when they intuitively long to be Sainte Terrers, Holy-Landers whose love gives them eyes to see all that’s beyond first- and even second-glance. 

I think it was these walks with my father that made me hunger for holiness before I ever knew what it was.  I realize now that his love of the divine in every blessed thing upon this Earth and the way he encountered them taught me my first rudimentary practices for pursuing the Holy and finding It.  

Sauntering with my father upon this sacred Earth, I first learned that there is always more than meets the eye.  But this “sight” was not learned by happenstance.  My father had very specific guidelines for our forays into the wilderness, and he was not always kind if I ignored them.  He taught them to me to keep me safe, of course, to ensure that I could survive in this land if I became lost or hurt.  But even more, he taught me these guidelines and simple practices so that I would know how to move slowly and gently, even reverently upon the Earth, my eyes and ears no longer dull to the goodness of God that’s always all around me no matter where I find myself to be.  

Keeping safe is one thing, and I’d pay a pretty penny to keep myself alive—though there’s not any real beauty in just staying safe, keeping yourself alive.  But keeping myself alive to awe is quite another thing, and anything that can do that is priceless. 

 

An Overview of Jim Erdman's Life:

James Allen Erdman, was born December 20, 1935 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Robert and Esther Erdman.  He died peacefully on February 4, 2015 at his mountain “hermitage” high in the Rocky Mountains near Red Feather Lakes, Colorado.  He’d fought a brief struggle against Mesothelioma, cancer of the lining around the lungs.  He was 79.

In the early 1960s, Jim was a member of the Wetherill Mesa archeological team that helped expand Mesa Verde National Park (near Cortez, Colorado) to include some of the most remarkable ancient Pueblo cliff dwellings, including the famed “Long House”.  There he completed his research in botany and earned a PhD in plant ecology from the University of Colorado, Boulder.  Later, he taught at Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado, until he became a geobotanist for the United States Geological Survey in Lakewood, Colorado, a position he held until he retired in the 1990s.  Jim’s scientific research contributed to non-invasive and more environmentally friendly techniques for mineral exploration, the control of noxious weeds in prairie ranch lands, and the management of wetlands and other natural resources.  A pioneer in his field, he presented his research in the Soviet Union, China, Scandinavia, and at symposiums across North America.  

 A writer, activist, and provocateur, Jim was deeply concerned about the environmental challenges before us.  He contributed generously to political causes he felt would contribute to the flourishing of the natural world.  In later years, he combined a keen understanding of natural science with insights drawn from history and anthropology in order to address the cultural and political mistakes he felt certain are leading us toward disaster.  His final paper, “A Sketch of Three Cultures—Past, Present, Future—Weld County, Colorado” (2013) focused on the interaction between the natural world and its human inhabitants and directly challenged the threat posed to both by the fracking industry.  He concluded that paper with a quote from an unknown author, typical of his outlook: “The human spirit needs places where nature has not been rearranged by the hand of man.”

Jim was above all a naturalist, in love with the all things wild and wonderful.  Only months before his death he was still climbing fourteen thousand foot peaks, and curating nature walks at the Soapstone Prairie Natural Area in the wilderness north of Fort Collins.

Jim was preceded in death by his wife, Mardi Erdman (died 1994), whom he adored.  He is survived by his sister, Betsy Germanotta of Boston, Massachusetts (married to Dante, deceased), brother, John Erdman of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (married to Maritsa), and sons, Chris Neufeld-Erdman of Fresno, California (married to Patty) and James F. Erdman of Blackhawk, Colorado (married to Karen).  He is grandfather to seven grandchildren: Josh, Jeremy, Katy, Sarah, Hannah, and their spouses/partners (from Chris and Patty), and Jake, Kasey Rose, and their spouses/partners (from James and Karen); he also has three great-grandchildren: Mason, Carter, and Ellie. 

A service of celebration is planned for Saturday, July 25th at 2:30pm at Montview Blvd Presbyterian Church in Denver, Colorado. All are welcome.  

A Pilgrimage of New Beginnings, Iona, Scotland

with John Philip Newell

The following excerpt is from my forthcoming book, God is Nearer than We Think: How a Pastor, Disillusioned with Religion, Rediscovered the Heart of It All.  It describes my recent experience on a pilgrimage with Celtic Christian scholar and teacher, John Philip Newell, on the Isle of Iona, Scotland (September 2014).  Seven years earlier, I’d visited the island, alone and disillusioned with my pastoral vocation, and spent time among the dynamic members of the Iona Community there.  Since then, my first marriage fell apart, my best friend committed suicide, and my congregation found itself in substantial conflict over the inclusion of gays and lesbians in the life of the church.  Remarried now to Patty, a psychotherapist, I found myself drawn to the island again.  Patty and I experienced the pilgrimage as a threshold of a w/holy new beginning of our work guiding people and communities toward the kind of flourishing God is birthing in our world today—despite the many challenges around us.

Seven years and a few months later, I found myself once again barreling along the A82 motorway through the Scottish Highlands.  The birches were turning yellow.  A few scattered heather, here and there, still held tenaciously onto their purple blossoms.  It was late September, and I was headed once again to the mystic Isle of Iona.  This time I was not alone.  My wife, Patty, was with me.  We were to join a handful of others for a week on the island, a pilgrimage of new beginnings with John Philip Newell, the Scottish poet, peacemaker, and teacher of Celtic spirituality.

This group of pilgrims was made up of a handful of earnest Christian lay people, a pair of theologians, several nuns, a monk, and me, a pastor.  We all held two things in common: a disillusionment with what has become of Christianity, and deep longing for its rebirth, a hopefulness that it can and will be reborn.  

Iona has a way of gathering women and men like this.  There’s a spiritual magnetism to the island.  For fifteen hundred years Christian pilgrims have found their way to this rocky outcrop on the western edge of Scotland—what some call the “spine of the Atlantic,” because here, geologically speaking, some of the oldest rock on the planet is exposed to the light.  Here, Lewisian gneiss, some two and a half to three billion years old, holds itself, unflinchingly, naked before the elements.  Most of those who come to the island are unaware of this.  I was, until my wife insisted on carrying home a small boulder of this gneiss, grayish-green, with white swirls.  Curious, I inquired about the rock and realized what a treasure is it.  Perhaps three billion years old.  Who can get their mind around that?

I think this Lewisian gneiss is part of the island’s magnetism.  There’s evidence that human beings have been coming here for millennia—the Celts and Druids long before the Christians.  The “spine of the Atlantic” gives those who come here something firm—durable, ancient, almost unchanging—amidst the vicissitudes of our daily lives.  From time beyond all memory, those who, while disillusioned and seeking a way forward, have nevertheless found strong material and spiritual support here upon these ancients rocks that have endured so much change and been so unthreatened by it.  It’s little wonder that in our modern world, pilgrims still seek out this isle of ancient rock and find inspiration here.  Drawn here by their many questions, their discouragements, and their deep longings, we are part of what God is doing to rebirth an expression of life that not only fosters the flourishing of human life, but also the flourishing of the earth itself—a way too often lost among our tired and fractured religious organizations, and among our broken and discouraging political institutions.  

My wife carried a hunk of this Lewisian gneiss home from Iona (actually, I carried it for her).  It's a reminder of our pilgrimage of new beginnings; our shared dream of a Christianity reborn and capable of addressing the realities of our 21st century world.