And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.
Ezekiel 37:13–14

Module Seven: To Dive In

Study:

In preparation for this week's liturgy, please read the Epilogue of Jesus Wants to Save Christians by Rob Bell and Don Golden.

After you have completed the above, choose one or more of the the following:

“The Seventh Story” on the Learning How to See Podcast
“The Danger of a Single Story” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on TED
“Three Dimensions of a Complete Life” a sermon by Martin Luther King Jr

The Liturgy

To Dive In

Love yourself if that means rational, healthy, and moral self-interest. You are commanded to do that; that is the length of life. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. You are commanded to do that; that is the breadth of life. But never forget there is a first and even greater commandment. Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. That is the height of life. When an individual does this, he lives a complete life. Thank God for John, who centuries ago caught vision of the New Jerusalem; and grant to those of us who are left to walk the streets and the highways of life will also catch vision of the New Jerusalem, decide to move toward that city of complete life in our individual lives, in our national lives, in which the length and the breadth and the height are equal. Martin Luther King Jr, “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life”

Opening Prayer

Creator God, who quickened the world, we gather in the name of life and breath. Spirit of Inspiration, nourish our souls. Save us from despair, apathy, and cynicism. Friend of the broken, teach us your definition of abundance. Show us the way that leads to life, truth, and joy—and console our weary minds who were looking for an utterly different salvation. Attune our hearts to the length, depth, and breadth of our cosmic experience, and help us to revel in the mystery of hope.
Amen.

Confession

Merciful holiness, we confess that we have refused to enter into love, afraid of the control we might lose. We have sensed that there is more to life that what we can grasp, but we are unwilling to open our fisted hands long enough to see what would happen if we loved with abandon. To our right we have placed all that which we cherish, digging moats and crenelated barriers to protect that which we cannot save. To our left we banish all that which we deny: our greed, our violence, our envy. We mask it with tarpaulins of piety and purity, assuming that to be unmasked would lead to abandonment. Forgive us, and save us to love.

Amen.

Passing of the Peace

Exchange this acknowledgment of confession.

From the freedom of confession, I greet the Christ in you.
From the freedom of confession, I greet the Christ in you.

The Reflection

Read aloud:

In my dreams I can swim like a porpoise. I am sleek and strong and silly, leaping and lunging just for the joy of being. In my dreams, I can dive and spin along any axis. In moments of exuberance, I can leap from the water and fly, loved by the wind and the water alike. The dreaming depths are not unknown to me. I can go deeper than my waking lungs and terrestrial ears can tolerate. In my dreams, my more fragile self can dwell in the deep embrace of the trenches and catacombs of the water, bathed and laved by the gestation of silence. And, in my dreams, I cam send by voice across the world through the incompressible medium of water. No brother is too far to hear my morning greeting. No sister is out of reach of my whispered Vespers.

What is salvation?

I am a theologian of the pilgrim road, which means I have learned to prefer silence and walking to definitions. I am a philosopher beguiled by the Spirit which means that I am sure that to seek answers is to honor the sacredness of the universe. This is contradiction. To seek a silent answer. What I have learned is that to seek an answer to a deep question is to learn that you cannot know, but you cannot avoid stifling certainty without raking the desert for an answer. Only through diligent searching can we truly find the freedom of not finding. Surely salvation is something ineffable. Surely it can only be glimpsed as a shadow on the wall.

What is salvation?

Let us return to the water. If we dive in, we can, for the length of a breath, move in three dimensions. All it takes is the thickening of the medium, and we can fly! In air we are bound by gravity, but in the density of water, we are birds. In baptism we enter the water through grace, and through grace we are taught how to move in a three dimensional world: “On one hand, we find the individual person; on the other hand, we find other persons; at the top we find the supreme infinite person. These three must work together; they must be concatenated in an individual life if that life is to be complete, for the complete life is the three-dimensional life.” (King, “The Three Dimensions of the Complete Life) Perhaps, grace is a thickening of the spiritual density of reality, which allows us to move into the three dimensions of the complete life. Perhaps to be saved by grace is to enter into baptism, to live toward love in three dimensions with hands wide open.

The Inquiry

These questions will be used each week to guide a time of sharing.

What joy have you encountered this week?

What suffering have you encountered this week?

What longs for salvation?

After each person shares, the group will offer a blessing to each person:

[Person’s name], in the name of Jesus Christ know you are beloved of God

The Practice

And You Shall Live centers on breathing spiritual practice. Each week, participants will be offered a breathing practice with an optional silent prayer mantra.

This breathing practice is a pyramid practice. The metronome below can be used to provide a measured rhythm to the breaths. The practice starts with an inspiration for one beat and an expiration for one beat without pausing between breathing in or out. After each expiration, one beat is added to the next set until you are breathing in for seven beats and out for seven beats. At that point, the process is reversed, the breaths becoming shorter by one beat after each expiration.

Breathing Practice:

In, Out
In, In, Out, Out
In, In, In, Out, Out, Out
In, In, In, In, Out, Out, Out, Out
In, In, In, In, In, Out, Out, Out, Out, Out
In, In, In, In, In, In, Out, Out, Out, Out, Out, Out
In, In, In, In, In, In, In, Out, Out, Out, Out, Out, Out, Out
In, In, In, In, In, In, Out, Out, Out, Out, Out, Out
In, In, In, In, In, Out, Out, Out, Out, Out
In, In, In, In, Out, Out, Out, Out
In, In, In, Out, Out, Out
In, In, Out, Out
In, Out

Prayer Mantra:

Dry Bones
We Have Dry Bones
We Have Found Our Dry Bones
We Have Found Strength In Our Dry Bones
We Have Found Strength Down Deep In Our Dry Bones
We Have Found Strength Down Through Sorrow Deep In Our Dry Bones
We Have Found Strength Down Through Joy and Sorrow Deep In Our Dry Bones
We Have Found Strength Down Through Sorrow Deep In Our Dry Bones
We Have Found Strength Down Deep In Our Dry Bones
We Have Found Strength In Our Dry Bones
We Have Found Our Dry Bones
We Have Dry Bones
Dry Bones

For Thought

The question . . . is whether there is Spiritual healing, and if it exists, how it is related to the other ways of healing, and further, how it is related to that kind of healing which in the language of religion is called “salvation.” (Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. III, p 277)

Read Aloud:

The dry bones of hopelessness and despair can learn to dance again, but salvation and healing come through death and resurrection. Teach us to dance. Amen.

The Response

These questions can be used to help the group engage with the reflection.

What did you notice during the Practice?

What did you notice during the Reflection?

How would you like to grow in response?

After each person shares, the group will offer a blessing to each person:

Christ, give us the courage to hear and be heard.

Responsive Reading

Adapted from Matthew 13 and Ezekiel 37

A. Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up.

B. You shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people.

A. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and…when the sun rose, they were scorched; and withered away.

B. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil;

A. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.

B: You shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.

A: Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!

Closing Prayer

Spirit of Truth, we live in a world enmeshed in deceit. We are assaulted by images of what we should be, what we should desire, what it means to be happy. We learn that the world cannot be trusted—no one is coming to save you. Source of Love, we long for you to make sense of the brutality of life. Hold us in your embrace until we are saturated by love. Let that be a baptism of salvation for the world.

Blessing

Go, love the world, knowing that you are accompanied and encouraged by Love. This, then, is salvation, to be loved and to love even though you die.

Modules

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