The Spirituality of Not
This past Sunday I went to church with my father — to Gloria Dei, the Lutheran Church I was a member of during my adolescent years. It was the site of my Lutheran first communion and Lutheran confirmation; the community where I first learned how to “do” church, and the church I returned to after that world-shattering weekend in 1977 when I, attending a statewide youth group weekend in the Shenandoah Valley, experienced an unexpected, un-anticipated encounter with the mystery of all-pervading loving consciousness that to this day I can only explain as the loving presence of God. When I did return to my home church, I discovered that it was not a place where it felt safe to talk about such an experience. (more…)
