Resonance
We are in an experiment about resonance!
Pastor Kara is one of 23 pastors selected to be part of a 3-year project exploring the implications of the ideas of Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor and German sociologist Hartmut Rosa for congregations. The pastors met twice in the past year, and we will meet twice in 2024, but in between, each congregation is given a grant of $10,000 for experiments of resonance. That’s us!
In a time when everything is moving faster and faster, when to maintain means to increase, when life feels flat, like a to-do list we are always behind on, and when there is no longer the assumption of anything beyond that encounters us, what does it mean to be people of faith? In a time where we seek greater and greater control, what does it mean to be people who live open to moments of uncontrollability? People open to encounter with the Divine? People attuned to our connection to one another and the earth? People watching for transcendence to break into the ordinary?
We get to find out!
Pastor Kara is one of 23 pastors selected to be part of a 3-year project exploring the implications of the ideas of Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor and German sociologist Hartmut Rosa for congregations. The pastors met twice in the past year, and we will meet twice in 2024, but in between, each congregation is given a grant of $10,000 for experiments of resonance. That’s us!
In a time when everything is moving faster and faster, when to maintain means to increase, when life feels flat, like a to-do list we are always behind on, and when there is no longer the assumption of anything beyond that encounters us, what does it mean to be people of faith? In a time where we seek greater and greater control, what does it mean to be people who live open to moments of uncontrollability? People open to encounter with the Divine? People attuned to our connection to one another and the earth? People watching for transcendence to break into the ordinary?
We get to find out!
What’s Resonance?
Resonance is a flash of feeling alive, awake, a ‘goosebump moment,’ a sudden deep awareness and connection. You feel a sense of resonating with a person, nature, etc. Often tears come.
For something to be considered a ‘resonant experience’ there need to be four factors:
Here’s the thing…
LNPC has been living this way for a long time! We call it things like “Kingdom of God Sightings” or “Living in the Way of God,” or “Stories of Resurrection” or “assuming the inner stance of least resistance to being overtaken by the graced event we cannot make happen” (James Finley), or, “heart-singing,” as in, during the last sabbatical when we asked, “What would make our hearts sing?” But now we have a mandate and some money to be attentive and open. To be creative and imaginative. To facilitate opportunities to experience resonance (which is to say, to try to make ourselves open to the uncontrollable event of encounter that we can’t produce).
What Happens Now?
In 2024, members of the grant team will visit us to hear some stories of what this was like for us. But in the meantime, we get to dream and find ways to together assume the inner stance of least resistance to joy, connection and God-encounters.
We’ve begun to brainstorm – things like installing a group-swing on the front lawn, taking retreats or trips together, podcast-style recordings of our kids interviewing older adults about their life and faith, offering individual silent retreats to anyone in the church who wants one, story-sharing gatherings. And we can draw from our previous experience to spark our imagination as well, such as, bread-baking church, zoo church, sculpture garden church, staycation, Sunday evening zoom congregational prayer with the Raineys, the mandala artist coming for Rally Sunday, costumes and picnic last Halloween, the day retreat we did at Mt. Olivet Retreat Center in 2018.
And fyi – this week session noted that the thing that feels most valuable and that we long for most is:
Time.
Time together. Time in rest, and especially in play.
Being rushed and hurried is a near guarantee of missing resonant encounters and being closed to transcendent moments, and yet, that’s the state most modern people live in nearly all the time. In other words, assuming the inner stance of least resistance is not a forced or fast thing. And beauty, wonder, rest, play, rich conversations, rocking a baby to sleep, really deeply listening, these are things that take time.
So, (like the “dishonest manager” in that parable from a few weeks ago who used the means of the empire and his corrupt and familiar practices of business to buy himself good will and open himself to the possibility of the deeper reality - the welcome into relationship of love), maybe it would help us to think that this money is buying our time. This money is buying us time to spend with each other, time to be open to God, time to be receptive to the world, time to devote ourselves to things that bring joy.
If you have some ideas bubbling inside, let session know! For now, we begin the process of prayerfully wondering, and we’ll let you know the next steps when we know them!
Resonance is a flash of feeling alive, awake, a ‘goosebump moment,’ a sudden deep awareness and connection. You feel a sense of resonating with a person, nature, etc. Often tears come.
For something to be considered a ‘resonant experience’ there need to be four factors:
- Something from outside "calls" to you - something other than your own self prompts it – you are touched by the world (e.g., a surprising comment from a stranger, the beauty of nature, impromptu shared grief or spontaneous laughter)
- You respond - (e.g., you feel a tug, you notice, you act, you speak, you feel moved to tears, etc.),
- There’s a transformation - something shifts, something changes in the relationship (such as, you see the world differently, a breakthrough of connection happens, the experience stays with you, the dynamic is altered between you, an action of belonging occurs), and
- It’s uncontrollable - you can ‘t make it happen.
Here’s the thing…
LNPC has been living this way for a long time! We call it things like “Kingdom of God Sightings” or “Living in the Way of God,” or “Stories of Resurrection” or “assuming the inner stance of least resistance to being overtaken by the graced event we cannot make happen” (James Finley), or, “heart-singing,” as in, during the last sabbatical when we asked, “What would make our hearts sing?” But now we have a mandate and some money to be attentive and open. To be creative and imaginative. To facilitate opportunities to experience resonance (which is to say, to try to make ourselves open to the uncontrollable event of encounter that we can’t produce).
What Happens Now?
In 2024, members of the grant team will visit us to hear some stories of what this was like for us. But in the meantime, we get to dream and find ways to together assume the inner stance of least resistance to joy, connection and God-encounters.
We’ve begun to brainstorm – things like installing a group-swing on the front lawn, taking retreats or trips together, podcast-style recordings of our kids interviewing older adults about their life and faith, offering individual silent retreats to anyone in the church who wants one, story-sharing gatherings. And we can draw from our previous experience to spark our imagination as well, such as, bread-baking church, zoo church, sculpture garden church, staycation, Sunday evening zoom congregational prayer with the Raineys, the mandala artist coming for Rally Sunday, costumes and picnic last Halloween, the day retreat we did at Mt. Olivet Retreat Center in 2018.
And fyi – this week session noted that the thing that feels most valuable and that we long for most is:
Time.
Time together. Time in rest, and especially in play.
Being rushed and hurried is a near guarantee of missing resonant encounters and being closed to transcendent moments, and yet, that’s the state most modern people live in nearly all the time. In other words, assuming the inner stance of least resistance is not a forced or fast thing. And beauty, wonder, rest, play, rich conversations, rocking a baby to sleep, really deeply listening, these are things that take time.
So, (like the “dishonest manager” in that parable from a few weeks ago who used the means of the empire and his corrupt and familiar practices of business to buy himself good will and open himself to the possibility of the deeper reality - the welcome into relationship of love), maybe it would help us to think that this money is buying our time. This money is buying us time to spend with each other, time to be open to God, time to be receptive to the world, time to devote ourselves to things that bring joy.
If you have some ideas bubbling inside, let session know! For now, we begin the process of prayerfully wondering, and we’ll let you know the next steps when we know them!
