Living into the Mystery

By Kelli Summers Sorg

Living into the Mystery combines the wit and wisdom of life experience and spiritual adventures in a series of letters that answer questions about faith and doubt, creativity, commitment, and community. Letter-writing is a lost art. Collected here are the letters of a compassionate pastor to the people who ask her questions in the strangest of placesfrom airplanes to barnyards.

Arising from a pastors heart, these letters give voice to the struggles of the spirit and offer insight as well as compassion. I found myself thinking of the times I wished I had written similar things to similar questioners. These letters provide fertile reflection for pilgrims in every stage of the spiritual journey.

Thomas M. Greener, DMin
Pastor, Camp Ground UMC
Fayetteville, North Carolina

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490852249

Kelli Summers Sorg

Kelli Summers Sorg is an Emmy Award-winning television producer, pastor, preacher, and mom. Stepping away from a successful career in marketing and advertising, she is committed to following the spiritual path to connection and creativity.

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Copyright © 2014 Kelli Summers Sorg.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture verses marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Scripture quotations from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

WestBow Press

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-5225-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-5226-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-5224-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014916940

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/13/2014

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Contents

Preface

A word about words

Chapter 1   The Basics of Following Jesus

Chapter 2   Connecting Grace

Chapter 3   Committed Grace

Chapter 4   Creative Grace

Chapter 5   A name with which to neither curse not conjure

Chapter 6   Who is Jesus and how do we follow?

Chapter 7   The Holy Spirit

Chapter 8   s. I. n.

Chapter 9   The Sanctuary of Prayer

Chapter 10 Beloved Community - Other People

Chapter 11 Conflict, Chaos, and New Creation

Chapter 12 The Beloved Community at Worship

Chapter 13 Spiritual Disciplines and God Alone

Chapter 14 The Art of Theological Reflection

Chapter 15 Vocation/Location and Impact

Chapter 16 Forgiveness

Chapter 17 Decision, Disappointments - Through

Postscript

Bibliography

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Preface

Christmas miracles still happen. Not long ago, a Christmas miracle came to some dear friends of mine. Steve, a close friend, is a man who is loved by many people around the world. A professional athlete, it seemed he had everything. He was living the American dream. He was outwardly successful in his relationships, his career and he had a bright, hope-filled future. Always one to see the person who was invisible to others, to help people who most needed helping, Steve is the kind of person who used his celebrity to good purpose: to help others instead of just concentrating on himself. Unbeknownst to most of the people around him, he was lonely; he was bone tired and could see no viable hope for the future. More than simple situational depression, Steve was struggling with big questions about his life, its meaning, his purpose and how it would all work out. One Christmas Eve day, he had an emotional and spiritual experience for which we are still struggling to find the right words.

That Christmas season had been a long slog for him of worrying about money, his relationship with his long-term girlfriend, her family, his family and wondering whether or not he needed to retire. All of his anxiety was underscored by rampant holiday materialism and the simplistic over-emotionalism of popular culture. The soundtrack to his days seemed to be the constant assault of Christmas carols orchestrated by Musak. In the depths of depression and despair, feeling at the end of his rope, Steve lay on his bed and asked God If you are really there, please let me know.

Suddenly, he was filled with a warmth and love he’d never known. Along with that overwhelming sense of God’s love was the motivation to tell people, beginning with his family, what he had experienced and to try to make sense of it. Steve hadn’t been to church in years. Even if he had been, he still wouldn’t have had all the explanation to what happened to him that day. In our time, even in the church, we have lost the sense of anticipation that God really does answer our prayers. We seem to have lost the certainty that God responds to us in very real ways. Steve’s experience also seemed to set off a chain reaction that uncovered a mental illness that was unexpected. He and his family continue to struggle with the repercussions. Coming into contact with the holy always leaves echoes in the canyons of our lives.

In my career as a pastor, supposedly as a spiritual professional, I attend many people in many different kinds of situations. Steve’s experience was holy and frightening for him and those who loved him, including me. It began a time of exploring his mental state as well as his physical and spiritual health. Events like his Christmas miracle weren’t part of my seminary curriculum or even part of my everyday life inside the safe walls of the church building.

Over time, I have tried to think theologically about the events of that Christmas season. Being a United Methodist Christian, I believe in prevenient grace. I believe that God reaches out for us all the time in ways we can recognize and in ways that go unseen. I believe that when we ask for and are ready to receive God’s presence, God shows up with the warmth and love Steve felt. In his case, he wasn’t surrounded by a community of faith that could give language and support to his experience. So many people inside and outside the church walls don’t have the language to explain God at work in the world or the language they use has become trite and meaningless because it has been abused.

Church words have been used to dominate, manipulate and silence the diverse and creative voices of God’s people. Clergy and laity have used academic sounding theology terms to obscure the realities of the spiritual life to protect their vulnerability. It is easier to be inauthentic and pseudo-academic than to be vulnerable and visibly dependent on God. In Steve’s case and in a million others like his, we are living into the mystery of the connection between God’s goodness and human brokenness and trying to find the right words to talk about it all.

Part of living into this mystery for me has been to try to give voice to Steve’s experience and the experience of others who enter the mystery of the holy and have no words and nowhere to turn. In our time, the institutional church is crumbling and that is not such a bad thing. When we turn to the pages of the New Testament, we find the church thriving when it is small, flexible, nimble and discerning. We can build communities of Holy Love, of support and care where widows and orphans and ordinary people find home. That is God’s plan for us.

In the dark days of World War II, C.S. Lewis wrote a series of radio broadcasts to give the British people hope and answers for the indignities and atrocities of war. Those radio scripts became the book Mere Christianity, a seminal work on what it means to be a Christian in the real world. It is my hope to help us re-infuse the language of spirituality with new meaning in our time. The ancient pathways of Christian spirituality and community hold true for us today. Those paths may be a bit overgrown and weedy but they have not been erased by non-use. It is up to us to reclaim those paths by walking along them together.

Along with being in conversation with Steve through these days, I have also been asked many questions about faith and community by other people. When people find out the details about my profession, whether it is on an airplane or waiting in line at the grocery store, they ask me big questions about life and death, faith and practice. I never seem to have enough time or the mental agility to say all I want to say, or all that needs saying. In a similar vein, theologian Tom Wright once remarked: The problem with theology is that you have to say everything all at once.

It is my hope that this series of letters to those people who have asked me such questions will, in a very small way, answer them in ways that are helpful and fruitful. My purpose is to extend God’s grace to all of us who need it. I want to speak simply and hopefully about God’s project of building community in us, through us and with us.

This book could not have been written without the unfailing support of my husband, best friend and life partner, Dean Sorg. Through endless re-writes, editorial updates, new ideas and long sessions of me talking out loud until I figured out what I wanted to say, Dean has been the driving force behind this project. The making of it has exceeded my wildest imagination. It also would not have come to fruition without the inspiration of my children who are loving, funny, tough, creative and independent. They have taught me how to be independent again in this empty nest season of my life.

I am grateful to the people of the Harlowe and Oak Grove United Methodist Churches for creating the space for me to live into my gifts as a writer and a pastor. I know God has