Seeking Authentic Voice

Here is some of what I am thinking about as I prepare the workshop for our diocesan convention next week. The theme of the convention is being Stewards of Creation (or something like that). And this workshop is a reflection on "green" worship.... “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Word was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Word, and without Word not one thing came into being. What has come into being in Word was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1) Scripture reminds us that we worship through an Incarnational theology that believes that the creative energy of God is and has been present since before creation. This energy of God manifests as breath, as Word, as Jesus, and resonates in and through all creation. As Christians we understand God’s presence in the world primarily through the Incarnation – God...

I'm preparing to present a workshop at diocesan convention in a couple of weeks on "Green Worship." I did this same workshop last year with two other folks in another diocese. This year I am doing it on my own. As I prepare I am reading a number of books on "environmental theology." This theology is really a combination of a number of theologies about justice, economy, who we are, who Jesus is, and who God is. I came across this quote from chapter 6 on worship in the book, "A New Climate for Theology," by Sallie Mcfague: "When we pondered the translatability or substitutability of these two terms, “God” and “love,” and we asked which is a translation of which, we were looking in the wrong place for a translation. In the translatability of the love of God it is we who are to be translated, transformed, and carried over into action, carried off by the movements of love, carried away by the transcendence that this name names and commands. The trans...