Sovereign

Sovereign may be the most important word for 2026, along with its companion word, sovereignty.

The issue of who, or what, is sovereign may not be top of mind, but everyone, often unconsciously, operates with an idea of who, or what, is sovereign. It’s not just a political question. It’s a psychological question: “What is my ultimate concern?” It’s also a faith question: “Where is my ultimate allegiance?” Or, “What is my ultimate authority?” Sovereignty tends to enter our consciousness in times of crisis.

Great Britain is a good case study. It’s part of American history. The United Kingdom’s current monarch, King Charles III, is sometimes referred to as the Sovereign: In this representative role the Sovereign acts as a focus for national identity, unity and pride; gives a sense of stability and continuity; officially recognises success and excellence; and supports the ideal of voluntary service.

George Washington didn’t see sovereignty invested in a person, like King George III. During the war Washington was addressed as “General” or “Your Excellency.” Future second president John Adams even suggested “Your Highness” and “Your Most Benign Highness.” Since the Constitution prohibits titles of nobility, it was finally settled that George Washington be addressed as “Mr. President.

The sovereign of the Roman Empire was the Emperor. Constantine embraced Christianity, whose local leaders were bishops, of whom the Bishop of Rome became the most influential. Known informally as Pope, or Papa, at times this bishop was more powerful than the Emperor. It was about sovereignty: Was the Empire sovereign or the Church? Was the Emperor sovereign or the Pope?

In Europe, nation-states emerged as new centers of power. The British Parliament enacted several Acts of Supremacy (Acts of Sovereignty). The 1537 Act made Henry VIII the head of state and the head of the Church of England, displacing the Pope, a significant event in the Protestant Reformation. Though largely symbolic, today’s King Charles is officially the head of state and the head of the church.

More tomorrow:

Is the United States sovereign or is the United Nations sovereign? Is international law meaningful or meaningless? Or, sometimes meaningful and sometimes meaningless?

If we see the US as sovereign, does might make right? Does the leader of a nation with a strong military (like Germany in the 1930s) do whatever he or she wants with neighboring nation-states?

Within the US, who, or what, is sovereign? The President? The Congress? The Supreme Court? These are important questions. Be wise. Ask tough questions. Make good trouble. Keep a sense of humor.

Are sovereign states “for sale” to today’s oligarchs? You may not have the wealth to buy a country, but you can buy a Sovereign. The UK has been minting gold Sovereigns since 1849. What’s in your wallet?

From “All Sovereign Coins,” by The Royal Mint

A letter from Nashville

David W. Graves, Bishop of United Methodists in Tennessee and Western Kentucky, issued a statement to his clergy which will be published today. (I received his email as a retired clergy.) As of 6:30 am (CT) today, it was not yet posted on the Conference website, but it may be by the time you read this. I’ve condensed his letter for brevity. Since not everyone who reads this blog identifies as Christian, I’ve omitted most references to faith. With a universal grace, he speaks a universal truth:

Our country is more divided than ever. …

It is our understanding that the National Guard will soon be deployed into Memphis, Tennessee. …

This past week, we witnessed the tragic shooting of a well-known political activist while in conversation with college students. And … yet another school shooting – this time in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado.

… Sit down with someone who does not look like you, vote like you, or pray like you. Listen with compassion. Extend grace. Refuse to let the story of our nation be written only in terms of hatred and violence. ... 

How might you take responsibility for changing the narrative of this country? ...

… Memphis Mayor Paul Young stated in his September 12 News Conference for everyone to come together regardless of our differences. …

…Use your voice, your influence, and your presence ...

twkumc.org

A “welcoming” prayer

The “Philippian Hymn” likely was an early Christian song quoted by Paul, declaring that life is not about how much praise, power or money we can accumulate, but rather how much we can give away. Throughout The Wisdom Jesus, Cynthia Bourgeaut returns to the theme of kenosis (“he emptied himself”) and the cross/crucifixion. She begins Chapter 15, “Welcoming,” with Paul’s introduction to this beautiful kenotic hymn: “Let the same mind be in you as was seen in Christ Jesus.” Bourgeault said:

When we hear the word “mind” we immediately think of some mental construct, and “putting on the mind of Christ” gets interpreted as “putting on the attitude of Christ.” This in turn, is usually interpreted as trying to imitate those admirable qualities we see in Jesus’s being: kindness, compassion, gentleness, integrity. … To really put on the “mind” means … discovering in our own selves the secret of Jesus’s capacity to open himself to life in such an extraordinary way.

Bourgeault invites us to consider a “Welcoming Prayer” rhythm developed in the 1980s following the work of Thomas Keating. It “demonstrates … that the kenosis Jesus taught and modeled, far from being passive or spiritually indifferent … is in fact a pathway of vibrant spiritual strength and creativity connecting us to energetic fields far beyond our own finite resources.”

A Welcoming Prayer is: a three-step process of acknowledging what is going on internally during a distressing physical or emotional situation, “welcoming” it, and letting it go.

Tomorrow’s post will conclude this week’s excursion into Cynthia Bourgeault’s The Wisdom Jesus.

From “The Welcoming Prayer by Thomas Keating OCSO,” by the Diocese of Charlottetown (Prince Edward Island), January 21, 2024.

Kenosis

Cynthia Bourgeaut’s excursion into the Gospel of Thomas ends with (what I see as her book’s thesis): It is not a ladder but a circle that brings us to God: the continuously renewed giving and receiving which in its totality is where God dwells. This kenotic spirituality (self-emptying as the path to fullness) is in my opinion Jesus’s unique and profoundly original contribution to the spiritual consciousness of humankind.

Seeing Jesus through this new filter … gives us the freedom to go deeper. I find nothing in the Gospel of Thomas that contradicts any of Jesus’s teachings in the canonical gospels. Rather, it rounds them out … and creates a newfound sense of awe as we see just how original and subtle his understanding really is. He is the first truly integral teacher to appear on this planet. She elaborates:

I think … all of the great spiritual paths lead toward … this larger, nondual mind as the seat of personal consciousness—but they get there by different routes. While Jesus is typical of the wisdom tradition in his vision of what a whole and unified human being looks like, the route he lays out for getting there is very different from anything that had ever been seen on the planet up to that point. She continues:

In Jesus everything hangs together around a single center of gravity …. What name might we give to this center? The apostle Paul suggests the word kenosis … in Philippians 2:5-16 … to describe what “the mind of Christ” is all about. (This is from Bourgeault’s Chapter 5, “Kenosis–The Path of Self-Emptying Love.” The Greek word kenosis means “to empty,” like letting the air out of a balloon.)

From “Kenosis,” a Daily Meditation by Richard Rohr, December 10, 2017 (which draws from Bourgeault’s The Wisdom Jesus).

From the MRN shelf

Downsizing is a First World art that accompanies aging. Some folks postpone downsizing, which is one reason Public Storage (PSA), Extra Space Storage (EXR) and Cube Smart (CUBE) thrive. Yesterday, I spent some time downsizing my modest library. After an hour or so I had two dozen books boxed for donation, with an equal number on the “must read now” shelf.

A yellowed paperback is first on the “MRN” shelf: A History of Christian Thought: From Its Judaic and Hellenistic Origins to Existentialism, by Paul Tillich, Carl E. Braaten, ed., copyright 1968. The $4.95 price was less than one cent for each of its 550 pages. The inside cover reveals my signature, with “CT 301, October 3, 1974.” It was my second year at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology.

Two prior year classes, Church History and Systematic Theology, were combined in a new class, Christian Thought, for which I volunteered to be a colloquy leader. It was a wise repetition, made more delightful by a new faculty member, Don Saliers, still young at 88, still a treasured mentor.

In 1974, Paul Tillich helped me discover something I’ve learned (and forgotten) many times since, that Everything is Connected, and Everything Belongs. From Tillich’s section on The Platonic Tradition:

“The idea of transcendence, that there is something that surpasses emperical reality, was prepared for Christian theology in the Platonic tradition. Plato spoke of essential reality, of ‘ideas’ (ousia) as the true essence of things. … God is the spiritual sphere. … (Another) point in which the Platonic tradition was important was its idea of providence. This seems to us to be a Christian idea, but it was already formulated by Plato in his later writings. It was a tremendous attempt to overcome the anxiety of fate and death in the ancient world. … providence … gives us the courage to escape the vicissitudes of (life).”

Tillich wrote about the courage to be, which (I believe) includes the courage to downsize, to be free.

Catch-up metaphors

Sometimes Don Saliers‘ first words in response to a deep theological question are: “Within the limitations of human speech….” Metaphor is the language of faith. As humanity evolves, we find new metaphors to describe our experience with, and our (always limited) understanding of, “God.”

Ilia Delio’s use of “God” (in quotes) reminds us that it (and every word) is inadequate, an important lesson from Moses’ encounter with the burning bush, where he was inspired to go back to Egypt (from where he fled) to lead his people out of slavery. He asks the Voice, “What is your name?”

The answer was, “I am.” The point of this ancient story is that Divine Reality is beyond any name. Ironically, and profoundly, YHWH (the Hebrew term for “I am”) became the name of the Nameless One. To put Delio in my words, we need to refresh the metaphors of our God-language.

An “up there” God worked on a flat earth. (Our son Cully met some flat earth believers on a hike awhile back in New Zealand.) We (most of us, at least) know the Universe is populated with many burning, light-giving spheres such as our sun, as well as cooled, spinning spheres we call planets.

Delio says an “out there,” or “up there” God is first-axial age language. We need a metaphor refresh for the second-axial age. Look within yourself, as well as beyond yourself, to dis-cover God. A burning bush inspired Moses to take action; maybe trillions of burning stars can inspire us to take action.

From “Light Up the Sky: How Many Stars Are in the Universe?“, Little Passports

Just ask questions

This morning, a waking thought was, “Just ask questions.” A lingering issue for me is how to function during the new Trump administration. At times, anger will be justified when he becomes vengeful or largely untruthful, such as during his recent “news conference.” But, I will resist angry reactions.

Anger is a valid response to untruth, injustice, or oppression. It’s part of the biblical prophetic tradition. But anger isn’t a useful strategy. Anger can waste energy and divert attention from crucial issues. And, we’re facing a boatload of crucial issues. My goal is to respect him and everyone in this new era.

My strategy will be simple: Just ask questions. Donald Trump resists questioners and fact-checkers, which he will dismiss, demean, ridicule, undermine or persecute. Prophets like Elijah, Amos and Jeremiah kept leaders honest with a spirit of objectivity that didn’t defer to wealth or power. Prophetic voices in the religious community are always a minority, but they are always present. Some prophetic voices are secular people, including some reporters who strive for objectivity and are simply seeking truth. Bless reporters who seek straight, cogent, relevant answers from Trump and all leaders.

Bloggers Heather Cox Richardson, Joyce Vance, Jay Kuo and Steven Beschloss ask good questions, as do The Atlantic and The Bulwark. I’ll rely on these and many other good sources. Next week, I’ll ask some questions about the financial news media’s post-election excitement about potentially lower taxes and potentially less government regulation. Some of them have been more sober in recent weeks as the stock and bond markets declined, rattled by the threat of tariffs, higher national debt and disturbing comments about annexing Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal.

From “Sentenced,” by Joyce Vance, Civil Discourse, January 11, 2025. The audio recording of Judge Juan Merchan’s sentencing of Donald Trump is insightful, and it is available online at CBS.

A designful work of art

With a hat tip to Marty Neumeier (now 76), who in 2008 wrote The Designful Company, I recommend yesterday’s “A Foundational Practice” by Richard Rohr (now 81), which included this opening sentence: “I believe that the combination of human action from a contemplative center is the greatest art form.”

Joe Ellmore (now 93), has for 54 years shown me what it means to live an intentionally contemplative life. Yesterday, in Sunday School, the SALT Class (Serving And Learning Together), Joe said, “I read your blog post” (about the debate between Joe Biden, now 81, and Donald Trump, now 78). “Next time, please tell us what you really think.” Okay. I originally wrote that Trump’s disrespect “poisoned” the atmosphere, but I substituted what I really think with a less severe “polluted.”

As we enter the second half of this consequential year, I (now 73) move between action regarding the disaster of a second Trump administration and the desire for a more contemplative life. Rohr helps. Here’s the full paragraph of yesterday’s Daily Meditation from the Center for Action and Contemplation:

I believe that the combination of human action from a contemplative center is the greatest art form. When action and contemplation are united, we have greater beauty, symmetry, and transformation—lives and actions that inherently sparkle and heal, though the shadow is still present. 

You (at whatever age) are a designful work of art. Hold that thought.

Among my descriptors for Donald Trump is “a piece of work.” As I oppose him, I acknowledge our kinship, often around the “shadow” that Rohr mentions. Yes, each and every one of us is a work of art. The photo is from “Trump’s Latest Lies About His Lies,” by William Kristol, The Bulwark, June 24, 2024.