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Ripening View: Learning to See Relationally · Infinitely Precious

• 0:00
  Intro: Welcome to the Infinitely Precious Podcast produced by Infinitely Precious LLC. Your host is James Henry. Remember, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.
• 0:12
  James: Hello, beloved. It's me, James. And this week I head off to Annual Conference. If you're not familiar with all things United Methodist, Annual Conference is a time of gathering annually for a particular jurisdiction or a location within the United Methodist Church. In my case, it's the Virginia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.
• 0:40
  There are also jurisdictional conferences which are separate different jurisdictions, the Northeast jurisdiction, the Southeast jurisdiction, etcetera, across The United States and around the world. But in this particular instance, annual conference is about the Commonwealth Of Virginia. Not the entire Commonwealth of Virginia. There's a piece of Virginia, the Western part that sort of sticks off towards the West, below West Virginia, out towards Kentucky and Tennessee, that is not a part of the Virginia Annual Conference. So as I head off this week for Annual Conference, one of the things that I will do is see lots of other clergy, some of whom I haven't seen since the last time we were at Annual Conference because they live too far away to see regularly folks who are friends but I don't get to see physically.
• 1:48
  It's a time when we transact the conference business, setting budgets, hearing and approving of reports, setting direction, resolving issues that we face. The clergy executive group, the group that is just clergy will approve people who are entering ministry at various levels. And those are the kinds of things that happen at annual conference. There's worship, there's bible study, there's fellowship time and reports and some votes. So over the years, many of the people I have known in the annual conference have retired and moved on.
• 2:42
  So there are less and less folks when I go that I have known for a long time. There are people I know who I've known for a short time, but not so many that I've known for a long time. One of the things I'm going to be practicing this year is one of nine practices that I have developed in my own personal spiritual life. I call them the ripening practices. You know anything about some of the things I've talked about in the Infinitely Precious podcast before now.
• 3:19
  The ripening practices, rather than determining that a practice is exactly correct, right, for instance, or wrong, ripening practice is simply moving in a direction. And sometimes that moving in a direction is something you can press for. And sometimes you just need to allow them to become aware. The first of those practices just on my list is ripening view. And it's learning to see the world in which I live relationally.
• 3:56
  I already have talked about how I feel like everything is connected. We're all particular, but particular as a part of the larger picture. So sometimes it's hard to remember that relational connection, that connectionalism. Annual conference is a time to try to sense that connectedness. Not being just the pastor of the church that I serve but recognizing myself as a part of a larger group, part of something that connects me in a larger relational sense, much as each one of us is part of the universe.
• 4:43
  But we're also part of smaller groups as well. And we're pieces of those. It doesn't make us any less in our particularity, but it makes us part relationally. So cultivating ripening view for me is practicing seeing. The individuality that I bring to this group, but how I'm also a part of it all.
• 5:07
  When I'm gathered with clergy, I can see myself as participating in the life of clergy. You may or may not know this, and it's just a small piece of truth. But for United Methodist clergy, we do not belong to a church. We belong to the conference. We can't join a church.
• 5:26
  We are stationed at various churches, sent to various churches, but when it comes to belonging to a place we belong, our participation, our membership is in a conference, in my case the Virginia Annual Conference. I'm a full member. So seeing myself as one of many clergy, all of us reflecting our gifts to make a difference. So ripening view would be for me to begin to notice where the relationships connect, to see the world connectionally. As I sit on the floor with the laity and clergy together in the plenary sessions of annual conference to see how we're all connected, even when we don't see things exactly alike, when we don't perceive the world through the same lenses, when our theologies, while sharing certain commonalities are different from each other.
• 6:26
  Learning to see relationally so that I'm not constantly trying to compare or measure between this and that, between me and some other, But recognizing while I do have particularity just as you do, I am part of something that is connected. I am relationally bound. I'm related to the earth. I'm related to the tree outside my window that I've talked about before. I am related to my fellow clergy.
• 7:02
  I am related to the Virginia Annual Conference, laity and clergy. I'm related to the people of Doolin United Methodist Church where I serve as pastor currently. All that these are relations and to learn to see from within that field of relationship, not to see as an individual set of eyes, although I have those, but to begin to view the world, to view myself as a part of it all and how that affects the way I participate, that for me is ripening view. And what better place to practice it than a place that defines itself as a connectional space. We are going to a new place this year.
• 7:49
  We are meeting in a different place than the Virginia Annual Conference has ever met since I've been in the conference. We are meeting in Harrisonburg on the campus of James Madison University, JMU. That is the place where we'll be meeting. So in some ways there's a newness to this, but seeing that as a connection. Seeing these friends and sometimes strangers that I will see both in the clergy plenary session and then the general plenary sessions of the entire conference will be an opportunity to once again recognize how I am related.
• 8:40
  To ask myself in those moments when I feel disconnected, what is it that makes me feel disconnected? Why am I not seeing my relationship to this group? Am I not more a part of this group than I am separate from this group? What are the things that are impediments in my perception of being a part of all that is. This is the opportunity to practice ripening view.
• 9:13
  Do I practice it every single second intentionally at the front of my mind? Probably not. But I do try to let it come up naturally in my sitting in each of these sessions, in all of these places. And even when we withdraw from those sessions to go out, to have our meals, to go back to our hotels to sleep, those kinds of things, to see a connection. That is ripening view.
• 9:44
  And that's what I'm seeking to cultivate this week as I head off to annual conference. So just thought I would share a little bit about my own practices. This is going to be a series, I think, the beginning of a series about the ripening practices. And the first of those, just because it's the first on the list, it's ripening view and how appropriate to see myself relationally as a head off to Annual Conference. Again, I wish you all the very best in your week ahead and the days ahead.
• 10:24
  I want you to remember you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are. Until the very next time we see each other, I wish you the best.