Here is one example of my experience of how the Holy Spirit works: As a child, I watched a lot of reruns of the BBC improv comedy show Whose Line is it Anyway? As I got a little older, as a teen and young adult, I got to see improv in person on a relatively regular basis, given how accessible Second City was; their education wing came to lead workshops at my grad school orientation. In 2014 I went to a writing workshop where my suitemate was a clergywoman I’d long admired named MaryAnn McKibben Dana. In 2018, MaryAnn published her second book, God, Improv, and the Art of Living. In 2020, I interviewed for the position of Coordinating Minister here and gushed a little bit with search committee member Barbara Beynon about the Collegeville Institute, the site of that wonderful writing workshop. At some point in my tenure here, I learned that Talia’s sister Briana is an expert on applied improv, that the Jazz Bandits were always welcome additions to the services here, and that Elise Lee’s granddaughter thought we should read The Book With No Pictures for a children’s time. The final piece of that holy puzzle came as Chad, Talia and I sat down in May to plot out this year’s worship series. What would be fun to do as my contribution to “The Gospel According to . . . ” especially as we kicked off the new program year, especially in this season of transition and creation?
If you were in the service – in person or online – on August 20th, you saw how all those myriad pieces came together in what was, I hope, a holy way. Now I don’t believe that God (however known) was lining up all those pieces for years, aiming me toward that particular worship plan. But I do experience as sacred the ways in which the pieces of my life – the depth of my memories, the particularities of my experiences, the creativity of the people I’ve known – come together sometimes; the way I can attune myself to some thread that might be useful in illuminating something for our community.
Maybe it’s just my ADHD, forever weaving disparate thoughts together; maybe it’s the Spirit of God at work in creating something new. Maybe it’s both.
That morning it felt very much like a holy, creative spirit. The Jazz Bandits and their improvisation set the tone and Elise’s reading of The Book With No Pictures set the stage. The premise of the latter is that, while you might expect a book with no pictures to be boring, it is not, because it relies on the “rule,” the assumption, that whatever adult is reading this book to a child will have to read every word on the page. Even if every word is very, very silly. That’s the rule.
Improvising with others – in jazz or comedy or congregational life – requires some similar rules. Some things we take as given. We are asked to trust one another – to assume good intentions of our scene partners, band members, and fellow UCGers. We’re asked to attune to one another – to listen deeply to what another has to say; to try to understand their perspective, their worldview. We’re asked to affirm their offerings. Briana led us in an exercise that involves saying “yes, and” to whatever your partner says. That affirmation – even if their statement is totally absurd – allows us to build something more, something unexpected, together. It sets us up to then advance the game, a scene, a song, or the plan we’re making for our community.
Improvising invites us to playfully try on different possible outcomes, to imagine something different from a previous path or tradition. It also invites us to reflect on the nature of the Divine. In MaryAnn McKibben Dana’s book on faith and improvisation, she notes that while many traditions often emphasize a vision of God as immutable and all-knowing, in the Bible, “we meet an improvising God constantly . . . God experiments, changes God’s mind, and works in partnership with God’s people to bring about the Yes that’s at the heart of improv – and also the Gospel.”
McKibben Dana reminds readers that some biblical stories give a hint of that improvising nature of God right in the title. “Exodus,” which tells of the liberation of God’s people from enslavement, is a Greek word which means “a way out.” Says McKibben, “Not the way out, a way out. . . . This is a God who worked at the situation at hand. The ‘how’ of God’s work is incidental; the overarching Yes of liberation is God’s fundamental focus.”
Improvisation, like this time of transition, can feel risky. We risk our sense of certainty, we are asked to be vulnerable and try something that may not feel familiar or all together safe.
And, in some ways, this time is risky. There is a lot at stake for us as we find our path forward. But we can be assured, too, that there are many possible ways to go and we are working together to build that path together. As we continue in this work, may we continue to listen to one another, to trust one another’s good intentions, and to take the creative, playful, and joy-filled risks of living into a new season in our life together.