Personal Statement
I have had the profound blessing of a life rooted in guidance and grace. The most important thing I can tell you about me is that I love God most. This is not based on belief. It's based on experience – from the deep pruning of challenge that has brought me to my knees and death’s door, to the humbled awe of unforeseen moments of grace that have left me silent and still. I belong to this mystery because it has claimed me. Indeed, it has carved me in the palm of its hand and has shown me, again and again, it is more true than all I may have known.
I became an interfaith minister because, though I knew to whom I belonged, I simply could not choose one faith tradition over another. I had found God’s amazing grace, I once was lost but now I’m found, in my hometown Methodist church and had come to know his hallowed name, unrefined, in the depths of the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic. I had sensed him in the sweet silence of contemplative prayer and had discovered him walking with me through the valley of the shadow of death as the Hebrew Alpha-Beis became a lamp onto my feet. I had felt him dancing inside my chest as I chanted the beautiful Sikh mantra Kal Akal and he had brought me to the still point while turning, turning, turning to la ilaha illa allah with the Sufis leaving no doubt of my unity with all. He had held me fast as I endured the fires of purification in the Native American sweat lodges as he had guided me to new vistas on the Shaman’s drum. In Vipassana meditation, he had shown me definitively the difference between my thinking about him and knowing him. And from my long study of Sanskrit mantra and the Bhagavad Gita, he had tirelessly guided me to stand up and do my duty on my own battlefield of life. Choose? Impossible!
And, just as I have discovered God across faith traditions, I am convinced that, with new eyes, we are able to see the face of God everywhere. As I am fond of saying, “If I can’t recognize God in Walmart, what’s the point?”
Yet, to see God everywhere also means that we must extract God’s gift of grace from the noxious bowels of our deepest hardships and despair. From my long healing journey, I've discovered the greatest of gifts were within those very caves I was most afraid to enter - finally realizing, wondrously, I do truly blossom not in spite of but, rather, because of. And it is from this ongoing inner work, I'm better able to reach out with authenticity, clarity and compassion and offer a balm to our suffering world.
And, so, I love God most. For here is my true sanctuary, holding all of my experience, and, blessedly, graciously, endlessly, leaving me not where I began.
I look forward to sharing the journey with you.
With Abounding Joy,
Rev. Dr. Stephanie Rutt
I have had the profound blessing of a life rooted in guidance and grace. The most important thing I can tell you about me is that I love God most. This is not based on belief. It's based on experience – from the deep pruning of challenge that has brought me to my knees and death’s door, to the humbled awe of unforeseen moments of grace that have left me silent and still. I belong to this mystery because it has claimed me. Indeed, it has carved me in the palm of its hand and has shown me, again and again, it is more true than all I may have known.
I became an interfaith minister because, though I knew to whom I belonged, I simply could not choose one faith tradition over another. I had found God’s amazing grace, I once was lost but now I’m found, in my hometown Methodist church and had come to know his hallowed name, unrefined, in the depths of the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic. I had sensed him in the sweet silence of contemplative prayer and had discovered him walking with me through the valley of the shadow of death as the Hebrew Alpha-Beis became a lamp onto my feet. I had felt him dancing inside my chest as I chanted the beautiful Sikh mantra Kal Akal and he had brought me to the still point while turning, turning, turning to la ilaha illa allah with the Sufis leaving no doubt of my unity with all. He had held me fast as I endured the fires of purification in the Native American sweat lodges as he had guided me to new vistas on the Shaman’s drum. In Vipassana meditation, he had shown me definitively the difference between my thinking about him and knowing him. And from my long study of Sanskrit mantra and the Bhagavad Gita, he had tirelessly guided me to stand up and do my duty on my own battlefield of life. Choose? Impossible!
And, just as I have discovered God across faith traditions, I am convinced that, with new eyes, we are able to see the face of God everywhere. As I am fond of saying, “If I can’t recognize God in Walmart, what’s the point?”
Yet, to see God everywhere also means that we must extract God’s gift of grace from the noxious bowels of our deepest hardships and despair. From my long healing journey, I've discovered the greatest of gifts were within those very caves I was most afraid to enter - finally realizing, wondrously, I do truly blossom not in spite of but, rather, because of. And it is from this ongoing inner work, I'm better able to reach out with authenticity, clarity and compassion and offer a balm to our suffering world.
And, so, I love God most. For here is my true sanctuary, holding all of my experience, and, blessedly, graciously, endlessly, leaving me not where I began.
I look forward to sharing the journey with you.
With Abounding Joy,
Rev. Dr. Stephanie Rutt