Mark 7:1-13
The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus 2 and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)
5 So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”
6 He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
“‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
7
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’
8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”
9 And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’[e] 11 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— 12 then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. 13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”
The word "tradition" appears frequently in the Mark 7 passage.
If you are of a certain generation, think Tevye belting out "Tradition!!" in Fiddler on the Roof.
If you are of another generation, think Emmett and the construction workers singing, "Everything is awesome!!" as they blithely go about the same, endless routine, day after day assembling the pieces of the city in the Lego Movie. [Those of you who right now are rolling your eyes and dismissing this blog-post over a Lego Movie reference have missed a jewel if you've not seen it . . . smart, funny, symbolic, and with several brilliant messages, one of which plays on the song, "Everything Is Awesome!"]
Routines and practices easily become overly familiar, so deeply woven into the pattern of daily life that we no longer ask, "Why do I do this?" or "What fruit does this regimen bear in my life?" No need to ask the questions when you're convinced, "Everything is awesome!!"
Rarely do we think of a daily ritual, a religious practice, or an habitual routine as inauthentic. Mostly, they simply lose their energy over time. Sometimes we persist in the practice simply as a lucky charm, never mind that the ritual itself has become empty for us, devoid of any deeper meaning or significance.
I like the word transcendence. It suggests "beyond" . . . beyond comprehension, beyond explanation, beyond the usual, beyond ordinary experience. For several months now, I've sought to bounce things (including practices, rituals, routines, vocations) off this notion of transcendence. Assuming that God is somehow connected to all beyond us, I ask, "Does this thing . . . or practice . . . or belief . . . or connection . . . or vocation . . . have some sense of transcendence about it?" (Of course, all things are full of transcendence if we see them as so. But rarely do we have those eyes to see. As Elizabeth Barrett Browning pointedly wrote, most of us sit round the flaming bush and pluck blackberries.)
So it was, in Jesus' time, with these "traditions of the elders" and the "human traditions" to which the religious crowd was attached. It wasn't that the traditions were bad . . . and it wasn't that those who engaged in them were purposely deceitful or evil people; rather, the rituals and traditions themselves no longer held transcendent weight. They no longer pointed the persons who practiced them to The One Who is Beyond. Deeper realities were lost. The practices were no longer shaping lives, deepening connections with God, or helping the practitioners open themselves more deeply and receptively to the Spirit.
No longer did anyone ask, "Why do we do these things?" or "What is this practice trying to accomplish in my life?"
New wine was bursting the old wineskins of the traditional religious system.
Who among us has not been here, perhaps accumulating religious practices in hopes that the mere practice, rotely performed, would commend us to God?
Who among us has not clung to some method of prayer or formula for experiencing God which was effective in the past, trying to recapture some elusive emotional impulse which reminds us of God's presence?
Who among us has not piled up a storehouse of lucky charms in hopes that they will shield us from difficulty and lead us to a gilded life?
We have all been there, done that. So how do we engage in life, in practices, in rituals that deepen our connection with God? . . . that allow us to participate with God in what God is doing in the world?
What practices connect me with that which is transcendent? What routines have the gravitas to hold the weight of who I am? . . . to shape me? . . . to open me? . . . to help me see more clearly what is real (in myself and in the world)?
These are not the religious rituals that make me feel better, that confirm who I am, or that are done for the sake of a season. Rather, transformative spiritual practices connect me with something more substantial, something solid, something that can ground me or anchor me. (Hence, Meister Eckhart's phrase for God was "The Ground of Being.") Thus, they are transcendent.
How will I know if some "tradition" to which I hold is transcendent or leads me to transcendence? There are probably several ways to answer. Most simply and straightforwardly, hold your spiritual practice up to the transcendent values of love, compassion, and mercy. Do my daily routines or spiritual practices make me more compassionate? Do they open up space inside me to respond to the world with mercy rather than judgment? Do they allow love to flow through me into the world? Am I better able to forgive, include, accept, and be open to the other?
At the very least, God's project for the world starts with love, compassion, and mercy. Thus, that seems to be the place you and I can start, as well.
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
Loving the Other
Through Advent I took a break from Only a Sojourner in order to post reflections on the daily Advent readings at https://adailyadvent.blogspot.com/
Now, well into the season of Epiphany, I'll offer a few words related to my two previous posts before moving on.
What does it mean to love another? It may be easy enough to "love" someone we are drawn to, someone with whom we share a close connection . . . family members, friends, those with whom we share common interests and concerns. But what does it mean to love the narcissist, the bully, the abuser, the cruel one?
The previous post of Thomas Merton's thoughts in No Man Is an Island provided some clues.
Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. . . . [No Man Is an Island, p. 5]
To love another person, we seek not our own good, not even the pleasant feeling of having done something good. Rather, we will what is truly good for the other.
I realize that sounds like a subjective standard. I can look at another person and think I know what is good for them, what is best for them, but I have to confess that like you, I never see all the way through another person. I never know what is hidden within the deepest caverns of their being. I never truly know what they need simply by observing them on the outside.
What I do know -- or at least what I believe I know -- is that God's design for every human being is wholeness, that we live fully human lives. (In the 2nd century, St. Irenaeus famously said, "The glory of God is the human person fully alive"). God desires that we each live as fully as possible into the unique personhood for which God created us.
Thus, to truly love another person means that we seek the other's wholeness . . . we act on their behalf that they might become more and more the person God created them to be . . . we act in their lives in ways that are healing, in ways that call forth from them the image of God that is written into their soul's DNA. For as Merton suggests, not only is this person's destiny to be considered, but also the destiny of God's entire kingdom (p. 8). God's work of moving persons toward wholeness is part of God's wider project, what Jesus called the "kingdom of God," to bring all people to this healing wholeness; therefore, to love another person truly is also to love what God is doing in the world.
So given this notion of love, which acts for the benefit of the other in his or her becoming . . . and given that there is a sense of the common good, the kingdom which is coming . . . here are some examples of what love is not:
* Love does not stroke a narcissist and feed his or her narcissism.
* Love does not bow before a bully and enable his or her bullying.
* Love does not have a blind eye toward abusive behavior, excusing it as "he/she cannot help themselves."
* Love does not reward attention-seekers just because their ego wants to be continually in the spotlight.
Perhaps one obvious example will help. No one who truly loves an alcoholic would think of handing him/her a drink when they are trying to get sober. What family members and friends must learn on the road to sobriety is what some call "tough love," the strength to say "no" in order to keep the addict's health, wholeness, and best interest first and foremost.
In loving another, we don't act in ways that keep them imprisoned in the small egocentric self. We want to love them in ways that somehow release them or encourage them to their more expansive, truer, authentic self.
Then how shall we know how best to love another person? Good question. You see by now, don't you, that love is hard work. And because we don't see the inside of the other fully, our love for them is not always clear-cut. Here again, Merton helps.
One who really loves another is not merely moved by the desire to see him contented and healthy and prosperous in this world. Love cannot be satisfied with anything so incomplete. If I am to love my brother, I must somehow enter deep into the mystery of God's love for him. . . . The truth I must love in my brother is God Himself, living in him. . . .
In order to love others with perfect charity I must be true to them, to myself, and to God. . . .
If we love one another truly, our love will be graced with a clear-sighted prudence which sees and respects the designs of God upon each separate soul. Our love for one another must be rooted in a deep devotion to Divine Providence, a devotion that abandons our own limited plans into the hands of God and seeks only to enter into the invisible work that builds His Kingdom. (pp. 7-9)
In Merton's vision of love, the one who desires to love another must engage in his/her own strenuous inner work, deepening in God, knowing ourselves more fully, seeing our own light and darkness with more clarity. We engage in this work of spiritual becoming ourselves so that we see more clearly, slowly and over time, praying that we increasingly take on the heart and eyes of God within ourselves.
This attention to our own inner landscape is what Merton calls being "rooted in a deep devotion to Divine Providence, a devotion that abandons our own limited plans into the hands of God and seeks only to enter into the invisible work that builds His Kingdom."
Merton says I must somehow enter deep into the mystery of God's love for the other.
This is difficult work and no one gets it perfectly. The temptation for me -- your temptation may be different -- is to withhold love until I'm "doing it right." When that is the case, I will never love.
So the invitation for me is to begin where I am . . . to give attention to my own interior . . . to see more and more of my own truth . . . and to look on others with compassion, asking, "What does he/she truly need to be whole? How does God see them? Is there some way I can help love them to wholeness?"
Sometimes the answer is tangible food or clothing or cash for a utility payment.
Sometimes the answer is an affirming word, a listening ear, or quiet presence.
Sometimes the answer is a well-timed, well-placed question which allows the other to explore more deeply the implications of what they are considering.
And sometimes the answer is a firm, solid, "No, not now!"
Now, well into the season of Epiphany, I'll offer a few words related to my two previous posts before moving on.
What does it mean to love another? It may be easy enough to "love" someone we are drawn to, someone with whom we share a close connection . . . family members, friends, those with whom we share common interests and concerns. But what does it mean to love the narcissist, the bully, the abuser, the cruel one?
The previous post of Thomas Merton's thoughts in No Man Is an Island provided some clues.
Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. . . . [No Man Is an Island, p. 5]
To love another person, we seek not our own good, not even the pleasant feeling of having done something good. Rather, we will what is truly good for the other.
I realize that sounds like a subjective standard. I can look at another person and think I know what is good for them, what is best for them, but I have to confess that like you, I never see all the way through another person. I never know what is hidden within the deepest caverns of their being. I never truly know what they need simply by observing them on the outside.
What I do know -- or at least what I believe I know -- is that God's design for every human being is wholeness, that we live fully human lives. (In the 2nd century, St. Irenaeus famously said, "The glory of God is the human person fully alive"). God desires that we each live as fully as possible into the unique personhood for which God created us.
Thus, to truly love another person means that we seek the other's wholeness . . . we act on their behalf that they might become more and more the person God created them to be . . . we act in their lives in ways that are healing, in ways that call forth from them the image of God that is written into their soul's DNA. For as Merton suggests, not only is this person's destiny to be considered, but also the destiny of God's entire kingdom (p. 8). God's work of moving persons toward wholeness is part of God's wider project, what Jesus called the "kingdom of God," to bring all people to this healing wholeness; therefore, to love another person truly is also to love what God is doing in the world.
So given this notion of love, which acts for the benefit of the other in his or her becoming . . . and given that there is a sense of the common good, the kingdom which is coming . . . here are some examples of what love is not:
* Love does not stroke a narcissist and feed his or her narcissism.
* Love does not bow before a bully and enable his or her bullying.
* Love does not have a blind eye toward abusive behavior, excusing it as "he/she cannot help themselves."
* Love does not reward attention-seekers just because their ego wants to be continually in the spotlight.
Perhaps one obvious example will help. No one who truly loves an alcoholic would think of handing him/her a drink when they are trying to get sober. What family members and friends must learn on the road to sobriety is what some call "tough love," the strength to say "no" in order to keep the addict's health, wholeness, and best interest first and foremost.
In loving another, we don't act in ways that keep them imprisoned in the small egocentric self. We want to love them in ways that somehow release them or encourage them to their more expansive, truer, authentic self.
Then how shall we know how best to love another person? Good question. You see by now, don't you, that love is hard work. And because we don't see the inside of the other fully, our love for them is not always clear-cut. Here again, Merton helps.
One who really loves another is not merely moved by the desire to see him contented and healthy and prosperous in this world. Love cannot be satisfied with anything so incomplete. If I am to love my brother, I must somehow enter deep into the mystery of God's love for him. . . . The truth I must love in my brother is God Himself, living in him. . . .
In order to love others with perfect charity I must be true to them, to myself, and to God. . . .
If we love one another truly, our love will be graced with a clear-sighted prudence which sees and respects the designs of God upon each separate soul. Our love for one another must be rooted in a deep devotion to Divine Providence, a devotion that abandons our own limited plans into the hands of God and seeks only to enter into the invisible work that builds His Kingdom. (pp. 7-9)
In Merton's vision of love, the one who desires to love another must engage in his/her own strenuous inner work, deepening in God, knowing ourselves more fully, seeing our own light and darkness with more clarity. We engage in this work of spiritual becoming ourselves so that we see more clearly, slowly and over time, praying that we increasingly take on the heart and eyes of God within ourselves.
This attention to our own inner landscape is what Merton calls being "rooted in a deep devotion to Divine Providence, a devotion that abandons our own limited plans into the hands of God and seeks only to enter into the invisible work that builds His Kingdom."
Merton says I must somehow enter deep into the mystery of God's love for the other.
This is difficult work and no one gets it perfectly. The temptation for me -- your temptation may be different -- is to withhold love until I'm "doing it right." When that is the case, I will never love.
So the invitation for me is to begin where I am . . . to give attention to my own interior . . . to see more and more of my own truth . . . and to look on others with compassion, asking, "What does he/she truly need to be whole? How does God see them? Is there some way I can help love them to wholeness?"
Sometimes the answer is tangible food or clothing or cash for a utility payment.
Sometimes the answer is an affirming word, a listening ear, or quiet presence.
Sometimes the answer is a well-timed, well-placed question which allows the other to explore more deeply the implications of what they are considering.
And sometimes the answer is a firm, solid, "No, not now!"
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Love Loves . . . Merton's Thoughts
Before posting my own reflection on, "What does it mean to love another?" as a follow-up to the previous post, "Love loves what is . . . as it is," I want to post some of Thomas Merton's words about love and charity.
These thoughts come from the first section of Merton's, No Man Is an Island. The chapter is called, "Love Can Be Kept Only by Being Given Away." (I have retained Merton's original language, which uses masculine pronouns throughout. Merton was not only a product of his times, he was also the product of an all-male monastic community.)
There is a false and momentary happiness in self-satisfaction, but it always leads to sorrow because it narrows and deadens our spirit. True happiness is found in unselfish love, a love which increases in proportion as it is shared. There is no end to the sharing of love, and, therefore, the potential happiness of such love is without limit. Infinite sharing is the law of God's inner life. He has made the sharing of ourselves the law of our own being, so that it is in loving others that we best love ourselves. In disinterested activity we best fulfill our own capacities to act and to be.
Yet there can never be happiness in compulsion. It is not enough for love to be shared: it must be shared freely. That is to say it must be given, not merely taken.
***********
Love not only prefers the good of another to my own, but it does not even compare the two. . . . Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. . . .
To love another is to will what is really good for him. Such love must be based on truth. A love that sees no distinction between good and evil, but loves blindly merely for the sake of loving, is hatred, rather than love. To love blindly is to love selfishly, because the goal of such love is not the real advantage of the beloved but only the exercise of love in our own souls. . . .
Charity is neither weak nor blind. It is essentially prudent, just, temperate, and strong. Unless all the other virtues blend together in charity, our love is not genuine. No one who really wants to love another will consent to love him falsely. If we are going to love others at all, we must make up our minds to love them well. Otherwise our love is a delusion. . . .
One who really loves another is not merely moved by the desire to see him contented and healthy and prosperous in this world. Love cannot be satisfied with anything so incomplete. If I am to love my brother, I must somehow enter deep into the mystery of God's love for him. . . . The truth I must love in my brother is God Himself, living in him.
************
In order to love others with perfect charity I must be true to them, to myself, and to God.
The true interests of a person are at once perfectly his own and common to the whole Kingdom of God. That is because these interests are all centered in God's designs for his soul. The destiny of each one of us is intended, by the Lord, to enter into the destiny of His entire Kingdom. . . .
If we love one another truly, our love will be graced with a clear-sighted prudence which sees and respects the designs of God upon each separate soul. Our love for one another must be rooted in a deep devotion to Divine Providence, a devotion that abandons our own limited plans into the hands of God and seeks only to enter into the invisible work that builds His Kingdom.
These thoughts come from the first section of Merton's, No Man Is an Island. The chapter is called, "Love Can Be Kept Only by Being Given Away." (I have retained Merton's original language, which uses masculine pronouns throughout. Merton was not only a product of his times, he was also the product of an all-male monastic community.)
There is a false and momentary happiness in self-satisfaction, but it always leads to sorrow because it narrows and deadens our spirit. True happiness is found in unselfish love, a love which increases in proportion as it is shared. There is no end to the sharing of love, and, therefore, the potential happiness of such love is without limit. Infinite sharing is the law of God's inner life. He has made the sharing of ourselves the law of our own being, so that it is in loving others that we best love ourselves. In disinterested activity we best fulfill our own capacities to act and to be.
Yet there can never be happiness in compulsion. It is not enough for love to be shared: it must be shared freely. That is to say it must be given, not merely taken.
***********
Love not only prefers the good of another to my own, but it does not even compare the two. . . . Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. . . .
To love another is to will what is really good for him. Such love must be based on truth. A love that sees no distinction between good and evil, but loves blindly merely for the sake of loving, is hatred, rather than love. To love blindly is to love selfishly, because the goal of such love is not the real advantage of the beloved but only the exercise of love in our own souls. . . .
Charity is neither weak nor blind. It is essentially prudent, just, temperate, and strong. Unless all the other virtues blend together in charity, our love is not genuine. No one who really wants to love another will consent to love him falsely. If we are going to love others at all, we must make up our minds to love them well. Otherwise our love is a delusion. . . .
One who really loves another is not merely moved by the desire to see him contented and healthy and prosperous in this world. Love cannot be satisfied with anything so incomplete. If I am to love my brother, I must somehow enter deep into the mystery of God's love for him. . . . The truth I must love in my brother is God Himself, living in him.
************
In order to love others with perfect charity I must be true to them, to myself, and to God.
The true interests of a person are at once perfectly his own and common to the whole Kingdom of God. That is because these interests are all centered in God's designs for his soul. The destiny of each one of us is intended, by the Lord, to enter into the destiny of His entire Kingdom. . . .
If we love one another truly, our love will be graced with a clear-sighted prudence which sees and respects the designs of God upon each separate soul. Our love for one another must be rooted in a deep devotion to Divine Providence, a devotion that abandons our own limited plans into the hands of God and seeks only to enter into the invisible work that builds His Kingdom.
Wednesday, November 28, 2018
Love Loves What Is As It Is
Love loves what is as it is.
I have been saying this for years, mostly because it represents a life-stance to which I aspire, not a stance I have attained. Alas, I discover over and over again how far I have yet to travel in order to make this truth my very own.
I wish "Love loves what is as it is" was a comforting insight. Truly, it doesn't offer comfort to me as much as it disturbs me, challenges me, and presses me to a more God-centered stance toward people and situations.
Authentic love is not aligned with certain favorable conditions that are conducive to love and goodwill. Real love is not based on another person changing their ways, and thus becoming more lovable. Transforming love does not withhold itself in protest or make half-baked promises which are conditioned on certain outcomes.
Love loves what is . . . as it is. It does not wait for change. It does not demand the other become lovable -- though for the health of the other and the world, it may be in everyone's best interest for the other to become more lovable! -- before it loves.
Most days I lose touch with this Love early in the morning. I become angry at persons who use power to diminish others or who lord it over those who have no power. I withhold kindness to punish others for the wounds I perceive they have inflicted on me. I wait for wrongs to be righted as a kind of penance before I dare to invest my love and life in a person or situation.
I am frequently called back to Love, however. I am reminded often of my intention to live from an anchored Center, to approach the world from a core of mercy and compassion, rather than judgment and division. I am welcomed back to my foundational belief that those who live from this Center (what Jesus called "the kingdom of God") make a difference in the world simply by their presence.
A few months ago Deepak Chopra was on a late-night talk show. In the midst of talk about the healing power of meditation, the conversation turned to the anxiety, tension, and conflict in the world right now, and Chopra's belief that the turbulence is a sign of society going through a time of transition.
Then the host asked Chopra about inviting the President for a week of meditation, saying, "Do you think you could break him down?" Chopra responded, "You don't need to break him down. Go beyond his wounds to what is really troubling him. He needs love."
I could feel the jolt within myself . . . the air sucked out of my lungs. I was aghast! The loudest part of my being shouted, "Love a narcissist, a bully? Never!"
And the still, small voice within me said, "You KNOW it's true. You must love! This is the path you've chosen. Now walk in it."
I have been saying this for years, mostly because it represents a life-stance to which I aspire, not a stance I have attained. Alas, I discover over and over again how far I have yet to travel in order to make this truth my very own.
I wish "Love loves what is as it is" was a comforting insight. Truly, it doesn't offer comfort to me as much as it disturbs me, challenges me, and presses me to a more God-centered stance toward people and situations.
Authentic love is not aligned with certain favorable conditions that are conducive to love and goodwill. Real love is not based on another person changing their ways, and thus becoming more lovable. Transforming love does not withhold itself in protest or make half-baked promises which are conditioned on certain outcomes.
Love loves what is . . . as it is. It does not wait for change. It does not demand the other become lovable -- though for the health of the other and the world, it may be in everyone's best interest for the other to become more lovable! -- before it loves.
Most days I lose touch with this Love early in the morning. I become angry at persons who use power to diminish others or who lord it over those who have no power. I withhold kindness to punish others for the wounds I perceive they have inflicted on me. I wait for wrongs to be righted as a kind of penance before I dare to invest my love and life in a person or situation.
I am frequently called back to Love, however. I am reminded often of my intention to live from an anchored Center, to approach the world from a core of mercy and compassion, rather than judgment and division. I am welcomed back to my foundational belief that those who live from this Center (what Jesus called "the kingdom of God") make a difference in the world simply by their presence.
A few months ago Deepak Chopra was on a late-night talk show. In the midst of talk about the healing power of meditation, the conversation turned to the anxiety, tension, and conflict in the world right now, and Chopra's belief that the turbulence is a sign of society going through a time of transition.
Then the host asked Chopra about inviting the President for a week of meditation, saying, "Do you think you could break him down?" Chopra responded, "You don't need to break him down. Go beyond his wounds to what is really troubling him. He needs love."
I could feel the jolt within myself . . . the air sucked out of my lungs. I was aghast! The loudest part of my being shouted, "Love a narcissist, a bully? Never!"
And the still, small voice within me said, "You KNOW it's true. You must love! This is the path you've chosen. Now walk in it."
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Stepping across the Divide
Luke 19:1-10
Jesus was going through Jericho, 2 where a man named Zacchaeus lived. He was in charge of collecting taxes and was very rich. 3-4 Jesus was heading his way, and Zacchaeus wanted to see what he was like. But Zacchaeus was a short man and could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree.
5 When Jesus got there, he looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, hurry down! I want to stay with you today.” 6 Zacchaeus hurried down and gladly welcomed Jesus.
7 Everyone who saw this started grumbling, “This man Zacchaeus is a sinner! And Jesus is going home to eat with him.”
8 Later that day Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “I will give half of my property to the poor. And I will now pay back four times as much to everyone I have ever cheated.”
9 Jesus said to Zacchaeus, “Today you and your family have been saved, because you are a true son of Abraham. 10 The Son of Man came to look for and to save people who are lost.”
In the previous post, I wrote about the expectations John the Baptizer had of Jesus . . . that Jesus would replicate John's motivational methodology of fear and shame, while further dividing and separating people (the good from the bad). Jesus, the Messiah John anticipated, rejected those means of calling people to deeper life in God. Instead, Jesus' methodology was grounded in his own identity in God. By living in mercy, compassion, love, and reconciliation, he continually sought to uncover the core identity of others as sons and daughters of God.
The Gospel reading for today strikes me as an example of how Jesus refused the divisions commonly enforced by others, and instead offered compassionate generosity to persons, no matter who they were.
Zacchaeus was a wealthy man, even if his wealth came at the expense of others.
Even though rich, he was categorized as a "sinner" by virtue of his occupation. He was also a "sinner" by virtue of his relationship with the Roman Empire. He was in the employ of a foreign government, yet he got wealthy from collecting taxes from "his own people" (do you see the insider-outsider language which separates?). As a tax-collector, he served the occupying government, but his livelihood came at the expense of his home tribe.
To the Romans he was a lackey. To his own people he was a traitor.
In terms of the religious culture of the day, Zacchaeus was a "sinner." The word denotes a social class of people who engaged in work deemed corrupt or disreputable by the religious hierarchy. The category of "sinner" was used by conventional religion to indicate who was in and who was out, thus dividing or separating in order to keep "good" people at a distance from corrupt or unholy people.
Zacchaeus belonged to this social class of people designated by cultural standards to be corrupt or unclean.
Today, this same kind of divide is made wider by religious entities, denominations, and church leaders . . . by governments, policies, and partisan politicians . . . by corporations and marketing campaigns. Some people are in and some are out. Some are justified in their "righteousness" and others are deemed "godless."
Jesus continually crosses this line, walking back and forth across the divide, meeting people from both sides where they are. His mercy and efforts at reconciliation anger those who want to maintain separation, those who are invested in the divisions, those whose worldview depends on competition and creating real or imagined "enemies." After all, making those who have a different worldview your enemy always provides a reason to get up in the morning, always gives energy for a fight, always gives you someone to oppose, always offers you someone at whom to aim your vitriol.
Jesus' anger is never directed at those "on the other side" of the divide, those who have been excluded. If anything, his harshest words are aimed at those who try to maintain the divide, those who keep people separated -- from others and from God -- by categorizing and demonizing.
Zacchaeus is not a "tax-collector" . . . that's only what he does for a living.
Zacchaeus is not a "sinner" . . . that's what religion has labeled him for his lifestyle and his associations.
Jesus sees Zacchaeus as a son of God who has been broken by life, who may have made some questionable choices, who may have done some harmful things, but who is not ultimately to be defined by anything other than his interior connection to God (a "son of Abraham").
So Jesus steps compassionately across the divide toward this alienated man to uncover his truest self, in an effort to help Zacchaeus find this sense of himself which he had lost.
Those who want to maintain the divide hurl accusation: "He's making friendly with a sinner!" But Jesus doesn't see Zacchaeus - or anyone -- as "sinner." He only sees children who have become lost and who need to find their way home. So he says to Zacchaeus, "Come down from the tree. I'm going home with you today!"
The way of Jesus has never been, "Love your neighbor and those like you . . . hate your enemy and those you don't like." (Matt. 5:43)
The way of Jesus has always been, "Love your enemies and those you oppose . . . and then pray for those who refuse your love." (Matt. 5:44)
In that way, Jesus stepped across the divide toward Zacchaeus. And in that same way he continues to step across the divide in our own day.
Jesus was going through Jericho, 2 where a man named Zacchaeus lived. He was in charge of collecting taxes and was very rich. 3-4 Jesus was heading his way, and Zacchaeus wanted to see what he was like. But Zacchaeus was a short man and could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree.
5 When Jesus got there, he looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, hurry down! I want to stay with you today.” 6 Zacchaeus hurried down and gladly welcomed Jesus.
7 Everyone who saw this started grumbling, “This man Zacchaeus is a sinner! And Jesus is going home to eat with him.”
8 Later that day Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “I will give half of my property to the poor. And I will now pay back four times as much to everyone I have ever cheated.”
9 Jesus said to Zacchaeus, “Today you and your family have been saved, because you are a true son of Abraham. 10 The Son of Man came to look for and to save people who are lost.”
In the previous post, I wrote about the expectations John the Baptizer had of Jesus . . . that Jesus would replicate John's motivational methodology of fear and shame, while further dividing and separating people (the good from the bad). Jesus, the Messiah John anticipated, rejected those means of calling people to deeper life in God. Instead, Jesus' methodology was grounded in his own identity in God. By living in mercy, compassion, love, and reconciliation, he continually sought to uncover the core identity of others as sons and daughters of God.
The Gospel reading for today strikes me as an example of how Jesus refused the divisions commonly enforced by others, and instead offered compassionate generosity to persons, no matter who they were.
Zacchaeus was a wealthy man, even if his wealth came at the expense of others.
Even though rich, he was categorized as a "sinner" by virtue of his occupation. He was also a "sinner" by virtue of his relationship with the Roman Empire. He was in the employ of a foreign government, yet he got wealthy from collecting taxes from "his own people" (do you see the insider-outsider language which separates?). As a tax-collector, he served the occupying government, but his livelihood came at the expense of his home tribe.
To the Romans he was a lackey. To his own people he was a traitor.
In terms of the religious culture of the day, Zacchaeus was a "sinner." The word denotes a social class of people who engaged in work deemed corrupt or disreputable by the religious hierarchy. The category of "sinner" was used by conventional religion to indicate who was in and who was out, thus dividing or separating in order to keep "good" people at a distance from corrupt or unholy people.
Zacchaeus belonged to this social class of people designated by cultural standards to be corrupt or unclean.
Today, this same kind of divide is made wider by religious entities, denominations, and church leaders . . . by governments, policies, and partisan politicians . . . by corporations and marketing campaigns. Some people are in and some are out. Some are justified in their "righteousness" and others are deemed "godless."
Jesus continually crosses this line, walking back and forth across the divide, meeting people from both sides where they are. His mercy and efforts at reconciliation anger those who want to maintain separation, those who are invested in the divisions, those whose worldview depends on competition and creating real or imagined "enemies." After all, making those who have a different worldview your enemy always provides a reason to get up in the morning, always gives energy for a fight, always gives you someone to oppose, always offers you someone at whom to aim your vitriol.
Jesus' anger is never directed at those "on the other side" of the divide, those who have been excluded. If anything, his harshest words are aimed at those who try to maintain the divide, those who keep people separated -- from others and from God -- by categorizing and demonizing.
Zacchaeus is not a "tax-collector" . . . that's only what he does for a living.
Zacchaeus is not a "sinner" . . . that's what religion has labeled him for his lifestyle and his associations.
Jesus sees Zacchaeus as a son of God who has been broken by life, who may have made some questionable choices, who may have done some harmful things, but who is not ultimately to be defined by anything other than his interior connection to God (a "son of Abraham").
So Jesus steps compassionately across the divide toward this alienated man to uncover his truest self, in an effort to help Zacchaeus find this sense of himself which he had lost.
Those who want to maintain the divide hurl accusation: "He's making friendly with a sinner!" But Jesus doesn't see Zacchaeus - or anyone -- as "sinner." He only sees children who have become lost and who need to find their way home. So he says to Zacchaeus, "Come down from the tree. I'm going home with you today!"
The way of Jesus has never been, "Love your neighbor and those like you . . . hate your enemy and those you don't like." (Matt. 5:43)
The way of Jesus has always been, "Love your enemies and those you oppose . . . and then pray for those who refuse your love." (Matt. 5:44)
In that way, Jesus stepped across the divide toward Zacchaeus. And in that same way he continues to step across the divide in our own day.
Monday, November 19, 2018
In a World of Separation and Shame, Bringing Mercy and Reconciliation
Luke 3:1-20
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
5
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
6
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
7 John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10 And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” 11 In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” 12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13 He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” 14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
18 So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. 19 But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, 20 added to them all by shutting up John in prison.
The Gospel of Luke records the entrance of John the Baptizer onto the scene as a forerunner to Jesus' public ministry (Luke 3:1-20). John's role is to prepare the people for "the One who is to come." John's aim is to bring moral change among his listeners, so that "paths would be straight, roads would be leveled, and rough ways be made smooth."
This road-work, so to speak, provides an entryway for the coming Messiah to enter the lives of the people (Lk. 3:3-6).
What are the paths, roads, and rough ways which needed to be given attention? They are within you and me, the ways we are crooked, too high or too low, and rough. We make ready the pathways within ourselves in order to make a way for the coming of the Messiah into our lives.
John knew that to receive something big, something that can change your life, you have to get ready. You have to make some space. You have to prepare yourself. For John, that space is created by moral change, by living a moral life.
John is right in some ways, you know. A growing, deepening spirituality does not drop upon us like pixie dust when we utter a few rehearsed words or respond to a religious salesperson's pitch. To give ourselves fully in living as God's people in the world, we have to make ourselves ready through practice and intention. We have to open ourselves to new ways of seeing and being in the world with God, self, others, and the world. We have to see ourselves honestly and ruthlessly name what we have seen of our interior.
But John's methodology for this preparation, for getting his listeners to moral living, is all guilt and fear. He calls the people who gathered around him, "a brood of vipers" (3:7) as if to shame the crowd into life-change. Then he warns of future punishments for those who don't get their acts together: "the ax is already laid at the root of the tree" (3:9).
He even says the Messiah will come to continue this work of division and separation (3:17), naming some good and worthy (the wheat), while others would be separated as bad and unworthy (the chaff).
Perhaps John leans too much into the Old Testament idea that to be holy means to be set apart from anything unclean or evil. Holiness separates you from that which is corrupt, the thinking went.
At any rate, John projects his own ascetic notions of morality onto the Messiah.
Moral living is a fine goal, but John seems to miss that persons almost never get to morality through shame and fear. Shame and fear act mostly as external motivators. They have no grounding center. They motivate through anxiety about some promised punishment . . . or through some imagined sense that I am a no-good human being. Both shame and fear may produce different behavior for a short-term, but almost never produce long-term, inner transformation. They simply do not have that power.
Jesus, the Messiah who was to come, refused to motivate by fear or shame. In fact, Jesus' path was just the opposite. He affirms in even the lowest of the low that they, too, are beloved sons and daughters of God. He encourages persons not to identify with their sinfulness, but to identify with the God-connection at the heart of who they are. Jesus continually invites persons to stop giving so much attention to the externals of religion, but to deal with the "inside of the cup."
Further, Jesus does not fulfill John's notion that the Messiah divides and separates. In fact, Jesus comes to do the opposite. He reconciles divisions, heals brokenness, mends separations, and brings back together that which has been torn apart. All of Jesus' life-work is about putting together people and relationships who have been broken apart.
The words that best describe Jesus are mercy . . . compassion . . . love . . . reconciling . . . liberating. He seems intent on bringing together, while rejecting separation and division both in the world and within the family of God's people.
John seems to have projected his own path onto Jesus. John made his understanding God's understanding, rather than making God's understanding his understanding.
It is a common mistake, a human mistake we all make, and sometimes find writ large in contemporary culture.
You don't have to look far to see how modern politics, religious life, and the entire social order are bent toward division and separation, pooling together the "alike" while shunning, ostracizing, and demonizing the "unlike." It happens in Christian denominations. It happens in political campaigns. It happens in government affairs at every level. We divide and separate, making enemies of those with other views, all while trying to rally support for our perspective.
This, my friends, is not the way of Jesus. And it is not the way those who truly want to follow Jesus.
Jesus does not endorse John's methodology of guilt and shame. He does not endorse life-change through fear of punishment or anxiety about the future. And he has no intention of separating or dividing, splitting nations, races, religious factions, and groups into the haves and the have-nots.
To broken humans who have been torn up by the world, Jesus brings mercy and compassion, helping all persons come back to a sense of who they are in God.
John got this fundamentally wrong about Jesus. Such basic, foundational spiritual work never happens by guilt and shame . . . nor by division and separation.
This work happens through love . . . mercy . . . compassion . . . reconciliation. And this is how Jesus still goes about his work in our world . . . denominational power plays, political rhetoric, and social divisions notwithstanding.
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
5
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
6
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
7 John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10 And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” 11 In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” 12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13 He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” 14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
18 So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. 19 But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, 20 added to them all by shutting up John in prison.
The Gospel of Luke records the entrance of John the Baptizer onto the scene as a forerunner to Jesus' public ministry (Luke 3:1-20). John's role is to prepare the people for "the One who is to come." John's aim is to bring moral change among his listeners, so that "paths would be straight, roads would be leveled, and rough ways be made smooth."
This road-work, so to speak, provides an entryway for the coming Messiah to enter the lives of the people (Lk. 3:3-6).
What are the paths, roads, and rough ways which needed to be given attention? They are within you and me, the ways we are crooked, too high or too low, and rough. We make ready the pathways within ourselves in order to make a way for the coming of the Messiah into our lives.
John knew that to receive something big, something that can change your life, you have to get ready. You have to make some space. You have to prepare yourself. For John, that space is created by moral change, by living a moral life.
John is right in some ways, you know. A growing, deepening spirituality does not drop upon us like pixie dust when we utter a few rehearsed words or respond to a religious salesperson's pitch. To give ourselves fully in living as God's people in the world, we have to make ourselves ready through practice and intention. We have to open ourselves to new ways of seeing and being in the world with God, self, others, and the world. We have to see ourselves honestly and ruthlessly name what we have seen of our interior.
But John's methodology for this preparation, for getting his listeners to moral living, is all guilt and fear. He calls the people who gathered around him, "a brood of vipers" (3:7) as if to shame the crowd into life-change. Then he warns of future punishments for those who don't get their acts together: "the ax is already laid at the root of the tree" (3:9).
He even says the Messiah will come to continue this work of division and separation (3:17), naming some good and worthy (the wheat), while others would be separated as bad and unworthy (the chaff).
Perhaps John leans too much into the Old Testament idea that to be holy means to be set apart from anything unclean or evil. Holiness separates you from that which is corrupt, the thinking went.
At any rate, John projects his own ascetic notions of morality onto the Messiah.
Moral living is a fine goal, but John seems to miss that persons almost never get to morality through shame and fear. Shame and fear act mostly as external motivators. They have no grounding center. They motivate through anxiety about some promised punishment . . . or through some imagined sense that I am a no-good human being. Both shame and fear may produce different behavior for a short-term, but almost never produce long-term, inner transformation. They simply do not have that power.
Jesus, the Messiah who was to come, refused to motivate by fear or shame. In fact, Jesus' path was just the opposite. He affirms in even the lowest of the low that they, too, are beloved sons and daughters of God. He encourages persons not to identify with their sinfulness, but to identify with the God-connection at the heart of who they are. Jesus continually invites persons to stop giving so much attention to the externals of religion, but to deal with the "inside of the cup."
Further, Jesus does not fulfill John's notion that the Messiah divides and separates. In fact, Jesus comes to do the opposite. He reconciles divisions, heals brokenness, mends separations, and brings back together that which has been torn apart. All of Jesus' life-work is about putting together people and relationships who have been broken apart.
The words that best describe Jesus are mercy . . . compassion . . . love . . . reconciling . . . liberating. He seems intent on bringing together, while rejecting separation and division both in the world and within the family of God's people.
John seems to have projected his own path onto Jesus. John made his understanding God's understanding, rather than making God's understanding his understanding.
It is a common mistake, a human mistake we all make, and sometimes find writ large in contemporary culture.
You don't have to look far to see how modern politics, religious life, and the entire social order are bent toward division and separation, pooling together the "alike" while shunning, ostracizing, and demonizing the "unlike." It happens in Christian denominations. It happens in political campaigns. It happens in government affairs at every level. We divide and separate, making enemies of those with other views, all while trying to rally support for our perspective.
This, my friends, is not the way of Jesus. And it is not the way those who truly want to follow Jesus.
Jesus does not endorse John's methodology of guilt and shame. He does not endorse life-change through fear of punishment or anxiety about the future. And he has no intention of separating or dividing, splitting nations, races, religious factions, and groups into the haves and the have-nots.
To broken humans who have been torn up by the world, Jesus brings mercy and compassion, helping all persons come back to a sense of who they are in God.
John got this fundamentally wrong about Jesus. Such basic, foundational spiritual work never happens by guilt and shame . . . nor by division and separation.
This work happens through love . . . mercy . . . compassion . . . reconciliation. And this is how Jesus still goes about his work in our world . . . denominational power plays, political rhetoric, and social divisions notwithstanding.
Tuesday, June 5, 2018
On Being "Contemplative"
In the mid-1990's, I was a Baptist pastor searching for my soul, trying to discover a more grounded, spiritual path for moving through mid-life. I was reading everything I could get my hands on about prayer. Perhaps more importantly, I was experimenting with what I read, trying out the different methods and approaches suggested by Richard Foster and Madame Jeanne Guyon, by Eugene Peterson and Thomas Kelly. I explored liturgical prayer, quiet prayer, charismatic prayer, contemplative prayer, and more. The exploration itself was energizing and somewhat dangerous, especially for a Baptist pastor.
At one point, a friend shared with me some notes he had taken at a "School of Prayer" hosted by his congregation. The "School" was led by Bill Clemmons, a retired Southern Baptist seminary professor. I was drawn to the notes -- and eventually to the person -- first because he was a like-minded Baptist who dared to talk about and write about prayer, but then because within his notes were glimpses of what I had experienced in my own experimentation. I read and re-read those notes, gleaning from them all I could from lifting words off the page.
At some point, I decided I wanted more Bill Clemmons in my life. I got his contact information from my friend and called him in Memphis. One phone call led to another, and soon I found myself being guided by a wise Baptist saint, unlike any other Baptist I had known to that point. At some point, I casually asked if he would be interested in coming to my Baptist congregation on the east side of Houston to offer his School of Prayer. I didn't expect that he would actually do that, and I wasn't prepared for his "Yes!" I had not selected potential dates for the School, nor run the idea past the church leadership, which I would learn over time was not a wise practice. Nevertheless, his answer was "Yes!" and we set in motion plans for him to come to Houston for a Friday, Saturday, Sunday edition of his School of Prayer.
I don't remember a lot of details about that weekend. As with most relationships that turn out to be significant for any of us, my connection with Bill over a long stretch of years shaped me much more than this single encounter. However, the one detail I DO remember from the weekend took place Saturday in the early afternoon. Bill made it clear that whenever he traveled to Houston, he packed plenty of antacids, because he wanted to eat the best Mexican food possible. The antacids meant that he knew his stomach would pay a price, but still he wanted to eat good Mexican food. So after he led the Saturday morning session, I took Bill -- along with my children Sarah and Bradley -- to the Original Ninfa's on Navigation on the East Side of town. We ate outstanding Mexican food. Bill loved it. We talked about Mexican food. Bill engaged with my two children. He and I talked about our experiences of prayer.
And there, over Mama Ninfa's enchiladas, Bill asked me, "How long have you been a contemplative?"
I had never been asked that question before. And I don't think, up to that moment, I thought of myself as a "contemplative." I was exploring the landscape of prayer, and I had explored some contemplative forms of prayer. But never in my wildest imagination had I considered myself a contemplative.
I have no idea what prompted Bill to ask. I never asked him in all the subsequent years of our friendship. And I don't remember how I answered him.
I will say, though, that within 5 years of those Ninfa's enchiladas, the word "contemplative" was one of the key words I began using to describe my desired way of being in the world, the way I wanted to see the world, the way I wanted to relate to God, self, others, and the created world.
Bill Clemmons helped expose me to others who would help give expression to what it means to be contemplative in the world. Among those Bill commended to me was Thomas Merton. Merton articulated as well as anyone the meaning and importance of being contemplative. Merton was convinced that a contemplative stance toward life, centered in God and active in the world, could change the world in which we live.
I'll share some of Merton's ideas here [from The Inner Experience: Kinds of Contemplation (IV), selected and edited by Patrick Hart from articles reprinted in Cistercian Studies Quarterly Review 18 (1983), pp. 290ff], then in another post try to give some flesh to what it means to be contemplative in the contemporary milieu.
In active contemplation, there is a deliberate and sustained effort to detect the will of God in events and to bring one's whole self into harmony with that will. . . . Active contemplation is centered on the discovery of God's will, that is to say the identification of the real direction which events are taking, especially in our own life. . . .
The contemplative mind is, in fact, not normally ultra-conservative; but neither is it necessarily radical. It transcends both these extremes in order to remain in living contact with that which is genuinely true in any traditional movement. Hence I would say in parentheses that the contemplative mind today will not normally be associated too firmly or too definitively with any "movement" whether political, religious, liturgical, artistic, philosophical or what have you. The contemplative stays clear of movements, not because they confuse him, but simply because he does not need them and can go farther by himself than he can in their formalized and often fanatical ranks.
Nevertheless active contemplation should be to a great extent in contact with the logos of its age. Which means in simple fact that the contemplative today might be expected to have an intuitive grasp of, and even sympathy for, what is most genuine in the characteristic movements of our time -- Marxism, existentialism, psychoanalysis, eirenism [aimed at making peace; reconciling various denominational traditions (jw)]. They may even at times present a serious temptation for him. But if he is a genuine contemplative he will be able to resist temptation because his contemplation itself will instinctively avoid becoming enmeshed in conceptual systems. I say if he is a genuine contemplative, meaning, "if he is sufficiently initiated into the meaning and value of a spiritual life to prefer its simplicity to all the complexities and pretenses of these intellectual fads and campaigns".
In active contemplation, a man becomes able to live within himself. He learns to be at home with his own thoughts. He becomes to a greater and greater degree independent of exterior supports. His mind is pacified not by passive dependence on things outside himself -- diversions, entertainments, conversations, business -- but by its own constructive activity. That is to say that he derives inner satisfaction from spiritual creativeness: thinking his own thoughts, reaching his own conclusions, looking at his own life and directing it in accordance with his own inner truth, discovered in meditation and under the eyes of God. He derives strength not from what he gets out of things and people, but from giving himself to life and to others. He discovers the secret of life in the creative energy of love -- not love as a sentiment or sensual indulgence, but as a profound and self-oblative expression of freedom.
At one point, a friend shared with me some notes he had taken at a "School of Prayer" hosted by his congregation. The "School" was led by Bill Clemmons, a retired Southern Baptist seminary professor. I was drawn to the notes -- and eventually to the person -- first because he was a like-minded Baptist who dared to talk about and write about prayer, but then because within his notes were glimpses of what I had experienced in my own experimentation. I read and re-read those notes, gleaning from them all I could from lifting words off the page.
At some point, I decided I wanted more Bill Clemmons in my life. I got his contact information from my friend and called him in Memphis. One phone call led to another, and soon I found myself being guided by a wise Baptist saint, unlike any other Baptist I had known to that point. At some point, I casually asked if he would be interested in coming to my Baptist congregation on the east side of Houston to offer his School of Prayer. I didn't expect that he would actually do that, and I wasn't prepared for his "Yes!" I had not selected potential dates for the School, nor run the idea past the church leadership, which I would learn over time was not a wise practice. Nevertheless, his answer was "Yes!" and we set in motion plans for him to come to Houston for a Friday, Saturday, Sunday edition of his School of Prayer.
I don't remember a lot of details about that weekend. As with most relationships that turn out to be significant for any of us, my connection with Bill over a long stretch of years shaped me much more than this single encounter. However, the one detail I DO remember from the weekend took place Saturday in the early afternoon. Bill made it clear that whenever he traveled to Houston, he packed plenty of antacids, because he wanted to eat the best Mexican food possible. The antacids meant that he knew his stomach would pay a price, but still he wanted to eat good Mexican food. So after he led the Saturday morning session, I took Bill -- along with my children Sarah and Bradley -- to the Original Ninfa's on Navigation on the East Side of town. We ate outstanding Mexican food. Bill loved it. We talked about Mexican food. Bill engaged with my two children. He and I talked about our experiences of prayer.
And there, over Mama Ninfa's enchiladas, Bill asked me, "How long have you been a contemplative?"
I had never been asked that question before. And I don't think, up to that moment, I thought of myself as a "contemplative." I was exploring the landscape of prayer, and I had explored some contemplative forms of prayer. But never in my wildest imagination had I considered myself a contemplative.
I have no idea what prompted Bill to ask. I never asked him in all the subsequent years of our friendship. And I don't remember how I answered him.
I will say, though, that within 5 years of those Ninfa's enchiladas, the word "contemplative" was one of the key words I began using to describe my desired way of being in the world, the way I wanted to see the world, the way I wanted to relate to God, self, others, and the created world.
Bill Clemmons helped expose me to others who would help give expression to what it means to be contemplative in the world. Among those Bill commended to me was Thomas Merton. Merton articulated as well as anyone the meaning and importance of being contemplative. Merton was convinced that a contemplative stance toward life, centered in God and active in the world, could change the world in which we live.
I'll share some of Merton's ideas here [from The Inner Experience: Kinds of Contemplation (IV), selected and edited by Patrick Hart from articles reprinted in Cistercian Studies Quarterly Review 18 (1983), pp. 290ff], then in another post try to give some flesh to what it means to be contemplative in the contemporary milieu.
In active contemplation, there is a deliberate and sustained effort to detect the will of God in events and to bring one's whole self into harmony with that will. . . . Active contemplation is centered on the discovery of God's will, that is to say the identification of the real direction which events are taking, especially in our own life. . . .
The contemplative mind is, in fact, not normally ultra-conservative; but neither is it necessarily radical. It transcends both these extremes in order to remain in living contact with that which is genuinely true in any traditional movement. Hence I would say in parentheses that the contemplative mind today will not normally be associated too firmly or too definitively with any "movement" whether political, religious, liturgical, artistic, philosophical or what have you. The contemplative stays clear of movements, not because they confuse him, but simply because he does not need them and can go farther by himself than he can in their formalized and often fanatical ranks.
Nevertheless active contemplation should be to a great extent in contact with the logos of its age. Which means in simple fact that the contemplative today might be expected to have an intuitive grasp of, and even sympathy for, what is most genuine in the characteristic movements of our time -- Marxism, existentialism, psychoanalysis, eirenism [aimed at making peace; reconciling various denominational traditions (jw)]. They may even at times present a serious temptation for him. But if he is a genuine contemplative he will be able to resist temptation because his contemplation itself will instinctively avoid becoming enmeshed in conceptual systems. I say if he is a genuine contemplative, meaning, "if he is sufficiently initiated into the meaning and value of a spiritual life to prefer its simplicity to all the complexities and pretenses of these intellectual fads and campaigns".
In active contemplation, a man becomes able to live within himself. He learns to be at home with his own thoughts. He becomes to a greater and greater degree independent of exterior supports. His mind is pacified not by passive dependence on things outside himself -- diversions, entertainments, conversations, business -- but by its own constructive activity. That is to say that he derives inner satisfaction from spiritual creativeness: thinking his own thoughts, reaching his own conclusions, looking at his own life and directing it in accordance with his own inner truth, discovered in meditation and under the eyes of God. He derives strength not from what he gets out of things and people, but from giving himself to life and to others. He discovers the secret of life in the creative energy of love -- not love as a sentiment or sensual indulgence, but as a profound and self-oblative expression of freedom.
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Welcoming Whatever Comes
The postures of openness and receptivity cultivate within us a spirit of hospitality and generosity. I slowly learn not to judge what comes to my door as good or bad, as helpful or hurtful. I welcome whatever shows up, whatever life brings to my door. The human experience is vast and complex, and I can never fully know what some "guest" at my door may have to teach me. When I try to apply a filter at the door, though, I pretend to know what is best for me, what can lead me to growth, what experiences or life-situations can best shape me into the person God created me to be.
Perhaps the most basic truth about spirituality is simply that the journey is going to take me to a destination I cannot imagine. For whatever I think I know about myself or about life, I have not yet glimpsed what the end of the journey is like. It takes a profound humility to say, "I don't know". In truth, God directs the journey, and I am not in charge nearly as much as I like to think.
And then the corollary: The journey is going to take me to that destination by a road I would not have chosen. Again, I am invited to the kind of humility that recognizes my limitations, my humanness, my inability to know what is truly most helpful on the spiritual journey. I can create a chart that details actions and outcomes, I can create spreadsheets that say, "If you are HERE, then you need to do THIS", but those acts basically keep me in the driver's seat. They feed my ego, my sense of being in charge. In reality, you and I are not in charge nearly as much as we like to think -- and certainly not as much as we act like we are.
I recognize, for example, that the life-situations which have most shaped me and prompted my own becoming are betrayals in relationships, cancers hidden in my body, the liminal space of transitions, the emptiness of joblessness, and the pain of grieving many losses. I would not have chosen these roads for my own becoming . . . but I was not given a choice. These are a few things that have shown up at my door. Some I have resisted, until I could resist no longer. Some I have grudgingly received. All, though, once received, have become my teachers.
Essentially, then, if I am filtering the life-experiences which show up at my door, the whatever-is, I may be closing myself off from the very things that would make me "the kind of person God has been hoping I would become" (Fr Joseph Tetlow's paraphrase of Ignatius of Loyola).
What I'm describing is a kind of unconditional living, open and receiving what is without judgment or condemnation. Further, this stance of unconditional living opens one more deeply to unconditional loving, that is, love that does not measure merit or worthiness, goodness or badness. It simply loves.
Love loves what is, as it is.
Love doesn't judge what is. Love doesn't need to change what is in order to make it more lovable. Authentic love does not love because something or someone is lovable, nor does it love because something or someone is unlovable. Love loves. Period.
The spirit of openness and receptivity, of welcome and hospitality, of unconditional loving and mercy-ing is at the heart of "The Guest House", a poem by the Persian mystic Rumi, as translated by Coleman Barks.
The Guest House
Rumi
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture, still,
treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
~~ Rumi: The Book of Love, trans. by Coleman Barks, 179 – 180.
Perhaps the most basic truth about spirituality is simply that the journey is going to take me to a destination I cannot imagine. For whatever I think I know about myself or about life, I have not yet glimpsed what the end of the journey is like. It takes a profound humility to say, "I don't know". In truth, God directs the journey, and I am not in charge nearly as much as I like to think.
And then the corollary: The journey is going to take me to that destination by a road I would not have chosen. Again, I am invited to the kind of humility that recognizes my limitations, my humanness, my inability to know what is truly most helpful on the spiritual journey. I can create a chart that details actions and outcomes, I can create spreadsheets that say, "If you are HERE, then you need to do THIS", but those acts basically keep me in the driver's seat. They feed my ego, my sense of being in charge. In reality, you and I are not in charge nearly as much as we like to think -- and certainly not as much as we act like we are.
I recognize, for example, that the life-situations which have most shaped me and prompted my own becoming are betrayals in relationships, cancers hidden in my body, the liminal space of transitions, the emptiness of joblessness, and the pain of grieving many losses. I would not have chosen these roads for my own becoming . . . but I was not given a choice. These are a few things that have shown up at my door. Some I have resisted, until I could resist no longer. Some I have grudgingly received. All, though, once received, have become my teachers.
Essentially, then, if I am filtering the life-experiences which show up at my door, the whatever-is, I may be closing myself off from the very things that would make me "the kind of person God has been hoping I would become" (Fr Joseph Tetlow's paraphrase of Ignatius of Loyola).
What I'm describing is a kind of unconditional living, open and receiving what is without judgment or condemnation. Further, this stance of unconditional living opens one more deeply to unconditional loving, that is, love that does not measure merit or worthiness, goodness or badness. It simply loves.
Love loves what is, as it is.
Love doesn't judge what is. Love doesn't need to change what is in order to make it more lovable. Authentic love does not love because something or someone is lovable, nor does it love because something or someone is unlovable. Love loves. Period.
The spirit of openness and receptivity, of welcome and hospitality, of unconditional loving and mercy-ing is at the heart of "The Guest House", a poem by the Persian mystic Rumi, as translated by Coleman Barks.
The Guest House
Rumi
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture, still,
treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
~~ Rumi: The Book of Love, trans. by Coleman Barks, 179 – 180.
Friday, May 18, 2018
The Great Nevertheless
I posted some thoughts yesterday about the assumptions underlying our prayer. I chose a couple of stanzas from Psalm 43 as a reference point, representing some themes that run through the Hebrew Psalms with some consistency. The psalm implies that God has rejected the person praying -- or the larger tribe to which he is committed -- with the sign of that rejection being the pray-er's "mourning" and experience of "foes" around him/her.
In short, the person praying has taken an exterior situation of oppression or difficulty and made a leap of abstraction: This must mean God is absent, or God has rejected me.
This morning, my Benedictine prayerbook (A Shorter Morning and Evening Prayer: The Psalter of The Liturgy of the Hours, Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press) led me to Habakkuk 3. The external situation in the chapter again seems to be oppression, as the early verses of the chapter seek to remind God of times past when Divine intervention delivered God's people from trouble.
The chapter takes a surprising turn, though, in the final verses of chapter 3. It stands in such stark contrast to the conditional perspective of Psalm 43, it is worth giving equal time.
Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights.
(Hab. 3:17-19, NIV)
I wonder . . . is the prophet offering a hypothetical situation? Or is this the actual life-circumstance of this pray-er?
The situation is dire, with most all the externals of life pulled out from underneath him . . . a failure in many respects, or at least the prospects for prosperity have been pulled out from beneath him.
The person praying, though, does not assert that God has rejected or abandoned the people, nor does he follow the "normal" patterns of assigning blame, which believes that if _____ has happened, then surely _____ must have happened to cause it.
Further, contrary to so much ancient religion -- and a good bit of contemporary "faith" as well -- the prophet does not allow his life-situation to dictate his inner life, his connection to his God.
Everything in the outer world is coming up zeroes . . . loss, diminishment, failure, fruitlessness, and the shriveling of resources.
This pray-er, though, does not blame God or theologize in any way about why this lot has befallen him (which would not change his actual situation anyway), nor does he bemoan his state of life, nor does he wail for better days to come. Rather, this saint celebrates what is not broken and can NEVER be severed, which is his connection with God.
He is held by Love and Mercy . . . and whatever his situation in life, that is enough.
Nevertheless . . .
In short, the person praying has taken an exterior situation of oppression or difficulty and made a leap of abstraction: This must mean God is absent, or God has rejected me.
This morning, my Benedictine prayerbook (A Shorter Morning and Evening Prayer: The Psalter of The Liturgy of the Hours, Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press) led me to Habakkuk 3. The external situation in the chapter again seems to be oppression, as the early verses of the chapter seek to remind God of times past when Divine intervention delivered God's people from trouble.
The chapter takes a surprising turn, though, in the final verses of chapter 3. It stands in such stark contrast to the conditional perspective of Psalm 43, it is worth giving equal time.
Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights.
(Hab. 3:17-19, NIV)
I wonder . . . is the prophet offering a hypothetical situation? Or is this the actual life-circumstance of this pray-er?
The situation is dire, with most all the externals of life pulled out from underneath him . . . a failure in many respects, or at least the prospects for prosperity have been pulled out from beneath him.
The person praying, though, does not assert that God has rejected or abandoned the people, nor does he follow the "normal" patterns of assigning blame, which believes that if _____ has happened, then surely _____ must have happened to cause it.
Further, contrary to so much ancient religion -- and a good bit of contemporary "faith" as well -- the prophet does not allow his life-situation to dictate his inner life, his connection to his God.
Everything in the outer world is coming up zeroes . . . loss, diminishment, failure, fruitlessness, and the shriveling of resources.
This pray-er, though, does not blame God or theologize in any way about why this lot has befallen him (which would not change his actual situation anyway), nor does he bemoan his state of life, nor does he wail for better days to come. Rather, this saint celebrates what is not broken and can NEVER be severed, which is his connection with God.
He is held by Love and Mercy . . . and whatever his situation in life, that is enough.
Nevertheless . . .
Wednesday, May 9, 2018
Julian of Norwich for Today . . . uh, I mean, "for Yesterday"
The second most famous resident of Norwich (my friend Peter) reminded me that yesterday was the Feast Day of the most famous resident of Norwich, the 14th century saint known as Julian of Norwich. She continues to be an important voice in Christian spirituality and mysticism for many reasons. I'll mention only two of them here, then include an excerpt from the "revelations" or "showings" she received from God on May 8, 1373.
First, Julian was a woman -- in a world dominated by men -- who dared to claim that she had received a vision from God . . . and even more remarkably, dared to write about her vision in a time when women did not make such claims about God nor have the freedom to write about them. From a contemporary perspective, even as women continue to struggle for equality in the world and workplace, it is difficult to overstate how radical was Julian's courage in the 14th century.
Second, as Julian reported the revelation she received, she drew a picture of a God very different from the images of God that dominated her time. Rather than portraying God as a harsh ogre who was intent on punishing people for sin, a God who was angry with humans, full of vindictive spite, Julian reported her encounter with a God who was all love. God is "our clothing, who wraps and enfolds us for love, embraces us and shelters us, surrounds us" with a tender love that will never desert us. (Julian of Norwich: Showings, in the Classics of Western Spirituality, p. 183)
Julian's well-known vision of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of her hand, illustrated her sense of God's always-everywhere love: "What can this be? I was amazed that it could last, for I thought that because of its littleness it would suddenly have fallen into nothing. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and always will, because God loves it; and thus everything has being through the love of God." (Julian of Norwich: Showings, in the Classics of Western Spirituality, p. 183)
She also noted that God was as much "Mother" as "Father", and that all the attributes of a loving, nurturing mother are found in God . . . again, a brave and radical notion for her time (and still difficult for many modern persons to accept!).
Jesus Christ is our true Mother. We have our being from him, where the foundation of motherhood begins, with all the sweet protection of love which endlessly follows.
As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother, and he revealed that in everything, and especially in these sweet words where he says: I am he; that is to say: I am he, the power and goodness of fatherhood; I am he, the wisdom and the lovingness of motherhood; I am he, the light and the grace which is all blessed love; I am he, the Trinity; I am he, the unity; I am he, the great supreme goodness of every kind of thing; I am he who makes you to love; I am he who makes you to long; I am he, the endless fulfilling of all true desires. For where the soul is highest, noblest, most honourable, still it is lowest, meekest and mildest. . . .
And so Jesus is our true Mother in nature by our first creation, and he is our true Mother in grace by his taking our created nature. All the lovely works and all the sweet loving offices of beloved motherhood are appropriated to the second person, for in him we have this godly will, whole and safe forever, both in nature and in grace, from his own goodness proper to him.
I understand three ways of contemplating motherhood in God. The first is the foundation of our nature’s creation; the second is his taking of our nature, where the motherhood of grace begins; the third is the motherhood at work. And in that, by the same grace, everything is penetrated, in length and in breadth, in height and in depth without end; and it is all one love. . . .
The mother can give her child to suck of her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus can feed us with himself, and does, most courteously and most tenderly, with the blessed sacrament, which is the precious food of true life; and with all the sweet sacraments he sustains us most mercifully and graciously . . . .
(Julian of Norwich: Showings, in Classics of Western Spirituality, pp. 295 – 298)
Finally, Thomas Merton shared his sense of the importance of Julian leaning into her own experience of God, rather than leaning into someone else's God-experience:
Julian of Norwich is without doubt one of the most wonderful of all Christian voices. She gets greater and greater in my eyes as I grow older and whereas in the old days I used to be crazy about St. John of the Cross, I would not exchange him now for Julian if you gave me the world and the Indies and all the Spanish mystics rolled up in one bundle. I think that Julian of Norwich is with Newman the greatest English theologian. She is really that. For she reasons from her experience of the substantial center of the great Christian mystery of Redemption. She gives her experience and her deductions, clearly, separating the two. And the experience is of course nothing merely subjective. It is the objective mystery of Christ as apprehended by her, with the mind and formation of a fourteenth century English woman.
(Thomas Merton, Seeds of Destruction, pp. 274 – 275)
First, Julian was a woman -- in a world dominated by men -- who dared to claim that she had received a vision from God . . . and even more remarkably, dared to write about her vision in a time when women did not make such claims about God nor have the freedom to write about them. From a contemporary perspective, even as women continue to struggle for equality in the world and workplace, it is difficult to overstate how radical was Julian's courage in the 14th century.
Second, as Julian reported the revelation she received, she drew a picture of a God very different from the images of God that dominated her time. Rather than portraying God as a harsh ogre who was intent on punishing people for sin, a God who was angry with humans, full of vindictive spite, Julian reported her encounter with a God who was all love. God is "our clothing, who wraps and enfolds us for love, embraces us and shelters us, surrounds us" with a tender love that will never desert us. (Julian of Norwich: Showings, in the Classics of Western Spirituality, p. 183)
Julian's well-known vision of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of her hand, illustrated her sense of God's always-everywhere love: "What can this be? I was amazed that it could last, for I thought that because of its littleness it would suddenly have fallen into nothing. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and always will, because God loves it; and thus everything has being through the love of God." (Julian of Norwich: Showings, in the Classics of Western Spirituality, p. 183)
She also noted that God was as much "Mother" as "Father", and that all the attributes of a loving, nurturing mother are found in God . . . again, a brave and radical notion for her time (and still difficult for many modern persons to accept!).
Jesus Christ is our true Mother. We have our being from him, where the foundation of motherhood begins, with all the sweet protection of love which endlessly follows.
As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother, and he revealed that in everything, and especially in these sweet words where he says: I am he; that is to say: I am he, the power and goodness of fatherhood; I am he, the wisdom and the lovingness of motherhood; I am he, the light and the grace which is all blessed love; I am he, the Trinity; I am he, the unity; I am he, the great supreme goodness of every kind of thing; I am he who makes you to love; I am he who makes you to long; I am he, the endless fulfilling of all true desires. For where the soul is highest, noblest, most honourable, still it is lowest, meekest and mildest. . . .
And so Jesus is our true Mother in nature by our first creation, and he is our true Mother in grace by his taking our created nature. All the lovely works and all the sweet loving offices of beloved motherhood are appropriated to the second person, for in him we have this godly will, whole and safe forever, both in nature and in grace, from his own goodness proper to him.
I understand three ways of contemplating motherhood in God. The first is the foundation of our nature’s creation; the second is his taking of our nature, where the motherhood of grace begins; the third is the motherhood at work. And in that, by the same grace, everything is penetrated, in length and in breadth, in height and in depth without end; and it is all one love. . . .
The mother can give her child to suck of her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus can feed us with himself, and does, most courteously and most tenderly, with the blessed sacrament, which is the precious food of true life; and with all the sweet sacraments he sustains us most mercifully and graciously . . . .
(Julian of Norwich: Showings, in Classics of Western Spirituality, pp. 295 – 298)
Finally, Thomas Merton shared his sense of the importance of Julian leaning into her own experience of God, rather than leaning into someone else's God-experience:
Julian of Norwich is without doubt one of the most wonderful of all Christian voices. She gets greater and greater in my eyes as I grow older and whereas in the old days I used to be crazy about St. John of the Cross, I would not exchange him now for Julian if you gave me the world and the Indies and all the Spanish mystics rolled up in one bundle. I think that Julian of Norwich is with Newman the greatest English theologian. She is really that. For she reasons from her experience of the substantial center of the great Christian mystery of Redemption. She gives her experience and her deductions, clearly, separating the two. And the experience is of course nothing merely subjective. It is the objective mystery of Christ as apprehended by her, with the mind and formation of a fourteenth century English woman.
(Thomas Merton, Seeds of Destruction, pp. 274 – 275)
Friday, November 18, 2016
The Soul's Sadness and Love-Dogs
Within my soul I've felt a deep sadness in recent days. Something tender and unhealed within me has been touched by the world around me. My sadness has mingled with anger, and I've swung between the two in regular rhythms.
I'm also feeling desperate on behalf of others who are hurting in ways that are much more tangible (and real) than my own superficial difficulty, by those who regularly find themselves marginalized because of skin color, national origin, orientation, gender. A few of these persons I know by name, and vast millions have names and identities I do not know . . . but with them I nonetheless share a common life in this world. We are more the same than different, and of that I am confident.
This poem goads me on, presses me on down the path, pushes me to not give up or give in, says to me that even the sadness and anger of loss are full of union. Rumi's wisdom tills the field for connection.
Love Dogs
by Rumi
One night a man was crying,
Allah! Allah!
His lips grew sweet with the praising,
until a cynic said,
“So! I have heard you
calling out, but have you ever
gotten any response?”
The man had no answer to that.
He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.
He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
in a thick, green foliage.
“Why did you stop praising?”
“Because I’ve never heard anything back.”
“This longing
you express is the return message.”
The grief you cry out from
draws you toward union.
Your pure sadness
that wants help
is the secret cup.
Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
That whining is the connection.
There are love-dogs
no one knows the names of.
Give your life
to be one of them.
[trans. by Coleman Barks, in Robert Bly, The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy: Sacred Poems from Many Cultures, p. 155 – 156.]
I'm also feeling desperate on behalf of others who are hurting in ways that are much more tangible (and real) than my own superficial difficulty, by those who regularly find themselves marginalized because of skin color, national origin, orientation, gender. A few of these persons I know by name, and vast millions have names and identities I do not know . . . but with them I nonetheless share a common life in this world. We are more the same than different, and of that I am confident.
This poem goads me on, presses me on down the path, pushes me to not give up or give in, says to me that even the sadness and anger of loss are full of union. Rumi's wisdom tills the field for connection.
Love Dogs
by Rumi
One night a man was crying,
Allah! Allah!
His lips grew sweet with the praising,
until a cynic said,
“So! I have heard you
calling out, but have you ever
gotten any response?”
The man had no answer to that.
He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.
He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
in a thick, green foliage.
“Why did you stop praising?”
“Because I’ve never heard anything back.”
“This longing
you express is the return message.”
The grief you cry out from
draws you toward union.
Your pure sadness
that wants help
is the secret cup.
Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
That whining is the connection.
There are love-dogs
no one knows the names of.
Give your life
to be one of them.
[trans. by Coleman Barks, in Robert Bly, The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy: Sacred Poems from Many Cultures, p. 155 – 156.]
Monday, February 16, 2015
Monday, February 16, 2015 – A Pre-Lenten Reading
Introduction to “The Wisdom of the Wilderness”
by Jerry Webber
During Lent, I’ll provide daily meditations based on the stories and sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers (3rd – 5th centuries) on my Lenten blog (www.dailylent.blogspot.com). I've posted this introductory material on that site . . . it is intended to give some basic background and context to the Desert Christians: Who were these men and women? How did they get to the desert? What did they do there?
In the years after Christ, followers of Jesus faced a number of challenges. For many decades, Christians were persecuted by a hostile Roman Empire, which viewed Christian faith as atheistic (Christians did not worship the gods of the Roman Empire, nor the Emperor as deity). Christians were imprisoned, tortured, or put to death, often for sport in the Roman Empire.
Another challenge arose about three centuries after Christ, when Constantine became Emperor of the once-hostile Roman Empire. The new Emperor declared that Christianity would be the official religion of the Empire. Suddenly, the hostile Romans became the Christian Romans. Everyone in the Empire was called a Christian.
From these two very diverse scenarios, a movement within Christianity arose in the wilderness areas of Egypt and the Middle East. Christians who were serious about deepening their life in God fled from the cities into the desert in order to seek a life of spiritual discipline, hoping to grow in their love for God (heart, mind, soul, strength) and others. These Christians, living mostly in wilderness communities, were the first monks (from, “monos”, meaning “one”).
The movement into the wilderness actually began around A.D. 269, when an eighteen-year-old Egyptian named Antony heard scripture read in the church. He listened to the Gospel story of the rich, young ruler with his heart, and when he heard Jesus tell the rich ruler, “Go, sell your possessions, give the money to the poor, then come and follow me” (Mt. 19:21), Antony felt those words were spoken directly to him. He sold his property and gave away the proceeds, holding back only enough to care for his sister (the parents of Antony and his sister had died in an accident previously). He moved outside the city gates, befriending the religious men who sought lives of holiness by living outside the city walls. As he listened still more in the coming days, he was led further into the wilderness to take up the life of a Christian hermit.
Antony intended that he would live alone, allowing a life prayer, fasting, silence, and solitude in the wilderness to be the setting for his own purification. Over many years, he lived in complete solitude and endured terrible trials. When Antony emerged from his solitude, people recognized him as an authentically “healthy” person who had dealt with his own inner darkness in a whole and life-giving way.
Others began coming to him, urging him to help them come to a deeper sense of their own most authentic self. They sought healing from him, and wise counsel. Groups of disciples gathered around him, for whom Antony was a spiritual guide. Antony also made frequent forays back into the cities of Egypt, into the churches of the area, and before the bishops in Alexandria.
After Antony, a slow trickle of men and women entered the Egyptian desert in order to follow Christ more closely. These desert Christians found freedom to express their love for God through spiritual practice, both in solitude and in communities of seekers that sprung up in the wilderness. The first rule for these Desert Fathers and Mothers was charity toward all. Love and charity, for these Christians, seasoned every ascetic practice of the desert.
The wisdom of the wilderness actually grew up around these men and women who were seeking God and who, through their own spiritual practice, were attentive to their own interior shadows. They literally lived in the Egyptian desert. But metaphorically, they also lived in a spiritual desert, sensing that within their cultural milieu, they existed in an arid wilderness in which they needed to be spiritually lean and fit in order to survive. The desert was their place of their fitness, learning, and becoming . . . learning about God, self, others, and the created world (the four contexts of any wholistic spirituality) as they became the persons God created them to be.
It is important to know that the Desert Abbas and Ammas (Fathers and Mothers) were not ascetics for the sake of being ascetics. They did not strictly adhere to a code of spiritual discipline simply for the sake of being disciplined. They sought to be aware of their own internal darkness, to bring that darkness under the love of God, and then share their wisdom with others who would endeavor a similar spiritual journey.
For some today, their harsh asceticism seems outdated and irrelevant. They engaged in practices that seem extreme. Whether fasting food, sleep, sexual gratification, conversation, or the company of others, they could go to extremes. But always, asceticism was the means, not the goal. Their spiritual disciplines always pointed to a purpose beyond the practice. The spiritual practices were shaping them to be the kind of person who knew their own self and who knew what tripped up the self, in order that such a person could love God, self, and others more completely.
These Desert Fathers and Mothers – as they have come to be known – were shaped by love, but also by a desire for purity of heart, the purification of actions and motivations, in order not to drown in the world’s excesses. They chose to do this as best they could by living apart from the constant tugs and pulls of society. And paradoxically, by withdrawing from society, they were able to engage society and culture in an entirely different way, both through their prayer and with their wisdom.
Finally, a short word about how this wisdom was generally passed on. Usually, groups of disciples would gather around a certain Abba or Amma, living in close community with him or her in the Egyptian desert (generally in huts or caves, called “cells”). The mentoring would take the form of apprenticeship, in which the novice disciple would learn from the life, words, and actions of the Abba or Amma. Thus, there are a number of stories told about things the spiritual Fathers and Mothers did in interacting with others.
There are stories, too, that simply communicate the pithy sayings of these wisdom figures, told often as koans or paradoxical word riddles. Usually these wisdom sayings would be initiated by the disciple, who would approach the spiritual Father for instance, and say, “Father, give me a word.” The Father would offer a sentence that, then, the apprentice was invited to chew on for its meaning in his/her life.
The wisdom of the wilderness, then, is contained both in stories from the lives of these Desert Christians and in their sayings. We’ll explore their wisdom through the coming days of Lent. The daily posts will be available at www.dailylent.blogspot.com.
– Jerry Webber
Introduction to “The Wisdom of the Wilderness”
by Jerry Webber
During Lent, I’ll provide daily meditations based on the stories and sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers (3rd – 5th centuries) on my Lenten blog (www.dailylent.blogspot.com). I've posted this introductory material on that site . . . it is intended to give some basic background and context to the Desert Christians: Who were these men and women? How did they get to the desert? What did they do there?
In the years after Christ, followers of Jesus faced a number of challenges. For many decades, Christians were persecuted by a hostile Roman Empire, which viewed Christian faith as atheistic (Christians did not worship the gods of the Roman Empire, nor the Emperor as deity). Christians were imprisoned, tortured, or put to death, often for sport in the Roman Empire.
Another challenge arose about three centuries after Christ, when Constantine became Emperor of the once-hostile Roman Empire. The new Emperor declared that Christianity would be the official religion of the Empire. Suddenly, the hostile Romans became the Christian Romans. Everyone in the Empire was called a Christian.
From these two very diverse scenarios, a movement within Christianity arose in the wilderness areas of Egypt and the Middle East. Christians who were serious about deepening their life in God fled from the cities into the desert in order to seek a life of spiritual discipline, hoping to grow in their love for God (heart, mind, soul, strength) and others. These Christians, living mostly in wilderness communities, were the first monks (from, “monos”, meaning “one”).
The movement into the wilderness actually began around A.D. 269, when an eighteen-year-old Egyptian named Antony heard scripture read in the church. He listened to the Gospel story of the rich, young ruler with his heart, and when he heard Jesus tell the rich ruler, “Go, sell your possessions, give the money to the poor, then come and follow me” (Mt. 19:21), Antony felt those words were spoken directly to him. He sold his property and gave away the proceeds, holding back only enough to care for his sister (the parents of Antony and his sister had died in an accident previously). He moved outside the city gates, befriending the religious men who sought lives of holiness by living outside the city walls. As he listened still more in the coming days, he was led further into the wilderness to take up the life of a Christian hermit.
Antony intended that he would live alone, allowing a life prayer, fasting, silence, and solitude in the wilderness to be the setting for his own purification. Over many years, he lived in complete solitude and endured terrible trials. When Antony emerged from his solitude, people recognized him as an authentically “healthy” person who had dealt with his own inner darkness in a whole and life-giving way.
Others began coming to him, urging him to help them come to a deeper sense of their own most authentic self. They sought healing from him, and wise counsel. Groups of disciples gathered around him, for whom Antony was a spiritual guide. Antony also made frequent forays back into the cities of Egypt, into the churches of the area, and before the bishops in Alexandria.
After Antony, a slow trickle of men and women entered the Egyptian desert in order to follow Christ more closely. These desert Christians found freedom to express their love for God through spiritual practice, both in solitude and in communities of seekers that sprung up in the wilderness. The first rule for these Desert Fathers and Mothers was charity toward all. Love and charity, for these Christians, seasoned every ascetic practice of the desert.
The wisdom of the wilderness actually grew up around these men and women who were seeking God and who, through their own spiritual practice, were attentive to their own interior shadows. They literally lived in the Egyptian desert. But metaphorically, they also lived in a spiritual desert, sensing that within their cultural milieu, they existed in an arid wilderness in which they needed to be spiritually lean and fit in order to survive. The desert was their place of their fitness, learning, and becoming . . . learning about God, self, others, and the created world (the four contexts of any wholistic spirituality) as they became the persons God created them to be.
It is important to know that the Desert Abbas and Ammas (Fathers and Mothers) were not ascetics for the sake of being ascetics. They did not strictly adhere to a code of spiritual discipline simply for the sake of being disciplined. They sought to be aware of their own internal darkness, to bring that darkness under the love of God, and then share their wisdom with others who would endeavor a similar spiritual journey.
For some today, their harsh asceticism seems outdated and irrelevant. They engaged in practices that seem extreme. Whether fasting food, sleep, sexual gratification, conversation, or the company of others, they could go to extremes. But always, asceticism was the means, not the goal. Their spiritual disciplines always pointed to a purpose beyond the practice. The spiritual practices were shaping them to be the kind of person who knew their own self and who knew what tripped up the self, in order that such a person could love God, self, and others more completely.
These Desert Fathers and Mothers – as they have come to be known – were shaped by love, but also by a desire for purity of heart, the purification of actions and motivations, in order not to drown in the world’s excesses. They chose to do this as best they could by living apart from the constant tugs and pulls of society. And paradoxically, by withdrawing from society, they were able to engage society and culture in an entirely different way, both through their prayer and with their wisdom.
Finally, a short word about how this wisdom was generally passed on. Usually, groups of disciples would gather around a certain Abba or Amma, living in close community with him or her in the Egyptian desert (generally in huts or caves, called “cells”). The mentoring would take the form of apprenticeship, in which the novice disciple would learn from the life, words, and actions of the Abba or Amma. Thus, there are a number of stories told about things the spiritual Fathers and Mothers did in interacting with others.
There are stories, too, that simply communicate the pithy sayings of these wisdom figures, told often as koans or paradoxical word riddles. Usually these wisdom sayings would be initiated by the disciple, who would approach the spiritual Father for instance, and say, “Father, give me a word.” The Father would offer a sentence that, then, the apprentice was invited to chew on for its meaning in his/her life.
The wisdom of the wilderness, then, is contained both in stories from the lives of these Desert Christians and in their sayings. We’ll explore their wisdom through the coming days of Lent. The daily posts will be available at www.dailylent.blogspot.com.
– Jerry Webber
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Holding On and Letting Go
John 12:24 - 26
"Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life."
I'm not often certain about how some words are translated from one language to another. For example, I only know enough Greek to be dangerous, so I can't vouch for the Greek word translated "hate" in this passage. I've heard all sorts of things about it from those who are determined to make good, common sense out of its difficulty -- and of course, doing so in a thoroughly American way.
So I don't know that where I went this morning is kosher or viable by academic standards. But for me, to "love my life" may mean to love the life I have so much that I hold onto it. I clutch it, grasp it, so "in love" with my life I am. And when that is my stance, I lose life. It means that I cannot step into another life, because I cannot let go of the one I have, the one I am in love with. To hold onto the life I have closes me down to any other possibility. It closes me down to anything else that may come at me. I have so set, so fixed my way on one thing in particular that I cannot respond to anything else that comes toward me or invites me. I cannot allow any other life into my imagination.
The mystics through the centuries have said to us that God is always waiting to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them. When I "love" my life as it is, I may actually lose the life God has dreamed for me.
To "love life" is to hold on and close down.
On the other hand, to "hate life" may imply the act of letting go and opening up. It is possible that I could be so enamored with the life I have so as to miss the life that is awaiting me. In that sense, I "hate" this life, preferring the life that is still unfolding in me. The life I now have does not satisfy me, so I stay open to what is yet to come. I am willing to step beyond where I have been.
Authentic growth and becoming implies that I have to stay open, that I have to be able to step onto paths I have not foreseen, that I have to recognize possibilities where I have seen none. When I hold onto life as it is, I short-circuit my own becoming. The tight clutching hides my becoming behind my current state. It deflects those things that would bring me to my truest self, the person God created me to be.
I wonder if this is the same "love/hate" language Jesus uses in Luke 14:26:
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple."
Is Jesus saying that "loving" family (and even your own life) is holding on to them in an attached way that gives you no identity apart from them? . . . and that "hating" them means letter go or detaching from them, so that you come to some sense of who you are apart from them? Doesn't Jess recognize that we come to our most basic, core identity apart from what others say and think about us, even those closest to us? We live into our true self not because of the identity others give us, but out of our own lived-experience of who we are in God.
Relationships are important, and others can help us hear the notes of our particular song; however, no other person, no matter how close they are, can impart to us our most authentic self. In an ultimate sense, no one else can name you and validate you.
But this is the difficult work of letting go, the work of releasing the life to which we cling in order to receive the life of God. It entails the difficulty of trusting that the life for which I was created is still becoming within me. None of us are good at this, and we don't enjoy it.
This is our spiritual challenge that takes a lifetime . . . it is the challenge of "loving" and "hating," of holding on and letting go.
"Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life."
I'm not often certain about how some words are translated from one language to another. For example, I only know enough Greek to be dangerous, so I can't vouch for the Greek word translated "hate" in this passage. I've heard all sorts of things about it from those who are determined to make good, common sense out of its difficulty -- and of course, doing so in a thoroughly American way.
So I don't know that where I went this morning is kosher or viable by academic standards. But for me, to "love my life" may mean to love the life I have so much that I hold onto it. I clutch it, grasp it, so "in love" with my life I am. And when that is my stance, I lose life. It means that I cannot step into another life, because I cannot let go of the one I have, the one I am in love with. To hold onto the life I have closes me down to any other possibility. It closes me down to anything else that may come at me. I have so set, so fixed my way on one thing in particular that I cannot respond to anything else that comes toward me or invites me. I cannot allow any other life into my imagination.
The mystics through the centuries have said to us that God is always waiting to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them. When I "love" my life as it is, I may actually lose the life God has dreamed for me.
To "love life" is to hold on and close down.
On the other hand, to "hate life" may imply the act of letting go and opening up. It is possible that I could be so enamored with the life I have so as to miss the life that is awaiting me. In that sense, I "hate" this life, preferring the life that is still unfolding in me. The life I now have does not satisfy me, so I stay open to what is yet to come. I am willing to step beyond where I have been.
Authentic growth and becoming implies that I have to stay open, that I have to be able to step onto paths I have not foreseen, that I have to recognize possibilities where I have seen none. When I hold onto life as it is, I short-circuit my own becoming. The tight clutching hides my becoming behind my current state. It deflects those things that would bring me to my truest self, the person God created me to be.
I wonder if this is the same "love/hate" language Jesus uses in Luke 14:26:
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple."
Is Jesus saying that "loving" family (and even your own life) is holding on to them in an attached way that gives you no identity apart from them? . . . and that "hating" them means letter go or detaching from them, so that you come to some sense of who you are apart from them? Doesn't Jess recognize that we come to our most basic, core identity apart from what others say and think about us, even those closest to us? We live into our true self not because of the identity others give us, but out of our own lived-experience of who we are in God.
Relationships are important, and others can help us hear the notes of our particular song; however, no other person, no matter how close they are, can impart to us our most authentic self. In an ultimate sense, no one else can name you and validate you.
But this is the difficult work of letting go, the work of releasing the life to which we cling in order to receive the life of God. It entails the difficulty of trusting that the life for which I was created is still becoming within me. None of us are good at this, and we don't enjoy it.
This is our spiritual challenge that takes a lifetime . . . it is the challenge of "loving" and "hating," of holding on and letting go.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
When Is "Love" Love?
The daily reading for today is from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. The passage, Matthew 5:43 – 48, says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
It may be the most challenging passage in the Christian Scriptures. Those outside a Christian framework notice when professed Christians act in ways that are hateful or resentful or counter to the words of Jesus.
I lived many years in a religious climate that often said things like, “I love you, but I do not like you” . . . or said, “I love you,” but quietly implied, “I’d love you more if you’d change your behavior” . . . or that communicated, “I know I’m supposed to love people – even enemies and rivals and those who threaten me – but I’m human and I cannot do that, so I won’t even try.”
So basically I learned lip-service to love, while resigning myself to live far beneath the invitation to live a loving life.
Love loves what is without trying to change it or manipulate it. Love is not invested in making the object “love-able” (as if that could happen anyway!). Love is not dependent on a love-able object or person. Rather, love arises from the inner core, from the depths of the lover.
To paraphrase the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, love trusts what is . . . love stays with what is . . . love is not continually manipulating and controlling, trying to get someone else to conform to who I am or to what I think should be the shape of reality . . . love bears with what is . . . love does not try to align everything “right” in the outside world, thinking that will put things right in the inner world.
Love bears long with what is . . . love believes long with what is . . . love hopes long with what is . . . love endures long with what is.
I notice today that love leaves for no exceptions and no escape-clauses. Thus, love leaves no room to say, “I will love if” or “I will love when.” Love loves what is.
This kind of love is not based on contingency or what changes in the outer world, but on an inner state.
And for the people or groups that I don’t want to love, the ones I want to change before I give myself to them in love, there is no escape-clause, no exception, no path out of love. Even for enemies, rivals, those with whom I disagree, and those who threaten my security, Jesus says, “Love your enemies, and pray for those who do harm to you.”
If I excuse myself from loving others because I am a weak human being – and it is the human condition to be self-serving and self-protecting – and if because of my human condition I want to hang onto my resentments and want to go on hating enemies and wishing harm on those who are different than I am, then at least let me make that statement of my human weakness as a confession of my sinfulness and my waywardness. Let me say that I am a weak human being in all humility . . . and not as a statement of pride, not as a prelude to enjoin war and hatred and venom on my enemies.
In other words, if I fall back on my fallen human condition, then I had best do so in humility and repentance, not in pride, anger, and venom toward those who are different from me. My inability to love should be a confession of my sinfulness, not an excuse to perpetuate hatred.
“Loving enemies . . . praying for those who persecute you” . . . this is a way counter to basic human learning, but this is the radical way of love, the radical way walked by Jesus, the Trailblazer. This is the new framework, the new construct – called the Kingdom of God – to which I (and you) am invited, in Jesus’ name.
Monday, June 10, 2013
The Way to Serve . . . and to Love
Among some Christian mission organizations, I’m noticing a shift in strategy. Whereas at one time these groups would have been in-your-face aggressive, zealous, and very overt in their evangelism, many are shifting their ways.
I know of mission agencies that are now talking about doing concrete acts of service for those who are the focus of their evangelistic endeavors. Their statements use the language of “love,” and suggest that these acts of service are done in love for the cause of Christ.
Some of these deeds involve offering medical, educational, agricultural, or economic services in foreign countries. Some involve more tangible, hands-on efforts closer to home . . . sitting with a homebound person, doing house repairs and painting, providing child-care, or offering attentiveness to young people in an after-school program.
Each of these expressions, and more, are tangible ways to offer oneself to Christ for the sake of others. Those who give their time in these ways offer a concrete ministry to persons who have specific needs. They generously offer their time and energy.
There is, however, an undercurrent I have seen and heard in this emerging strategy. It arises from the motivation for these “deeds of love.” Sometimes the motivation is spoken plainly, and other times whispered secretly. I have literally heard it spoken and read it written, stated something like this: “We are going to love people by serving them, in order to gain their trust so we can preach the Gospel to them.”
In other words, love people and build trust by doing deeds of service, then preach the Gospel. Use love and service to get in the front door, then tell them the really important stuff.
Perhaps this is an improvement on the old mission policy which was forceful and heavy-handed. It didn’t honor the “other,” but put the one sharing the Christian message in a position of power. There was also the not-so-subtle understanding . . . “I believe that I have the truth in my pocket and that my responsibility as a Christian is to share the truth I have with those who don’t have it. I’m right . . . you’re wrong . . . but let me tell you how you can be right like me.”
The older model of evangelism only asked that you be a salesperson, able to close the deal. Believe me, in my former life, I taught many of those workshops on how to “close the faith-deal”.
At least the new wave evangelism includes some service, some action on behalf of those in need. Yet, here is my issue: This action is done under the guise of “love.” This service is misnamed “love,” when it is actually a tool, an instrument for getting in the front door, for building trust, for gaining access. Service pretends to be love, but in truth is a tool for some other motivation.
Love will have none of that. Love seeks no reward. Love does not manipulate. Love does not act one way in hopes of gaining access for another purpose. To serve someone in order to gain trust and access may be something (like manipulation or control), but it is not love.
There are no conditions to love. Love does not say, “I will do this for you, but you, then, must let me have some time to tell you about Christ.”
Love does not use one pretense to attain some other advantage for itself. “I will love you if it helps me gain access, if it wins me the right to share something with you later.”
Love simply gives itself, regardless of the other, whether the other person receives the love or not . . . whether the other person opens his/her door or not . . . whether the other welcomes it or not.
Love gives itself without condition. It is generated not by outer circumstances, not by what it will gain me, not by what it will do for me or even for God. Love is generated from within. It is the nature of love to love, whether there is a return on that love or not. In fact, I would say that when “love” expects a return, it is not love at all . . . but only a cleverly disguised form of control or manipulation.
I have a litmus test I use with myself. “Can I love this person or thing or situation without needing to change it?” Or to put it another way, “If this person/thing/situation never changes, can I still embody Love in it?”
You see, love is not dependent on the change that may (or may not) take place in the other person, or situation, or thing.
In a committed relationship, can I love this other person, even if he/she never changes?
In my work, can I still embody love, even if the work environment never gets better?
Can my life be fulfilled and happy, even if I never move to that town where there are no problems and the weather is always pleasant?
In other words, can I love what is, without needing to change it?
Of course, you will find that when you love what is, without needing to change it, the other person or thing very often does change when faced with the generosity of a love that does not need to control or manipulate it.
Many of us at The Center for Christian Spirituality in Houston are reading through Anthony De Mello’s The Way to Love this summer. De Mello has a way of cutting through illusions (and delusions) about our capacity to love, about what love truly is. What we call love is most often not love at all, and De Mello has a straightforward way of calling us out on that.
Here are just a few of his statements, from different parts of the book:
• Love can only exist in freedom. The true lover seeks the good of his beloved which requires especially the liberation of the beloved from the lover. (p. 27)
• No thing or person outside of you has the power to make you happy or unhappy. (p. 40)
• The royal road to mysticism and to Reality does not pass through the world of people. It passes through the world of actions that are engaged in for themselves without an eye to success or to gain – or profit actions. (p. 66)
• Here is a second quality of love – its gratuitousness. Like the tree, the rose, the lamp, it gives and asks for nothing in return. (p. 78)
• Love so enjoys the loving that it is blissfully unaware of itself. (p. 79)
• The light, the fragrance and the shade are not produced at the approach of persons and turned off when there is no one there. These things, like love, exist independently of persons. Love simply is, it has no object. They simply are, regardless of whether someone will benefit from them or not. . . . Their left hand has no consciousness of what their right hand does. (p. 79 – 80)
• The moment coercion or control or conflict enters, love dies. (p. 80)
[Anthony De Mello, The Way to Love (New York: Doubleday, 1991).]
Friday, March 2, 2012
I, the Pursued: From Psalm 7
Psalm 7:1 - 10
LORD my God, I take refuge in you;
save and deliver me from all who pursue me,
or they will tear me apart like a lion
and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me.
LORD my God, if I have done this
and there is guilt on my hands—
if I have repaid my ally with evil
or without cause have robbed my foe—
then let my enemy pursue and overtake me;
let him trample my life to the ground
and make me sleep in the dust.
Arise, LORD, in your anger;
rise up against the rage of my enemies.
Awake, my God; decree justice.
Let the assembled peoples gather around you,
while you sit enthroned over them on high.
Let the LORD judge the peoples.
Vindicate me, LORD, according to my righteousness,
according to my integrity, O Most High.
Bring to an end the violence of the wicked
and make the righteous secure—
you, the righteous God
who probes minds and hearts.
My shield is God Most High,
who saves the upright in heart.
As in many of the Hebrew Psalms, Psalm 7 has a clear-cut idea about good and bad, about who is righteous and who is evil. It is attributed to David, who apparently is praying about one of his adversaries. As such, it is what I would call a "warrior prayer," that is, a prayer that God would "take up the cause of right" and "slay those who are enemies."
I wonder if Cush, the Benjamite who apparently was the object of David's prayer here, was praying this same kind of prayer about David? You see, don't you, how round and round it can go.
When I prayed through the psalm today, my first questions were, "And what battles am I engaged in? What pursues me, threatening to overtake me? What waits to tear me into pieces, to dismember my soul and separate me from my self?"
My prayer was aimed a little differently than David's. I'm not in the kind of physical battle that seeks to "slay the wicked" -- or whoever opposes me. The battle that I wage is spiritual, much more interior.
So I began to pray about those things within me that "pursue" me, the interior "enemies" that chase me and want to have all of me. As I prayed, I wrote in my journal about them . . .
**the starving ego that manifests as an inner voice that will not stand being deprived of attention;
**a relentless perfectionism that makes even small projects and tasks massive undertakings;
**the ongoing guilt of having others give good gifts to me, and then the compulsion to try to "repay" in some form -- usually by over-extending myself;
**flimsy boundaries and an unrealistic appraisal of my own limitations;
**the false names and deceiving images that I live into without question; the many roles and identities that I take to be my life apart from the real essence that lives at my core.
Later in the psalm, David asks God to slay his enemies, to take a whet sword to them, to bend a bow toward them, to shoot flaming arrows at them.
I wondered if that is really what I want . . . for God to obliterate them, to wipe them out from within me.
I decided that complete annihilation is not what I want. Certainly, I don't want these pursuing enemies to have free reign over me, but I also acknowledge that they are a part of my humanity, a part of my "dust pocket," a part of what it means for me to be "not-God". I didn't ask God to judge them or kill them or do any of the things David wanted done to Cush.
I did ask God to love them, and to love me in them. I asked God to love my starving ego and my relentless perfectionism and my ongoing guilt and my limitations and my false names. I want God to love them into wholeness. I don't need violence done to these parts of me. These parts of Jerry need to be saturated in God's love. They need to experience the intimacy of mercy. They need to know the self-giving of generosity.
And further, I need to be able to stand on the dust, with all these flaws and enemies pursuing me, and know that even as they live within me, I'm still loved through and through by a Source and a Generosity and a Mercy more expansive than I can possibly comprehend.
The psalm was a good one today. I'm glad to have found myself in it.
LORD my God, I take refuge in you;
save and deliver me from all who pursue me,
or they will tear me apart like a lion
and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me.
LORD my God, if I have done this
and there is guilt on my hands—
if I have repaid my ally with evil
or without cause have robbed my foe—
then let my enemy pursue and overtake me;
let him trample my life to the ground
and make me sleep in the dust.
Arise, LORD, in your anger;
rise up against the rage of my enemies.
Awake, my God; decree justice.
Let the assembled peoples gather around you,
while you sit enthroned over them on high.
Let the LORD judge the peoples.
Vindicate me, LORD, according to my righteousness,
according to my integrity, O Most High.
Bring to an end the violence of the wicked
and make the righteous secure—
you, the righteous God
who probes minds and hearts.
My shield is God Most High,
who saves the upright in heart.
As in many of the Hebrew Psalms, Psalm 7 has a clear-cut idea about good and bad, about who is righteous and who is evil. It is attributed to David, who apparently is praying about one of his adversaries. As such, it is what I would call a "warrior prayer," that is, a prayer that God would "take up the cause of right" and "slay those who are enemies."
I wonder if Cush, the Benjamite who apparently was the object of David's prayer here, was praying this same kind of prayer about David? You see, don't you, how round and round it can go.
When I prayed through the psalm today, my first questions were, "And what battles am I engaged in? What pursues me, threatening to overtake me? What waits to tear me into pieces, to dismember my soul and separate me from my self?"
My prayer was aimed a little differently than David's. I'm not in the kind of physical battle that seeks to "slay the wicked" -- or whoever opposes me. The battle that I wage is spiritual, much more interior.
So I began to pray about those things within me that "pursue" me, the interior "enemies" that chase me and want to have all of me. As I prayed, I wrote in my journal about them . . .
**the starving ego that manifests as an inner voice that will not stand being deprived of attention;
**a relentless perfectionism that makes even small projects and tasks massive undertakings;
**the ongoing guilt of having others give good gifts to me, and then the compulsion to try to "repay" in some form -- usually by over-extending myself;
**flimsy boundaries and an unrealistic appraisal of my own limitations;
**the false names and deceiving images that I live into without question; the many roles and identities that I take to be my life apart from the real essence that lives at my core.
Later in the psalm, David asks God to slay his enemies, to take a whet sword to them, to bend a bow toward them, to shoot flaming arrows at them.
I wondered if that is really what I want . . . for God to obliterate them, to wipe them out from within me.
I decided that complete annihilation is not what I want. Certainly, I don't want these pursuing enemies to have free reign over me, but I also acknowledge that they are a part of my humanity, a part of my "dust pocket," a part of what it means for me to be "not-God". I didn't ask God to judge them or kill them or do any of the things David wanted done to Cush.
I did ask God to love them, and to love me in them. I asked God to love my starving ego and my relentless perfectionism and my ongoing guilt and my limitations and my false names. I want God to love them into wholeness. I don't need violence done to these parts of me. These parts of Jerry need to be saturated in God's love. They need to experience the intimacy of mercy. They need to know the self-giving of generosity.
And further, I need to be able to stand on the dust, with all these flaws and enemies pursuing me, and know that even as they live within me, I'm still loved through and through by a Source and a Generosity and a Mercy more expansive than I can possibly comprehend.
The psalm was a good one today. I'm glad to have found myself in it.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Protected from Nothing; Sustained in All Things
I offered a Benediction today for some folks who had gathered together around some common soul-yearnings. Some in this particular gathering had come by themselves from many miles away in hopes of finding a moment's-worth of companionship for the inner journey. A few of them live and work on spiritual frontiers that cause them to feel a deep aloneness. Some were walking through difficult and dark days.
I was asked spur-of-the-moment to offer the final words that would send the group back out onto the next life-road, so I had not rehearsed an eloquent or challenging Benediction. I was caught a bit off-guard when I was called upon to offer the parting words of blessing.
Really, I'm not sure what all I said in that Benediction. I wanted to keep it simple, yet give something that the folks could carry onto the road that lay ahead. So I said a couple of rambling things.
Then, as I closed, I had one of those moments -- I suppose we all have them at various times -- when in a split second I decide whether I'm going to say a particular thing or not. In that fraction of a moment, I consider about two dozen really good reasons not to say what I had thought of saying, but also one or two really good reasons to leave those particular words with the group.
In that moment, I decided, "Yes, I need to say this." So the words jumped out.
They are words that have become a kind of personal mantra for me in recent months. I heard James Finley make a statement a year and a half ago, then I paraphrased his words for myself, and now almost daily use the words to remind me of how God is present to me and in me. With these words I ended my Benediction:
God's love protects us from nothing; but God's love sustains us in all things.
For today, this statement speaks to what I believe about God, God's love, and my life. (I say "for today" because I find that as the questions shift for me, so do the things I can say with assurance.) I believe this. It lines up true to my experience and to the experience of others with whom I walk.
I've come to this out of a religious system that believed if I did the right things and said the right things and lived the right way, then God would protect me from all the bad and hurtful things in life. That fantasy got shattered for me a number of years ago. A huge part of my personal pain through those years came from having the illusion shattered . . . the illusion that God would protect me from hurt, pain and the "bad things" of life.
Slowly I began to trade in my "worthiness-system", especially when I noticed the intensity with which many of the saints and major spiritual figures throughout history suffered. I've yet to find a single canonized "saint" who did not undergo intense suffering, physical maladies or persecutions.
I am not shielded from anything that is common to the human condition. Nor are you. At the same time, I have never been more convinced that despite the fact that I am and you are subject to everything that is a part of the human condition, we are sustained, upheld and given hope in all things. Nothing -- not a single thing -- stands outside God's care. The iconic image of the cross says in imaged form what words fall short at saying . . . that God takes even the worst that can happen in our human experience and sustain us in love. God sustains always.
I have to confess that while I believe this statement is true to the nature of God, and while I believe it is true for myself, it is sometimes very difficult to believe for someone I love. When I sit with a dear friend who feels devastated by news that has come and who faces an unknown future, everything within me wants to scream out, "God, protect him from this!!!"
When I talk with a friend who is sliding into a pit of depression, and it's clear that the hole is going to be deep and long-lasting, I want to yell my prayer, "God, don't let this happen!!"
In short, I want to suspend the laws of God's love for a moment all for the benefit of a friend. I don't want to see her suffer, I don't want him to experience this pain. But I really do know better. God's love protects us from nothing; but God's love sustains us in everything.
So today after that Benediction, a Quaker friend I had not seen in many years sought me out immediately. She's one of the wisest, most grounded women I've ever known, and in recent years has faced some challenges that have been extraordinary. She looked me squarely in the eyes and said slyly, "I heard what you prayed." I was a bit embarrassed. She continued, "And it's true. God didn't keep any of these challenges away from me, but I've been sustained through all of them."
So it is for all of us.
I was asked spur-of-the-moment to offer the final words that would send the group back out onto the next life-road, so I had not rehearsed an eloquent or challenging Benediction. I was caught a bit off-guard when I was called upon to offer the parting words of blessing.
Really, I'm not sure what all I said in that Benediction. I wanted to keep it simple, yet give something that the folks could carry onto the road that lay ahead. So I said a couple of rambling things.
Then, as I closed, I had one of those moments -- I suppose we all have them at various times -- when in a split second I decide whether I'm going to say a particular thing or not. In that fraction of a moment, I consider about two dozen really good reasons not to say what I had thought of saying, but also one or two really good reasons to leave those particular words with the group.
In that moment, I decided, "Yes, I need to say this." So the words jumped out.
They are words that have become a kind of personal mantra for me in recent months. I heard James Finley make a statement a year and a half ago, then I paraphrased his words for myself, and now almost daily use the words to remind me of how God is present to me and in me. With these words I ended my Benediction:
God's love protects us from nothing; but God's love sustains us in all things.
For today, this statement speaks to what I believe about God, God's love, and my life. (I say "for today" because I find that as the questions shift for me, so do the things I can say with assurance.) I believe this. It lines up true to my experience and to the experience of others with whom I walk.
I've come to this out of a religious system that believed if I did the right things and said the right things and lived the right way, then God would protect me from all the bad and hurtful things in life. That fantasy got shattered for me a number of years ago. A huge part of my personal pain through those years came from having the illusion shattered . . . the illusion that God would protect me from hurt, pain and the "bad things" of life.
Slowly I began to trade in my "worthiness-system", especially when I noticed the intensity with which many of the saints and major spiritual figures throughout history suffered. I've yet to find a single canonized "saint" who did not undergo intense suffering, physical maladies or persecutions.
I am not shielded from anything that is common to the human condition. Nor are you. At the same time, I have never been more convinced that despite the fact that I am and you are subject to everything that is a part of the human condition, we are sustained, upheld and given hope in all things. Nothing -- not a single thing -- stands outside God's care. The iconic image of the cross says in imaged form what words fall short at saying . . . that God takes even the worst that can happen in our human experience and sustain us in love. God sustains always.
I have to confess that while I believe this statement is true to the nature of God, and while I believe it is true for myself, it is sometimes very difficult to believe for someone I love. When I sit with a dear friend who feels devastated by news that has come and who faces an unknown future, everything within me wants to scream out, "God, protect him from this!!!"
When I talk with a friend who is sliding into a pit of depression, and it's clear that the hole is going to be deep and long-lasting, I want to yell my prayer, "God, don't let this happen!!"
In short, I want to suspend the laws of God's love for a moment all for the benefit of a friend. I don't want to see her suffer, I don't want him to experience this pain. But I really do know better. God's love protects us from nothing; but God's love sustains us in everything.
So today after that Benediction, a Quaker friend I had not seen in many years sought me out immediately. She's one of the wisest, most grounded women I've ever known, and in recent years has faced some challenges that have been extraordinary. She looked me squarely in the eyes and said slyly, "I heard what you prayed." I was a bit embarrassed. She continued, "And it's true. God didn't keep any of these challenges away from me, but I've been sustained through all of them."
So it is for all of us.
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