Learning a Different Wisdom

There must be a time of day when the man who makes plans forgets his plans, and acts as if he had no plans at all. There must be a time of day when the man who has to speak falls very silent. And his mind forms no more propositions, and he asks himself: Did they have any meaning? There must be a time when a man of prayer goes to pray as if it were the first time in his life he had ever prayed; when the man of resolutions puts his resolutions aside as if they had all been broken, and he learns a different wisdom: distinguishing the sun from the moon, the stars from the darkness, the sea from the dry land, and the night sky from the shoulder of a hill. [Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, p. 260.]

Black Friday . . . Small-Business Saturday . . . Cyber Monday . . . Giving Tuesday . . .

Who comes up with this stuff, anyway? Well, I think I know the answer,especially when I hear the many reports of how "successful" or "unsuccessful" these days are . . . when the impact of the days is measured in $$$ and %.

Advent arrives as a blanket warming the cold, market-driven days, urging me to "forget my plans" . . . "fall very silent" . . . "pray as if for the first time" . . . "learn a different wisdom."

Advent does not speak the language of market growth or GNP or China trade deals or even "what will I get the grandchildren for Christmas?"

The season offers a quieter, gentler invitation . . . to reevaluate and recalibrate . . . to stay rooted in that which is life- and light-giving, rather than getting carried away by the distractive pulls of the moment . . . to join a more universal design that transcends my little social gatherings and travel plans and musical specials.

Merton was not writing about Advent per se, but he might as well have been describing the season.

I am tempted, this early morning in Advent, to state my goals for the season: “forget my plans” . . . “fall very silent” . . . “pray as if for the first time” . . . “learn a different wisdom.” But I think I would regret placing my own agenda on the days, forcing this grand, unfathomable season into my own little gift box, so that by the end I could measure it - maybe in % - to see how successful or unsuccessful I was.

No, I think instead I'll just be alert what shows up . . . I'll stay open to the grace and mercy hiding in whatever is . . . I'll allow the warm blanket of Advent to cover all the coldness within me and in the world.

The "Who" and "What" of Wheat and Weeds: Part 1

Jesus then told them this story:

The kingdom of heaven is like what happened when a farmer scattered good seed in a field. But while everyone was sleeping, an enemy came and scattered weed seeds in the field and then left.

When the plants came up and began to ripen, the farmer’s servants could see the weeds. The servants came and asked, “Sir, didn’t you scatter good seed in your field? Where did these weeds come from?”

“An enemy did this,” he replied.

His servants then asked, “Do you want us to go out and pull up the weeds?”

"No!” he answered. “You might also pull up the wheat. Leave the weeds alone until harvest time. Then I’ll tell my workers to gather the weeds and tie them up and burn them. But I’ll have them store the wheat in my barn.”

(Matt. 13:24 - 30)


For years I've heard this parable used as a text on discernment, that is, how to distinguish wheat from weeds, good from evil. With even a casual reading of the parable, however, you can see that interpretation runs counter to what the parable teaches. Rather than instruction on how to determine what is wheat and what is weed, the parable in essence says, "Don't bother with worry over what is weed and what is wheat. In many cases you won't be able to figure out one from the other. In pulling out what you think is bad, you may in fact be rooting out something life-giving. And in cultivating what is good, you may be encouraging something detrimental to wholeness. Let it be for now, and trust God to do the weeding out when the time is right."

Thus, the parable serves as a cautionary word against judgment and presuming to know how to sort out the good from the bad. After all, our notion of wheat and weed is most often personally or tribally referenced, so that our investment in what is good or bad shapes how we see. Something I see as completely wheat is seen by another person -- perhaps from a different political party, a different nationality, a different race, a different sexual orientation, a different worldview -- as weed. Only in our arrogance do we stand in our own center and claim our own view to be absolute Truth. Yet, such arrogance lives within each of us. It is the arrogance of our own presumed "knowing" that Jesus cautions against in the parable.

Let me offer you a couple of levels, beyond the background above, on which to consider the parable. I'll write about the "what" today, and then shift the field a bit to reflect on "who" in the next essay.

What
Consider the parable as a story about your own inner world. In the parable's language, your life is the field. And in the field of your life, the Farmer has scattered good seed, wheat-seed. There is treasure within you, and the capacity to do good in the world. You have gifts woven into your unique DNA, that when shared with the world bring life and light and healing. Inside you is the image of God, the God-seed if you will, that is full of life and waits to germinate, blossom, and produce fruit. Within you there is wheat.

But according to the parable, there is also weed scattered within you and me. We are each neither fully wheat nor fully weed. The field is not "either-or," but "both-and," both wheat AND weeds.

Each of us acts daily out of self-interest, an ego-centrism that is hard to weed out. Or perhaps we carry within our body some condition that limits our capacity to do what we'd like to do, and we think of that limitation as a weed.

The "what" of the parable -- at least as I'm presenting it -- are those qualities, traits, and characteristics within me or you which we want to characterize as wheat or weed. In fact, the "what" may include all the interior material that makes up my life, what it means for me to be me and you to be you.

And the teaching of the parable simply says, "None of us can accurately see what is wheat and what is weed in our own life. We may find some personal trait unpleasant . . . or we may struggle with some condition that feels debilitating . . . or we may think of some very good qualities about ourselves. . . . But we are not God, who alone sees all the way through us."

The parable cautions us against pulling too many of our interior weeds, those things -- I'm calling them "whats" -- that make up our interior world. I have learned this lesson the hard way. Once I became intentional about my connection with God years ago, I immediately wanted to get rid of the bad habits, debilitating conditions, and unpleasant feelings I felt hindered my connection to God. My language was, "I'm going to obliterate them!" as if I knew what was best for my life. Now, decades later, I am still learning that some of the experiences which seem most unpleasant to me, difficult and even paralyzing, are the ones shaping me most, deepening my connection with my own self, God, others, and the world.

I don't always resist judgment, just as I can't stop presuming to know what is best -- I'm finding this open stance to be especially difficult in the contentiousness of contemporary life, in which I want to presume to know what is wheat and what is weed -- but I am a work in progress. I recognize my limited ability to see what is true and what is false, what is wheat and what is weed, at least this morning as I write this piece.


Practical Helps

**In your prayer, ask God for the grace to give you a spirit of generosity, especially with yourself. "God, I'm asking for the grace to be generous with myself." This is a very Ignatian form of prayer which acknowledges that we do not generate this generosity (or whatever you are asking for) on our own. Rather, we receive it as a gift, as grace.

**Pray the Freedom Prayer:
"God, free me from the need to control what my life looks like."
"God, free me from my need to be perfect."
"God, free me from my impulse to judge myself."
"God, free me from my need to control my relationship with you."

**Regularly practice some form of Christian contemplative prayer, perhaps Centering Prayer or Christian Meditation. These more interior forms of prayer each have at their heart a continual letting go of thoughts, images, and mental commentaries. Practicing the prayer regularly, you will find that the "letting go" which takes place during the prayer time may be extended to ordinary life. Then, the compulsion to judge yourself or to presume that you know what is best for your life can be released in everyday life just as it is in the time of prayer.


I'll share some reflections on the "who" of wheat and weeds in the next post.

A Brief Meditation: Matthew 9:1-8

Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town. Some people brought to him a paralyzed man, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”

At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, “This fellow is blaspheming!”

Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” Then the man got up and went home. When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to man.
(Matt. 9:1-8)


FOR CONSIDERATION


Notice that Jesus responds to the faith of those who carried the paralyzed man, not the faith of the man himself. Consider what this means for you.

*Consider one or two times you felt spiritually dry or empty . . . perhaps a period of depression or a season of "wandering in the wilderness" . . . and in that place, you were "carried" by the faith or prayers of someone around you.

What did it feel like to have little faith of your own or little sense of your own connection to God?

Who was the person(s) who "carried" you through that season?

What response of love might you make today for the generosity of that other person?


*Consider a time when someone around you had little faith or little sense of their own connection to God. Perhaps, in some small way, you "carried" that person with your love, prayer, or mercy until he or she could get back to their feet.

What led you to kindness for this other person who was "paralyzed"?

In what manner did the other person respond to you as you "carried" him or her?

What might be God's invitation to you for today as you think about this event from the past?


Notice that the story deals with a man who was paralyzed. His paralysis was a physical condition, but it must have been impacted by some spiritual undercurrent, because Jesus first addresses his spiritual need for release or wholeness: "Your sins are forgiven."

While not everyone experiences physical paralysis, every human knows the experience of emotional, social, or spiritual paralysis.
We may experience paralysis from toxic relationships . . .
Fear may paralyze us . . .
We may be paralyzed by our own expectations of God, others, and the world . . .
We may be frozen in place by the way we order our lives . . .
Resentment toward others may paralyze us . . .
Bitterness over past events may paralyze us . . .

*Consider ways in which you feel paralyzed today.

If it helps, use other language, images, or symbols for "paralyzed." For example, what keeps you frozen in place? What hinders you from moving freely on the path on which God has set you? In what room do you feel locked? What are the chains that hold you in place?

Perhaps you would find a creative way to acknowledge your paralysis . . . through some kind of artistic expression . . . or by a bodily posture or gesture that symbolizes your paralysis (a closed fist? . . . stiffened limbs?).

Offer a short prayer for freedom, perhaps something like, "Free me from my fear" or "Loosen the chains of _____ that hold me" or "Unlock the door to this room in which I feel trapped."

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.

Every Day . . . Singing a New Song

O sing a new song to the Lord,
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
O sing to the Lord, and bless God's name.
(Ps. 96:1)

This is the daily invitation extended to God's people, that we sing a new song each day we live. The new song is not some rehearsal of an ancient truth, nor a recitation of God's past acts of kindness . . . but rather, the very way those ancient truths and past acts of kindness are being lived out in my own fresh experience day after day. No one has lived my path before, no one has lived my life in my way, no one has taken the particular pieces of my life and held them together in just this way before. My life, connected intimately with God, is to be sung in a way that gives life to the world.

You, too, are invited to sing a new song in a way that is faithful to your experience of God and in a way that gives life to you and the world.

So I'm not so interested in a recitation of ancient propositions about God or in sharing information about God. Rather, the contemplative presence asks, "How is God shaping my life and my world today? How am I joining or resisting this 'new song'? Am I able to live with openness and receptivity this fresh day? . . . this fresh day in which whatever happens is new, not precedented, not predicted, not prescribed?"

This stance does not mean the past is unimportant, nor that I should forget the former acts of God in me or in my world. It does mean, however, that all I know of God from study and all I have experienced of God in my own journey becomes a part of a stance that lives fully "the dearest freshness deep down things" (Gerard Manley Hopkins in "God's Grandeur").

The new song the psalm-prayer encourages is new each day because no one has lived my (or your) particular path before I (or you) arrived. "O sing a new song to the Lord."

My own path has been characterized by transition in recent months, and the transition simply means there have been significant endings and daily beginnings. I continue to grieve the endings . . . separation by many miles from persons I love dearly, from the common experiences, language, and desires that brought us together. At the same time, I have found new energy in exploring both outer and inner landscapes that feel life-giving. Daily, new discoveries touch a part of me that has been starving. Morning by morning new mercies I see.

I hold, often in awkward tension, the poles of activity and passivity, both of which scream out for a total commitment to one or the other. Activity says, "Nothing happens unless you initiate it. You'll have to work hard to build an audience, market yourself, and step into this next chapter of your life."

Passivity says, "Just wait. Be patient. See what comes to you. Don't force anything. Be still."

As both extremes speak, I'm trying not to fall over the ledge on either end of the spectrum. My desire is to faithfully sing the new song that is my life in connection with God, for the sake of the world. The question, phrased in various ways depending on the day, tends to sound something like this:

In this season of my life, how am I invited to live in openness and receptivity (two primary traits of contemplative experience, I believe) the one life that is mine to live? What is my unique path? What is the way that is mine to follow? In what way am I invited to sing a new song day by day?

In my next post, I'll offer a couple of thoughts on the particular stances that seem helpful in stepping into this daily "new song" we are invited to sing. And I'll pass along a couple of poems I hope you'll find helpful, as well.

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 . . .

Discovering What Lies beneath the Prayer

For over 25 years I have prayed psalms as a part of my regular practice. I started when a mentor said the biblical Psalms were the prayerbook of the Bible, suggesting that Jesus prayed the Psalms. At first I prayed them methodically, with a rigid "must-do" mentality. I had to do that, otherwise I would have quickly given up. Yes, I found them full of violence, hatred, and "us-versus-them" dualism, but honestly, in those early days I had identified many perceived "enemies" to my own vision for life, so I was able to offer God my psalm-based prayers of vengeance and venom aimed toward those who were my persecutors. If I'm to be completely honest, the psalms I prayed literally in those days gave expression to much of what my life felt like at the time.

Still, there came a time in my own spiritual journeying when the psalms began to be more difficult to pray . . . when I realized that my enemies were not nearly as external (out there) as they were internal (in here) within my own life. I began to imagine what these awkward prayers might sound like if prayed with a different consciousness. These musings prompted me to begin jotting down my own prayers, based on the biblical Psalms, but standing in a bit different place.

I think -- no, I know -- theologians would have massive issues with what I began to do. A couple of them have written about the sanctity of these prayers, coming as they do from the Hebrew people as an expression of their experience of God, life, and neighbors in a very particular context. These persons would say, I believe, that no one has a right to tamper with the experience of this people of God. For all the hatred and enmity expressed in the psalms, these scholars would say that most importantly, the Psalms exist as prayer. That is, they take hatred and impulses to violence directly to God in honesty. The people present how they truly feel to this God who has reached toward them with covenant love. These pray-ers are connected deeply to God and thus, do not live in fear that they will receive a Divine cold-shoulder simply because their hatred consumes them.

I get it. But I also want to bring a different consciousness to the psalms. I understand what these astute theological minds say about the need for honest expression in prayer, but I also find that the kind of dualism (either-or thinking . . . insiders vs outsiders mentality) prayed in the biblical Psalms becomes license for contemporary persons who believe retribution, vengeance, and human violence is "the will of God." More fundamentally, persons feel justified in their own experience as THE way, vilifying anyone who disagrees as "the enemy" in ways that perpetuate divisions and hatred.

The question I ask today is: "What lies beneath a psalm when we pray it?" Or for that matter, what lies beneath any spoken prayer we offer to God?

What assumptions do we make about God when we pray as we do?

What assumptions do we make about life? . . . about ourselves? . . . about other people (including "enemies" or "our people")? . . . about the created world?

I'll give an example. Yesterday I spent time with Psalm 43. The first two stanzas of the prayer go like this:

Defend me, O God, and plead my cause
against a godless nation.
From deceitful and cunning men
rescue me, O God.

Since you, O God, are my stronghold,
why have you rejected me?
Why do I go mourning
oppressed by the foe?

The pray-er believes himself or herself to be up against a "godless nation", while clearly believing himself/herself to be a God-person, hence the repetition of "O God" through the two stanzas. These "godless" ones are deceitful and cunning, thus the prayer for God to defend, to plead her cause, and to rescue. Clearly, this person praying believes that she has made God her "stronghold."

The assumption, then, is that God should protect, defend, and rescue such people who are faithful to God. Instead, the person praying experiences her situation of being "oppressed by the foe" as being "rejected" by God.

Do you see the underlying thread? "I have made God my stronghold. But in my actual life-experience, I am oppressed by my foes and thus in mourning. That means God has rejected me."

I don't expect the person who first prayed or wrote this psalm to have a different consciousness. He/she prayed as best they understood God, themselves, and life. They prayed honestly out of their experience of God.

But neither should I -- nor you -- be expected to pray with their consciousness . . . that is, with an Ancient Near Eastern understanding of God, life, self, and others.

For example, what might it mean if I did not assume that all those who disagree with me are "godless, deceitful, and cunning"? They may be, but in some ways I am, too. In that case, why would I assume that God would attend to my prayer any more than God attends to their prayer?

Further, assuming that I have, in fact, made God my stronghold -- whatever that might mean -- is it really a sign of God's rejection of me if I find myself in grief or mourning? Has God actually turned God's back on me if something in life is squeezing me or "oppressing" me? Is that truly a valid assumption? Because if I go there, I am implicitly suggesting that God rewards goodness and punishes badness . . . that God is present to me when things are on the up-and-up, but turns away from me when I face obstacles.

Finally, two things:
1. Pray the Psalms. I'm still an advocate for praying the many psalms in the Hebrew scriptures. But bring your own understanding of God, your self, others, and life to your prayer. If you find a phrase or line that is difficult for you to pray, explore why it is difficult for you. What in you resists the words of the actual psalm? How is your understanding of God different from what you are praying in the actual psalm? How would you pray it differently? Then write your own prayer.

2. Be open to your own ongoing unfolding. Don't become too attached to your own prayer, as if you have arrived at a final state of completion when you come to a different understanding of a psalm-prayer. You, I, and all of us are continually unfolding, so don't get locked into the way you understand God today . . . or the way you pray today. . . . The near-fatal mistake in spirituality is to settle in where you are, to count your present place in life as the end or the destination, when in fact all of us are ever and always on the way.

So pray the psalms in your own way. But hold them loosely. Don't be surprised, if you keep up the practice, that at some point in the future you find yourself with a different take on a psalm than you have now. We're all about the journey . . . the journey that leads on and on into the boundless future.

A Psalm 42 Prayer

A Prayer from Psalm 42:1-4 in Contemplative Voice

Like the deer traversing ravines, hills, and woods
between Lake Ann and Lake Brittany
constantly moving toward
fresh sources of water
So my soul’s thirst
for you
for the lost oneness
in which I was created

My seeking will not stop
- restless soul -
until the trek
ends in your heart
when I am at home in you
drinking from the never-ending spring

So much in daily life
brings pain and confusion

I get lost in the bramble

And then my own inner world --
mixed motives and desire for affirmation
the clamor for success and a vague yearning for more
addictive patterns --
All, in their own way, manifestations
of this soul-hunger
that fuels my searching

The memory, then, of fleeting moments
when the oneness has overtaken me
when tasting the sweetness
kept me on the path
a foretaste of some greater union
than I’ve imagined

the recovery of that
which I didn’t know I had lost
the coming home
again
for the first time

Post-Election: A Pastoral Letter

I am the pastor of a Contemplative Community in Houston, Texas. It is a diverse community of seekers, who are intentionally engaging a life-stance rooted in the Christian mystical/contemplative tradition. For months, the Presidential campaign had sent ripples through the community, making conversations awkward and straining relationships. The election itself only served to bring those tensions closer to the surface. As a clay-footed pastor of this beautiful and imperfect community, I wanted to speak into our life together in a healing way. I wrote this pastoral letter to my "flock" about 24 hours after the election results were in. I include the letter here as I sent it to my congregation.



I have struggled over the last 24 hours to know what to say to you as your pastor. Some, I realize celebrate Tuesday’s election as a victory. For others, it is simply relief to finally be done with it. Others have found themselves numb. Many have expressed grief and anger (“sad” and “mad” are both primary emotions, but very different, though sometimes hard to distinguish). The uncertainty felt by some has morphed into fear in others.

In short, I’ve seen no “typical” or generic response to the election. We each feel what we feel. Our emotions are not right or wrong . . . we don’t need someone to fix us or to quote a Bible verse to make us feel better . . . we don’t need to gloat that we were right and others were wrong . . . we don’t need to feel vindicated if identified with the majority nor defeated if identified with the minority.

The aftermath of the election was sure to be this way, regardless of who became the President-elect. Either way, his/her supporters were going to be at odds with her/his supporters. The strain felt among families and friendships, in workplaces and congregations for months leading up to Nov. 8 has now become an awkward tension as we collectively ask, “What’s next?”

Institutions and structures change, shift, fall, are rebuilt . . . that includes nations, political structures, companies, and even the Church. It is one – of many – reasons Jesus said not to place faith in the institutions, in leaders, in political parties, or even in the Church. He foresaw, for example, the fall of the Temple as a religious and national institution within Israel. His words were heard as blasphemy, especially when he said that he would build another Temple, this time in the human heart. But Jesus was forever taking these outer events and symbols, and pressing them inward toward the heart. He asked interior questions about outer events and happenings in the world.

Therefore, wherever you are with the events of the last few days, I invite you to tend the garden that has been given to you. Trying to solve the world will lead to frustration, despair, and ultimately more anger. You can’t fix the world singlehandedly – as even President-elect Trump will learn in the coming days. But you can tend the garden that is yours. That garden, first and foremost, includes your own soul. That garden also includes your relationships, those within your sphere of influence. Tending your garden is not about fixing someone else’s garden, not about locating all the problems “out there” in others, or in the system, but rather about turning the soil of your own life. It’s about working your side of the street.

How am I trying to do that in this season? First, I begin with myself, my own stance, my own feelings. I do soul-work in a deeply honest way. It shifts from finger-pointing at others to a personal glance.

So I take inventory of how it is with me.
• “What does it feel like to be Jerry today?”
• “And what has been touched in Jerry that has produced these feelings? What values have been threatened? What core values have been touched, so that I either celebrate or lament?”
• “What does it feel like to be Jerry feeling this feeling?”

I ask this of myself, not to become more inward focused, not for the sake of introspection, and not in order to judge myself as a failure, but in order to be familiar with myself and my own landscape. I want to be aware – or conscious – of my own interior, in order to see what is at work within me. This is a part of the illumining work of God’s Spirit.

I want to let this work take its time in me, because I realize that most often, my first reaction (the first glance or first gaze) is self-protecting, self-serving, and not grounded in love. Usually the first glance is defensive, judgmental, and categorizing. When I press myself to stay with the interior work, I can often get to that second glance or gaze, which most always includes threads of mercy and the capacity to see self and others more generously.

Second, I want to become aware of my mind’s chatter . . . whether it is the chatter of election elation, or the chatter of election analysis, or the chatter of fear and despair.

[The internet and social media can be a great gift, but they can also feed the worst impulses within us. Consider a fast from news feeds and social media for 24 hours or so. In my experience, these sources only feed and perpetuate my mind’s chatter, increasing the number of “monkeys” jumping around from swing to swing within my head. It’s almost impossible for me to cease my mind’s chatter when I’m constantly feeding the monkeys more food.]

Some form of contemplative prayer – Centering Prayer or Christian meditation – that invites you to disengage from thoughts and feelings may be especially helpful, so that at least for a few minutes, you can let go of the chatter and the cycling of your analytic mind.

Third, consider carrying a breath prayer along for this season of your life . . . a phrase that you can breathe or whisper as you move through your day, especially when you find yourself overwhelmed by the situation. Whisper the prayer as you work, as you walk, as you drive, as you eat, as you wait on hold. Let the simple prayer itself hold you.

“Be still and know that I am God.” (Ps. 46:10)
“The earth is yours, and all that is in it.” (Ps. 24:1)
“You are the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Ps. 27:1)
“In your light I see light.” (Ps. 36:9)

Finally, I affirm that we are a diverse spiritual community made up of persons from across the political, racial, socio-economic, educational, sexual orientation spectrum. We do not represent a single political vantage point. A glance across the Chapel on any given Sunday morning, and I see a multitude of life-situations and perspectives, each with meaning for that particular person. Our task together is love and mercy. It is the growing edge for all of us, especially in our life together and in our witness to the world. We each find different ways to embody the life of Christ to the world. None of us do that in the same ways. We are united by the common quest to deepen our lives into the heart of God for the transformation of the world . . . not by common perspectives or beliefs or ideologies.

We may not always sense it at a surface level, but we are one in the One who has called and named us.

I am glad – and sometimes overwhelmed – to be your pastor in a time such as this.

In love and peace,
Jerry

Thoughts about Genie-Gods and Darkness

The story is too long to tell today. In brief, while in a restaurant recently, I heard a monologue at the table next to me in which a person was "instructing" others at his table in how to get good things ("blessings") from God. This fellow described God as "a blank check" who is just waiting for us to ask for "all the treasures in God's storehouse." We don't have more, he said, "because we don't claim what is already ours."

I won't describe the mix of emotions I felt as this scene unfolded within a few feet of me . . . those of you who know me well will be able to guess a few of my feelings pretty easily.

What I finally came to as I walked out of that scene was the desire to reach out to the 5 or 6 people around that table and say, "You know, if this doesn't work out for any of you in the days ahead, come see me. Here's my card."

Because I know a whole bunch of people -- many of the folks I hang out with day in and day out -- for whom religion and cultural expressions of Christianity have not worked out. From old-school Catholics to prosperity-Gospel evangelicals to hard-shell Baptists . . . and everything else along the spectrum . . . I spend a lot of time with folks whose personal experience has not lined up with the teaching of a particular expression of the Church. Many of these folks have dropped out of organized religious expression, yet they have not given up on some expression of their faith. They wait and they hope. They are people of soul who long for something authentic that will not shrink from the darkness of our world -- or the darkness of their own interior. They are people for whom religious expression and spirituality are not an escape from the real world, but a healing engagement with it. They are people who take seriously the inner life and its expression in the outer world, not because it gets us "the treasures of God" as some kind of self-interested blank check, but because it connects us to a Source that is generously endless and life-sustaining.

I wanted to say some of this to those sitting at that table . . . to offer them a place to go and a people to be with when their God-as-Santa-Claus systems stopped working. Alas, I didn't intrude on their party, so I let them be. (I likely would have been written off by them as an infidel, anyway.)

The entire scenario, as I've reflected on it for a couple of weeks, has also reminded me of how much more appealing is a life of goodies and treasures, a life of all sunlight where a huge Genie-God makes all the roads smooth, takes away all the disease, removes all the stumbling blocks at work, gives us what we want on command . . . as if we shouldn't have to deal with difficulty, crisis, tragedy, or death. (In the Genie-God scenario, Jesus dealt with death, tragedy, and darkness so that we would not have to. His death means that we get the goodies.)

Maybe it's just my personality, but I tend to be drawn to those who are honest about both the darkness and the light. It seems to me that those who are in touch with darkness -- the world's and their own -- offer a tremendous gift to the world. They don't gloss over the darkness, nor do they run from it. They are comfortable in it, not needing to change it into sugar-canes and sweetness. Sometimes the darkness does get transformed into light, but those who can abide in the darkness do not demand that it be so in order to be happy. They find their happiness and delight regardless the weather.

I've noticed in recent years, for example, that poets who are familiar with darkness catch my attention. I've thought of all this today because I re-read a poem by R. S. Thomas this morning. Thomas was a Welsh pastor whose poetry is tinged in darkness. No, more than tinged, his poetry is immersed in darkness. It would be too breezy to call him a pessimist. I simply think of him as a realist, fully engaged with God and with life so that he doesn't hide from the difficult questions. He sometimes is comforted by God's presence, for example, but more often he confronts God over God's perceived absence. His poetry has the feel of the Hebrew Psalms that confront God and question God and demand answers from God, knowing that they may or may not come. And whether they come or not ceases to be the issue. At the core Thomas, like the psalms, engages God.

This is the poem I have considered again today. The last few lines are the lines I'm living with today.


Pilgrimages
R. S. Thomas

There is an island there is no going
to but in a small boat the way
the saints went, travelling the gallery
of the frightened faces of
the long-drowned, munching the gravel
of its beaches. So I have gone
up the salt lane to the building
with the stone altar and the candles
gone out, and kneeled and lifted
my eyes to the furious gargoyle
of the owl that is like a god
gone small and resentful. There
is no body in the stained window
of the sky now. Am I too late?
Were they too late also, those
first pilgrims? He is such a fast
God, always before us and
leaving as we arrive.

There are those here
not given to prayer, whose office
is the blank sea that they say daily.
What they listen to is not
hymns but the slow chemistry of the soil
that turns saints’ bones to dust,
dust to an irritant of the nostril.

There is no time on this island.
The swinging pendulum of the tide
has no clock; the events
are dateless. These people are not
late or soon; they are just
here with only the one question
to ask, which life answers
by being in them. It is I
who ask. Was the pilgrimage
I made to come to my own
self, to learn that in times
like these and for one like me
God will never be plain and
out there, but dark rather and
inexplicable, as though he were in here?

-- R.S. Thomas, Later Poems: 1972 – 1982 (London: Macmillan, 1983), 125 – 26.

Belief As a Lived Experience

Every person is a theologian. Everyone thinks about God. Even the thought that there is no divinity is way of considering ultimate things. The process of thinking God doesn’t exist, or thinking that God doesn’t matter, is one form of theology.

I know all that sounds like double-talk, but really it’s not. And there is more . . .

What we truly believe is not what we say we believe, or what we think we believe. No. Our actual belief is what shows up in our lives, in our daily experience, in the way our lives are ordered.

For example, numerous persons through the years have suggested that even many Christians – those who claim faith in God through Jesus Christ – are practical atheists. That is, while many of us claim allegiance to God through Jesus, we may also order our daily living as if God did not exist, or as if Christ did not matter, or as if God’s Spirit had abandoned the world. We would be offended to be called atheists, yet the day-by-day run of our lives is not touched by our faith in God.

What we believe about God also shows up in our practice of prayer.

For instance, entering into prayer with a posture of openness, in which we seek to stay open to the vast and mysterious work of God within us and in the world, invites a larger theology of God . . . a belief that God holds all things together. It invites me to trust that even though I cannot see the full picture from where I sit, God is directing the affairs of the world in a way that brings healing and redemption. It invites me to trust the hidden work of God’s Spirit, which most often takes place behind the “veil.” Contemplative prayer and meditation, therefore, are far from lazy or watered-down forms of prayer. Rather, they invite a fuller faith in God and less reliance on my own vision or abilities.

Other prayer forms also reveal our belief-systems. The Hebrew Psalms are packed with raw emotions and honest declarations about how the psalmist experiences life.

“Defend my cause, God,” they demand.

“Why have you abandoned me, Lord?” they inquire.

“Destroy my rivals,” they pray.

This is not the prettified, holy-sounding, “godly” language I was taught in the Church. In fact, I was instructed to pray prayers that were beautiful and lofty, that extolled God’s virtues – most often telling God what God surely already knew – with eloquence and an appropriate sense of wonder.

[Strangely enough, these were also the prayers that kept me far from prayer for decades. When I realized I could not pray those lofty, eloquent, holy-sounding prayers with any degree of honesty, I gave up on the whole business of praying.]

The Psalms of the Old Testament were literally a God-send for me. In them I found people praying real, raw prayers, not the cleaned up and sanitized version of prayer I had earlier been taught.

But it took me awhile to learn to pray honestly as depicted in psalms. My theology, what I believed about God, was that if I made one wrong move, said one “bad” word, made some flippant gesture God-ward, I would be punished. Had you asked me what I believed about God, I would have said that God loves me unconditionally. But my practice did not reflect that belief.

My actual experience was fear of God, afraid that I would somehow, in word or deed, wander beyond the limits of God’s love. I couldn’t be honest. I couldn’t say what I truly felt – unless, of course, what I felt was “pure” and “holy” and “upright,” and you can imagine that was a very small percentage of the time – because if I did, God would make me pay.

It actually took me years to learn to pray honestly. It happened bit by bit, baby steps forward, learning to actually trust that the cord with which God tethered me could not be severed, that there was nothing – absolutely no-thing – that could take me beyond God’s love and mercy. Only when secure in God, only when fully trusting that I was held without condition in God’s heart, could I pray honestly the reality of who I am and how I experience life.

What you and I truly believe always shows up in our actual lives . . . in our prayer, in our daily experience. What lives in our minds may be an expression of what we want to believe. Our practice of daily life demonstrates our actual belief.

Psalm 24 . . . In Three Voices

Here are three ways of praying our lives with Psalm 24. The first is traditional, from the New Revised Standard Version.

The second is an honest rendering, offered by my friend Peter Johns. Peter has called it his "Ozymandias Version" of the psalm.

I wrote the third after spending several days this week praying Psalm 24.

Psalm 24 (NRSV)
The earth is the LORD’s and all that is in it,
the world, and those who live in it;
for he has founded it on the seas,
and established it on the rivers.

Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD?
And who shall stand in his holy place?
Those who have clean hands and pure hearts,
who do not lift up their souls to what is false,
and do not swear deceitfully.
They will receive blessing from the LORD,
and vindication from the God of their salvation.
Such is the company of those who seek him,
who seek the face of the God of Jacob.

Lift up your heads, O gates!
and be lifted up, O ancient doors!
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is the King of glory?
The LORD, strong and mighty,
the LORD, mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, O gates!
and be lifted up, O ancient doors!
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The LORD of hosts,
he is the King of glory.



Psalm 24 (Johns)
This is my world, I own all that is within it.
For I have forged my own space and made my own way.

Who may enter my world, who may stand in my universe?
Only the one whom I decide is worthy.
The one who meets my standards and does not pollute my life.
The one who agrees with me and holds true to my beliefs.

I will bless them and encourage them.
I will fight for their right to be just like me.

I will close up my gates and barricade my doors.
No one shall enter except me.
I am king of my world and I am glorious.
I will cocoon myself in the castle of my life.
I am king of my world and I am glorious.



Psalm 24 (Webber)
Always and everywhere
You are
Every time is Yours
and every place
Earth, world, universe
People, every race and tribe
Four-footed beasts, winged’ fowl, fish
Mountains and marshes
oceans and plains
Always and everywhere
You are

So who is the one aware of Your presence?
Who acknowledges You in the world?
The one with open hands and a quiet heart
The one humbly rooted in the ground of their truth
The one who can hear You in utter silence
and see You in the darkest nights
The one who lays aside self-interest
and does not perpetuate the lie
that dollars rule
that bigger is better
that success is measurable
that others exist to serve me

Such a person lives in fullness of life
they bless others
and bless the world

Open wide, you door of my heart
Swing wide, you long-closed gates
Your Heart-lover
Your Soul-shaper
lays siege to you
silently awaiting an opening to enter

Who is this Heart-lover
Who is this Soul-shaper
who besieges me?
The Glorious One
my Beloved
my Friend

Open wide, you door of my heart
Swing wide, you long-closed gates
Your Heart-lover
Your Soul-shaper
lays siege to you
silently awaiting an opening to enter

Who is this Heart-lover
Who is this Soul-shaper
who besieges me?

Ahhh, my Beloved
my Friend
it’s You,
You at last.

Come in.

Two Images for Life and Prayer and Reality

This summer a large group of folks with whom I share life is reading Anthony De Mello’s The Way to Love. I’ve come across a couple of images in recent days that illumine the spiritual journey in some helpful ways. It occurs to me that they may be companion images that would help process De Mello’s ideas in The Way to Love.


First, we each respond and react to life and to life situations in ways we have learned over many years. Most of these responses live beneath the surface of our awareness. We react in certain ways and then assume, “This is just the way I am,” or “That is just the way life is.” In a sense, we have a whole storehouse of internal videos that play in our heads. These “videos,” which include our commentaries on people and events, also include attributing motives to others which may or may not be factual.

For instance, if we feel excluded, we may have a video that plays back other times we felt excluded, and the video may include a commentary that says things like, “That person has always excluded me,” and “I must be a bad person to be excluded like this,” and “She is a bad person because she has shunned me” . . . and on and on it goes.

For me, anyway, the impact of this internal video and commentary is spiraling. I spiral downward . . . downward . . . downward. The further I spiral, the more outrageous my commentary becomes. And all the while it seems very reasonable to me. If I don’t catch the “spiral” early and stop the internal video, I can be in a deep funk for hours and even for days. (“I needed to talk to him. . . . He didn’t answer my phone call. . . . He never answers my phone calls. . . . He must not like me. . . . I’ll never call him again. . . . Maybe I need to quit my job. . . . I should move to another city. . . . I’m such a failure. . . .”)

See? It makes no rational sense. If it weren’t so real, it would be humorous to see it written like this. But this is the internal noise with which each of us lives.

Every person has a whole host of these internal videos. In a sense, they have served to help us make sense of life. And for most of us, they have served as defense mechanisms, ways we have protected ourselves from the hurts and cruelties of life.

Most often, though, these videos are the cause of our upset, turmoil, fear, and defensiveness. We may say to another person, “You did this to me,” but the other person did not “cause” our specific reaction to their behavior. While their behavior may have been inappropriate, unhealthy, and even hurtful, our response to them is mostly a product of the internal video that plays within our minds in reaction to them.

The spiritual life invites our awareness of these internal videos that play within us, some of which are dear to us or seem hardwired within us. Awareness of the videos is the first movement toward detaching from them and from their compelling, addicting pull on us.


Here is another image.

Imagine you are in a valley, looking up at a mountain. You see the mountain and its shape, the trees and rocks that cover it, and the peak of the mountain. The mountain is really there. But take your gaze off the mountain for just a moment . . . then look at the mountain again. This time, you cannot see much of the mountain, because clouds have moved in to block your view. Your vision is obscured by the weather pattern.

If you didn’t know better, you could believe that the mountain no longer exists, or at least that the mountain’s pinnacle is no longer there. You could easily believe that the clouds are the main thing, that the weather is the only reality. After all, on this gaze, the weather is all you can see.

And in fact, the weather pattern is one part of the reality, but it also masks another more solid, more foundational reality . . . which is the mountain or the landscape behind and beneath the clouds.

If I am not careful, I can allow the clouds or the weather to determine my perception and shade how or what I see.

And the reality is that the weather will change. The clouds will move in and out, based on the weather.

You could liken the clouds and the changing weather to our human perception of reality, to the way we see life. To lean on the previous image, the clouds are something like an internal video. They are the immediate focus of our sight, what we most quickly perceive. If our gaze stops there, we will miss the more solid, foundational reality behind and beneath the clouds.

In a sense, the clouds, though beautiful, are a distraction. They obscure the mountain and its peak. The clouds come and go, but the mountain remains.

Spiritual vision, which is grown within us over time, is a function of prayer and meditation, the slow unmasking of the clouds and the gradual learning to trust what is behind the clouds. Quiet prayer, contemplative prayer, gives a foundation for connecting most deeply with God, grounding us in the Real, learning to recognize the distractions for what they are, and helping us to see beyond the scope of our physical vision.

Prayer: Holding the Pain

The frequency of tragedy and human pain in recent weeks has felt overwhelming to me. I find that I’m still praying for one thing – and the persons impacted – when the next thing happens . . . bombings in Boston . . . explosions in West, Texas . . . floods in the Midwest . . . tornadoes in Oklahoma . . . devastating fires in my hometown of Houston, Texas.

And these crises are merely the tip of the devastation . . . they cannot completely account for the daily violence and massive upset that modern life brings all over the world.

I’ve said before, and I’ll say again, I often don’t know how to pray. I pray for comfort, of course, and healing and strength. But I also don’t always have words to pray.

This past Sunday morning in our Contemplative Worship, Rev. Melissa Maher gave voice both to our desire to pray for those in need, and to the difficulty we have in knowing what to pray. Sometimes, like Sunday as Melissa led us, I simply picture a person’s face or a situation, and whisper, “Mercy.” Other times, I’ll pray silently. I may cup my hands and try to hold those who are hurting out to God.

A couple of weeks ago, in the middle of these tragedies, I came upon another prayer. I borrowed it from Psalm 13. I prayed it, both personally and publicly, in the days after the first tornado swept through Moore, Oklahoma. It occurred to me that for people who feel devastated and in the pits of pain, their grief and difficulty seems all-consuming. It feels like lugging around a huge sack of pain . . . and often, the sheer energy needed to carry around the sack of hurt keeps persons from making decisions, or taking the next step toward life.

So it seemed right for me to tell God that for a few seconds, I would carry the pain of folks who were suffering, in that case, from the tornado’s devastation. I would try to hold their pain. That was my intention. Then, I borrowed the words of Psalm 13 to help me carry that pain. That psalm, in The Book of Psalms (Stephen Mitchell) goes like this:

How long will this pain go on, Lord, this grief I can hardly bear?
How long will anguish grip me and agony wring my mind?
Light up my eyes with your presence; let me feel your love in my bones.
Keep me from losing myself in ignorance and despair.
Teach me to be patient, Lord; teach me to be endlessly patient.
Let me trust that your love enfolds me when my heart feels desolate and dry.
I will sing to the Lord at all times, even from the depths of pain.

First, I told God that as best I could, I wanted to hold the pain of those impacted by the tornado. Then, as best I could, I intentionally held their pain for a few moments. And I used this psalm to help me do it. I prayed its words on behalf of people I didn’t know. I prayed it with them and for them.

It has occurred to me that carrying another person's pain puts us in unique relation with them that other forms of prayer cannot. It puts us with them, in a very unique kind of communion with them. In a very intense way, we are in union with them for a few moments.

Of course, this is the kind of thing God does on our behalf all the time.

So I commend this prayer to you. There will be more tragedy, more bad news to be sure. Even for those of us who are miles away from the difficulty, prayer puts us on the front lines.

Studying Scripture, Missing the Point

Many well-meaning Christians miss Jesus because they only look where they expect him to be.

That is pretty much how it was during Jesus' lifetime, when the most religious people around completely missed him. They knew the Scriptures, as least from a particular vantage point, but they could not see Jesus as the One to whom the Scriptures pointed.

It is possible, after all, to live underneath a framework of holiness and piety - completely unaware that you are doing so - that blinds you to the presence of Jesus in your midst.

This is one story from John 5:


“You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

“I do not accept glory from human beings, but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

“But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?” (Jn. 5:39 - 47)


Jesus: “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”

I rarely find a Christian who has seriously studied the Scriptures, and who also knows and discerns the Scriptures. In contemporary Christianity, most of what we think of as “studying the Scriptures” is applying a certain mindset or predisposition to the Scriptures, one which most always brings us to the conclusions we have looked for.

Such Scripture “study” is not open to inquiry. Neither is it truly open to whatever the text might say, in all its complexity (or simplicity). It reads with a particular aim, to find certain “truths” affirmed.

This kind of reading does not submit itself to Scripture; rather, the Scriptures always submit to the preconceptions of the reader/studier.

I believe this is the kind of “study” Jesus refers to in this passage . . . the kind of reading that could study, study, study a passage, so that all persons call you, “Bible Scholar!” but still leave you missing the point.

It occurs to me that the forms of Bible reading common in contemplative spirituality do not emphasize correct doctrine. They do not hinge on a person coming out of their Bible reading with a certain orthodox understanding. They do emphasize, however, surrendering to the Word, opening to it and living into it as fully as possible.

Lectio divina – praying with Scripture – listens reverently to the text without preconceived notions of what you will find there. It simply listens openly to whatever the word of God for you might be.

Praying with Scripture in the Ignatian tradition, where one puts himself or herself in the biblical scene, interacting with Jesus via the imagination, is also approached in a spirit of openness and receptivity. You go where the Spirit of God leads you in your imagination. You find yourself in the text and interact within the biblical drama as a participant, even utilizing your senses to participate in the life of Jesus.

Neither method utilizes a filter . . . “this is wrong!” . . . or, “you shouldn’t be thinking that!”

I hear people resist both of these methods because, “I’m not sure I’ll get something that’s not heresy.” Or, “I want to know that I’m not going to be led astray.” So in our concern to get something “orthodox” (which again is usually judged according to our preconceived theological systems), we miss the word God speaks to us.

In the same way that the most religious persons of Jesus’ day missed him, so it is possible for us to think of ourselves as Jesus-literate, when we, too, have utterly missed him.

Praying with Psalm 137: Reflections in a Foreign Land

A few weeks ago, I found myself in touch with the dark and angry spirit of Psalm 137. I was surprised at what came out of me . . . and grateful for the honesty with which I could offer my real life in prayer.

Psalm 137 Psalm-Prayer
praying from a foreign land

I sat in a foreign land and wept
among those of strange tongue
among those who hated me
among those who wanted me gone
I remembered You
remembered the thought of You

My songs and instruments
hung in a closet
stored away
no longer needed or useful
I was
who they said
I was

No longer was there dialogue
give-and-take
now there was one way
their way
the tone of taunt in every exchange
“Why can’t you sing your song?
We’ll play the music . . .
you just sing along.”

The song You’ve given buried deep
I don’t want to sing their song
I’ll do anything to keep from singing
a pseudo-song

God, don’t ever let me be too far away
to forget Your song
burn it upon my heart
weave it into my soul

And for them, these pretenders
who take their delight in my despair
who have won the struggle
to steer the ship
who said,
“Damn you! Damn you!”

Oh, the warrior in me wants to fight to the death,
to take them down
and stand over their plot
And the diplomat in me wants to run far
to get out of their sight
and reach
and make a new life somewhere else
And the poet in me – at this moment –
just wants to sing my song
to spill out the verse from within
no vengeance or vindication
just song

so that the cycle stops
and all the little ones
saved

Stones and Serpents, Bread and Fish

Matthew 7:7 - 11

Ask, and you will receive. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened for you. Everyone who asks will receive. Everyone who searches will find. And the door will be opened for everyone who knocks. Would any of you give your hungry child a stone, if the child asked for some bread? Would you give your child a snake if the child asked for a fish? As bad as you are, you still know how to give good gifts to your children. But your heavenly Father is even more ready to give good things to people who ask.


Prayer is mostly envisioned as asking for things from God. That's the view of prayer most of us have grown up with and accepted.

Jesus affirmed that asking is a part of prayer. He included searching and knocking as well. In each image, a person must acknowledge his or her lack, and then be open to receiving whatever comes.

The analogy Jesus used for this asking/searching/knocking is a strange one. I typically read it and hear it as a description of how God responds to the person who asks/searches/knocks. And I think that level of understanding is appropriate. If a child asks for something nourishing, a responsible parent is not going to give the child something dangerous or unhealthy. God is likened to the responsible parent, giving spiritual bread and fish to spiritual children, helping them grow up into fully developed adults.

So the passage is about how God gives. Left unsaid, I believe, is that many of us -- "spiritual children" -- spend much of our prayer asking for stones and serpents. Maybe I should just speak for myself here. Prayer, as generally practiced, is a kind of holy asking for whatever would bring me benefit . . . for my health, my comfort, my general well-being. Prayer is the remedy that smooths out the rough spots in my life. In many cases, it is my asking for the things I think would make life "better" or "easier" or "more pleasant" . . . for me or for others.

It becomes hard to see -- because all those things seem like good things to me -- that I'm probably asking for stones and serpents much of the time. In fact, when I get into an asking-mode in my prayer, the majority of my prayer becomes stones-and-serpents-asking.

So step back for a wider view for a second. What are the larger questions in which we live and pray . . . the larger contexts for our lives, specifically for our life with God? Spiritually speaking, is the goal of life to be as comfortable as possible? to be without problems? to be well-heeled?

No, the aim of life is to become fully human, as completely connected to God as possible. This kind of spiritual union does not come from acquiring all we can get from life, but usually happens in relinquishing and letting go of the things that can only give a kind of pseudo-life.

We do not become fully human, fully ourselves apart from God. Thus, in this project of growing up to maturity, becoming fully ourselves, and most deeply connected to God, we don't see what we need. We may see what we'd like to have, but our seeing is always finite, boundaried, limited. God, on the other hand, sees beyond our sight to what actually can get us to the goal for which we were created.

[There is a sub-issue here related to what our goals for life are . . . ours goals for ourselves are almost always quite different from God's intention or design for us. We can feel like we're making grand progress in the spiritual realm when we lean on God or the Church to help us achieve the aims we have for life. In fact, it is quite common in the contemporary religious scene for persons to use God or Church as a way of getting where they want to be. It may feel "spiritual" or "religious" to us, and still be self-serving all the same. God and Church, then, become ways to get ahead or to get where we want to be. We ask for stones. We ask for serpents.]

The nourishment God wants to give you and me is the food that will help us grow up into spiritual maturity, into a developmental-adulthood. This is true bread and fish, not stones and serpents. But it is bread and fish we don't often ask for, because it is sometimes difficult for us to swallow. And it can be bread and fish we don't want in our lives because it is not consistent with where we want to be.

As persons growing in God, we are invited to an evolving life of prayer, where our asking is refined. That is, we cross a threshold where our asking is not so much stones and serpents, but bread and fish.

And sometimes in this evolving life of prayer, we cross another threshold where prayer is not so much asking for anything at all, as it is a posture of openness and a stance of receptivity . . . sitting quiet and still with heart and hand open to receive from God whatever God wants to give, trusting that God knows what we need to become fully human, fully ourselves, fully connected to the One who creates and sustains us.

In a sense, our open heart and hands become our asking, our willingness to receive.

This, to me, is the posture of ultimate trust . . . that we would not have to ask, but rather live so connected to God's heart that, as we live in a stance of openness toward God, we trust that God will not give us stones and serpents.

Rather, God will give us what we most need . . . bread and fish.

Standing Apart or Engaging the Mess?

When I read Psalm 26 this week for prayer, I immediately labeled it as a psalm of separation. In my mind, that was the first thing that came to me.

It was prayed by someone who felt they lived in connection to God. They felt themselves to have integrity, living a life that trusted God, and "not faltering." In their self-description, they have "walked faithfully" with God.

Yet, most of the psalm is filled with the language of separation and division. Read it for yourself.


Vindicate me, LORD,
for I have led a blameless life;
I have trusted in the LORD
and have not faltered.
Test me, LORD, and try me,
examine my heart and my mind;
for I have always been mindful of your unfailing love
and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness.

I do not sit with the deceitful,
nor do I associate with hypocrites.
I abhor the assembly of evildoers
and refuse to sit with the wicked.
I wash my hands in innocence,
and go about your altar, LORD,
proclaiming aloud your praise
and telling of all your wonderful deeds.

LORD, I love the house where you live,
the place where your glory dwells.
Do not take away my soul along with sinners,
my life with those who are bloodthirsty,
in whose hands are wicked schemes,
whose right hands are full of bribes.
I lead a blameless life;
redeem me and be merciful to me.

My feet stand on level ground;
in the great congregation I will praise the LORD.


I know where the impulse for separation comes from. The Hebrew word for holiness is kadosh, and the root meanings of kadosh imply to be set apart or to be different. In my Old Testament seminary class, I researched and wrote a lengthy term paper on the Hebrew notion of holiness (kadosh). I found this idea of separation all through the Hebrew Scriptures . . . Holiness Codes and admonitions/instructions for how to live a holy life. Most all of them had to do with keeping separate from others who were deemed "unclean" or "evil." Many of them were about separation from "foreigners" or those who worshiped other gods. The message was, "Stay away from anyone except those who worship Yahweh."

Psalm 26 comes to us out of that tradition.

"I do not sit with the deceitful, nor do I associate with hypocrites."

"I abhor the assembly of evildoers and refuse to sit with the wicked."

What God wants, according to this view of holiness, is that we separate ourselves from "the deceitful and the hypocrites" . . . from the "evildoers and the wicked" . . . from the "sinners and the bloodthirsty."

[It's amazing to me that in the many references to this kind of separation in the Old Testament, there is never a hint that the pray-er considers that he/she might also have deceitfulness or hypocrisy, sinfulness or scheming within his/her heart. Apparently it never occurs to them that it could be "in here;" rather, the evil and wickedness is always "out there."]

For many years I carried around this idea of holiness. I thought this is what God wanted from people, that we be separated from the world, that we "stand apart" from the "real world," that a holy life was a life that was pure and clean and completely unassociated with anything impure.

To be sure, there was a significant period of my life when I needed to have this view of life. There was a season when, for my own spiritual, mental and emotional health, I had to stop going into certain situations and I had to stop spending time with the people I had been spending time with. I was not strong enough to say my, "No!" to self-destruction and to the ways I would then destroy others. And that season lasted quite a long time for me.

So I cannot say that this view of holiness is completely misguided. There are times when we must be separate or set apart, or else we'll get eaten alive by all the destructive forces that live within us and in the world. Psalm 26 has its place.

BUT . . . but this is not the final stopping place of spirituality and life with God. Ultimately, holiness is not determined by how clean and morally pure and separate you remain from the world. The goal of the spiritual life is not separation from the world (as I once believed), but engaging the world from a new Center, with a heart that is being shaped by God's Spirit.

It may be one part of the path to stand apart from that which keeps us blind, that which keeps us mired in self-deceit. The movement of the spiritual life, though, does not necessarily lead us to cloister ourselves away from the world. It leads us to be in the world, living from a God-center, pouring into the world the healing, mercy and redeeming work with which God is shaping us.

In an introductory class on spiritual formation, I've offered this basic definition of spirituality: a deepening connection with God that makes a difference in our relationships with God, self, others, and the world. We make a difference by engagement, not separation.

After all, the goal of life with God is union, the coming together of the human person and the entire human family with God . . . and in the process, the coming together of all people and all of creation.

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.

Praying with Psalm 121

Psalm 121 Psalm-Prayer


Stuck in a valley
on shadowed trails –
is this my forever-address? –
I look upward
above me
anxious for light,
fearful.

Only You help me,
only You who made these mountains
this valley

You do not remove me from the valley
You do not always make the way bright
You do not always remove the heavy
sack from my back

But You also do not sleep on me;
You keep watch
You know where I am
so that, lost as I feel,
I am never lost to You.

You are the Tree under which I rest
the Ground on which I sit
the River from which I drink
the Path on which I walk

By night or by day
my soul is safe
The dangers of the outer world
cannot touch the “me” that lives.

You keep track of my wandering here
and there
now
and always

So is my life in You.