Learn to Bear the Beams of Love

Fat Tuesday – February 25, 2020

The season of Lent suggests starkness, struggle, and difficulty. Typical Lenten images include desert and dust, pilgrimage and preparation. Words like repentance and redemption show up often. Some folks image Lent as a time for a spiritual house-cleaning.
Those images are appropriate and good, with a long history in the Church. They help us realize that we don’t appear on Easter morning to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ without some context, without making a journey toward that celebration. I affirm those understandings of Lent and their corresponding images, but I want to suggest another image for Lent.

Lent is also the time to dig deeper into the heart of God, to find ourselves immersed more completely in the mercy, compassion, and generosity that are at the center of life. This may not be a typical Lenten theme, but I believe it carries significance for us. The journey with Jesus toward Holy Week, the cross and Resurrection is a pilgrimage of love. His deep love for his Abba and for each of us animated each step toward the Passion. He embodied the love of God. His movements toward his final week were permeated in a generous and compassionate love. Mercy is who he was.

So I think about my life, our lives, as they are shaped by love. I’m drawn to one of William Blake’s poems in his “Songs of Innocence,” where he writes:

And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love.

Beams of love illumine our world in every place and at every moment. Creation is full of love-beams. We are surrounded by them. In a sense, the beams of love are God’s work, God’s initiative, God’s gift to the world. The human responsibility, though, is to “bear” those beams.

The dual meaning of “bearing” is important. We are here to bear the beams of love, that is, to stand up underneath them. To bear the beams of love is to receive their weight and significance into ourselves, to welcome them into our being.

But the word “bear” also has another meaning. To bear is to carry or to deliver to another. We can bear good news. We bear something when we take it to someone else.

This is our Lenten journey, both to bear the beams of love by receiving them into ourselves, and to bear the beams of love by carrying them to others in the world. It is the twofold movement of the Christian spiritual life: First, the soul’s movement inward where we are connected ever-more deeply to God and to transforming love. Then the second, outward movement to carry love into society in a way that transforms the world.

Persons throughout history have borne the beams of love. Across the generations, they have given themselves to a more intentional spiritual path, affirming both inward and outward dimensions of life with God. We are invited to join them in this holy journey.

I'll post daily reflections throughout Lent on my sister site: https://dailylent.blogspot.com/


Welcome to Lent!

Fasting, Pacifiers, and the Voices in Your Head

While I came late to the seasons of the Church calendar, still I’ve followed their rhythm for over 35 years. Especially as a minister, preacher, and worship leader, I’m challenged year after year to find new ways to think about Advent . . . or to envision Lent . . . or to celebrate Resurrection. There are only so many ways to twist the prism, only so many times I can lean into my reliable, stand-by descriptions of the seasons.

So I’ve been enlivened in recent days by Barbara Brown Taylor’s short essay on Lenten disciplines. I’ve followed her writing and preaching for several years. She is compelling and stretching, writing with honesty about the spiritual journey by offering fresh images for envisioning life connected deeply to God. I’ve read a number of her books . . . both Leaving Church and An Altar in the World have impacted me in huge ways. But for some reason, I had missed her essay on Lent until recently. Today, she is my teacher.

She writes with Luke 4:1-13 in the background, the account of Jesus fasting in the wilderness for 40 days before being tempted. Then she likens Lenten practices to being left in the wilderness by yourself for 24 hours, a common practice among men’s rite-of-passage groups and some wilderness adventure expeditions. The aim in that kind of boundary experience is to place you at the edges of what you know, to push you to see your own life differently, and to come to some deeper sense of what is beneath all the machinations and projections that are part of our daily life.

The Lenten name we would give to this kind of stripped-down experience is fasting. As Brown Taylor says,

That is when you find out who you are. That is when you find out what you really miss and what you really fear. Some people dream about their favorite food. Some long for a safe room with a door to lock and others just wish they had a pillow; but they all find out what their pacifiers are – the habits, substances, or surroundings they use to comfort themselves, to block out the pain and fear that are normal parts of being human.


I’ve long recognized that each of us have personalized patterns for dealing with life when we feel things are out of control. We are aware that when Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired, we are especially vulnerable. Usually in those states, we’ll reach for something that brings comfort – that’s why we call some foods “comfort foods” – in order to escape the more difficult realities that rise up from within us. We’ll do most anything to not face our own selves.

I have my default habits, behaviors, and addictions, just as you do. Brown Taylor says she is convinced that 99% of us are addicted to something. I think the percentage is even higher . . . taking the form of eating, drinking, shopping, blaming, substances, entertainment, busyness.

Brown Taylor calls these things pacifiers. I think it’s a marvelous image.

That hollowness we sometimes feel is not a sign of something gone wrong. It is the holy of holies inside of us, the uncluttered throne room of the Lord our God. Nothing on earth can fill it, but that does not stop us from trying. Whenever we start feeling too empty inside, we stick pacifiers into our mouths and suck for all we are worth. They do not nourish us, but at least they plug the hole.


When you are dropped by the adventure group into the middle of the wilderness, you have left all these pacifiers behind. No more mac and cheese to soothe your anxiety . . . no glass of wine after work to take off the edge . . . no comfortable bed for an escaping nap . . . no strip-center down the street to look for the blouse that would take away your blues . . . no movie theater in which to lose your life in someone else’s story. It’s just you in that place, stripped down and vulnerable, the real self hungry-angry-lonely-tired.

This is Lent, forty days of this stripping down, forty days of saying “No!” to that one thing which pretends to make everything better . . . but which actually just pushes all the ugly inner stuff beneath the surface yet again.

Nothing is too small to give up. Even a chocolate bar will do. For forty days, simply pay attention to how often your mind travels in that direction. Ask yourself why it happens when it happens. What is going on when you start craving a Mars bar? Are you hungry? Well, what is wrong with being hungry? Are you lonely? What is so bad about being alone? Try sitting with the feeling instead of fixing it and see what you find out.


There is nothing magical about Lenten practices. Giving up chocolate for Lent is a worthwhile gesture for several reasons, but a.) if chocolate is not a pacifier for you, and b.) if you are not reflective about what it feels like to resist reaching for the candy bar when you feel stressed, then you might as well spend your time in some other productive pursuits for Lent.

On the other hand, if chocolate (or whatever happens to be your addiction of choice) IS your pacifier, and if you ARE reflective about what it feels like to go without that thing, then asking yourself the questions Barbara Brown Taylor suggests above is a good place to begin.

Of course, our inner voices chatter away, counseling moderation, urging us to back off such asceticism, reminding us of our commitment to never look as if we’re holier-than-thou. This is how she ends her Lenten essay.

Chances are you will hear a voice in your head that keeps warning you what will happen if you give up your pacifier. “You’ll starve. You’ll go nuts. You won’t be you anymore.” If that does not work, the voice will move to level two: “That’s not a pacifier. That’s a power tool. Can’t you tell the difference?” If you do not fall for that one, there is always level three: “If God really loves you, you can do whatever you want. Why waste your time on this dumb exercise?”

If you do not know who that voice belongs to, read Luke’s story again. Then tell the devil to get lost and decide what you will do for Lent. Better yet, decide whose you will be. Worship the Lord your God and serve no one else. Expect great things, from God and from yourself. Believe that everything is possible. Why should any of us settle for less?

[All quotes from Barbara Brown Taylor, “Lenten Discipline,” Home by Another Way (Lanham, Maryland: Cowley Publications, 1999), pp. 65-68.]

Beginning Lent in Humanity

Shrove Tuesday


Tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, marks the beginning of Lent. Many of us will attend a church service in which ashes are marked upon our foreheads. We will hear the traditional Ash Wednesday litany that reminds us, “Remember, from dust you have come, and to dust you shall return.”

I will be with the Senior Pastor of First United Methodist Church of Rogers, wearing a ministerial robe and clerical stole, standing in 36 degree temperatures, waiting in a parking lot in Downtown Rogers, Arkansas, to impose ashes on the foreheads of those who drive by.

The car pulls up. “What is your name?”

“Maria.”

“Maria, remember your creation in God . . . from dust God created you . . . and remember your humanity . . . to dust you shall return.” The car drives away.

It seems a bit mundane, imposing ashes as people pull up in their cars, rather than in the formality of an Ash Wednesday service in a beautiful Chapel somewhere.

Yet, what better way to remember our humanity, to be reminded of our clay feet, than in the run of everyday life?

“Honey, I’m running to the grocery store and the post office. And oh, between, I’m stopping to get marked with ashes.”

It’s a powerful symbol of one central aspect of our humanity, the “dust” that will always be part of who we are.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” is simply a formal way to say, “You’re human and always will be, so don’t forget it!”

Too much perverted spirituality claims you can rise above your humanity . . . that spiritual practices can root out your human nature permanently . . . that you can overcome your humanity and rise to some exalted spiritual sphere where you don’t have to deal with everyday life any more.

In fact, that very illusion is carried by many who embark on an intentional spiritual path. They want to eradicate their impulses to control and envy and greed. They want a check on their egocentric longings and manipulations. They want to be better. They want to move beyond “sin.” The motive may be sound, but no matter how hard we try, we will never escape our humanness.

Lent begins with this reminder of our humanity. We are human. Dust. Clay. Too often weak and conflicted.

But we are also created in God’s image, created with God’s own DNA woven into our being, created for union with God, created to live in the fullness of our God-connection.

It is important that Lent begins this way . . . with this reminder of our humanity. Many of us take up some special practice for Lent, or we step into Lent intending to fast something . . . food or drink or a compulsive habit.

Some of us, for example, will vow to give up sweets, or more specifically chocolates, for Lent. Or we give up some kind of drink, perhaps alcohol. Or, if our own anger or envy is a particular issue for us, we will give up an afflictive emotion for Lent.

I realize that often I give up something for Lent that seems rather inconsequential. I can easily give up sweets, including chocolate, for Lent and will it come as no great sacrifice for me. Even something which comes nearer to addiction – my morning cup of coffee or evening glass of wine – still seems to be skimming the surface of Lent’s intention.

While there is something to be said for any form of fasting in which we say, “No!” to ourselves, there are some practices that seem to touch us more deeply than others.

Honestly, sometimes I wonder if we undertake practices for Lent that are more inconvenience than actual fasts because we want to do something for Lent at which we can succeed. Afraid that we might bale out three days into fasting some weightier afflictive emotion or addictive obsession, we opt for the thing we can accomplish, the fast at which we can succeed.

“How could I possibly tame my ego or lay aside my pride for seven weeks?”
“What would life be like if I didn’t have to worry all the time?”
“It is not possible for me to go a day without judging someone else.”
“I could not possibly spend 40 days without being critical, so why begin . . . why even try?”

We miss the point. Lent begins with this simple, earthy affirmation of our humanity: “You are dust” . . . loved dust, cherished dust, beyond-all-worth dust . . . but still, dust.

The point is not that you will mess up, that you will fall short. That is assumed already. The point is that you acknowledge when you do stumble . . . that you learn something about yourself, and about yourself in God, and about yourself in relation to others . . . that you get back “on the bicycle” after you fall and then keep going . . . that you find yourself loved and beheld, even as you fall . . . and that through it all, you come to experience that no amount of human failure can disqualify you from love.

If you begin Lent truly hearing and believing that you are dust, beloved dust, then you can go ahead and take on the improbable or the impossible in your life . . . you can endeavor to address the thing that most holds you in its grasp, knowing that no matter each Lenten day’s outcome, you are never disqualified from the journey and never outside the reach of love.

The visitor asked the monk, “What do you do here at the monastery all day long?”

The elder monk replied, “We fall down and get up . . . fall down and get up . . . fall down and get up.”

Traditions and Transcendence

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.

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.

A Check on Your Opinions

The world contains a huge amount of anxious, angry energy at present. Maybe it always has done so . . . this anxious and destructive energy likely has always existed just beneath the surface. But somehow it feels more toxic now that it had made a home in plain sight.

Colliding worldviews and divisions give us pause even to engage in conversations that once would have been considered normal and everyday. [Am I the only one with an wary eye on Thanksgiving week and the family gatherings that include emboldened, combative voices from across ideological spectrums?]

As one of my favorite sports talk-show hosts used to say, "Opinions are like noses: Everybody has one." Indeed, everybody has an opinion.

But not all opinions are created equal, and simply holding an opinion strongly or loudly or stubbornly does not make that opinion life-giving or healthy or whole-making.

In fact, maybe we would do well to hold up those phrases to the ideologies or worldviews to which we cling:

** Is it life-giving? Is it life-giving for you? Is it life-giving for others? Does it lead to fullness of life for everyone concerned? Or does it diminish life?

** Is it healthy? That is, does it come from a place of healing and reconciliation? Does it lead to health (spiritual, emotional, physical) in you and others?

** Does it make the world whole? Does it help persons become complete? Does it help you and others live in the world as people who follow in the steps of Jesus? Is it something Jesus would support or advocate for? Does it hold together divisions? Or does it create more splits and deepen chasms?

I fully realize that not everyone will want to ask questions like these of themselves. But I also realize that for those who call themselves followers of Jesus, these are basic, fundamental stances for Christian disciples.

Spiritual Life and the Social Order

The inward spiritual journey always impacts life in the outer world.

A deepening connection with God (the inner work) always makes a difference in who we are with (and how we see) God, self, others, and the world (the outer work).

The spiritual dimension of life should always impact the social order in which we live.

In fact, the spiritual life gives you and me a different way of being in the world, a way of swimming upstream against the prevailing current of the social order, without having to adopt the means by which society plays the game.

To “play the game” by the rules of society is merely a way of granting legitimacy to those rules and to the social order that created them.

“The ‘team’ with the most votes wins . . . or the side that has the strongest argument is right . . . or this election is a referendum on _________.”

The social order acts – and throughout history, always has – as if it holds all the cards, as if it is the most powerful order in the world. The prevailing social “wisdom” assumes that because it creates the rules, passes the legislation, and determines what is important and unimportant, that it must be the most powerful aspect of life, whether that social wisdom represents “the Left” or “the Right”.

On the other hand, those given to the spiritual world and the spiritual realm of life bet their lives that there is a Spiritual Presence that undergirds all of life, a Divine Source present always and everywhere to which the prevailing social order is largely oblivious. Further, underlying the spiritual life is the conviction that the real authority and power in life is this Spiritual Presence, that all social claims to power and authority are mere pretenders.

So I’m pondering what it means to be a contemplative presence in the kind of world in which we live (and in which we have always lived). What is my life about as I seek to live in the world from the Center, tethered to the Source of all things?

I recognize that for centuries, when the Church was complicit in society’s corruption, those who carried forward the way of Jesus had to do so underground, in ways and in places that were quiet, unseen, and out of the mainstream. In fact, in those centuries, the mainstream expressions of religious faith were just as corrupt as society at large, filled more with the messages of the social order than with the Gospel. So it was up to mystics, monks, and holy women to carry – and live into – a way of being in the world that was healing and regenerative, rather than divisive, hostile, and hysteric.

In the Middle Ages, Popes, Cardinals, and Bishops were a part of royal courts, in the service of monarchs, and a part of the corruption that comes with power. In those settings, the religious authorities offered widespread blessing of the very corruption that served some well, but oppressed most. In those days, it was up to mystics to speak of an authentic connection with God that ran deeper than political influence. Monasteries became places where simplicity and poverty of spirit symbolized a stance against the power structures of the day. But that kind of resistance flowed mostly underground.

In the 1930’s, the Church in Germany so totally adopted the platform of the Nazis that Christians could no longer see what was real. Persons who carried forward an authentically Gospel message – like Dietrich Bonhoeffer – had to do so through an underground Church, so totally had the mainstream Church and clergy adopted the prevailing social order.

So today, the calling of those who would be awake, who would seek a deepening connection with God that makes a difference in the world, may take an underground, almost subversive form. That is not to say contemplatives or those who lean into the spiritual dimension of life should not be active in the social order, in political systems, government, business, and so on. Always, part of the Divine invitation is to work and pray for a more just, more merciful and compassionate world (“on earth as it is in heaven”). So we do not “sit this one out.” However, we also acknowledge that trusting in elections, legislation, capitalism, and policies to change hearts is misplaced trust.

Your spiritual journey makes a difference in the world.

Your practice of prayer impacts the circumference of your realm of influence.

Your openness to a deepening connection with God creates healing space within you and around you that touches the world with wholeness and generosity.

Your soul’s tether to the Source of Life is stronger and more real than all the power, control, and legislations of the social order.

And in your intention to live from a life-giving Center, you carry on an underground tradition that no power of the world can curb.

Spirituality as Subtraction, not Addition

Decades ago my wife and I knew a man who loved to tinker with woodwork, doing some minor carpentry around his house. At some point, he decided to build an extra room onto his house. With family members helping in the project, he added the room. But one room was not enough. Soon he decided he needed another . . . then another. I don't know how many rooms he added in all, but over the years his house took up nearly every foot of his city lot. This amateur carpenter never took anything down, only adding to his existing house until it ate up his entire property.

We were guests in his house a couple of times, and when he would give us the tour of the latest project, we would walk through a room to a doorway cut in the strangest place, spilling into a misshapen hallway that led to the next room, where the same pattern would be repeated. It was the only way he could get everything to fit together. I suppose in an emergency there was only one way in and one way out, because the home seemed like an endless chain of rooms and angled hallways that had to be navigated single-file. The entire layout was connected, to be sure, but was only loosely held together by the builder's latest whim. While I'm sure the layout made sense to him, to others nothing seemed to cohere.

Because we regularly passed the house in our coming and going, my wife began calling it the "Add-on Extravaganza." It became something of a game to drive by and see what the latest project was, the next "add-on" in the extravaganza.

His way of adding on to his house was far removed from a renovation or refurbishment, in which walls are taken down, the existing arrangement of the house is altered, and the old bones of a house are given new life. In a renovation, something has to be subtracted before something else can be added. If you want more space for a kitchen, you demolish a wall and open up space into a dining or living area. In the end, you most always have to get rid of something in order to make space for something else.

In our desire for a deepening connection with God, persons who engage an intentional spiritual path often thrill to find new prayer methods, retreat experiences, spiritual books, conferences, and classes that hold the promise of another step toward awakening. I know this temptation well. The appeal of a new book or a gifted teacher can be overwhelming. It is quite easy for any of us to begin to add this teaching to that experience . . . to add this prayer practice to my bagful of spiritual disciplines . . . to add a new understanding of my own inner landscape to all the understandings of myself I've accumulated through the decades. Add add add add add. . . .

Jesus told a short, "the kingdom-of-heaven-is-like . . ." parable.

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field." (Matt. 13:44)

It's one of my favorite parables on many levels. The field represents many things, including your life. If the field is your life, then treasure is within you. But the parable emphasizes that in order to apprehend the treasure, you much first sell what you have.

**Sell what you have in order to buy the treasure.
**Empty yourself of whatever fills your interior rooms in order to make room for the treasure.
**Spend whatever you currently have in order to receive this priceless treasure.
**Make any sacrifice necessary in order to claim the treasure.

And all this giving-up in order to receive does not happen in the context of a grinding, regretful sacrifice, as if spending and emptying were onerous tasks to undergo. The treasure is of such magnitude that the "selling" is undertaken with joy, what St. Clare of Assisi called a "laudable exchange." We exchange the small joy we have in our hands for the greater joy or the "pearl of great price" . . . the unimaginable joy -- because it cannot be imagined -- of this treasure.

There is an unmistakable "sell-buy" dynamic at work here. We cannot simply keep adding on, adding on, adding on, without at some point acknowledging that finding this treasure means there are things I have to release in order to apprehend it. I must let go of some things in my life-world in order to fully receive -- or "buy" -- some other things that bring life.

In other words, I cannot hold onto life as it is or life as I experience it now, and merely add-on components of the spiritual life if I want to become the person God created me to be. Spirituality is not an add-on extravaganza! In reality, it is more about subtraction than addition. Some things must be sold, released, emptied, and let go of, in order to make space within us for the treasure we seek.

Personal transformation is more like home renovation than an add-on extravaganza. Bit by bit, some walls are coming down, colors are changing, modes of access are becoming more spacious. There is some demolition involved, and very often the deconstruction is painful. But also, something new and beautiful is being built from the old bones of our lives.

In the life that is continually becoming, this process will take us to our final breath.

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.

Inside-Out

Watch out for false prophets! They dress up like sheep, but inside they are wolves who have come to attack you. You can tell what they are by what they do. No one picks grapes or figs from thornbushes. A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. Every tree that produces bad fruit will be chopped down and burned. You can tell who the false prophets are by their deeds.
(Matthew 7:15-20, CEV)

The shell of the passage concerns false prophets. But the nut of the passage speaks a much more practical message: "You can tell what they are by what they do."

Always, life is lived from the inside-out. Insides determine outsides. The internal always seeps out to the external. Being (who you are) always shapes your doing (what you do).

Institutional religious practice has encouraged attendance at services, study of sacred Scripture, prayer as an act of devotion and intercession, and acts of charity as a response of the will to God. To be sure, there is something to be said for spiritual disciplines, the practices that train the will and shape our volition. Repeated actions become habits, and good habits may do a lot of good in the world. But good habits may also lock us into behavioral patterns from which we may never break free in order to swim in the the deeper currents of the Spirit's flow.

Rote, outward practice of religion can hinder one's full development in the Spirit as much as any other rote, outward practice. The fact that it may be a "religious practice" does not necessarily mean that it leads to wholeness and spiritual adulthood.

Most always, Jesus proposes that persons attend to the interior in order to make a positive impact on the exterior world. In this passage, he uses the image of good trees and bad trees. The point is self-evident. The fruit appearing on the tree's branches always comes as a function of the tree's inner state, that is, the health of its roots and trunk. Trees that are healthy produce good fruit. But if the roots or trunk are diseased, the fruit will not be good.

As I've said often in this space, life is lived from the inside-out. When you and I address only the exteriors of behavior and action, we may be able to will ourselves to some positive result. But good fruit, lasting change, is a function of a healthy interior. Being leads to doing . . . not the other way around.

"You can tell what they are by what they do." You can see the inside by what shows up on the outside.

In daily life, when we address some afflictive emotion, knee-jerk response, or addictive behavior that lives within us by trying to deal directly with the problem, we may be successful for awhile. Lopping off the withered branch may eliminate an unsightly part of the tree, but it may not deal with aspects of the tree that are diseased at the deeper core of roots and trunk. For example, if I deal with my anger merely by trying to overcome -- and overwhelm -- the anger, I may gain some respite from it for a time simply by force of will. But in some form, the anger most always grows back. The same holds true for most any afflictive emotion, addictive behavior, or habitual response that lives within me.

The contemplative experiences of meditation, spiritual reflection, and deep inner prayer actually begin to work on the "tree" from the inside-out. These contemplative practices don't attempt to change one's surroundings. They don't obliterate the habit or behavior by force of will. They don't concentrate energies on producing fruit. They work within a different field, the interior field in which one sees the world and from which one responds to the events of daily life. They trust that working on the interior brings about organic change in the fruit that is manifested in the world.

On Being Contemplative (part 3): "Oh, that we might see better times!"

In two previous posts, I've offered thoughts on being contemplative, reflecting on Thomas Merton's ideas about how active contemplation shapes our lives. I offer these words today as a kind of real-world-fleshing-out of those ideas.

For context, I'll begin with a psalm-prayer:

Offer sacrifices in the right spirit,
and place your trust the Lord.

Many are saying, “Oh, that we might see better times!”
Let your face smile on us, Lord.

You have given me greater joy
than in seasons of abundant harvests of grain and new wine.

I lie down in peace and fall asleep at once,
for only you, Lord, make me dwell in safety.
(Ps. 4:5 - 8)

If the nightly news and up-to-the-minute news feeds via smartphone are your barometer for the world's sanity, then the entire planet is going mad. Each day seems crazier than the last, and each tomorrow promises something even more outlandish that hasn't yet been imagined.

"Oh, that we might see better times!" I read that in Psalm 4 a few days ago and just stopped in my tracks. How perfectly that short line expresses what I feel. And I sense that across the borders separating nations, across political parties, across the many belief-systems to which we cling, this is the prayer -- both quiet and shouted -- that the world's people are praying.

I feel the daily struggle within my own self to hope for and work within some movement, some uprising of people who would honor the dignity of other humans, even those different from my own tribe . . . who would value the planet which is our home more than the monetary gain we can scratch from it . . . who would put the well-being of the whole above self-interest or political gain.

And I know the temptation of looking to some political party or mass movement to gain a return to sanity. Daily, it seems, I have fallen into that trap, scanning news stories looking for some sign that better days are ahead . . . looking for hints from candidates and political parties, initiatives coming from the private sector, something or anything that would be a glimmer of light and would bring some level of sanity to a world gone mad . . . in short, hoping for some change to come by some worldly means.

At least momentarily, this psalm-prayer drew me back to reality. Trust in a political party or in a significant movement or in some legal action is really no trust at all, or at least is not a trust that can bring authentic joy and peace.

In my lifetime, I've watched evangelical and fundamentalist Christians embrace right-wing conservative politicians, parties, and policies, hoping the embrace would lead to systemic change in social/cultural mores. I've also watched moderate and mainline Christians embrace left-wing liberal politicians, parties, and policies, hoping for a systemic re-balance of some of those same social/cultural mores. In effect, Christians from across the spectrum have sought to bring their own brand of Christianity to the public realm by means of political systems. In short, they have trusted organizations, parties, and political appointments, rather than the One who is the Center of life, using cultural systems to bring about spiritual ends.

Most moments, I'm not immune from placing trust in some human institution. Because the desire "that we might see better times" is so deeply rooted within the human psyche, we'll use most any instrument at our disposal to make our notion of "better times" come to pass. In my more grounded moments, though, when I've allowed my roots to run deep and silent into the One who is beyond ideas, programs, and get-better schemes, I recognize that trust in any god that is not GOD goes by the name "idolatry." A political system or economic reality does not have the power to bring about the deep sense of God-connection which is the center of human experience. External systems, ultimately, are insufficient.

At the same time, movements, protests, and altered political landscapes are necessary in order to overturn, or at least speak to, systemic injustices, to right the wrongs which have been ignored. Thus, active engagement in the social and cultural arena may be one of the ways the contemplative person enters the world . . . . in order to serve and act from a core that is being altered by prayer and ongoing attentiveness to the Divine. Deep connection with God, after all, DOES make a difference in who we are with God, self, others, and the world.

So in the moment, some kind of involvement is called for, some kind of stepping into the world's fray. Because the contemplative cannot ignore symptoms or manifestations of societal ills, which have very real consequences for human beings who are in trouble or difficulty . . . wandering refugees, those unjustly incarcerated, abused women and children, immigrants herded across miles, and those on the lower rungs of society who are trapped beneath massive systems of oppression. Those needs are real and the contemplative cannot ignore them.

The engaged contemplative, then, does not withdraw from the world-gone-mad, but rather engages that world from a different center. He/she sees underneath the actual events, the difficulty of situations, the injustices that seem to prevail . . . and as Merton said in a previous post, the contemplative sees the real direction in which events are moving . . . sees the genuine facts in the movements that are characteristic of our times. The contemplative sees the world through a God-shaped lens, and thus is invited to engage the world from an enlarged, more expansive, more loving and merciful center. So the contemplative does not withdraw, but engages with different vision.

Movements and political parties are not the ultimate answer for the contemplative, for movements, parties, and policies can never completely speak to the complexities of the human experience, the human desire for meaning and wholeness. The contemplative, from his or her interior life, seeks a way to step into the world's pain in a way that makes a real difference, in a way that offers mercy to all, in a way that leads to healing and wholeness for the entire human family.

Back to the psalm-prayer . . . which in the end, advocates trust in God's mercy, a connection rooted in God's heart that feeds, nourishes, and sustains . . . and thus keeps a person held in peace, shalom, wholeness, and well-being, no matter what is happening in the world.

I lie down in peace
at once I fall asleep
for you, Lord, make me dwell in safety.

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.

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

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

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.

Getting beneath the Resistance

I've spent a lot of time the last few days noticing my own interior reaction to a couple of situations "out there."

In one situation, I've been directly in the line of fire. I've been caught in the crossfire of someone else's issues.

The other situation doesn't directly impact me, yet, I have taken on its weight and felt personally attacked . . . even though the persons actually involved have no idea who I am. Strange, huh?

Both issues, and others of a more mundane, day-by-day nature, have invited me to pay attention to my own interior landscape. Specifically, I'm trying to ask hard questions of myself about my own resistance in these situations. What has stirred up within me? Why have I resisted so vigorously in these very different settings?

Frankly, this is interior work I don't like to do. And I don't always come to it quickly. Often, I'll swim around in angry thoughts for several days before I begin to track my own emotional and spiritual state back to my own inner framework.

That's not to say that what goes on in the outer world is "fair" or "right" . . . but then again, I'm not responsible for someone else's life, for the way they treat people, for the fences they build to exclude and alienate others. I am responsible for my own interior state.

In Matthew 5:20 - 26, Jesus invites persons to trace their behaviors and outer reactions back to the source within a person. In other words, what you are doing or feeling outwardly has some kind of interior component. An explosion of anger bursts out of some internal source. The feeling of resentment comes from some place within us. Our confrontation with the assertive co-worker or family member may arise from our own need to be right or to be perceived as knowledgeable.

Often in a class or workshop, I'll present a difficult idea or offer an image for the spiritual life that is unfamiliar or outside their normal "box" . . . something that challenges the life-framework of the class . . . then I'll invite the group to notice what they are resisting in this new idea.

Sometimes there are folks present who simply shut down. They say, in one way or another, "I'm not going to go there. I won't even consider that."

Some may stay with it, but start enumerating a "belief-system" on which they fall back, and which prevents them from seriously considering any new images or ideas.

There are others who get defensive, even combative. What I've said touches a little too closely to something within them, so they begin to discredit or demean what they have heard.

You'll find it to be a great gift in your own growth -- what I would call, your "becoming" -- to notice intentionally what you resist, what you object to. Try to get behind the accusations or blaming that you are tempted to throw at someone who seems to be causing your discomfort.

What is the "tender" spot within you that has been touched?

What is the "trigger" that this person or group has set off?

What is the "open wound" into which someone has just poured salt?

Track your resistance, if you can. Ask God to help you find its source.

I haven't finished with my interior work related to these issues in my own life. They are ongoing. But I want to notice, to see what is really there.

This "me," the "flawed, angry me" is the real me . . . and this is the "me" God loves.

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.

Waiting Is a Moment, Too

Spiritually speaking, waiting may be the most difficult practice for the maturing Christian . . . at least for persons in Western culture. Culturally, we are more practiced at impatience and immediate gratification than we are with sitting still and waiting.

Passivity is frowned upon.

There are few more condemning, more damaging things to say about a person than, "He's lazy!" or "She's lazy!"

As a people, we have subscribed to the guilt-inducing admonition that says, "Don't just stand there. DO SOMETHING!!" The implication is that action is better than inaction, and even wrong-headed or misguided action is better than doing nothing.

The prayers and scriptural words that invite us to "wait on the Lord," seem like a foreign language. We don't know how to do that. We want to take action, to cause something to happen, to rush toward the job completed.


Waiting Is a Moment, Too

Waiting, if we take it seriously, often refers to the time in-between, or the season just before the big thing happens. Much of our human experience of waiting is like this. We think of waiting moments as wasted time or in-between time before the really important thing happens.

So when I wait in a doctor's office (in the "waiting room"), I'm biding time until the important meeting with the doctor.

Or when I wait in an airport terminal, I'm passing time until I board the plane, which is what I really came to the terminal for in the first place.

Or when I wait for guests to arrive at my house, I'm idle until the important time with the guests begins.

Or when I'm waiting for test results from the lab, I'm twiddling my thumbs until I receive those important results.

In each scenario, we approach the waiting time as a prelude to something else. And that "something else" is usually what we deem to be the important stuff.

But waiting is a moment, too. It is not just the lull before the next thing happens. Something is happening in the moment of waiting that is valuable for its own sake, and not just for the sake of what comes next.

[In a religious or a faith context, our language betrays us at this point. People say things like, "God showed up," or "God will meet me there." The language suggests that God is not present in every time and in every place. In fact, God is present in all times and in every space. That means God is just as present in the waiting, in the threshold moments, as in the next big thing we are waiting upon.]

Waiting is a moment, too, a moment in which God is real and present and stirring and inviting. It is not the preparation for something else, but the now in which God is to be experienced in all God's fullness.


Waiting for the Unexpected

I find that people feel they can wait if they have two pieces of information:

First, how long will I have to wait? If I know how long the "waiting" will last, it seems to make the waiting bearable.

Second, for what am I waiting? If I know the shape of the thing to come (the "payoff"??), I'm more likely to wait in order to experience the thing I have anticipated.

Waiting that is consistent with the biblical tradition, however, is most often waiting upon something that is unknown. Most biblical waiting does not come with an attached time-frame, nor does it come with an expected outcome. Persons in the scriptures often waited decades for a promised fulfillment . . . and entire peoples waited centuries for promises to be fulfilled. God didn't guarantee results over a particular span of time. And neither did God always give just what the people expected.

In fact, one of the signs of the presence of the Holy Spirit was the surprise with which God's Spirit acted. At Pentecost (Acts 1 - 2), the disciples were looking for the coming Kingdom of God. When the Spirit came upon them, they got instead tongues of fire and empowerment for the task ahead of them.

The difficult practice of authentic waiting does not promise time-frames, nor does it guarantee specific outcomes. What comes to us at the end of our waiting is borne of the Spirit of Surprise, and it comes in the larger timing of God.

I think it is this kind of waiting that most rubs up against our notions of being in control of our lives and how we plot our life-arches and trajectories. God's Spirit is not subject to our conjectures and our plotting. So our waiting is to be different.

Henri Nouwen called this "open-ended waiting." He meant that what comes at the end of the waiting is not determined by us. It is determined by God, and if we are going to perceive it and participate in it, we must wait with openness. Our hands must be open, and our hearts. Otherwise, we will miss whatever it is that happens on the far end of our waiting. I am invited to wait and to stay open, not to set my sight on a fixed or a determined outcome. This is the way we participate in the work of the Holy Spirit in our world.


Waiting Is Not a Formula for Success

I need to say one more thing about waiting. I want to encourage you not to make a formula out of this waiting process, so that whenever you need something or want something, you pull it out of your pocket and use it to your benefit. "Waiting upon the Lord" is not a formula for your success, or a strategy to be used for your own benefit, or a tool with which you can manipulate God to give you what you want.

Waiting is a life-stance, a posture with which we are invited to live life with God. This stance recognizes that waiting is a moment, too, a moment in which God is present and active, and not just a prelude to the next big thing.

This stance recognizes that there is not a time-frame given for our waiting . . . it is, after all, a life-stance.

And it recognizes that God's Spirit of Surprise often graces us with the unexpected, so the stance includes open hands and open hearts to receive whatever God brings our way.

This is the posture for the person growing into a deeper, more rooted connection with God.

What It Takes To Be Happy

As the season of Lent came this year, I didn't have any strong impressions about a Lenten discipline to follow. Many years ago I would engage in some kind of fast through the season, by not eating certain foods or by a total fast for certain days of each week.

In more recent years, I've taken to fasting emotional reactions and personal quirks . . . one year I tried to fast anger, another year I fasted judging others. While I found that those emotional responses arose so quickly and unimpeded within me that I couldn't completely govern them, I came to see that God's invitation to me through those "fasts" was to notice the anger or the judgment when it rose up within me. So the fasting became an exercise in awareness, paying attention more closely to my interior landscape. Those were humbling fasts. I saw that I couldn't go without anger or judgment, for example, but could pray for the grace to notice them when they arose.

This year I came to Ash Wednesday not feeling strongly invited into any particular practice. About a week into Lent, I heard the word, "patience."

"Oh no," was my first thought. Well, truthfully, my reaction was quite a bit stronger than that, but I won't put it out there in this blogpost.

I know from experience that prayers for patience most always are accompanied by life-circumstances designed to stretch and test patience. A wise elder said to me one time, "Don't ever pray for patience unless you are really sure you want it, and you're willing to go through what is necessary to have it." I've never forgotten her counsel. After 80-plus years, she knew from experience the difficult road to patience.

For me last month, though, "patience" was just the first invitation I heard. Within a couple of days, what started as "patience" had become "perseverance" and "endurance." Yep, I know . . . even worse than patience!

But I had the clear impression that for Lent I was to live with perseverance and endurance. The words literally suggest bearing up underneath a heavy weight, or remaining under a weight without trying to run away or escape.

These were challenging words for me. I like to keep options open. I like to know there are escape hatches if things get too heavy or too difficult. If things aren't going well in one place, I like having the freedom to move to something else. Perhaps I'm not alone there.

For this season, though, I felt invited to bear up under the difficulties and tensions, to hold them and bear their weight, rather than run away from them. These were not words I was thrilled to hear, but it was what I felt was offered to me through Lent.

In the weeks since that invitation first unfolded for me, the words have continued to evolve. For example, it has become apparent that often I have made my well-being dependent on fixing the difficult or trying things in my outer world . . . or else, escaping them.

The corollary is that if things aren't fixed or healed or righted as I would like, I convince myself that life cannot be good. It's really faulty thinking, and it makes me want all the brokenness fixed and the dysfunction healed . . . or else I will run away and escape it somehow.

Perseverance and endurance are my invitations to live underneath difficult circumstances, and to engage life so that my well-being is not dependent on the difficulty going away or being fixed.

For instance, my well-being is not dependent on my health clearing up and the lymphoma going away. That healing may happen, but it also may not happen.

So the questions for me are not, "How can I fix this?" or "How can I make this right or better?" or "Where will I escape to if this doesn't turn around?"

Rather, the questions are, "How can I stay faithfully engaged with God and life while in this place?" and "In what ways am I invited to live my God-designed life even in these difficulties?"

It is now the fifth week of Lent . . . and these things are still unfolding for me. I don't sense that they will be completely resolved by Easter . . . this feels like ongoing work.

So for now I try to hold the questions, and to do so with endurance and perseverance.