Flow mingled down...

Yesterday I wrote of my sense "that many of the so-called mistakes in our lives, the errors and wrong turnings, are allowed (at least) by the Spirit working in our hearts to bring us to where God can heal us, restore us and turn our steps back to the true North."

I am concerned that I may have implied that too much of this could be due to human wisdom, when of course almost the opposite is true. It is when we are given the grace to let go of human wisdom and trust only God's that we can be led safely through the paths of memory and healing, to understand that in the end "It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees." (Psalm 119:71 NIV)

It is hard for us to understand that there is nothing that we can do to earn the mercy of Christ, and it is harder still perhaps for us to realise that our forgiveness and healing has nothing to do with our finding the right way to say sorry. It was on the cross that all the work was done, all the love poured out in tears and blood. All that we have to do is accept that "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" (Galatians 2:20-21 NIV)

Our healing comes from that:

Surely he took up our pain

and bore our suffering,

yet we considered him punished by God,

stricken by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was on him,

and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to our own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

(Isaiah 53:4-6 NIV)

These realisations are gifts, and they seem to be received by repentance. Real repentance, clean and wholesome, gentle and life-giving, we seem often to overlook; but it is the opening of our hearts to that sorrow and love of our Lord's self-gift. Just that. Not a means of self-accusation, but a turning, in infinite relief and hope, from ourselves to our saviour.

Isaac of Nineveh had this to say:

Repentance is given us as grace after grace, for repentance is a second regeneration by God. That of which we have received an earnest by baptism, we receive as a gift by means of repentance. Repentance is the door of mercy, opened to those who seek it. By this door we enter into the mercy of God, and apart from this entrance we shall not find mercy.

[The title of this post is taken from Isaac Watts' hymn 'When I Survey the Wondrous Cross'] 

Back to the North

I sometimes think that many of the so-called mistakes in our lives, the errors and wrong turnings, are allowed (at least) by the Spirit working in our hearts to bring us to where God can heal us, restore us and turn our steps back to the true North. Yes, it is true that at times these wrong turnings may bring us to where we may find great pain and loss, where dreams and ambitions may come to nothing; but sometimes physical healing may first necessitate surgery!

John O'Donohue wrote (thanks to Barbara for the quote):

One of the qualities that you can develop, particularly in your older years, is a sense of great compassion for yourself. When you visit the wounds within the temple of memory, you should not blame yourself for making bad mistakes that you greatly regret. Sometimes you have grown unexpectedly through these mistakes. Frequently, in a journey of the soul, the most precious moments are the mistakes. They have brought you to a place that you would otherwise have always avoided. You should bring a compassionate mindfulness to your mistakes and wounds.

This is not a new idea. Throughout the Psalms there are hints, and more than hints, of this possibility, but it finds its clearest expression in Psalm 119. For instance, (Psalm 119:67,71 NIV) "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word... It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees."

I have found that these Spirit surgeries are very often mercifully hidden from us at the time. Perhaps we could not cope with the truth of them; perhaps the knowledge might allow us to avoid the error, and hence the healing also. We cannot know. But that unknowing may be a part of the process itself. Ecclesiastes 11:5 reads, "As you do not know the path of the wind, or know how life enters the body being formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things." Proverbs 20:24 is even more pointed: "A person’s steps are directed by the LORD. How then can anyone understand their own way?"

Further on in the passage Barbara quotes, O'Donohue suggests revisiting the remembered time and finding again the state of mind ("inhabit the rhythm" he says) but for myself I am not sure of this. Too easily I become caught up, going back obsessively like a man picking at an old scar. For me, it is the Spirit's leading that is everything. In prayer, especially in a contemplative or other prayer form that allows space for the Spirit to move freely - and this is one of the great benefits of Quaker worship - the Spirit can bring us directly into whatever anamnesis will contribute immediately to our healing, and perhaps more, to our self-forgiveness.

James Nayler is often remembered among Friends for all the wrong reasons, but some of his later writings were among the most beautiful and most powerful of early Quaker texts. He touched keenly upon just what we are considering here:

Art thou in the Darkness? Mind it not, for if thou dost it will fill thee more, but stand still and act not, and wait in patience till Light arises out of Darkness to lead thee. Art thou wounded in conscience? Feed not there, but abide in the Light which leads to Grace and Truth, which teaches to deny, and puts off the weight, and removes the cause, and brings saving health to Light. (Quaker faith & practice 21.65)

But perhaps the best words to end with are Barbara's own, from the conclusion of her own post:

We are poor sods just trying to find our way home, after all. Let's forgive ourselves and cast ourselves into that Ocean of Mercy held out to us.

A Spring of Tears (a reblog)

Once we find ourselves on the way of the Jesus Prayer, or indeed any contemplative discipline, we discover that it is not by any means a comfortable shortcut, a way out of confronting the pain and emptiness of the world. As we begin to travel this path, to pray the Prayer consistently, we find that we become more and more aware of our own pain, and the darkness that lies within our own hearts. To cry out continually, "have mercy on me, a sinner", as did the tax-collector in Luke 18.10-14, breaks down the defences we have built up against looking directly at ourselves in the clear mirror of repentance.

We in the West have generally grown up thinking of sin as committing acts contrary to some kind of code, or list, of Bad Things that must not be done. But the Desert Mothers and Fathers don't seem to have looked at sin like this at all. The Greek word used for sin, αμαρτία - hamartia, apparently means something much more like "missing the mark" than "doing bad stuff", as does the equivalent Hebrew term, syn. Irma Zaleski says, "They were thinking of the condition of those who are... not centred rightly, who are not in the right relationship with God. The root of sin - the ground from which all individual sins spring - is our alienation from God. Repentance, then, should not be... viewed primarily... in terms of guilt - of punishment and repayment - but in terms of metanoia: a Greek word meaning "conversion"... turning away from ourselves and recentring ourselves on God."

If we can get past the musty atmosphere of "owning up" which we have come to associate with repentance, and see it as taking an accurate view of ourselves in relation to God, and in relation to what we ourselves could be were we only open to love God as God loves us, then we begin to see that there really is very little difference between us and anyone - anyone - else. The seeds of cruelty and selfishness are sown deeply in all our hearts, and we cannot stand in judgement over another, no matter what they have done. This is hard, not only to identify with the pain of the victims, but with the cruelty of the victors and the perpetrators of darkness.

Zaleski again:

The way of the Jesus Prayer has been called "white martyrdom." It is the way of the Cross, because there is no greater pain than to stand in the total poverty of our human weakness, to see clearly our misery, our inability to be good. The temptation to judge ourselves, to hate ourselves, would be irresistible if we did not know and had not experienced the merciful, healing power of Jesus.

But, because we have met Christ and have experienced his compassionate, loving presence, we can surrender all judgement to him and be at peace. We can accept ourselves as we are. We can love ourselves and also love others. Because we have discovered that the judgement of Christ is not the judgement of an inquisitor or a tyrant but of a Good Physician, we are able to go to him and show him all the bleeding, cancerous places of our bodies and souls - not so he may punish us, but so he may heal us.

The longer we go on walking in the way of the Prayer, the more clearly we realise that the gulf we have discovered separating us from God is the same gulf that separates our neighbours from God, and the longing for God that leads us onwards is the same longing, the same sense of incompleteness, of - as the existentialists termed it - alienation, that drives the restless and destructive addictions of humanity.

Once realised, once seen for what it is in the bright Light that the Spirit shines into our deepest hearts, this sadness of separation - the core of true repentance - becomes a spring of tears, welling up for ourselves and for all people. It may be sadness, but it is what St John Climacus called "a bright sadness". And we see that our separation is not different from that separation of anyone, and that our prayer for mercy, for union, for reintegration with God, carries with it the love, and the pain, that God has somehow through all this given us for all who suffer, human or otherwise, pain and separation. Our praying of the Jesus Prayer has become in itself intercession: as the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews wrote: "[Christ] is able for all time to save completely those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them." (Hebrews 7.25)

[Reblogged, slightly edited, from a post first published in January 2016]

O Emmanuel

O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster,
exspectatio Gentium, et Salvator earum:
veni ad salvandum nos, Domine, Deus noster.

O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver
the hope of the nations and their Saviour:
Come to save us, O Lord our God.

---

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7.14 NIV)

O come, Lord Jesus, and heal all that is so broken. Restore the places long desolate; make light again the broken hearts. What we cannot understand, give us grace to live. Where we dream of justice, let your judgement bring us mercy.

The Peace of God

In the silence of Ascension Day, what is peace? The quietness of sunlight holds something that does not depend on an absence of noise, a resolution of antinomy.

Jesus said, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." (John 14.27) and "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16.33)

As we live, change and death are always with us. This is the way things are made, and connect; depend one upon another and give rise to new life. We are vulnerable in the very way we are made. The wounds that we acquire will not bleed always, but the marks will remain, like the marks on the risen Jesus' hands and feet. Jacob limped, for the rest of his life presumably (Genesis 32.31), after his encounter with God at Peniel.

Things don't have to be mended to be healed, and as long as we are part of this earth from which we are made, there will be an ache, a hollow place, where we long for - we long for peace, we long for "sweet permanence" as Kerouac said somewhere. What we are longing for is God, who in Jesus is with us always (Matthew 28.20) Paul learned contentment through Jesus "who strengthen[ed him]" in all circumstances, "whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want." (Philippians 4.12) All we really need is trust: as Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me." (John 14.1)

A Spring of Tears

Once we find ourselves on the way of the Jesus Prayer, we discover that it is not by any means a comfortable shortcut, a way out of confronting the pain and emptiness of the world. As we begin to travel this path, to pray the Prayer consistently, we find that we become more and more aware of our own pain, and the darkness that lies within our own hearts. To cry out continually, "have mercy on me, a sinner", as did the tax-collector in Luke 18.10-14, breaks down the defences we have built up against looking directly at ourselves in the clear mirror of repentance.

We in the West have generally grown up thinking of sin as committing acts contrary to some kind of code, or list, of Bad Things that must not be done. But the Desert Mothers and Fathers don't seem to have looked at sin like this at all. The Greek word used for sin, αμαρτία - amartia, apparently means something much more like "missing the mark" than "doing bad stuff", as does the equivalent Hebrew term, syn. Irma Zaleski says, "They were thinking of the condition of those who are... not centred rightly, who are not in the right relationship with God. The root of sin - the ground from which all individual sins spring - is our alienation from God. Repentance, then, should not be... viewed primarily... in terms of guilt - of punishment and repayment - but in terms of metanoia: a Greek word meaning "conversion"... turning away from ourselves and recentring ourselves on God."

If we can get past the musty atmosphere of "owning up" which we have come to associate with repentance, and see it as taking an accurate view of ourselves in relation to God, and in relation to what we ourselves could be were we only open to love God as God loves us, then we begin to see that there really is very little difference between us and anyone - anyone - else. The seeds of cruelty and selfishness are sown deeply in all our hearts, and we cannot stand in judgement over another, no matter what they have done. This is hard, not only to identify with the pain of the victims, but with the cruelty of the victors and the perpetrators of darkness.

Zaleski again:

The way of the Jesus Prayer has been called "white martyrdom." It is the way of the Cross, because there is no greater pain than to stand in the total poverty of our human weakness, to see clearly our misery, our inability to be good. The temptation to judge ourselves, to hate ourselves, would be irresistible if we did not know and had not experienced the merciful, healing power of Jesus. 

But, because we have met Christ and have experienced his compassionate, loving presence, we can surrender all judgement to him and be at peace. We can accept ourselves as we are. We can love ourselves and also love others. Because we have discovered that the judgement of Christ is not the judgement of an inquisitor or a tyrant but of a Good Physician, we are able to go to him and show him all the bleeding, cancerous places of our bodies and souls - not so he may punish us, but so he may heal us.

The longer we go on walking in the way of the Prayer, the more clearly we realise that the gulf we have discovered separating us from God is the same gulf that separates our neighbours from God, and the longing for God that leads us onwards is the same longing, the same sense of incompleteness, of - as the existentialists termed it - alienation, that drives the restless and destructive addictions of humanity.

Once realised, once seen for what it is in the bright Light that the Spirit shines into our deepest hearts, this sadness of separation - the core of true repentance - becomes a spring of tears, welling up for ourselves and for all people. It may be sadness, but it is what St John Climacus called "a bright sadness". And we see that our separation is not different from that separation of anyone, and that our prayer for mercy, for union, for reintegration with God, carries with it the love, and the pain, that God has somehow through all this given us for all who suffer, human or otherwise, pain and separation. Our praying of the Jesus Prayer has become in itself intercession: as the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews wrote: "[Christ] is able for all time to save completely those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them." (Hebrews 7.25)

Brokenness…

Jesus was broken on the cross. He lived his suffering and death not as an evil to avoid at all costs, but as a mission to embrace. We too are broken. We live with broken bodies, broken hearts, broken minds or broken spirits. We suffer from broken relationships.

How can we live our brokenness? Jesus invites us to embrace our brokenness as he embraced the cross and live it as part of our mission. He asks us not to reject our brokenness as a curse from God that reminds us of our sinfulness but to accept it and put it under God’s blessing for our purification and sanctification. Thus our brokenness can become a gateway to new life.

Jesus is given to the world. He was chosen, blessed, and broken to be given. Jesus’ life and death were a life and death for others. The Beloved Son of God, chosen from all eternity, was broken on the cross so that this one life could multiply and become food for people of all places and all times.

As God's beloved children we have to believe that our little lives, when lived as God’s chosen and blessed children, are broken to be given to others. We too have to become bread for the world. When we live our brokenness under the blessing, our lives will continue to bear fruit from generation to generation. That is the story of the saints - they died, but they continue to be alive in the hearts of those who live after them – and it can be our story too.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

The past three weeks have been a bit of a roller-coaster, health wise, and it has been difficult to find my blogging voice in the ups and downs. Nouwen is right, here, though: it is in our own brokenness that we become of use to others, in that peculiar way that God has of bringing good out of even appalling circumstances, as Paul describes so well in Romans 8.28.

For a long time now I have been moved, sometimes to tears, by the thought that the risen Christ, glorified to the point where some of his closest friends often did not recognise him (Luke 24.16; John 20.14-15), able to materialise and dematerialise at will (Luke 24.31,36; John 20.19,26) still bore the marks of his crucifixion (John 20.28 among other references) plainly visible and tangible. His was not a perfected, airbrushed resurrection, but a resurrection that carried within it the wounds that made us whole (Isaiah 53.5; 1 Peter 2.24).

We cannot expect any less. Forgiven for our cruelties, our callousness, our constant selfishness, healed from the wounds that have been given us by others, we still bear the marks, plainly enough, of what we have been through. It cannot be otherwise; if we were not so scarred, how could we bring solace to anyone else’s pain?

What healing is...

Soul knowledge sends you in the opposite direction from consumerism. It’s not addition that makes one holy, but subtraction: stripping the illusions, letting go of the pretence, exposing the false self, breaking open the heart and the understanding, not taking one’s private self too seriously. Conversion is more about unlearning than learning.

In a certain sense we are on the utterly wrong track. We are climbing while Jesus is descending, and in that we reflect the pride and the arrogance of Western civilization, always trying to accomplish, perform, and achieve. We transferred much of that to our version of Christianity and made the Gospel into spiritual consumerism. The ego is still in charge. There is not much room left for God when the false self takes itself and its private self-development that seriously.

All we can really do is get ourselves out of the way, and honestly we can’t even do that. It is done to us through this terrible thing called suffering...

Real holiness doesn’t feel like holiness; it just feels like you’re dying. It feels like you’re losing it...

Richard Rohr, adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations

Suffering is, as Rohr rightly says, a terrible thing. We must never allow ourselves piously to minimise either the suffering of our fellow-humans, or to minimise the suffering of Christ, by somehow sentimentalising the Cross. Yet it is only through pain that certain things can happen in the human heart. I have no idea whether this is due to our fallenness: I suspect it may, but fallen as I am there is nothing with which I can compare it.

A verse I keep returning to over and over again in Romans 8.28: “...we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (NIV) So often we read this as implying that good will make everything turn out all right; yet we know from the lives of the saints and martyrs (another good reason for studying them!) that this is not necessarily so. No, the good God has in mind is far deeper than “making it all better”. He means to make us holy, and that is a terrible thing in itself. What makes it worse is that the further one allows oneself to be led along this path, the more one refuses anaesthetise the pain with the things of the world, the longer one realises the journey ahead to be...

Healing may sometimes involve putting right what seems to be wrong - mending the broken marriage, curing the disease, ending the loneliness - but that is not what healing is. That kind of healing may last a few years. It may even last a lifetime. God's healing is meant to last forever: it has little to do with what happens to this perishable body, and everything to do with eternity (1 Corinthians 15.45-55)...

Broken bread…

There is a great difference between successfulness and fruitfulness. Success comes from strength, control, and respectability. A successful person has the energy to create something, to keep control over its development, and to make it available in large quantities. Success brings many rewards and often fame. Fruits, however, come from weakness and vulnerability. And fruits are unique. A child is the fruit conceived in vulnerability, community is the fruit born through shared brokenness, and intimacy is the fruit that grows through touching one another's wounds. Let’s remind one another that what brings us true joy is not successfulness but fruitfulness…

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

It seems to me that this distinction lies at the heart of much that grieves us in our society. There is a deep longing in the heart of each of us for fruitfulness, a longing to really make a difference, to be able to go to our rest feeling that we have truly made a difference. But since we don’t understand about fruitfulness, since society has lied to us about success since our school days, we imagine that that is what we are longing for; and so we strive ever harder to be successful. We may very well achieve success, too, but we find that it is hollow and barren, a dry husk where we had anticipated something very different.

I wonder if this deep disappointment that is inherent in all success may not be the reason why so many people who achieve success seem to go off the rails, falling victim to drink, drugs, misplaced sex, even suicide? For however hard they try, however much success they achieve in their chosen field, be it rock music, football, or finance, they will never experience that fruitfulness for which their hearts long.

This is a spiritual thing. Only God could have put this longing for fruitfulness in our hearts, since this is one of the ways in which we are made in his image. Our strength is not in success, achievement, domination; our strength is that which is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12.9) and our wounds, like Christ’s, are the place of our healing and the heart of our love. Like him (Philippians 3.10), in our little way, we are broken; it is broken bread which feeds, and goes on feeding, each others’ broken hearts, and in so doing, mends our own…

O Emmanuel

O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster,
exspectatio Gentium, et Salvator earum:
veni ad salvandum nos, Domine, Deus noster.

O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver,
the hope of the nations and their Saviour:
Come to save us, O Lord our God.

---

O Virgo virginum, quomodo fiet istud?
Quia nec primam similem visa es nec habere sequentem.
Filiae Jerusalem, quid me admiramini?
Divinum est mysterium hoc quod cernitis.

O Virgin of virgins, how shall this be?
For neither before you was any like you, nor shall there be after.
Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel at me?
The thing which you behold is a divine mystery.

(Alternative Antiphon in English Medieval usage, up to and including the New English Hymnal)

---

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7.14)

---

O come, Lord Jesus, and heal what is so broken. Restore the places long desolate; make young again the broken hearts. What we cannot understand, make clear. Where there is no justice, let your judgement bring us mercy.

O Clavis David

O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel;
qui aperis, et nemo claudit;
claudis, et nemo aperit:
veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris,
sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel;
you open and no one can shut;
you shut and no one can open:
Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,
those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

---

I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David;
he shall open, and no one shall shut;
he shall shut, and no one shall open.

(Isaiah 22.22)

His authority shall grow continually,
and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time onwards and for evermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

(Isaiah 9.7)

I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness,
I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people,
a light to the nations,
to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.

(Isaiah 42.6-7)

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me…he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners.

(Isaiah 61:1)

Come, Lord Jesus, Holy and Anointed One, and lead us out from darkness into your everlasting light…

O Radix Jesse

O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum,
super quem continebunt reges os suum,
quem Gentes deprecabuntur:
veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare.

O Root of Jesse, who stands a sign among the peoples;
before you kings will shut their mouths,
to you the nations will fall rapt in prayer:
Come and deliver us, and delay no more.

---

Jesus is the fulfilment of the prophecies of Isaiah (11.1,10) and Micah (5.1), the one who was to come, as Paul explains in Romans 15.12. But he is the one who is still to come, to bring healing and restoration to all of Creation – which is why we still pray, "Come and deliver us, and delay no more."

All that we are cries out for healing, justice, restoration, and only in Christ are these things finally possible. Advent draws down to this longing, this cry.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus, come!

Bible Sunday

Today is Bible Sunday, and the collect for today reads:

Blessed Lord
who caused all holy scriptures
    to be written for our learning
help us so to hear them,
to read, mark learn and inwardly digest them
that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word,
we may embrace and forever hold fast
    the hope of everlasting life,
which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.

Amen

Sometimes our hearts feel closed and dry—and yet, if we will just listen, or read, quite passively and without examining how we may be taking in what we read or hear, the living water of God’s Word (who is, after all, our Saviour Jesus Christ) will secretly soften and heal us. Its working may be unknown and unrealised, and yet it is true and sure beyond our fallible senses.

The wrecks of comprehension…

Mary’s understanding of her nothingness is also saying something about you. Your worthiness is given. It is not attained. It is God in you searching for God. It is God in you that believes and hopes and cares and loves. There is nothing that you can take credit for. It is something you just thank God for!

Eventually you will not be inclined to say, “I prayed today.” Rather, you will want to say, “Prayer happened today—and I was there!” Whatever you do in communion is prayer. When your mind, your heart and your body are all present; that kind of full presence is automatically prayer. At that moment God is able to use you and speak to you.

I believe Mary is the model for being used by God. And we, like her, are just standing here saying, “Let it be done unto me” (Luke 1.38). All we can do is let it happen.

Richard Rohr, from an unpublished talk

---

The longer I go on in this life that is about prayer, the less I realise I know about it. As Rohr says here, prayer happens. Sometimes, I’m not even sure I am there. Prayer is all wrapped up in dreams, these days, too. Some nights are so filled with dreaming that is prayer, or prayer that is dreaming, that I’m not always sure what is sleep and what is not. But these are not dreams of the prophetic, “God gave me a dream – better sit up and write it down!” variety. They rise out of sleep like the wrecks of crippled warships rising out of sand and silt, full of pain and the memory of pain, and sink again in the half-waking susurration of the Jesus Prayer. They are nothing I do; their content has generally nothing to do with my life or even my experience.

My day-life goes on, filled with light and truth as never before. My Susan and I are engaged now, and our parallel Third Order vocations are calling us into a “community of two” – we are so excited to see where God might take us in this path together. The more obscure and baffling these sleeping prayers become, somehow, the more blessed are these long days of early summer.

But this mystery of prayer continues darker than ever. It’s as though my mind has no reference for what is going on, rather as something illuminated by radiation outside the human visual spectrum appears dark to us, and yet may be bathed in a light we cannot see. I feel like Abram asleep after meeting Melchizedek, blanketed by “a deep and terrifying darkness” that I don’t understand. And yet I know that it is God’s darkness; that it means nothing but good, and peace, and healing for things that are not in my experience.

All I can do is be here, try to be present to what God is doing, as best I can, and leave the outcome up to him. Our Blessed Lady is my guide and mentor; she went this way before, to an extent no-one else has ever been called to go. From the Annunciation, to the Cross, and on to Pentecost, she was present in silence to God’s highest doing. From the beginning, her life was a surrender more active than we can comprehend, more passionate in its stillness than our hearts can embrace. No wonder all generations call her Blesséd…

O Clavis David…

O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel;
qui aperis, et nemo claudit;
claudis, et nemo aperit:
veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris,
sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel;
you open and no one can shut;
you shut and no one can open:
Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,
those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me…he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners.” (Isaiah 61:1)

In this reading from Isaiah, the prophet describes the coming Servant of Yahweh.  It is precisely this quote that Jesus first uses to announce the exact nature of his own ministry (Luke 4:18-19).  In each case Jesus describes his work as moving outside of polite and proper limits and boundaries to reunite things that have been marginalized or excluded by society:  the poor, the imprisoned, the blind, the downtrodden.

Jesus’ ministry is not to gather the so-called good into a private country club but to reach out to those on the edge and on the bottom, those who are “last” to tell them they are, in fact, first!  That is almost the very job description of the Holy Spirit, and therefore of Jesus… and for that matter of us as bearers of Emmanuel, God with us!

Adapted from Preparing for Christmas with Richard Rohr, pp. 36-37

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

(St. Teresa of Avila)

The wings of my dove are sheathed with silver...

To enter into solidarity with a suffering person does not mean that we have to talk with that person about our own suffering. Speaking about our own pain is seldom helpful for someone who is in pain. A wounded healer is someone who can listen to a person in pain without having to speak about his or her own wounds. When we have lived through a painful depression, we can listen with great attentiveness and love to a depressed friend without mentioning our experience. Mostly it is better not to direct a suffering person's attention to ourselves. We have to trust that our own bandaged wounds will allow us to listen to others with our whole beings. That is healing...

It is important to know when we can give attention and when we need attention. Often we are inclined to give, give, and give without ever asking anything in return. We may think that this is a sign of generosity or even heroism. But it might be little else than a proud attitude that says: "I don't need help from others. I only want to give." When we keep giving without receiving we burn out quickly. Only when we pay careful attention to our own physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs can we be, and remain, joyful givers.

There is a time to give and a time to receive. We need equal time for both if we want to live healthy lives.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

I'm not sure how far this applies to everyone, but I find that there is a hidden cost to this kind of thing - which may be what Nouwen is talking about when he speaks of giving ourselves time to receive - which feels like a kind of weariness that I at least don't automatically associate with its source. I find myself listening eagerly at one time, and then later, maybe hours later, suddenly unaccountable very tired. We need, I think, to give God time to heal us, at least as much as we need to consciously receive from other people.

Sleep is a gift from God's Holy Spirit which we have a terrible tendency to undervalue, and undervalue at our peril. Even Jesus slept, and slept deeply, too (Mark 4:38).

"I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me." (Psalm 3:5)

"In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat - for he grants sleep to those he loves." (Psalm 127:2)

[Title refers to Psalm 68:13]

The Society of the Walking Wounded

Nobody escapes being wounded. We all are wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. The main question is not "How can we hide our wounds?" so we don't have to be embarrassed, but "How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?" When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers.

Jesus is God's wounded healer: through his wounds we are healed. Jesus' suffering and death brought joy and life. His humiliation brought glory; his rejection brought a community of love. As followers of Jesus we can also allow our wounds to bring healing to others.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

The Society of the Walking Wounded was a progressive rock band I played in many years ago, but the name seems now to have been prescient in an odd way. As Nouwen suggests here, it's only as walking wounded that we can actually minister Jesus' healing to those who suffer.

I think this fact is often forgotten by many in the Church generally, leaders as well as laypeople. We feel we have to be happy shiny well-adjusted people all the time, our clean and ironed clothes hiding no scars, and it just isn't so. People like that, to the extent that they do truly exist outside of hypocrisy, can't help those who are hurt. Their toothpaste grins feel like a rebuke, their clear eyes and perfect skin are a judgement on the ones whose lives have come apart, who are broken by illness, crippled by debt, shaken to their centres by divorce or addiction.

Not only are our wounds a source of healing, but our very shame, the shadow that has passed across our own lives, is a door opening onto the mercy of Christ. If we accept this, open-heartedly, then we can stop worrying, stop peering in cars' wing-mirrors and the windows of other people's eyes to see if our spiritual ties are straight, and "fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrews 12:2)

A healing quiet...

In the early evening we see the stars begin to appear as the sun disappears over the horizon. The light of day gives way to the darkness of night. A stillness, a healing quiet comes over the landscape. It's a moment when some other world makes itself known, a numinous presence beyond human understanding. We experience the vast realms of space overwhelming the limitations of our human minds. As the sky turns golden and the clouds reflect the blazing colors of evening, we participate for a moment in the forgiveness, the peace, the intimacy of things with each other.

(Thomas Berry, with thanks to inward/outward)

Gentleness…

Let your gentleness draw others to peace, gentleness and concord. This is our vocation: to heal wounds, to bind what is broken, to bring home those who are lost.

Not to hurt our humble brethren [the animals] is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough.  We have a higher mission: to be of service to them whenever they require it.

If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.

St. Francis of Assisi

Good news for the New Year…

Dr Barbara M. Orlowski’s remarkable book, Spiritual Abuse Recovery: Dynamic Research on Finding a Place of Wholeness, has recently been published by Wipf and Stock. You can order a copy direct from Barb by emailing her at info@churchexiters.com. I really would encourage any of you who have been touched in any way by this terrible experience to read Barb’s healing, encouraging book, full of the mercy and the justice of Christ…

From the publisher’s website:

What factors contribute to active Christians in ministry leaving their church and becoming exiting statistics? Every year dedicated Christian people leave churches because of spiritual abuse. The stories of people who left their home church because of a negative and hurtful experience paint a picture of a widespread occurrence which beckons consideration by church leaders and church congregants alike.

Spiritual abuse, the misuse of spiritual authority to maltreat followers in the Christian Church, is a complex issue. This book shows how people processed their grief after experiencing spiritual abuse in their local church and how they rediscovered spiritual harmony. Their spiritual journey shows how one may grow through this devastating experience.

This book offers a thoughtful look at the topic of spiritual recovery from clergy abuse through the eyes of those who have experienced it. It invites church leaders to consider this very real dysfunction in the Church today and aims to demonstrate a path forward to greater freedom in Christ after a season of disillusionment with church leadership.

“In an age of increasing calls for strong church leadership, this book is a gift to church leaders and those who have been severely hurt and abused in our churches. Through careful research and an insider’s perspective, Barb has opened up both pathways for healing from church abuse and insights for leadership to ensure that potential future abuse is stopped.”—Alan Jamieson, author of A Churchless Faith

“What we refer to as spiritual abuse was a concern for Jesus in his earthly ministry and it is a common problem today. It is, therefore, surprising that more attention is not given to it by today’s Christian community. Barb Orlowski, however, does take it seriously as she offers insight into the causes of bad church experiences and how to recover from them. Her counsel alerts people to the dangers of spiritual abuse, and if leaders hear her, they will be less likely to become part of the problem… I encourage you to read it”—Ken Blue, author of Healing Spiritual Abuse

“Dr. Orlowski’s research has provided a balance for various perspectives on the experience of woundedness. She listens to the voices of the wounded and lets them inform us of their reality of feeling disappointment and disenfranchisement, tragedy and turbulence in the Church… For recovery, Dr. Orlowski gives an excellent starting point—the voice of the wounded—and follows that with the grace of God demonstrated through hearing the voice of God and basing recovery on the Word of God.”—Kirk E. Farnsworth, author of Wounded Workers