The Use of Prayer…

What is the use of prayer if at the very moment of prayer, we have so little confidence in God that we are busy planning our own kind of answer to our prayer?

Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999, p. 24

Listening in the spiritual life is much more than a psychological strategy to help others discover themselves. In the spiritual life the listener is not the ego, which would like to speak but is trained to restrain itself, but the Spirit of God within us. When we are baptised in the Spirit—that is, when we have received the Spirit of Jesus as the breath of God breathing within us—that Spirit creates in us a sacred space where the other can be received and listened to. The Spirit of Jesus prays in us and listens in us to all who come to us with their sufferings and pains.

When we dare to fully trust in the power of God’s Spirit listening in us, we will see true healing occur.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8.24b-27)

The hole in our soul…

Do you realize with what difficulty surrender will come to a fixing, managing mentality?  There’s nothing in that psyche prepared to understand the spiritual wisdom of surrender.  All of the great world religions teach surrender.  Yet most of us, until we go through “the hole in our soul” don't think surrender is really necessary.  At least that’s how it is for those of us in First World countries.  The poor, on the other hand, seem to understand limitation at a very early age. They cannot avoid or deny the hole in their soul.

The developing world faces its limitation through a breakdown in the social-economic system.  But we, in the so-called developed world, have to face our limitations, it seems, on the inside.  That’s our liberation theology.  We must recognize our own poor man, our own abused woman, the oppressed part of ourselves that we hate, that we deny, that we’re afraid of.  That’s the hole in our soul.  It’s the way through, maybe the only way, says the crucified Jesus.

Richard Rohr, adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p. 66, day 71

Oh, this is hard. It’s the hardest thing I know to face my own broken, beaten self, the part that actually has followed his Lord this far on the via Crucis, and has the wounds to show for it. But I know that for me at least it is the only way, and all my attempts to evade it, and everyone else’s well-meaning efforts to help me evade it, are no use at all.

Why is it so hard for us simply to accept what our dear brother Paul has long since taught us, that “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me…” (Galatians 4.19b-20) and “you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3.3) These are not pious platitudes—they are Christ’s absolute truth, bloody, broken, glorious. Only in that death will we live forever; only in that defeat will we triumph…

The Beginning of Blessedness…

The dark night is not an abstract notion on some list of spiritual experiences every seeker is supposed to have. The dark night descends on a soul only when everything else has failed. When you are no longer the best meditator in the class because your meditation produces absolutely nothing. When prayer evaporates on your tongue and you have nothing left to say to God. When you are not even tempted to return to a life of worldly pleasure because the world has proven empty and yet taking another step through the void of the spiritual life feels futile because you are no good at it and it seems that God has given up on you, anyway.

This, says John, is the beginning of blessedness. This is the choiceless choice when the soul can do nothing but surrender.

(Source: Dark Night of the Soul: St. John of the Cross)

Mirabai Starr, with thanks to inward/outward

This fits closely, it seems to me, with my post on Monday. There is so much we do not understand, cannot understand, of God’s ways with man and time. We simply do not have the senses required to perceive it—we might as well try and see ELF radiation with the naked eye. All we can perceive are the effects God has on the heart of man—ultimately I think, what we know as the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5.22-23).

All our prayer is to be prayed in the dark, then; all the light we know is the light of Christ, and that the patch directly before our feet, the next step (Psalm 119.105)

Don’t think, though, that all this is something esoteric, reserved for the special people, the chosen ones. All it is is love. David had it right:

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
   my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
   too great and too marvellous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
   like a weaned child with its mother;
   my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.

(Psalm 131)

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner…

Trust the Stream

“There is a river, whose streams gladden the city of God...” (Psalm 46:4).

The stream flowing through our lives is from eternity to eternity. It is artesian. It is totally adequate. Everything we need is borne by that stream. Its origin is the realm beyond, and it carries infinite resources. In this space-time realm, conditioned as we are, the stream can seem to be a trickle. It seems puny against the drugs we’re battling, against the divisions among us or the power of greed that fuels our economy.

When we’re up against all the world’s needs and lacks—the way we perceive life—the stream seems inadequate. But in fact, it is a powerful, surging, cleansing tide that purifies all it touches. It is a grace torrent. It flows irrespective of merit. It carries everything that a human being has ever needed—and could ever want. Whatever we need will flow by at just the opportune moment. Our problem is that we’re not attuned to the stream. We don’t see it. We’re not even looking in the river’s direction.

But when we wait in expectancy, looking at the stream and then recognizing what we need as it floats by, we simply reach out and take the gift. It’s an effortless way of living. Usually we’re not attuned to effortlessness. We’re too busy striving. We’re holding forth and carrying on and trying to reach our goals. The wisdom of the stream is the opposite of this. What I’m talking about is moving from a conceptual awareness of God’s care—the idea of God’s providence—to trusting the flow of that stream that carries everything we need and will bring it at just the opportune moment…

Jesus found it difficult to understand his disciples’ anxiety. He was so in the river, he was so aware that the stream carried everything that was needed, that he couldn’t understand why others were having so much trouble with the idea. What he says is to set our minds on God’s realm, God’s justice, before everything else. Everything else will be given by the stream. This is different from achievement and different from making things happen. Do not be anxious about tomorrow, Jesus says. You’ll have plenty to think about when tomorrow comes. Now the stream is flowing.

Once we get accustomed to noticing the stream, and we spend more time near the stream, taking from it what is being given, there comes another step: actually getting into the water and resting in its flow. Even when the flow is a torrent, we know we are safe. We trust the flow. We become non-resistant. We become receptive. We trust the power of the divine presence, which longs to take our one little life to its divine destination. Even if we’re in deep water, we trust the flow and are not afraid. We simply wait in expectancy to round the next bend, looking in wonder at the view. Always a new view. Effortlessness, expectancy and wonder are how we live, rather than striving.

Faith, in the biblical sense, is trusting the flow and revelling in the view and being carried beyond all existing boundaries. Faith is being excited about the final destination, even when the destination is mystery. When Jesus says, “Believe in God, believe also in me,” he is saying, “Get into the stream with us. It’s a stream of pure grace and mercy. Go into its depths and find us there.”

(N. Gordon Cosby, reposted complete from inward/outward)

Just like the Cross…

When I was young, I wanted to suffer for God. I pictured myself being the great and glorious martyr. There's something so romantic about laying down your life. I guess every young person might see themselves that way, but now I know it is mostly ego.  There is nothing glorious about any actual moment of suffering—when you're in the middle of it. You swear it's meaningless. You swear it has nothing to do with goodness or holiness or God.

The very essence of any experience of trial is that you want to get out. A lack of purpose, of meaning—is the precise suffering of suffering! When you find a pattern in your suffering, a direction, you can accept it and go with it. The great suffering, the suffering of Jesus, is when that pattern is not immediately given.  The soul can live without success, but it cannot live without meaning.

Richard Rohr, adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p. 86, day 94

I can so witness to the truth of Rohr’s words here. The experience of meaninglessness, the sense that almost any circumstances than the present ones would be more godly, more formative, more obviously holy to oneself and to the world, is overwhelming. Nothing, it seems, could be farther from the tragic dignity of suffering for the sake of one’s faith. The present circumstances are just a mess, bloody and tangled and degrading, “nothing to do with goodness or holiness or God.” Just like the Cross, really, when you think about it…

Odd metrics…

Well, that’s sort of comforting, I suppose…

(Hat-tip to Sue, who scored 33.3%…)

Stop counting…

The most important, the most real, and lasting work of the Christian is accomplished in the depths of his own soul. It cannot be seen by anyone, even by himself. It is known only to God. The work is not so much a matter of fidelity to visible and general standards, as of faith: the interior, anguished, almost desperately solitary act by which we affirm our total subjection to God by grasping his word...

Thomas Merton, Life and Holiness, Image Books, 1963, p. 56.

It’s as if what is unbreakable—the very pulse of life—waits for everything else to be torn away, and then in the bareness that only silence and suffering and great love can expose, it dares to speak through us and to us. It seems to say, if you want to last, hold on to nothing. If you want to know love, let in everything. If you want to feel the presence of everything, stop counting the things that break along the way.

Mark Nepo, with thanks to Inward/Outward—source: www.marknepo.com

Hiddenness, even from oneself. Is that what it comes down to? The Spirit’s work in the depths beyond the reach of self-knowledge, analysis. “And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (Romans 8.27) To lose everything, even one’s own sense of what is going on in one’s own heart, to consciously allow the tearing away of all that is not God—surely that is the furthest reach of faith, beyond which is no-thing but God.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner…

Grace upon grace…

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8.28)

St. Paul says here that God both initiates and cooperates in all human growth.  All we can offer is the good will of love.  God “works together with” us, which means both our workings are crucial.  We are real partners. Every moment, God is trying to expand our freedom to love.  Can you imagine that?

God is forever trying to make our choices more alive, more vital, more clear, more true. So much so, that God even uses our mistakes and our sins in that one providential direction. Nothing at all is wasted, nothing!  If that’s not the providence of God, what else would be “providential”?

God seems to be working for our wholeness, for our liberation, for our integrity probably more than we are.  At least that is what the saints always say.

Richard Rohr, adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p. 187, day 200

For more than 20 years now I’ve found this passage to be one of the most comforting, most heart-warming verses in the entire Bible. I don’t know that I can really add much to Rohr's words here, except that reading them in the CAC Daily Meditation has made my day!

How much God loves us…

God made a covenant with us. The word covenant means “coming together.” God wants to come together with us. In many of the stories in the Hebrew Bible, we see that God appears as a God who defends us against our enemies, protects us against dangers, and guides us to freedom. God is God-for-us. When Jesus comes a new dimension of the covenant is revealed. In Jesus, God is born, grows to maturity, lives, suffers, and dies as we do. God is God-with-us. Finally, when Jesus leaves he promises the Holy Spirit. In the Holy Spirit, God reveals the full depth of the covenant. God wants to be as close to us as our breath. God wants to breathe in us, so that all we say, think and do is completely inspired by God. God is God-within-us. Thus God’s covenant reveals to us to how much God loves us.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

I’ve been thinking about God’s love for us this Lent. I remember my disappointment when I first discovered that the word “Lent” comes merely from the Middle English lenten, lengthen. I wanted it to have some meaning that conveyed more of the sense I had of Lent as a time between, a waiting time. A time when the usual preoccupations are placed in abeyance—for that is what fasting is—in order that we can see clearly the way of the Cross, the way we all must walk if we follow our Saviour.

Nouwen’s words here, the movement from God-for-us, through God-with-us to God-within-us, describe somehow our own journey on the path of faith. Well, mine at least. It is not till we realise that, in some way we cannot yet understand, the universe is in the hand of one whose love for us, whose will to our good, is beyond any love we have ever known, that we can understand why Christ would be born, fragile flesh out of fragile flesh, to walk among us, Emmanuel, God-with-us, touchable, woundable, able to be killed. It is not till we have seen his love, known his smile, the warmth of his hand lifting us, his voice saying, “Do not be afraid…” that we can begin to understand the Cross. And it is only as we stand with his mother beneath that cross that we can see what resurrection means, how far he had to rise that blessed morning that he met the other Mary in the half-light and asked the reason for her tears. Unless they are our tears too, we cannot know what Jesus meant when he said that we will know his Spirit, because he will be in us. (John 14.15-17) Only as we weep now for all the world’s loss and pain can the risen Christ dwell in us (John 17.23), for his hands are wounded still, and his side pierced. His glory, his victory, carry his woundedness beyond death to everlasting life—and so shall we be ourselves (John 17.22,24)—for he is forever the Lamb who was slain, yet lives, and his death has brought us life that will outlast the stars (Romans 5.10).

The gift of faith…

Faith reaches the intellect not simply through the senses but in a light directly infused by God. Since this light does not pass through the eye or the imagination or reason, its certitude becomes our own without any vesture of created appearance, without any likeness that can be visualized or described.

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, New Directions, 1961, p. 132

God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Ephesians 2.4-10

I am so grateful for these words. I know it might sound a bit much to some people, but truly I keep finding that the only way I can live is by faith, through the hope that is mine, being saved; and through the love I have for my sisters and brothers in Christ, as well as the ones who don’t know who he even is. Yet if you asked me to explain in concrete terms why I have faith, I who grew up so far from the Lord, I couldn’t tell you. All I know is that I didn’t have faith then, and I do now; I wasn’t saved then, now I am; I had love for no one but myself, and now my heart is full. I have nothing whatever for which I can take the credit. Like Paul, I want to say, “May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Galatians 6.14)

On not becoming evil...

So we will pose the great spiritual problem in this way, "How do I stand against hate without becoming hate myself?"

We would all agree that evil is to be rejected and overcome; the only question is, how? How can we stand against evil without becoming a mirror - but denied - image of the same? That is often the heart of the matter, and in my experience is resolved successfully by a very small portion of people, even though it is quite clearly resolved in the life, death and teaching of Jesus.

Jesus gives us a totally different way of dealing with evil - absorbing it in God (which is the real meaning of the suffering body of Jesus) instead of attacking it outside and in others. It is undoubtedly the most counter-intuitive theme of the entire Bible.  It demands real enlightenment and conversion for almost all of us.

Richard Rohr, adapted from Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, pp. 143, 145

Our default understanding seems to be more like that of the Star Wars universe than Christ's. I can only assume that this has to do with the Fall, described in Genesis 3 as Eve's and Adam's eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We can see this in operation in every war fought across the earth at any point in history, especially in the so-called "just wars". I am not meaning necessarily to criticise here the theory of jus ad bellum: I am merely pointing out that however good the reasons for going to war, however noble and necessary the aims, jus in bello never works. As we saw tragically in the second Gulf War, those on the side of good become evil in order to combat evil, just as Rohr describes.

The Cross is both the symbol and the means of the final defeat of evil. Only on the Cross can we see evil for what it truly is, on the Cross of Christ and on the countless crosses carried, knowingly or unknowingly, by all mortal life. It is only through the Cross that all suffering finally is redeemed (Romans 5 passim; 8.18ff) and it is only in Christ that the dark side is finally overcome (John 1.1-5) Easter is not a festival with bunnies; it is not even just a Christian festival. It is a cosmic event on a par with creation itself - the healing of all that is broken (Revelation 21.1-5) and wrong, the making of all things new again, the Kingdom come, shalom at last...  

Only in silence…

Only in silence and solitude, in the quiet of worship, the reverent peace of prayer, the adoration in which the entire ego-self silences and abases itself in the presence of the Invisible God to receive His one Word of Love; only in these “activities” which are “non-actions” does the spirit truly wake from the dream of multifarious, confused, and agitated existence.

Merton, Thomas. Love & Living. Naomi Burton Stone and Br. Patrick Heart, Editors. Harcourt, 1979. p. 20-21

I wish I could express somehow how these words awaken my heart’s longing. They come like some rumour from a distant shore, like the scent of green places across a salt and barren sea at the end of a long voyage.

These are not words of escape, though. Peace yes, but no escape, no final rest until “creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8.21) Until then, our silence and our solitude are the risk of radical openness, the love that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13.7)

Prayer cannot finally rest in itself as long as there are tears shed, blood spilt, among even the least in God’s creation—for “we know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” (Romans 8.22-23)

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner…

A Lenten Prayer

The Lenten season begins. It is a time to be with you, Lord, in a special way, a time to pray, to fast, and thus to follow you on your way to Jerusalem, to Golgotha, and to the final victory over death.

I am still so divided. I truly want to follow you, but I also want to follow my own desires and lend an ear to the voices that speak about prestige, success, pleasure, power, and influence. Help me to become deaf to these voices and more attentive to your voice, which calls me to choose the narrow road to life.

I know that Lent is going to be a very hard time for me. The choice for your way has to be made every moment of my life.  I have to choose thoughts that are your thoughts, words that are your words, and actions that are your actions. There are not times or places without choices. And I know how deeply I resist choosing you.

Please, Lord, be with me at every moment and in every place. Give me the strength and the courage to live this season faithfully, so that, when Easter comes, I will be able to taste with joy the new life that you have prepared for me.

Amen.

(from The Road to Daybreak, Henri J. M. Nouwen)

Treasures of darkness...

[W]e have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. (2 Corinthians 4.7-12 NRSV)

I've not been able to get this passage out of my head since our Assistant Priest Judy mentioned it in her powerful sermon yesterday morning. Later in the same letter Paul says (12.7b-10) that he will gladly boast of his weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in him.

I feel somewhat the same as Paul. Although I have never been one to make my private life public, and this blog was never intended as any sort of reality show, I cannot escape the feeling that I am supposed somehow to share what God is doing in all of this. Like my illustrious predecessor, I am daily finding treasures of darkness, and riches hidden in secret places, and I can't quite keep quiet about it, and it's necessary to include just a little personal detail so as to make what I say comprehensible. My present situation, still unresolved, still neither married not single, is one that is a daily hurt. Jan had to return from the USA earlier this year, and circumstances beyond the control of either of us keep us living here in the same house. It's a situation that, although I did nothing to bring it about, I cannot help but be ashamed of. It stands in the way of all I try to do.

And yet... As a Franciscan, I am predisposed in some deep way to a longing for poverty. (Francis himself, after all, fell in love with "Lady Poverty", a bride he once described as "a wife of surpassing fairness.") There is economic poverty, of course, but for me the crucial thing is the poverty of action, the poverty of self-determination. In this, which really is for me a most painful thing, I am discovering not only a capacity in myself for surrender to God that I never knew I had, but God's goodness, his mercy and his grace. I am getting to know Christ in ways that I never could have done left to myself, that I never could have dreamed of discovering however closely I had attempted, of my own strength, to follow him.

And that's the point. We are called to take up our own crosses and follow Jesus, but we don't usually - well, I didn't - realise just what this means. Jesus' way of the Cross was a way of surrender. From the garden in Gethsemane to the tomb where he was laid, Jesus surrendered himself first of all to his Father, then to his enemies, and finally to his friends. We can only follow him by our own act of surrender - more properly, like Jesus himself, by successive acts of surrender.

For me, it has turned out as Leonard Cohen described, "Love is not a victory march / It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah." Yet God is good. Only through the most radical surrender can we find out how good. Only by letting go of all we possess can we really follow our Saviour who gave up everything for us. Only in being emptied can we be filled. Only in loss can we finally be found.

There is such hope in this, such utter and unquenchable hope. On the far side of the worst than can happen, Christ waits for us, his pierced hand stretched out to draw us into perfect joy.

I assume death will be like this. Certainly it seems to have been so for those who have been able to tell us something of the way of their own passing. As Paul said in his letter to the Romans, "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (8.38-39)

The odd thing is that it is only in these strange conditions of radical poverty that we can actually know these things as true. These are the "treasures of darkness" themselves. We seem to find, like the man who sold everything to buy the pearl of great price, that it is more than worth it. The love of Christ is greater, and stranger, and he himself is closer, than we had ever suspected. All we need is the faith of the Psalmist who wrote, in Psalm 119, "It is good for me that I was humbled, so that I might learn your statutes... Let your steadfast love become my comfort according to your promise to your servant. Let your mercy come to me, that I may live; for your law is my delight."

Nothing we could ever hope to own...

In the Franciscan Third Order we are called to a life of simplicity (see The Principles, Days 10-12), even poverty. In our Western, 21st century life this is an odd thing to understand. I am only just beginning to get a handle on what it might mean, and this only by means of God's showing me its implications in ways that don't allow me to take credit for anything, still less act the hero as I might otherwise be inclined to do.

I am coming to believe that my 20-odd year obsession with Romans 8:28 is actually central to our understanding of the Franciscan way in these odd and troubled times. God does truly work in all things for the good of those who love him, and who are called according to his purpose. In many ways our poverty lies in this, our giving up of our own ambitions to self-determination, self-actualisation, and our abandoning of ourselves to God's grace, his sheer unconditioned gift. Our hopes and dreams are not ours really, not our own to bargain with, to lay plans for, as though we had our future at our own disposal.

I watched an extraordinarily moving film clip today (thanks Dria) of Market Street in San Francisco just days before the earthquake of 1906. The street was full of people, horses, traffic going about their own lives, following their own plans - so full of life and hope. I dare say Port-au-Prince looked much that way on the morning of January 12th.

We cannot know our lifetime. Our next breath is a gift we cannot deserve, and the one after that. We have this moment in which to love God, to love our sister, our brother, the cat who lies against the keyboard, the birds we feed in the garden. In all these things God works for good beyond our imagining, even when they seem so frail, so tragically able to be hurt. Like Jesus in the garden, we are called to an unthinkable trust. That is our poverty, all our riches, nothing we could ever hope to own.

Well...?

Hat-tip to Christine Sine.

Visit The Robin Hood Tax website.

Consolation...

Consolation is a beautiful word. It means "to be" (con-) "with the lonely one" (solus). To offer consolation is one of the most important ways to care. Life is so full of pain, sadness, and loneliness that we often wonder what we can do to alleviate the immense suffering we see. We can and must offer consolation. We can and must console the mother who lost her child, the young person with AIDS, the family whose house burned down, the soldier who was wounded, the teenager who contemplates suicide, the old man who wonders why he should stay alive.

To console does not mean to take away the pain but rather to be there and say, "You are not alone, I am with you. Together we can carry the burden. Don't be afraid. I am here." That is consolation. We all need to give it as well as to receive it.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

The consolation of friends is a precious and irreplaceable thing. You know who you are - thank you! 

The plague that destroys at midday...

One of the perils of the contemplative life that our age seems to have forgotten to watch out for is a condition called accidie, or acedia. The excellent if brief Wikipedia article describes it as follows:

Acedia (also accidie or accedie, from Latin acidĭa, and this from Greek ἀκηδία, negligence) describes a state of listlessness or torpor, of not caring or not being concerned with one's position or condition in the world. It can lead to a state of being unable to perform one's duties in life. Its spiritual overtones make it related to but distinct from depression. Acedia was originally noted as a problem among monks and other ascetics who maintained a solitary life...

The demon of acedia holds an important place in early monastic demonology and psychology. Evagrius of Pontus, for example, characterizes it as "the most troublesome of all" of the eight genera of evil thoughts. As with those who followed him, Evagrius sees acedia as a temptation, and the great danger lies in giving in to it.

In her remarkable A Book of Silence, Sara Maitland remarks,"It is very difficult to describe the effects of accidie, because its predominant feature is a lack of affect, an overwhelming sense of blankness and an odd restless and dissatisfied boredom." (p. 108) It is pre-eminently the sin of social networking, and of the online life generally.

I often used to wonder what this was that came over me, so that I could spend hours  messing around at the keyboard, and have nothing to show for it at the end. Now I think I begin to understand. Just as the enemy of our souls uses other good and wholesome things about being human, like sex, and food, and companionship, so these new means of communication and learning become means of our being pulled off course, diverted from the ways God has prepared for us to walk in.

John Cassian compared acedia to "the plague that destroys at midday" of Psalm 91 (90 in the Greek numbering). This affliction is not depression properly speaking, though I think some contemporary psychiatrists would so diagnose it, but a spiritual issue, sin if you will. Certainly the old eremitical writers like Cassian recognised it as such. It is prayer, and simplicity, and plain obedience to the order of one's own rule, as well as simple physical work, that will set us free. But perhaps above all prayer. We could do worse than start with Psalm 91...

Trust...

My hope is in what the eye has never seen. Therefore, let me not trust in visible rewards. My hope is in what the heart of man cannot feel. Therefore let me not trust in the feelings of my heart. My hope is in what the hand of man has never touched. Do not let me trust what I can grasp between my fingers.

Let my trust be in Your mercy, not in myself. Let my hope be in Your love, not in health, or strength, or ability or human resources.

Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1999, pp. 29-30

This is so close to what God has been showing me over the last year... We know so very little of his purposes for us, let alone for those we meet and serve and love. Our trust is all we can bring, a gift that can only be held  in open hands.

That Glorious God...

I just stumbled across the most remarkable article by Dr Rowan Williams on the Lord's Prayer. Do go and read it for yourself - from someone in whose conversion many years ago the Lord's Prayer was central, and who has struggled with its purity and its holiness ever since, this is the real thing. Read it, please.

Dr Williams begins:

The prayer as a whole tells us we stand in a very vulnerable place. We stand in the middle of a human world where God's will is not the most automatic thing that people do. Where crisis faces us, where uncertainty is all around about tomorrow and where evil is powerfully at work.

To stand with dignity and freedom in a world like that, we need to know that God is Our Father. We need to know that whatever happens to us God is God, God's name and presence and power and word are holy and wonderful and that that glorious God has made us members of his family in a very intimate and direct way.

With that confidence, that kind of unchildish dependence, we're actually free. We know that there is a relationship that nothing can break.

And again, you could turn to Saint Paul on that to the end of chapter eight of his Letter to the Romans: "I know that nothing, nothing can separate me from the love of God and Jesus Christ". And to begin that prayer "Our Father" is really to say what Saint Paul is saying. Just as in the old hymn, here is an anchor that keeps the soul. Here is the anchorage that keeps us steady in this turbulent, difficult, nightmare world.

So the Lord's Prayer is a prayer that is utterly serious about the danger, the tragedy of the world.

Absolutely thrilling words from a theologian and pastor for whom I have, and have had since I read his The Wound of Knowledge and Resurrection back in the early 80s, the deepest love and respect.

Falling through...

Brothers and sisters, remember that your life situation will not last. It is only that which you fall through so that you can fall into your actual Life, and that Big Life ironically includes death (which is the falling). For Paul the word for that Life Force field is "Christ." Yes it is personified and summed up in Jesus, but he also says it is everywhere and always available to all who "fall through" (read "are transformed").

Everybody takes their present life's situation as if it is their one and only life. It is not! So wait for those moments when you fall through your life's situations into your real life, which is Christ, or Christ Consciousness (1 Corinthians 2:16), if you prefer. What you are doing in prayer is consciously choosing to let go of your grasping mind and its identification with passing life situations so that you can fall into your Real Life which is always much bigger and better than you, and shared by all. It is the Eternal Life of Christ.

Richard Rohr, from The Great Themes of Paul

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience... For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

Colossians 3:12,3

How I need to keep these words before me in these days!  The weaker I am myself, in this strange anchorless between time, the more clearly I hear, like Paul, God saying "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (1 Corinthians 12:9)

I should apologise for the infrequency of my posts here, and my still greater infrequency in commenting on others' blogs. I am still here, still alive and online, and I do read something of what the rest of the blogosphere has to say. But it's not always so easy at the moment to avoid being a little taciturn, or, as Ronnie Barker would have said in Porridge, being a charmless nerk...

Home again, home again...

Solitude greeting solitude, that's what community is all about. Community is not the place where we are no longer alone but the place where we respect, protect, and reverently greet one another's aloneness. When we allow our aloneness to lead us into solitude, our solitude will enable us to rejoice in the solitude of others. Our solitude roots us in our own hearts. Instead of making us yearn for company that will offer us immediate satisfaction, solitude makes us claim our centre and empowers us to call others to claim theirs. Our various solitudes are like strong, straight pillars that hold up the roof of our communal house. Thus, solitude always strengthens community.

(from Henri J.M. Nouwen's Bread for the Journey )

Back from Hilfield, things are becoming clearer. It's in many ways wonderful to be back in my own church community, from the very different community that is the Friary. It's strange, but loner that in so many ways I am, I just love living in community. I was thinking this morning about how to express this seeming paradox, when I found this quote from Henri Nouwen that summed it up perfectly.

It's obvious that I need both discipline and simplicity to follow the deepening call to prayer and service that seems to have overtaken me. Discipline in the sense of living according to a framework of time, just as a religious community does, with its hours, its times of work and meals and recreation. Simplicity in the sense of trimming away what I am not called to do, and giving myself wholeheartedly that those things that I am. It sounds obvious, but I find that when I examine, mindfully, the patterns of my own life, there are far too many things that just get in the way, and I shall have to see what I would be better off without!

Over the next few weeks, I shall be making a few changes to my online life, too. I think I shall have to abandon Facebook and Twitter. They are good things in themselves, but they are a fierce waste of time unless you actually need them for the way you work. I shall also have to go on a geek diet, probably. I waste loads of time mucking around researching things I don't need to research, playing with software I've no practical need for, and many more things like that. It's got to stop. God has more use for me than that, strange as it may seem - especially to me!

This blog is good and important, though, and I shall continue to write here, perhaps in rather more depth than I often have. The old place is looking a bit tired and scruffy, too, so I'll try and smarten things up a bit...

Huge thanks, by the way, to all who prayed for me on this trip. Your prayers were answered, and then some, as I'll hope to explain here over the next few posts...

Seeing…

Spirituality is about seeing. It’s not about earning or achieving. It’s about relationship rather than results or requirements.

Once you see correctly, the rest follows.  Mary Oliver, the poet, puts it so well. It is like “seeing through a veil, secretly, joyfully clearly!”

You don’t need to push the river, because you are in it. The life is lived within us, and we learn how to say yes to that life.

If we exist on a level where we can see how “everything belongs,” we can trust the flow and trust the life, The Life so large and deep and spacious that it even includes its opposite, death.

Richard Rohr, adapted from Everything Belongs, pp. 33-34

Our minds are always active. We analyze, reflect, daydream, or dream. There is not a moment during the day or night when we are not thinking. You might say our thinking is “unceasing.” Sometimes we wish that we could stop thinking for a while; that would save us from many worries, guilt feelings, and fears. Our ability to think is our greatest gift, but it is also the source of our greatest pain. Do we have to become victims of our unceasing thoughts? No, we can convert our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer by making our inner monologue into a continuing dialogue with our God, who is the source of all love.

Let’s break out of our isolation and realize that Someone who dwells in the centre of our beings wants to listen with love to all that occupies and preoccupies our minds.

from Henri J.M. Nouwen’s Bread for the Journey.

Being at various kinds of crossroads at the moment, I’m going off to Hilfield for a few days—back next week. If you’ve a moment spare, please do pray that my eyes will be opened to the depth of the grace and mercy of Christ, and that God’s will for the next stage of my life will become clear, and strong in my heart: that I will have the courage to step in faith into all that he has prepared for me. (Ephesians 2:21)

Epiphany

You who walk [the way of the wise men] toward Christ—long and fearsome as it may be—who persevere in this difficult inner journey of prayer will come face to face with what you’re looking for. Take care though, the life of prayer is not magic—speak the right words, do the right things, and presto, enlightenment. No, you’ll never conjure up a mystical experience; the mystical is not magical.

Instead, you’ll be lead into the fullness of God (Ephesians 3.19). This fullness is the end of the journey, the goal of all life, the fruit of your spiritual practice. But the moment we say “goal,” we’re tiptoeing close to danger. The ego loves goals, and talking about the goal of prayer arouses your ego and launches you into the kind of grasping, reaching, and achieving that’s the antithesis of true prayer.

So here’s what you’re to do:

The eleventh way is the way of utter relinquishment. There is no further you can travel. You’ve come as near to the Light as you can get on your own.  You must now stop and sit still before Christ.  Ask nothing.  Demand nothing.  Accept whatever comes. Open the treasure chest of your heart and keep it open by breathing gently, letting your breath fall into a natural, uncontrolled rhythm.  Offer the three gifts that have carried you here: gold of faith, frankincense of hope, myrrh of love. They’re all you have now. And these too you must surrender to Christ. Empty and naked you wait, ready to receive what nothing can buy, earn, or comprehend.

The divine Fire, the Light you’ve sought from the beginning, will come suddenly and unexpectedly—an exquisite, unexplainable joy. When you no longer care when and how the Fire comes, or what it’s like when it does, you’re less apt to miss its warmth.

Chris Erdman

Fruitfulness…

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.

From Henri J.M. Nouwen’s Bread for the Journey.

Help in helplessness…

Non-dual thinking is not the avoiding of dualistic thinking.  It’s using it as far as it can get you, but also recognizing its limits. You need dualistic thinking for clarification, for making important and necessary distinctions; because we’re not saying that everything is perfect, or everything is beautiful. In fact, non-dual thinking gives you a greater subtlety and sharper discernment to see how common evil is and how goodness is sometimes hidden, and how common goodness is and how evil is sometimes hidden.

Once I get my own agenda out of the way (through practice of silence, solitude, self-observation, and letting go), I don’t just see blatant evil or perfect good, I actually see things with greater clarity, with their own complexity, and often with my own complicity.

If we can get our narrow politics and our self-serving anger out of the way, in fact we’ll see like never before the depth of the problem, the depth of the need, and the depth of the suffering on this earth.

Richard Rohr, adapted from the webcast Exploring the Naked Now

I have all too often observed this principle at work in my own life. To the extent that I neglect the practice of silence, solitude and contemplation, I find myself prey to all that is weak and shallow in me, and blinded, at least partially, to the agony of all that has been made (Romans 8:18ff).

I think this is partly why the Jesus Prayer has called to me so strongly all my adult life. Its words, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”, confess the helplessness I feel in the face of my own shallowness, and my complete dependence on Jesus. The other side of this, of course, is best expressed by Br. Ramon SSF, in his now sadly out-of-print pamphlet Praying the Jesus Prayer (Marshall Pickering 1988):

It is difficult to speak of the aim or goal of [contemplative] prayer, for there is a sense in which it is a process of union which is as infinite as it is intimate…

But there are some things which we can say, which are derivative of that central core of ineffable experience. We can say that such prayer contains within itself a new theology of intercession. It is not that we are continually naming names before God, and repeating stories of pain, suffering and bereavement on an individual and corporate level, but rather that we are able to carry the sorrows and pains of the world with us into such contemplative prayer as opens before us in the use of the Jesus Prayer. God knows, loves and understands more than we do, and he carries us into the dimension of contemplative prayer and love, and effects salvation, reconciliation and healing in his own way, using us as the instruments of his peace, pity and compassion.

(For more on this last point, you might like to read my earlier post, Ostrov.)

Being Franciscan…

Thinking, as we move into this New Year, about my Franciscan vocation, and the call to prayer that has, ultimately, shaped all of my life, I have discovered two marvellous posts by the Church of Ireland priest Patrick Comerford, both addresses under the titles Saint Francis (1): Lifestyle for today? and Saint Francis (2): Community Life for today? given at the Francistide Observance of the Third Order of Saint Francis in Saint Ann’s Church, Dawson Street, Dublin, on Saturday 3 October 2009. Start with the first address here.

They are long addresses, but I would strongly urge you to read them in full. Canon Patrick speaks at length on our Rule of Life, on the Cross of San Damiano, and most importantly on the Franciscan call to rebuild the Church, and the life of the Church as community. He says:

Francis can be seen as being both Catholic and Evangelical. His conversion was the principal impetus for his mission, yet that mission included a call to the traditional church.

Francis valued the traditional expressions of Church life, yet his rule of life and his gathering of friars was then a fresh expression of church…

It is no wonder that as the tradition of religious communities was being explored once again, rediscovered, revived and rebuilt in the Anglican Communion in response to the Anglo-Catholic revival, many of those involved turned for inspiration to the Franciscan tradition.

The gentle approach to obedience in the Franciscan tradition has been described as a “middle way” in the monastic tradition, and so the Franciscan tradition has an immediate appeal to Anglicans of the Via Media.

The Daily Office, which is the office book of the Society of Saint Francis, was among the first to be fully up-dated with the Common Worship Lectionary, and so was used in the wider Anglican Communion. But it also provided the model for the offices of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer in Common Worship…

But Francis and Franciscan values also have a relevance to the wider, international and global community.

This is a world that has never been more in need of those Franciscan values of Peace, Poverty, and respect for the environment.

The Church exists to call the world into it not so much that the world may become the church, less so that the church may become the world, but that through the Church the world may enter into the Kingdom of God.

In age of a nuclear overkill, climate change and global poverty, Francis and his rule for his community, first shaped 800 years ago in 1209, continue to call us back again to the true values of Christian community and lifestyle.

But do read both addresses in full—my extracts here don’t begin to do them justice.

The rebirth of time…

When we celebrate New Year’s Day, we celebrate the rebirth of time.

  We wait for our God to do new things.

    We wait for who we are, and who we are to become.

      We wait for the coming of grace, for the unfolding of Mystery.

        We wait for the always bigger Truth.

          We wait for the vision of the Whole.

But we cannot just wait. We must pray. Our prayers then start naming and defining us.  When we hear our own prayers in our own ears and our own heart, we start choosing our deepest identity, our biggest future, and our best selves.

Richard Rohr, adapted from Beginner’s Mind

There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

Luke 2:36-38

Lord, give us—give me—grace to live in the footsteps of Anna this coming year and always. Give me such a longing for your presence, such a thirst for the love and the mercy of Christ, that I will be content to live within prayer, without looking for any thing more…

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

A Prayer for the New Year

God of the seasons, Lover of the ages,
Master of every moment:
You who are beyond time yet within all time.
We return to you what you have given to us —
the moments, the minutes, the hours, the days,
the weeks, the months, and the year of 2009.

Time has been gracious to us again,
and we thank you for freely giving us these human bodies,
these events, and these relationships.
We have lived another year and we have died another year,
and now you are granting us the beginnings of another.

We now hand over to you the blessed year, 2009,
with all that it gave us and all that it took from us,
knowing that both are necessary, just like our breath.
We trust you in both the givings and the takings,
the inhalings and the exhalings.

May every breath of 2010 be a breath of the Holy Spirit,
joyfully received and joyfully returned,
beginning with this one right now.

Amen.

Richard Rohr, ‘Midnight Prayer’ from the CAC Daily Meditation

A blessed New Year?

Now when [Jesus] saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 
    and he began to teach them, saying:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. 
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

(Matthew 5:1-12)

Now, as we stand—well, here in the UK we do—some are already there—on the threshold of the second decade of a new century, can we hear what Jesus is saying?

I find it actually quite hard, living here in England in winter, with the Christmas lights still glowing warmly through the dark evening from ordinary houses along the village streets, to hear Jesus’ voice clearly myself. His words here are as contrary to the spirit of our culture as they were to the spirit of Roman-occupied Galilee. Jesus’ blessings are for those whom a society like ours, or like the Romans’ or the Temple leaders’, consider least blessed, and least deserving of blessings.

Even within the context of each of our own lives, Jesus is calling blessed those times when we have felt, or seemed, least fortunate. The times when we have been poor in spirit, emptied out, feeling we have nothing to give; the times when we have not been able to stand up for ourselves; the times when we have not had the heart any longer for the main chance, the business advantage; when we have felt least dynamic, least thrusting, least competitive. These, says Jesus, are the truly blessed times, the times when we have drawn closest to our Saviour.

So often we have felt out of step with all that our society holds up as worthy of reward. Our hearts have been broken for the homeless, the defenceless, the hungry, when society demands our allegiance to the bottom line; we have longed for justice when society requires profitability. Yes, Jesus says, your unease is my unease—your feelings of being out of step with the world are true, prophetic perceptions, not suspicious signs of weakness.

If we act like this, speak like this, we will come in for some of the persecution Jesus himself suffered. Don’t worry, though, says Jesus—this too is one of my peculiar blessings. This too is the gate into the Kingdom of God, the true, the enduring Kingdom. This is the way home…

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

Christ is born! Glorify Him!

Happy Christmas, everyone!

[picture, Jan Oliver]

Nearly there…

Life is unpredictable. We can be happy one day and sad the next, healthy one day and sick the next, rich one day and poor the next, alive one day and dead the next. So who is there to hold on to? Who is there to feel secure with? Who is there to trust at all times?

Only Jesus, the Christ. He is our Lord, our shepherd, our rock, our stronghold, our refuge, our brother, our guide, and our friend. He came from God to be with us. He died for us, he was raised from the dead to open for us the way to God, and he is seated at God's right hand to welcome us home. With Paul, we must be certain that “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39).

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

Our waiting is almost over. In no time at all, God will wipe every tear from our eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away. (Revelation 21:4) It won’t seem long at all. Sister Death will brush our eyelids with her kiss, and we will wake to a new dawn. We mustn’t fret about it, not for ourselves, however much our hearts may break for our sisters and brothers, human and animal, who still suffer (Romans 8:22-25). “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

Even so, come, Lord Jesus! Come!

The Rescue

Dietrich Bonhoeffer compared our Advent waiting for the coming of Christ at Christmas to the waiting of a miner trapped underground. The miner is totally alert, totally absorbed in listening for every blow and every footfall of his rescuers making their way toward him. Can you imagine, Bonhoeffer wonders, that the miner ever thought of anything “other than the approaching liberation from the moment he heard the first tapping against the rock?” Advent is like that. “When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:28).

Bonhoeffer writes:

It is already knocking at the door, don’t you hear it? It is breaking open its way through the rubble and hard rock of your life and heart. Christ is breaking open his way to you. He wants to again soften your heart, which has become hard… he calls to us that he is coming and that he will rescue us from the prison of our existence, from fear, guilt, and loneliness…

The only question is: Will we let redemption come to us or will we resist it? Will we let ourselves be pulled into this movement coming down from heaven to earth or will we refuse to have anything to do with it? Either with us or without us, Christmas will come. It is up to each individual to decide what it will be.

This picture, The Rescue, is by Jan Oliver, a contemporary painter of retablos living in Pueblo, Colorado. It’s one of the most moving portrayals of St. Francis of Assisi I’ve seen, since it so clearly captures his total identification with Christ’s mercy for all of creation. I just love Jan’s work, and I’d urge you to click on her name and check out her excellent website for yourself.

Hat-tips:

Gabrielle, for introducing me to Jan’s work
Jay, for the original Bonhoeffer Advent meditation

Be silent…

God cannot leave things empty; that would be to contradict his own nature and justice. Therefore, you must be silent. Then the Word of this birth can be spoken in you and you will be able to hear him. But be certain of this: if you try to speak then He must be silent. There is no better way of serving the Word than in being silent and listening. So if you come out of yourself completely, God will wholly enter in; to the degree you come out, to that degree will he enter, neither more nor less.

Johannes Tauler, c. 1300 – 15 June 1361 (h/t to Desert Year)

The resurrection of Jesus was a hidden event… Only those whom he called by name, with whom he broke bread, and to whom he spoke words of peace were aware of what happened. Still, it was this hidden event that freed humanity from the shackles of death. (Henri Nouwen)

There are the last few days before Christmas, and a strong silence flows under even the slightly frantic preparations in church. I don’t know how it feels from the inside, as it were, but there often seems to me to be a sort of stillness about women in the last days of their pregnancy—a kind of inward listening that is very beautiful to see. We are with Mary in those last days now, and it would be good to be a little like Zechariah was with his Elizabeth, lost in the silence of the angel, wordless in the House of God.

The fullness of time…

Jesus came in the fullness of time. He will come again in the fullness of time. Wherever Jesus, the Christ, is the time is brought to its fullness.

We often experience our time as empty. We hope that tomorrow, next week, next month or next year the real things will happen. But sometimes we experience the fullness of time. That is when it seems that time stands still, that past, present, and future become one; that everything is present where we are; and that God, we, and all that is have come together in total unity. This is the experience of God’s time. “When the completion of the time came [that is: in the fullness of time], God sent his Son, born of a woman” (Galatians 4:4), and in the fullness of time God will “bring everything together under Christ, as head, everything in the heavens and everything on earth” (Ephesians 1:10). It is in the fullness of time that we meet God.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

I love this sense of “the fullness of time”. We are made creatures of time: our own lives are shreds of time itself, and even our coming to birth is measured, like Jesus’, in nine increasingly interminable months from our conception.

Oh God, teach us to number our days in the Light of Christ only!

God is always choosing people…

Think of the many, many stories about God choosing people. There’s Moses, Abraham and Sarah; there is David, Jeremiah, Gideon, Samuel, Jonah and Isaiah. There is Israel itself. Much later there’s Peter and Paul, and, most especially Mary.

God is always choosing people. First impressions aside, God is not primarily choosing them for a role or a task, although it might appear that way. God is really choosing them to be God’s self in this world, each in a unique situation.  If they allow themselves to experience being chosen, being a beloved, being somehow God’s presence in the world, they invariably communicate that same chosenness to others.  And thus the Mystery passes on from age to age.

Richard Rohr, adapted from Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, pp. 42–43

I don’t know about you, but for me, the problem is in believing that God would call someone like me. I long for him, long to walk closely with him, long to love with his love and breathe with his Spirit—but so often I miss it, miss his call, because I can’t believe that I could be his self in the world, despite his promises (John 17:20-26) to us all. But we are all called to pass on the Mystery. That’s the meaning of evangelism—passing on the mysterious Good News of Christ’s coming among us, of the opening of the door to unquenchable life. It happens not because of what we say—though that may at times be a vehicle for it—but because of who we let Christ be in us, and whom we let him love in and through, us.

Good news to the poor...

Keep your eyes on the prince of peace, the one who doesn't cling to his divine power; the one who refuses to turn stones into bread, jump from great heights and rule with great power; the one who says, "Blessed are the poor, the gentle, those who mourn, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; blessed are the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers and those who are persecuted in the cause of uprightness" (see Matt. 5:3-11); the one who touches the lame, the crippled, and the blind; the one who speaks words of forgiveness and encouragement; the one who dies alone, rejected and despised. Keep your eyes on him who becomes poor with the poor, weak with the weak, and who is rejected with the rejected. He is the source of all peace.

Where is this peace to be found? The answer is clear. In weakness. First of all, in our own weakness, in those places of our hearts where we feel most broken, most insecure, most in agony, most afraid. Why there? Because there our familiar ways of controlling our world are being stripped away; there we are called to let go from doing much, thinking much, and relying on our self-sufficiency. Right there where we are weakest the peace which is not of this world is hidden.

Henri Nouwen, Adam's Story: The Peace That Is Not Of This World © The Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust.

 Our only peace is in the grace of God, in the heart of his mercy, which is always for the weak and the broken (Isaiah 61:1-4) for as the Lord said to Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Waiting in the peace of God....

Are the great visions of the ultimate peace among all people and the ultimate harmony of all creation just utopian fairy tales? No, they are not! They correspond to the deepest longings of the human heart and point to the truth waiting to be revealed beyond all lies and deceptions. These visions nurture our souls and strengthen our hearts. They offer us hope when we are close to despair, courage when we are tempted to give up on life, and trust when suspicion seems the more logical attitude. (Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey)

[The] upsetting of our inner life is essential to spiritual growth, because without it we remain comfortably at rest in more or less illusory ideas of what spiritual perfection really is... There is no spiritual life without persistent struggle and interior conflict. (Thomas Merton, Life and Holiness)

Years ago, when I was a young monk, I knew a nun who was also young and quite new in her order. She was going through a time of confusion and perplexity, as young monks and nuns do, and went to talk to their chaplain, an elderly and very kind man, and laid out her dilemma: "People come here and talk about how peaceful it is, how serene the sisters are and what a place of holiness this is" she said: "I know the reality of our life, and it doesn't look or feel like that to me. The life isn't like that. We aren't like that. I never know what to say." And he replied: "Ah yes, but you see, the peace isn't for you. The peace really is here, and all the rest of it is too. But it's meant for them, not for you." (Br. Bede Thomas Mudge OHC)

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7)

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. (Jesus, John 14:27)

From the point of view of the world, the "struggle and interior conflict" of the spiritual life often looks like serenity and peace; and the peace that Jesus leaves with us often looks like poverty and persecution (Matthew 10:17-23). We live in paradox and contradiction. As Christians that is our calling, but in Advent it is acutely visible. These contradictions are not for us to solve: we are called merely to wait: "But you must return to your God; maintain love and justice, and wait for your God always." (Hosea 12:6)

All Creation Cries to You…

When we think of oceans and mountains, forests and deserts, trees, plants and animals, the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the galaxies, as God's creation, waiting eagerly to be “liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” (Roman 8:21), we can only stand in awe of God's majesty and God’s all-embracing plan of salvation. It is not just we, human beings, who wait for salvation in the midst of our suffering; all of creation groans and moans with us longing to reach its full freedom (ibid. v.26).

In this way we are indeed brothers and sisters not only of all other men and women in the world but also of all that surrounds us. Yes, we have to love the fields full of wheat, the snow-capped mountains, the roaring seas, the wild and tame animals, the huge redwoods, and the little daisies. Everything in creation belongs, with us, to the large family of God.

All of creation belongs together in the arms of its Creator. The final vision is that not only will all men and women recognise that they are brothers and sisters called to live in unity but all members of God's creation will come together in complete harmony. Jesus the Christ came to realise that vision. Long before he was born, the prophet Isaiah saw it:

The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.

The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest.

They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

(Isaiah 11:6-9)

We must keep this vision alive.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey
[NB I have taken the liberty of replacing the Bible passages with the NIV translation rather than the unidentified one used my Nouwen.]

Advent is not just about waiting for Christmas: it is about justice and liberty, about the coming of the Kingdom, the triumph of the mercy of Christ . As Francis of Assisi saw so very clearly, God’s mercy in Christ extends to all creation, and so our prayer and our longing for mercy and justice must encompass all creation too.

[Title of this post courtesy of Marty Sampson]

On earth as in Heaven…

Our final homecoming involves not just ourselves and our fellow human beings but all of creation. The full freedom of the children of God is to be shared by the whole earth, and our complete renewal in the resurrection includes the renewal of the universe. That is the great vision of God's redeeming work through Christ.

Paul sees the whole created order as a woman groaning in labour, waiting eagerly to give birth to a new life. He writes: “It was not for its own purposes that creation had frustration imposed on it, but for the purposes of him who imposed it—with the intention that the whole creation itself might be freed from its slavery to corruption and brought into the same glorious freedom as the children of God” (Romans 8:20-21). All that God has created will be lifted up into God's glory.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

I love this passage from Romans. A renewed mankind in a still broken creation would not be possible, or bearable. Only like this can the Kingdom come, on earth as in Heaven…

What’s the worst that can happen?

One thing we know for sure about our God: Our God is a God of the living, not of the dead. God is life. God is love. God is beauty. God is goodness. God is truth. God doesn’t want us to die. God wants us to live. Our God, who loves us from eternity to eternity, wants to give us life for eternity.

When that life was interrupted by our unwillingness to give our full yes to God’s love, God sent Jesus to be with us and to say that great yes in our name and thus restore us to eternal life. So let’s not be afraid of death. There is no cruel boss, vengeful enemy, or cruel tyrant waiting to destroy us - only a loving, always forgiving God, eager to welcome us home.

from Henri J.M. Nouwen’s Bread for the Journey.

In this dark time of year, when each day is shorter than the one before, and it seems as though the night is closing in, it is easy to fall prey to the enemy’s hints of dissolution, of being forever lost in winter. But, as I mentioned the other day, we Christians know the end of the story. We are not lost: as Jesus said, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no-one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no-one can snatch them out of my Father's hand.” (John 10:27-29)

This is why it so vital that we keep our hearts and our minds open to the Gospel—why we need always to study God’s Word, and not let ourselves be distracted by the petty disagreements Christians have had since the first disciples argued about who was greatest (Mark 9:33-37). There is no other way. The Good News is simply the Gospel of the Son of God, Jesus Christ: “Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)

Empty Heart…

The Annunciation story (Luke 1:26-38) is the crescendo point of the theme of total grace and gift. Did you ever notice that Mary does not say she’s “not worthy”? She just asks for clarification. She only asks “How” because that might ask something more of her. She never asks if, whether or why!

That is quite extraordinary and reveals her egolessness. She becomes the archetype of perfect receptivity. It takes the entire Bible to work up to one perfect vessel that knows how to say an unquestioning yes to an utterly free gift.

Richard Rohr, adapted from Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, pp. 31-32

How lovely is your dwelling-place, O LORD Almighty!

My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young—a place near your altar, O LORD Almighty, my King and my God.

Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you.

Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.

As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools.

They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.

Hear my prayer, O LORD God Almighty; listen to me, O God of Jacob.

Look upon our shield, O God; look with favour on your anointed one.

Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favour and honour; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

O LORD Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in you.

Psalm 84

Even so, come, Lord Jesus! Our hearts are empty, restless till they find rest in you.

[Final sentence paraphrases St. Augustine, from The Confessions]

Refuge…

You say, I choose the appointed time; it is I who judge uprightly.
When the earth and all its people quake, it is I who hold its pillars firm…
No-one from the east or the west or from the desert can exalt a man.
But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another.

Psalm 75:1-2, 6-7

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.
Put on the full armour of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

Ephesians 6: 10-11, 18

Lord, all things begin and end in you. Outside these windows the dark seems endless, the paths wiped away by night and rain. But your Word is our lamp, the constant light by which we see each step, one by one, and only one by only one; the place that holds despite the dark, the cold rain, and the far-off sound of fear.

We would not have it so…

Hasten, O God, to save me; O LORD, come quickly to help me. 
May those who seek my life be put to shame and confusion; may all who desire my ruin be turned back in disgrace.
May those who say to me, Aha! Aha! turn back because of their shame.
But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation always say, Let God be exalted!
Yet I am poor and needy; come quickly to me, O God. You are my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay.

Psalm 70

Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts.
My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you. When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness.

Isaiah 26:8-9

Lord, the night is strange with unquietness—what our hearts seek is hidden by shifting cloud and the memory of what we had hoped to forget. Have mercy, holiest God, on our unbelief. We would not have it so, but our chilled hands slip on the icy rail, and our numb feet cannot find the ladder’s rungs.

We know the end of the story…

I will sacrifice a freewill offering to you; I will praise your name, O LORD, for it is good.
    For he has delivered me from all my troubles…

Psalm 54:6-7a

Ultimately, it will be OK. As CS Lewis said somewhere, we know the end of the story. For the time is coming, closer every day, when we shall hear the voice of God, saying:

Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

Revelation 21:3-4

We have only wait, and watch. Keep on watching. Watch God’s word, eyes open in the dark, for “…we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” (2 Peter 1:19)

Waiting for God…

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you! For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

Isaiah 64:4 (NIV)

We are waiting here amid darkness and confusion, and all we hear are reports of terrors, and predictions of worse. There are times, increasingly, when we feel we cannot pray, because we simply can’t imagine what to ask God to do, or else we feel we cannot pray to a God who would leave us in such a place.

And yet we haven’t been left. God is with us, Emmanuel—he came on that first Christmas, as we will celebrate in only a few weeks’ time, and he has never left us; soon he will be back in glory. Jesus himself promised, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” (John 14:16-18)

We needn’t know how to pray. God knows how we feel. As Paul explained, “the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.” (Romans 8:26)