Stubbornness or Adventure

Last week I was in the mountains for some time away. I didn’t go to the mountains with a plan to hike to waterfalls, but most days, those were the trails I chose.

One day I found a great place to eat lunch by a waterfall. As I ate, I noticed leaves that, instead of being washed downstream, were stubbornly clinging to rock, even though water was rushing forcefully over them. I cannot explain how they managed to hold on tightly where they were.

Certainly, there is a time to hold fast, but also there is a time to let go. I thought about the adventure of riding the current of the stream, and how, if we are too intractable, we miss out on the grand adventure that is life. To let go makes one vulnerable, because we cannot know what lies downstream for us.

However, staying stuck to the rock means those leaves will slowly disintegrate right where they are. We can wither when we are stubborn. We can stick so hard to a belief, a way of living, a job, that we wither away in that position. I have certainly known people whose stubbornness kept them from experiencing growth and adventure in their lives. To take hold of life means a willingness to live in the flow, even when that flow takes us through difficult or painful changes. A life immune from risk isn’t much life at all.

Wait: Eastertide's Final Lesson

 

Divine Providence

 

How do we understand the way God works in the world?

Waking Up to Weakness as the Way to Holiness

 

Can we accept that growth in holiness comes through vulnerability?

Another Waking Up Experience

A couple of weeks ago I shared a post about one way I had awakened to a different way to be a follower of Christ. You can read it here. This week I'm sharing a video post made for my church. It speaks of another way I have awakened.

Armor and Clay Pots: A Reflection on the Story of David And Goliath

 My favorite part of the story of David and Goliath is when Saul puts his own armor on David. The armor was too big and heavy for David to move well, which tells me just how small David really was compared to the soldiers in Israel’s army, much less Goliath.

 When I read this story, I think of Paul’s words in in 2 Corinthians 4:7: But we have this treasure in clay pots so that the awesome power belongs to God and doesn’t come from us. We have a hard time admitting that we are clay pots, fragile and easily broken. We encase ourselves in armor—the armor of financial security, moral superiority or respectability—to present a confident self to others. We do not want to be seen as weak and vulnerable.

 Yet it is reliance on such armor that God criticizes when he condemns the lukewarm church at Laodicea in Revelation 3:17: You say, ‘I’m rich, and I’ve grown wealthy, and I don’t need a thing.’ You don’t realize that you are miserable, pathetic, poor, blind, and naked.

What God wants is not our strength or respectability or morality. God wants clay pots—weak, vulnerable, fragile pots—so that we rely on God, not ourselves. Watchman Nee, In The Normal Christian Life, recounts what he said to a man who struggled to please God: “The trouble with you is that you are weak enough not to do the will of God, but you are not weak enough to keep out of things altogether. You are still not weak enough. When you are reduced to utter weakness and are persuaded that you can do nothing whatever, then God will do everything.” . . . A drowning man cannot be saved until he is utterly exhausted and ceases to make the slightest effort to save himself.

When we recognize that we cannot save ourselves, that our goodness and morality and wealth have weighed us down like heavy armor until we are utterly exhausted, we may finally realize that freedom is found in weakness. The very first Beatitude, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, says that we experience heaven here and now only when we live in poverty of spirit, which is the acknowledgment of our own helplessness, coupled with complete trust in God’s strength.

Armor keeps God out. Like David, we have to be weak to know God’s strength.

Circles

I live my life in widening circles

that reach out across the world.

I may not complete this last one

but I give myself to it.

                                                --Rainer Maria Rilke

We do live our lives in circles. The temptation is to think that our lives are linear, but like a drop that falls into a pond and radiates outward, our lives radiate outward around us. We have a circle of influence, be it large or small.

Whether our circle is widening largely depends on the openness of our heart. I know people whose generosity and openness draws people to them. Such people are a joy to be around. They radiate love to others and though they may not even be aware of it, their circle is wide because their hearts are wide. They believe in goodness and see it present around them. As they age, their lives and hearts grow more expansive. Their humility and wisdom keeps fearfulness far from them. They have nothing to prove, protect or defend, so they can love freely, without worrying about what is “right” or “wrong.”

I also know people who live life close to the vest, not exposing themselves to risk, not revealing their vulnerabilities, not trusting the goodness of others. These people do not live in widening circles. On the contrary, their circle is small and grows smaller over time. They do not readily invite people in because they are unwilling to relinquish control and are unwilling to admit or expose their vulnerabilities. They are worried about what others think of them and concerned with presenting a particular image to the world. They may know a lot, but they do not grow wise because ego, not humility, is the driving force in their lives.

The irony is that those who seek to be people of influence are not as influential as those whose energy is focused on loving others. What we attempt to gain by force seldom works out the way we want it to. Grace and love cannot be forced. Yet when they flow freely through a person, there is no stronger attractant.

Our world needs people of humility, grace and openness. These traits are cultivated over a lifetime as we relinquish the need for control and give ourselves to love. Silence and solitude are the soil in which grace and openness grow. A daily practice of centering prayer can open one’s heart more fully over time.

Will you begin to practice a regular, daily time of silence? More than anything else, it may be what saves our world.

Holiness

Holiness does not lie on the other side of temptation; it is to be found in the midst of temptation. It does not sit waiting for us on a level above our weakness; it is given us in weakness, or else we would elude the power of God that is operative only in our weakness. . . It is only in our weakness that we are vulnerable to his love and power. Accordingly, to continue in the situation of temptation and weakness is the only way for us to connect with grace, the only way we can become miracles of God’s mercy. 

                          –Andre Louf

In my observation, it seems there are two categories of people in church. There are those who believe themselves to be holy because they feel themselves to be morally flawless, and there are those who believe they will never be holy because they struggle with temptation.

Those who equate morality with holiness are generally hard folks to be around. They see Christianity as a list of rules to be followed. If you follow the rules, you are good; if you come up short, then you are unacceptable. When one lives this way, they find it hard to have compassion for others who don’t measure up to the standards they deem important. And it’s not at all Christlike, for Jesus didn’t limit access to himself based on who followed rules. On the contrary, he spent more time with those whom we might judge to be morally deficient.

Morality, however, is not the measure of one’s holiness. Holiness is not about being correct, saying the right words, doing the right things, or following the right rules. Holiness is about knowing who we are—that we are subject to temptation and that God is with us in the struggle, whether or not we succumb to temptation. God’s grace comes to us when we are able to accept that we are weak and in need of God’s grace. If we are so certain of our moral purity, then we really don’t acknowledge a need for God’s grace.

Julian of Norwich is one of my favorite Christian mystics. She offers us a gracious image of God, as both strong Father and nurturing Mother. She even says that when we fall (succumb to temptation) it gives God occasion to care for us, to show us mercy and forgiveness. It’s not that we try to fall, for we don’t really have to try. It’s going to happen because falling is simply part of our nature (and those who don’t think they are falling are fooling only themselves).

When we can receive the gracious love and forgiveness of God for our own falling, we actually are more closely connected to God than when we feel ourselves morally correct. And those who know themselves as ones who fall receive the strength and compassion of God for themselves, and are likewise able to share God’s compassion with others who fall. A church full of compassionate souls who fall is a beautiful expression of the body of Christ.

Thoughts on Community

Community is a matter of the heart and the mind. It cannot be created by place alone, and it cannot be destroyed by distance alone. It is the essence of the soul.    –Joan Chittister

If you read my musings often, you will know the value I place on community. Community has sustained me when life has been incredibly hard. I do not take for granted the gift of community and am grateful for the communities to which I belong.

Sister Joan’s observation about community arises, at least in some part, from her own experience living in a monastery as a Benedictine Sister. But hopefully most of us can identify with her observation from our own experiences of community. As she notes, simply living under the same roof does not create community. Nor does being part of a particular group.

Community is not the same as a collection of individuals. There is a quality of soul that true community shares. One can be terribly lonely in a group when there is no soul connection, when there is no one interested in listening to what it is that makes your soul sing. In fact, one of the signs of verbal abuse in a marriage is that the abuser trivializes what is important to the other by being disinterested or dismissive. Proximity does not necessarily create community.

On the other hand, distance does not quash community that is rooted in genuine care for one another. You may have friends you do not see often, but when you do, it is as if no time has passed. You pick up where you left off. When you have such connections, you can be alone and yet not be lonely, for the soul connection is palpable.

If the soul’s essence is to be in community, then it matters that we build relationships that are deep and mutually life-giving, relationships that help you discover your true self, that do not silence your true voice. If we squelch our truth to try to fit into someone else’s idea of who we should be, we will not find peace in our souls.

True community feeds our souls and reveals to us the commonwealth of God.

Instructions I Need to Remember

Close the door. What’s gone is gone.

Hold the memory, but do not live it.

Love the now, live the now.

See what and who surrounds you and

breathe them fully into your heart.

This moment, this day, the present presence—

embrace it completely. It is the gift.

Let go what is no more. Don’t drag

regret’s anchor or carry future’s

worry stones.

Sink deep roots into eternal now.

Love what you are given,

love what you love without shame.

Sing this moment’s symphony. Let

every note enliven every heartbeat

so that your whole life becomes song,

an eternal, everliving, everlasting

Jubilate Deo.

Choices

A poem/reflection on Matthew 4:1-2

The wilderness is a place of starving,

of stripping. A place where

what seemed important,

now seems either

necessity or nothing.

Senses become clearer by sparseness

or consumed by what is now gone.

When you are starving you have

a choice: to focus on what

you no longer have

or

to be filled and nourished by

your emptiness.

Forsaken

Mark 15:33-34

It may be the aloneness after death,

when all have returned to their homes

and you are left with memories and emptiness.

It may be the grind of medical treatments

that ravage body and spirit

by their seeming neverendedness.

It may be a child's innocent request for candy

that makes the heart ache,

weighed against unpaid bills and an empty refrigerator.

It may be the weariness of living

with misunderstanding, betrayal and false accusation.

It may be the daily fear of deportation

or bullying or prejudice.

It may be the experience of exile with no place to go

or a caregiver who receives no respite.

It may be a man who hangs on a cross.

Forsakenness is the darkest of days,

the deepest pit, the absolute emptiest . . . hopelessness.

Junaluska

Job 9:1-12

Holy One, I remember how I felt, lying in bed,

awake, unable to sleep. Each night

I managed only a couple of hours.

Those were interminably long, lonely nights.

I ached for your comforting presence,

but though I knew you were present

I found no warmth, nothing to ease the void

of darkness.

It was then that I had to draw on faith, on resources

within, on memories that testified to your love and provision.

And friends, who loved me in the day so I could last through the night.

A place I love so much, that had been a thin place

felt heavy, thick and barren of all it had ever given me. I moved

as one moving in bitter cold—hunched, stiff.

Job, I hear your anguish, and the memory of mine rises up in accord.

I have learned this:

what seemed insurmountable called forth faith, perseverance,

and courageous hope. I have learned that scars can make us beautiful

if we will allow them to be seen.

A Prayer

Mark 14:36

On the other side of suffering, I see your transforming work, O God. But when I read this single verse, Jesus’ plea to you, I go back to my season of suffering and my wish to run away from it.

A wise guide spoke hard truth to me when she said to stay with my pain. Let it be my teacher. I did not want to hear those words, but I received them. I lived them, through days and weeks and months, walking the thin line between despair and hope.

I did not numb myself to the pain, but felt it as fully as I was capable of feeling it. And even for that, I was derided by the same ones whose words and deeds had already exiled me.

But because I did not numb myself, did not avoid the pain, I now sing with unfettered joy the song of salvation and new life. I am redeemed and reborn! Thanks be to God! Amen.

Authority

Isaiah 9:6

A child is born to us,

a son is given to us,

and authority will be on his shoulders.

Advent’s reading draws us to the child;

in Lent I think of the man

and his shoulders, stretched apart on the cross.

A paradox—authority submitting

to crucifixion. Power becoming

powerlessness, allowing evil to have

its way. If the story stops here

the world’s way wins.

And isn’t that how it seems at times?

We struggle to see Sunday in the world’s events

or in our own particular lives.

Remember, when it seems dark, that

powerlessness overcomes power.

True authority comes with a heart,

not a fist.

Pines

The pines stand proud,

straight, tall against the sky.

Yet some wear their bark façade

loosely, like too-large shoes,

hiding what’s within, until

wind blows and the bark shell

no longer conceals

decayed souls.

What is false cannot be hidden forever.

Rot will eventually be revealed.

Time and storms will expose

the true nature of things.

The Threat of Silence

Many people I know have a difficult time practicing silence and stillness. They’ve bought into the myth of our Western culture that we are what we produce, that our worth is based on our busyness. Sadly, I see many in the Church who do not value silence, some who even laugh at it as if it is trivial, silly or nonessential to one’s spiritual growth. Yet I have seen some of these same people anxious, reactive and rootless, changing like a chameleon to please whatever audience offers them approval.

We tend to dismiss what we do not understand. It’s part of the reactive nature of our culture. One does not need to look far to see that this is true in this political season. But such dismissing happens within religious communities just as much as it does in politics.

Take a look at this pointed quote about silence from Joan Chittister:

Those who cringe from silence see it like the plague, fearful of its weight, cautious of its emptiness and the shock that comes with its revelations. The heaviness and emptiness we feared give way very quickly to turmoil and internal pressure for change. Silence enables us to hear the cacophony inside ourselves. Being alone with ourselves makes for a demanding presence We find very quickly that either we must change or we shall surely crumble under the weight of our own dissatisfaction with ourselves, under the awareness of what we could be but are not, under the impulse of what we want to be but have failed to become. Under the din is the raw material of the soul.

When we set out to practice silence, we soon discover that what is within us is disordered. We find that we begin to question things we had once accepted as absolute. When we get uncomfortable with the way that silence works like a spotlight into our soul, our reactive nature causes us to want to run away from the silence back into the comfortable environment of distraction and back into the moral codes we substitute for discipleship.

Without a regular practice of silence, one soon runs up against a wall that prohibits any further spiritual growth. Such a person is like a child who continues to play in a sandbox when just over the bluff is the beach and an entire ocean. We miss the immense joy of freedom because we choose to stay confined in a small, constrictive space.

The discipline of silence is essential to spiritual maturity and wisdom. The way forward is not easy and is best done with a wise spiritual guide, one who has been where you want to go. But the journey, though difficult, is the way to live a life of freedom, detachment and grace. 

The Prison of Fear

In Anam Cara, John O’Donahue talks about fear and how fear keeps us from being ourselves, which constrains us from living out our unique God-given destiny. He relates a story from India about a man condemned to spend the night locked in a cell with a poisonous snake that will kill him if he makes even the slightest movement. The man spends the whole night standing in the corner, afraid that even his breathing might cause the snake to strike. As the first traces of daylight come, he can make out the shape of the snake in the far corner of the cell. As the light increases, he realizes that what he thought was a snake is actually an old rope.

It’s a powerful illustration of how fear causes our imagination to turn old ropes into snakes, to turn what is harmless into a monster. Fear distorts our vision, makes situations into something bigger than they actually are, and holds us captive to illusion. When we are afraid, we cannot be free.

Fear may manifest in jealousy, anxiety, insecurity, resistance to change or arrogance. However it masks itself, it is still fear and it keeps us from living fully. It constricts our spiritual growth, much like a pot-bound plant is unable to flourish. When we aren’t growing spiritually, we begin to lose ground, and like a pot-bound plant, we get weaker.

O’Donahue says that the way to transform our fear is to ask ourselves that we are what it is that we are really afraid of. What makes us resistant to change? What holds us in an anxious, insecure or jealous state of mind? If we can name our fear, we can begin to transform it. But we have to acknowledge it. We have to admit the emotion that holds us captive. We have to be vulnerable, and this may be the hardest step to take to free ourselves from fear.

Being Emptied

Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus:

Though he was in the form of God,
        he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit.

 But he emptied himself
        by taking the form of a slave
        and by becoming like human beings.

                                                                                                Philippians 2:5-7

Precedent exists for the expression, “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It seems that power is like an infection. Just a small exposure is often enough to set the disease on its voracious course.

It is an infection that does not discriminate. Power is as abused in churches as in commerce and government. Power unleashes pride and the two join together with deadly force. Combatting the corruption of power is a mammoth task because there are always folks around to feed the pride of the powerful and it is hard not to be sucked into the flattery and attention that power attracts.

Reading the passage above should remind us that following Jesus is so completely counter-cultural that if we actually follow, we will certainly be criticized, misunderstood and rejected by many. It will not make us popular. It will not feed pride.

Those who empty themselves, who do not seek to meet aggression with aggression, may seem to be defeated right out of the gate. The peace and presence of God in them makes them stronger than the prideful powerful.

Jesus emptied himself. He had all the power in the world but chose not to wield it. He came to us a weak, helpless infant, grew into an adult in an out of the way village whose only possessions were the clothes he wore.

Imagine how much difference we could make if we chose to empty ourselves of power and pride instead of using them to advance our agendas, even when we believe our agenda is God’s agenda. This passage in Philippians reminds us that emptiness, humility and sacrifice are the way of Christ. May it be so for us so that we may be kingdom builders instead of power brokers.

Knowing Our Belovedness

“You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”

                                                                                                Luke 3:22b

Fifty-five years. That’s how long it took me to finally understand that I was beloved. I knew in my head that God loved me, but I didn’t know it in my heart. My self-talk was an inner critic, not the nurturing, grace-filled language of belovedness.

I didn’t come to a sudden awareness of my belovedness. It was a slow dawning, like watching your child grow. You live with it daily, so the growth is imperceptible, but one day you are aware that things are different. Turning points along the way mark our growth, like marks on the door frame mark the growth of our children.

What God says of Jesus at Jesus’ baptism, God also says to us. We are God’s beloved sons and daughters. God is pleased with us. How sad that so many of us have grown up in churches that spent more time telling us we weren’t good enough than in loving us into relationship with God, our Creator.

Ephesians 2:10 reminds us of our special place in our Creator’s heart: For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. God, the Artist, calls us God’s masterpiece! Of course we are beloved!

Coming to awareness of my own belovedness, that slow, slow journey, was aided most by relationships with friends. For most of my adult life, I felt like an outsider. I saw people with deep, close friendships and I longed for such myself. My hesitancy and busyness held me back from giving myself as a friend to others. But when I became part of a community formed of folks with a common longing for a deeper relationship with God, the Academy forSpiritual Formation, I gave myself to the community and others in the community gave themselves to me and to one another. Academy became the soil where my own seed of belovedness began to grow. The people with whom I journeyed in Academy modeled unconditional love and I found a place to call home.

Encouraged by my experience, I began to cultivate life-giving friendships in my local church. Over time, the depth and mutuality of such relationships coaxed my belovedness into full flower. Knowing the unconditional love of friends, I better understood the unconditional love of God.

It has not been a straight, linear journey. Several months ago I was faced with a situation that violently shook my awareness of belovedness. But thanks be to God, through the love of God shown to me directly and the love of friends who incarnated God for me, I am reclaiming my belovedness.

What I want you to know is that it is often a slow and difficult process to truly know in your deepest heart that you are beloved. It may be your whole life’s journey to accept and embrace your belovedness. But it is the journey that changes us, that shapes us into people who can truly love one another and God deeply, intimately, and wholeheartedly. I pray you will come to know, if you don’t already, your own belovedness. You are God’s masterpiece!