About icons

Icon of Virgin Mary in Veljusa Monastery, Macedonia
Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here is the Quote of the Day that Sojourners sent out in an email:

"Icons are like the horizon between heaven and earth. When you pray in front of an icon it is like you are praying in front of a window into heaven. Even those who are not Christians can stand and appreciate and believe there is something holy there, and sometimes this causes them to study about it." (Dennis Bell, an artist, explaining a Pan Orthodox Icon Exhibit being shown in Washington D.C. this weekend.)

That prompted me to go looking for material on the spirituality of icons and I stumbled upon a little piece about icons and pain reduction. Take a look:

For the research, Catholics, agnostics, and atheists were subjected to a series of electric shocks, some while looking at a picture of the Virgin Mary and some without the image. Practicing Catholics perceived less pain when they were staring at the Virgin Mary, Science News reports, and displayed increased activity in an area of the brain associated with “emotional detachment and perceived control over pain.” Agnostics and atheists didn't show the same kind of neuro-activity, nor the perceived pain reduction.

It's not really all that surprising. Intriguing all the same.

Interesting prayer technique

"Madonna with the Long Neck" (detail)

Artist: Parmigianino

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I have benefitted from Fr. Edward Hays' writings for many years now. Here's something I just found that I like very much:

The Koran says that God is closer than the vein in your neck. What a beautiful invitation to pray. In fact, it suggests a new way to pray. Begin by placing your first and second fingers on your throat's jugular vein. Linger there as your feel the vigorous throbbing of life within you. Praying with your fingers on your jugular vein can be a sensual affirmation that God is not distant or remote but is pulsating within you. . . Besides being an excellent preface to any prayer, this tactile throat prayer gesture is useful whenever you are in need of God's presence.

-- From Prayers Notes to A Friend

Gratitude for the whirlwind

Painting of the Chinese Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1279)

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here is one of Anthony de Mello's wonderful stories:

"Calamities can bring growth and Enlightenment," said the Master.

And he explained it thus: "Each day a bird would shelter in the withered branches of a tree that stood in the middle of a vast deserted plain. One day a whirlwind uprooted the tree, forcing the poor bird to fly a hundred miles in search of shelter -- till it finally came to a forest of fruit-laden trees."

And he concluded: "If the withered tree had survived, nothing would have induced the bird to give up its security and fly."

This speaks to me today. (I will need to develop why some other time.)

Feast of St. Luke the Evangelist (transferred)

Image from Wikimedia Commons

For Luke, the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth is healing for the world. For Luke, the power of God’s Holy Spirit and the incarnation of God in Jesus is healing for the world. For Luke, the power of evil in the world is overcome by the power of God’s Spirit in the person of Jesus and in the life and work of the faithful. This is true, he says, before and after the resurrection. This is true, Luke claims, from the moment of Gabriel’s good news for Zechariah until this very day. The healing embrace the writer of Luke–Acts offers describes a creation that is healed when God and creation love each other in return.

-- Minka Shura Sprague

God's way

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here's a little passage from a sermon on this mornings readings:

Jesus promises his disciples not that they shall be in glory with him, rewarded and happy. He promises that if they will follow him they shall share with him in his sufferings and challenges. Two disciples ask to sit next to Jesus in his glory, one on his right, one on his left. When Jesus came into his "glory," it was not on a throne. It was on a cross, with two thieves, one on his right and one on his left.

This is the message that contemporary followers of Jesus have been reluctant to proclaim to the world, perhaps because we're reluctant to hear this message ourselves! Jesus is not a technique for getting what we want out of God; Jesus is God's way of getting what God wants out of us. God wants a world, a world redeemed, restored to God. And the way God gets that is with ordinary people like us who are willing to walk like Jesus, talk like Jesus, yes, and even if need be to suffer like Jesus. (emphasis, mine.)

-- William Willimon (Methodist bishop)

I am so deeply struck by that statment, "Jesus is God's way of getting what God wants out of us." Not the "prosperity gospel", now, is it?

How not to be broken

Artist: Claude Monet

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Rigidity tends to make us brittle, doesn't it?

I've learned how to not be broken from life's unwanted things by watching a willow in the wild wind tossing and bending rather than pushing back against the storm. It's taught me that I can't always have everything go my way. Sometimes I need to bend a bit.

— Joyce Rupp

A poem on the moon

Artist: Ando Hiroshige

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here's something about divine omnipresence. I really like the line, "Only in absolute stillness, beyond self, can you know Me as I AM..."

We all need to learn to be still. Really.

Do you need Me ?
I am there.
You cannot see Me, yet I am the light you see by.
You cannot hear Me, yet I speak through your voice.
You cannot feel Me, yet I am the power at work in your hands.

I am at work, though you do not understand My ways.

I am at work, though you do not understand My works.
I am not strange visions. I am not mysteries.
Only in absolute stillness, beyond self, can you know Me as I AM, and then but as a feeling and a faith.

Yet I am here. Yet I hear. Yet I answer.
When you need ME, I am there.
Even if you deny Me, I am there.
Even when you feel most alone, I am there.
Even in your fears, I am there.
Even in your pain, I am there.

I am there when you pray and when you do not pray.
I am in you, and you are in Me.
Only in your mind can you feel separate from Me, for only in your mind are the mists of "yours" and "mine".
Yet only with your mind can you know Me and experience Me.

Empty your heart of empty fears.
When you get yourself out of the way, I am there.
You can of yourself do nothing, but I can do all.
And I AM in all.

Though you may not see the good, good is there, for I am there. I am there because I have to be, because I AM.

Only in Me does the world have meaning; only out of Me does the world take form; only because of ME does the world go forward.
I am the law on which the movement of the stars and the growth of living cells are founded.

I am the love that is the law's fulfilling. I am assurance.

I am peace. I am oneness. I am the law that you can live by.
I am the love that you can cling to. I am your assurance.
I am your peace. I am ONE with you. I am.

Though you fail to find ME, I do not fail you.
Though your faith in Me is unsure,
My faith in you never wavers, because I know you, because I love you.

Beloved, I am there.

-- James Dillet Freeman

I found the above poem on Inspiration Peak. I also discovered this about it:

This poem received a lot of attention in 1971 when it was taken to the moon by astronaut James B. Irwin on Apollo 15. Irwin's mother gave it to him before the flight and he actually left a copy of the poem on the moon.

Something to think about when we look up at the moon at night, huh?

The Feast of St. Teresa of Avila

Artist: Peter Paul Rubens
Image from Wikimedia Commons

I found an article on Teresa of Avila by Raymond G. Helmick S.J. today. Here's an excerpt:

Teresa's way of prayer, which she taught the nuns of her convents, is the main topic of her writings and one of the principal values she brings to us since. She had been brought up to think of prayer only as recitation of texts, whether of the prayers she had learned to repeat in private or of the Latin Psalms she recited together with her community in choir, and had realized that there was another whole world in mental prayer, the free prayer that breaks away from all these formulas. We misrepresent this prayer if we think of it primarily in terms of visions and raptures. She does report these herself, though far more seldom than do those around her who let their imaginations get away with them. The visions came mostly in the earliest years of her life of prayer, notably the vision of an angel with a fiery dart. But she came to regard even that as far less important than the experience of simply letting herself be quiet in God's presence. From an early stage, she describes her prayer thus:

I tried as I could to keep Jesus Christ, our God and our Lord, present within me, and that was my way of prayer. If I reflected upon some phrase of his Passion, I represented Him to myself interiorly.

So true. The "phenomena" of prayer are of little consequence. Traditionally they are considered to be for beginners. Simply being quiet in God's presence is the deep mystery and condition of utmost beauty.

No small thing

Artist: Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Image from Wikimedia Commons

I once really wanted to learn German just so I could read Martin Buber in the original. Here is something he said that is deeply true, of that I'm certain:

There are people who suffer terrible distress, and they cannot tell anyone of it, and they go about full of suffering. But if you meet them with a kindly countenance, you may lighten their load with your joy. And it is no small thing to cheer another.

Swimming through fire

Artist: Margret Hofheinz-Döring

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I told you yesterday that Fr. Clyde Glandon had outdone himself with the quotations he sent to his email list this week. One of his offerings was a Mary Oliver poem that I had not come across before and I absolutely love it:

And nobody gets out of it, having to
swim through the fires to stay in
this world

And look! Look! Look! I think those little fish
better wake up and dash themselves away
from the hopeless future that is
bulging toward them.

And probably,
if they don’t waste time
looking for an easier world,

they can do it.

Ah! Let us not waste our time looking for an easier world.

It occurs to me that looking for an easier world and making a better world are two different journeys. I would submit that Jesus calls us to the latter.

Community and disappointment

"Christ in Majesty"

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Oh my. Fr. Clyde Glandon has really outdone himself today with the lectio quotations he sends out. All of them are simply wonderful. It's hard to pick a favorite but I think I'll go with this one:

Our risk lies in choosing one another over and over again in the face of failure and disappointment. Living in the Spirit means choosing not to live from our resentments and disappointments but from our new life in Christ. And we have to go on choosing right, up until the end. The work of the Spirit is to unsettle us through love. We don’t build community by building community. We build it by having our eye on something else. What is that ‘something else’? God in Christ.

Alan Jones, from Common Prayer on Common Ground

The "rich young ruler"

"Christ and the Rich Young Ruler" (11th Century)

Index of Armenian Art

Today's gospel tells the story usually known as that of the "rich young ruler". Jesus says to him, "Sell all that you have and give it to the poor and come, follow me."

Here's some that I found on a page of thoughts about this morning's readings:

"Oh, but I'm not rich." Try entering your income in the Global Rich List and see where you end up.

I just discovered that I'm in the top 7.16% richest people in the world. It's very thought provoking, really.

Greeting the Holy

Artist: Michel Martin Drolling

Image from Wikimedia Commons

It is so easy in our rushed and busy culture to resent interruptions. Here is a very different approach:

I recall the story about a man whose path was the act of greeting people. Whenever there was a knock on the door he would say, "The Lord is at the door."

— Donald Altman in Art of the Inner Meal

I remember my mother telling me when I was very small that we must always be kind to strangers and unexpected visitors because you never knew when such a person might be an angel. I don't know if she really believed that or not but I do know that one of her highest values was that of hospitality.

Feast Day of Robert Grosseteste, bishop

Robert Grosseteste, Bishop (ca. 1170-1253)

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here is some wonderful information about this bishop:

During his lifetime, Grosseteste was an avid participant in European intellectual life. His early education had given him a taste for natural philosophy. He began producing texts on the liberal arts, and mainly on astronomy and cosmology. His most famous scientific text, De luce (Concerning Light), argued that light was the basis of all matter, and his account of creation devotes a great deal of space to the the biblical text of God’s command, ‘Let there be light.’ Light also played a significant role his epistemology, as he followed the teachings of St. Augustine that the human intellect comes to know truth through illumination by divine light. Grosseteste’s interest in the natural world was further developed by his study of geometry, and he is one of the first western thinkers to argue that natural phenomenon can be described mathematically. He also played a pivotal role in the introduction of Aristotle to scholastic thought, producing commentaries on a number of Aristotle’s logical and scientific works.
...
During his eighteen years as bishop, Grosseteste became known as a brilliant, but highly demanding, church leader. He insisted that all his clergy be literate and receive some training in theology. His high standards for Christian practice and ministry landed him in a number of disputes with various parts of his dioceses, especially monasteries, and most notably his own cathedral chapter. When the cathedral chapter refused to allow an episcopal inspection in 1239, a long court case began which was eventually resolved in Grosseteste’s favour in 1245.
...
Further disputes over the activities of the archbishop of Canterbury in the 1240’s led to Grosseteste’s appearance at the papal court in 1250, residing at the time in Lyons. He lectured the pope on the major problems of the contemporary church, indicting the papacy as a principal cause for the current malaise.

Hmmm. I do think we could use his intercession during these latter days.

May we be strengthend by his example and aided by his prayers.

Why worship?

Artist: Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337)

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Sojourners offered this quotation in one of their emails today:

I do not go to Mass to make myself "better." I go because, in the dimmest reaches of my scattered, angst-ridden mind, there is something that wants me to get down on my knees and, in spite of my own suffering and all the suffering around me, give thanks. I go because I am beginning to believe that heaven is not in some other world, but shot through the broken world in which we live.

- Heather King, from her essay "Heaven and Earth"

The reason for our existence

"Creation of Adam" from the Nuremberg Chronicles

Image from Wikimedia Commons

To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.

- Thomas Merton, from A Book of Hours

What would happen if we knew - really knew in our bones - that Love is our true identity? How would that affect our mood, our self-concept, our behavior, our ability to express love ourselves?

Just something rather lovely

Illustration from an Italian breviary, c. 1380

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Breviary: Liturgical book containing the psalms, readings from the scriptures, the Church Fathers or the lives of the saints, antiphons and prayers that constitute the Divine Office for each day of the Christian Church year.

Something about vocation

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Fr. Clyde Glandon just sent out his weekly collection of lectio quotations and the following grabbed my attention. It's from Rowan Williams' book of sermons entitled A Ray of Darkness. I have that book but somehow I did not particularly notice this beautiful and eloquent observation about vocation before today:

Vocation is, you could say, what’s left when all the games have stopped. We shall still need to work to find the structure and form of life that is most our own because it leaves us most alert, most responsive, most open to the never-failing grace of God. We have to find the meter for our poem, the key in which to sing to our God, the cell where we can pray to him, the person in whom we can love him, so as to give “a local habitation and a name,” face and flesh, to our own particular following of Christ.

I like this: "when all the games have stopped." How very true. And how very seductive those games can be. Let us all pray to be delivered from them for the duration. (Duration = life!)

Trust and openness

Image from Wikimedia Commons

The disciples still living in the old order wanted to protect him from the children, but Jesus welcomed them. "This is what I am about," he said. How do children manifest the kingdom? Their lack of status? Their willingness to trust? Their openness to new possibilities?

- Sojourners Sept/Oct. 1994

Kyrie

Undoubtedly the most beautiful plainchant melody for the Kyrie ever. I grew up on this one. (1940 Hymnal)

The real secret

Artist: Benjamin West
Image from Wikimedia Commons

I found this on one of my favorite blogs, Wounded Bird. The blog owner, Grandmère Mimi, found it on a site called Story People:

If there is any secret to this life I live, this is it: the sound of what cannot be seen sings within everything that can & there is nothing more to it than that.

The concept of listening to the sound of what cannot be seen is, of course, intrinsic to the "Shema" - the great declaration of faith that begins, "Hear O Israel." And what the "story writer" says above is that the sound truly sings within us.

About speculation

Jesus as the Good Shepherd, 3rd Century

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here's something to ponder:

Theologians have felt no hesitation in founding a system of speculative thought on the teachings of Jesus; and yet Jesus was never an inhabitant of the realm of speculative thought.

-- Walter Rauschenbusch

I don't mean to be anti-theology here. It just seems thought-provoking, that's all.

By the way, if you don't already know about Walter Rauschendbusch, I recommend that you click through and read up on him. Very interesting and compelling figure.

Feast of St. Jerome, priest, monk, scholar

Image from Wikimedia Commons

St. Jerome, of course, is best known for his translation of the Bible into Latin (known as the Vulgate) but when I was a little girl I first heard about him through the legend of St. Jerome and the Lion:

One day a lion came limping to Saint Jerome holding out his paw. On examination, Saint Jerome discovered that the lion's paw had a thorn in it. Jerome removed the thorn, cleaned the wound, and bound up the paw. For this, the lion was very grateful to Jerome. As a result, he took up residence at the monastery and even did chores.

This story mirrors, as you no doubt have noticed, the well known Aesop fable of Androcles and the Lion. The stories are illustrations of both compassion and gratitude.

Michaelmas

St Michael, 12th-century mosaic

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Remember Maslow's hierachy of needs? They are ususally depicted on a pyramid with our most basic requirements for survival and well being at the bottom. Maslow hypothesized that we must get those foundational needs met before we can access the motivation to address the higher ones such as self-actualization and self-transcendence.

After the physiological needs of food, air, water and the like, our most fundamental need is safety. And here's where St. Michael and All Angels come in to the picture. In addition to being messengers, they are protectors - especially Michael himself. We need the assurance of protection, the assurance that our safety matters (not only to ourselves but to the Most High), in order to do the kind of spiritual work that will enable us to be courageously compassionate and faithful to the end. God knows this. The Church knows this. And so we have today's feast.

My favorite safety prayer is the ancient exorcism from the office of Compline:

Visit this place, O Lord, and drive far from it all snares of the enemy. Let your Holy Angels dwell with us to preserve us in peace and let your blessing be upon us always. Amen.

Here's what I want to recommend. Get some holy water (or make it yourself; I think water can be "dedicated" as well as "blessed"). Then walk through your house sprinkling a little water against every window and door reciting the prayer above as you go. It's a wonderful space clearing exercise and, if you let it, will give you a sense of being truly cherished by all the spiritual beings that inhabit creation.

Yom Kippur

"Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur"

Artist: Maurycy Gottlieb

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here is a traditional recitation for the day:

I hereby forgive all who have hurt me, all who have done me wrong, whether deliberately or by accident, whether by word or by deed. May no one be punished on my account. As I forgive and pardon fully those who have done me wrong, may those whom I have harmed forgive and pardon me, whether I acted deliberately or by accident, whether by word or deed. I am now ready to fulfill the commandment of "to love my neighbor as myself."

Becoming a prophet

"The Gathering of Manna"

Artist: Bacchiacca

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I have long loved the Numbers passage that is one of the choices appointed for this morning's first reading. Moses declares, "Would that all the LORD's people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit on them!"

What an enlightened view for a religious leader and dignitary. The clericalism so prevalent today often simply supposes that the role of the laity is to "Pray, pay and obey." And so we see documents drawn up regarding our recent "unpleasantness" in the Anglican Communion that do not mention the laity or the laity's contribution at all - as if bishops alone are the Church.

How are we to be prophets, anyway?

When a relatively young priest inquired of a saintly retired priest if there were anything he would do differently if he could start over, this was the answer:

“If I had my priesthood to live over again,” he said, “I would be a gentler with people the next time. I would console more and challenge more carefully. I was one of those people who was taught and who deeply believed that only the full truth can set us free, that we owe it to people to challenge them with the truth, in season and out. I believed that and did it for most of the years of my ministry. And I was a good priest, I lived for others and never once betrayed in any real way my vows and my commitment. But now that I am older, I regret some of what I did. I regret that sometimes I was too hard on people! I meant it well, I was sincere, but I think that sometimes I ended up laying added burdens on people when they were already carrying enough pain. If I were just beginning as a priest, I would be gentler, I would spend my energies more trying to lift pain from people. People are in a lot of pain. They need us, first of all, to help them with that!”

The younger priest comments with this astonishing sentence:

We will comfort the world, and it will be comforted, when we show it that God sees its heart with the eyes of the heart, that God feels for it more than it feels for itself, that God never feels frightened by the assertions of human freedom, that God always opens another door when we close one, that God is not put off by all the times when we are too weak to do what is best, that God understands our complexity, our weaknesses, our anger, our lusts, our jealousies, and our despair, that God never stops loving us even when we put ourselves in hell, and that God descends into all the hells we create, stands in inside of our muddled, wounded, and guilty hearts and breathes out peace.

"Breathes out peace."

I'm going to focus today on breathing out peace. Will you join me?

(The above passages are from a powerful relection by Fr. Ron Rolheiser entitled "Prophecy - Challenge and Comfort".)

Feast of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester

Perhaps he was our most eloquent preacher ever. Just look:

What will move you? Will pity? Here is distress never the like. Will duty? Here is a person never the like. Will fear? Here is wrath never the like. Will remorse? Here are sins never the like. Will kindness? Here is love never the like. Will bounty? Here are benefits never the like. Will all these? Here they be all, all in the highest degree.

-- Lancelot Andrewes

Maybe it would be good for each of us to ask inwardly: "What will move me?" And then pay attention to our own response.

Feast of St. Sergius, Abbot

Image from Wikimedia Commons

A story about St. Sergius:

Six months before his death St. Sergius was granted a revelation of it. He gathered his monks around him, handed the administration of the monastery over to his disciple, St. Nikon, and gave himself over to solitude. Before his departure from this world, he once again gathered his monks and instructed them to remain in faith and unity, to preserve spiritual and physical purity, to have great love among themselves, to refrain from evil desires and passions, to keep moderation in food and drink, to espouse hospitality, to be humble and shun earthly glory and vanity. The saint then partook of the Holy Mysteries and quietly said: “Into Thine hands I give up my spirit, o Lord.” Immediately an indescribable fragrance issued from his body, while his face shone with heavenly rapture. This took place on September 25, 1392.

The advice Sergius gave his monks is good for all people in all times.

Today, by the way, is the anniversary of my first vows as a religious solitary. The year was 1987. I remain grateful beyond all telling for the grace of my vocation. Deo gratias!

Vision of Heaven

"Meeting at the Golden Gate" by Giotto di Bondone

Image from Wikimedia Commons

This, then, is the blessed hope. I love the last two lines especially:

And this, then,
is the vision of that Heaven
of which we have heard,
where those who love
each other have forgiven
each other, where, for that,
the leaves are green,
the light a music in the air,
and all is unentangled,
and all is undismayed.

- Wendell Berry, from his poem "To My Mother"

Inspiration and consolation

Yesterday I shared with you a quotation by Mother Maria Skobtsova who died in the gas chambers of the Ravensbruck concentration camp in 1945. I had not heard of her before yesterday and I have found myself absolutely fascinated by her story and genuinely inspired by her witness. The following quotation was found in an essay by Jim Forest called "Mother Maria Skobtsova: Saint of the Open Door":

“The way to God lies through love of people. At the Last Judgment I shall not be asked whether I was successful in my ascetic exercises, nor how many bows and prostrations I made. Instead I shall be asked, Did I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoners. That is all I shall be asked. About every poor, hungry and imprisoned person the Savior says ‘I’: ‘I was hungry and thirsty, I was sick and in prison.’ To think that he puts an equal sign between himself and anyone in need. . . . I always knew it, but now it has somehow penetrated to my sinews. It fills me with awe.”

-- Mother Maria Skobtsova

Here's something that was remembered about her by another prisoner at Ravensbruck:

“She used to organize real discussion circles … and I had the good fortune to participate in them. Here was an oasis at the end of the day. She would tell us about her social work, about how she conceived the reconciliation of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. We would question her about the history of Russia, about its future, about Communism, about her frequent contacts with young women from the Soviet army with whom she liked to surround herself. These discussion, whatever their subject matter, provided an escape from the hell in which we lived. They allowed us to restore our depleted morale, they rekindled in us the flame of thought, which barely flickered beneath the heavy burden of horror.”

-- Jacqueline Pery

Reading about Mother Maria these last two days has gladdened my heart and strengthened my own motivation to persevere. Deo gratias!

Discipleship

Artist: Joshua Reynolds
Image from Wikimedia Commons

This was sent to me in an email from Sojourners:

I am your message, Lord. Throw me like a blazing torch into the night, that all may see and understand what it means to be a disciple.

- St. Maria Skobtsova, Orthodox nun and martyr (1891-1945)

Happy Autumnal Equinox

Artist: Oldřich Hlavsa
Image from Wikimedia Commons

This is the spirit of contemplation. I suggest we all take the following to heart:

Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn.

-- Elizabeth Lawrence

The Feast of St. Matthew the Evangelist

The Evangelist Matthew Inspired by an Angel

Attributed to Rembrandt
Image from Wikimedia Commons

This is from an medieval work known as The Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine:

We may note that in Saint Matthew four things are worthy of consideration. The first is his swiftness to obey; for as soon as Christ called him, he quit his custom-house, leaving his tax accounts incomplete without fear of his masters, and devoted himself completely to Christ. This ready obedience has been a source of error to some, as Jerome recounts in his commentary on that place of the Gospel: 'Porphyry and the Emperor Julian find proof therein either of the ignorance of a lying chronicler, or of the witlessness of them that so promptly followed the Saviour, as if they went off after the first man who called them, without any reason whatsoever. But there is no doubt that the apostles, before they believed in Him, had seen the many signs of His power which went before Him. And of a surety, the very splendour and majesty of His hidden godhead, which shone even in His human countenanec, were enough to draw them the first time they looked upon him. For if a magnet has power to attract rings and bits of iron, how much the more can the Lord of all creation draw to Himself those whom He will!' Thus Jerome.

Perhaps we could reflect on what "swiftness to obey" means to each of us in our time and in our current circumstances.

~~~

"Who's the greatest?"

Artist: Edgar Degas

Image from Wikimedia Commons

In today's gospel reading, the disciples are arguing about which one among them is to be the greatest. I simply want to offer you the following:

Leonard Bernstein, when asked what the most difficult instrument was, answered "2nd fiddle". "Plenty of people want to play 1st violin but to get someone to play second violin or second flute, etc...that's a problem. Yet, without them there is no harmony."

Some of you know that before I entered the religious life, I was a musician by trade. And for most of my career I played first oboe -- I guess because that's what I was ususally hired to do and because it fit my "musical personality" (or so I was told). But toward the end of my career I started being offered some very nice second oboe jobs and I accepted them (with my long-term teacher's enthusiastic encouragement because he contended that playing second was considerably harder than playing first). What a wonderful adventure! Playing second (and doing it well) requires much more artistic maturity, much more attention to subtlety and nuance. There is a different kind of satisfaction involved and it's truly very lovely.

Think about it.

~~~

Forgiveness as defiance

Artist: Rembrandt

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Forgiveness as defiance. Now there's a concept, isn't it? Take a look:

Forgiveness is an embrace, across all barriers, against all odds, in defiance of all that is mean and petty and vindictive and cruel in this life.

— Kent Nerburn in Calm Surrender

Worth pondering. With sincere thoughtfulness.

Journey to Reality

Surat Al-Ikhlas - Maghribi script, 18th Century, North Africa

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I ventured over to the Spirituality and Practice website today and was stunned (in a positive way!) to find a review of a book entitled It's Really All About God (subtitled "Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian".) I definitely want to read this. The author, Samir Selmanovic, is "the co-leader of Faith House Manhattan, an interfaith 'community of communities' that brings together forward-looking Christians, Muslims, Jews, atheists and others who seek to thrive interdependently."

Selmanovic is a convert to Christianity who has experienced distress over the self-serving attitudes and practices of organized religion. Here is something he said that just knocks my socks off:

We can either stay within the Christianity we have mastered with the Jesus we have domesticated, or we can leave Christianity as a destination, embrace Christianity as a way of life, and then journey to reality, where God is present and living in every person, every human community, and all creation.

This reminds me of the part of the baptimal covenent in which we promise to "seek and serve Christ in all persons". We don't have to bring Christ to the person; Christ is already there. Rather, we seek Christ in the person. Big, big difference.

How to find Paradise

"Glimpse of Paradise"

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here are two wonderful quotations about how to find Paradise on earth:

We believe that it is difficult to let go, but in truth, it is much more difficult and painful to hold and protect. Reflect upon anything in your life that you grasp hold of--an opinion, a historical resentment, an ambition, or an unfulfilled fantasy. Sense the tightness, fear, and defensiveness that surrounds the grasping. It is a painful, anxious experience of unhappiness. We do not let go in order to make ourselves impoverished or bereft. We let go in order to discover happiness and peace.

-- Christina Feldman

I like what Feldman says about letting go not being a matter of deprivation at all but rather a way toward happiness.

And here's another obvservation that says much the same thing:

The only things we can keep are the things we freely give to God. What we try to keep for ourselves is just what we are sure to lose.

-- C.S. Lewis

Tightly grasping to what we cannot have or to what we are sure to lose is the most direct way to suffering and unhappiness known to humanity.

Something about struggle

"The Quest"

Artist: Seema Kohli

Image from Wikimedia Commons

If, by chance, you are struggling at the time of your reading this, take heart from these words of one of our great preachers:

You may look through the streets of heaven, asking each how they came to be there, and you will look in vain everywhere for a person who is morally and spiritually strong, whose strength did not come to him in struggle. There is no exception anywhere. Every true strength is gained in struggle.

-- Phillips Brooks

Holy Cross Day

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Rowan Williams was still Archbishop of Wales when he said this:

All I want to say about the image of the Holy Cross this morning is that the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is where we wake up. 'Awake, sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you life.' Our sin is like sleep, like a bad dream. We are locked in ourselves. The serious tangled insides of the human mind, the human heart, human speech trap us more and more. Here the reality of God stands against the reality of our minds and hearts.

-- Rowan Williams

I found it in a reflection by John Pridmore on Holy Cross Day in the Church Times. I urge you to click through and read the whole thing if you have time. It's all good.

God's excellence

Lady Wisdom (Library of Congress)

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I love today's readings. All of them. But especially the optional reading from The Wisdom of Solomon and the gospel reading (from Mark) about losing your life in order to save it.

Just in case you are not familiar with the passage from Wisdom, here it is:

For Wisdom is a reflection of eternal light,
a spotless mirror of the working of God,
and an image of his goodness.
Although she is but one, she can do all things,
and while remaining in
herself, she renews all things;
in every generation she passes into holy souls
and makes them friends of God, and prophets;
for God loves nothing so much as the person who lives with wisdom.
She is more beautiful than the sun,
and excels every constellation of the stars.
Compared with the light she is found to be superior,
for it is succeeded by the night,
but against wisdom evil does not prevail.
She reaches mightily from one end of the earth to the other,
and she orders all things well.

The sentence from Mark's gospel to which I refer, of course, is this one:

For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.

I've long believed that this saying of Jesus is the quintessential Christian koan. A koan is a paradox, a conundrm, used by Zen masters to help their meditation students learn to let go. "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" is a famous koan that most people know. Using the koan as a support for meditation is meant to exhaust, if you will, the rational intellect so that it gives up and with it, the person's ego. At that point the person reliquishes his or her obsession with attachment or control and becomes truly accepting. Seems to me that is what Jesus was on about with his teaching on losing one's life.

God's love

Margret Hofheinz-Döring/Galerie Brigitte Mauch Göppingen

Image from Wikimedia Commons

God is not only fatherly,
God is also mother
who lifts her loved child
from the ground to her knee.
The Trinity is like a mother's cloak
wherein the child finds a home
and lays its head on the maternal breast.

-- Mechtild of Magdeburg

Mechtild of Magdeburg lived in the high Middle Ages and was a member of the Beguines, a loosely organized group of women who usually lived alone and were devoted to prayer and good works.

The call to be truly oneself

Moses and the Burning Bush
Image from Wikimedia Commons

I have loved the saying quoted below for a long, long time.

Here's my question: Why is it so common in the church today that its members are put under pressure to conform to someone else's conventional idealization of the kind of people they should be?

Rabbi Zusya said that on the Day of Judgment, God would ask him, not why he had not been Moses, but why he had not been Zusya.

~Walter Kaufmann

We need to be genuinely ourselves according to our true nature. The most damaging aspect of the authoritarianism currently present in the church as an institution is the insidious devaluing of many people's gifts while highlighting their faults. No wonder people get discouraged and leave never to return.

It's not right, folks. It's just not right.

The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Artist: Pietro Cavallini
Image from Wikimedia Commons

What a pity this feast day does not appear on the calendar of the American Church. It does, however, in the Church of Ireland and that gave me much pleasure when I lived over on the Emerald Isle.

Why does it matter? Well, let me ask you this. Have you ever taken note of the fact that, in the Bible itself, every time people are happy about the birth of a baby, the baby in question is always a boy? What do you think that does (consciously or unconsciously) to little girls growing up in the church?

Just think about it. Think about it hard.

Today we get to rejoice that unto us a child is born, unto us a daughter is given. And she will be the God-bearer for us and she will be our own true Mother for all eternity.

Ave. Ave. Ave Maria!

Labor Day, 2009

Saint Joseph the Worker

Here's a prayer offered by the National Farm Worker Ministry:

Bless the hands of the people of the earth,
The hands that plant the seed,
The hands that bind the harvest,
The hands that carry the burden of life.
Soften the hands of the oppressor and
Strengthen the hands of the oppressed.
Bless the hands of the workers,
Bless the hands of those in power above them
That the measure they deal will be tempered
With justice and compassion. Amen.

I found it on a little essay about Labor Day by Cathleen Falsani over on Sojourners. I recommend the article.

The Canaanite woman

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here's part of a reflection on the first story from this morning's gospel reading:

Surely Jesus of all people should know that God's goodness is bounteous, that there is more than enough food for everyone.

And this is essentially what the Gentile woman points out to Jesus. There's plenty of food for everyone; even once all of those recognized as people, as insiders, are fed, there's still food left over for those who aren't even considered human, the outsiders. And they're all eating the same food; admittedly, some of it is crumbs from the original serving, but it's the same substance. Whether they are at the table or under it, they are all finding nourishment.

And Jesus, apparently moved by her words -- or reminded by her of his own previous miracle -- essentially says, "Good point. You get the same food as all of God's other children anyway, so why not have a seat at the table?" He promptly heals her child, and never again in Mark does he refuse to heal anyone or question anyone's worthiness to be healed.
...
Jesus understands our initial antipathies to strangers -- after all, he had them himself -- but ultimately there is no one we shouldn't invite to the feast. There is plenty of bread for everyone, even those who have traditionally been relegated to eating crumbs under the table, so we will not go hungry but rather will dine abundantly when we follow Jesus' example and welcome all comers to the table.

-- Karen A. Keely

Welcome all comers. I love those words. There really is no need for us humans to police God's table. Really.

Some thoughts about trust

"The Flying"

Artist: Anchise Picchi

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I can only fly freely
when I know there is a catcher to catch me.
If we are to take risks,
to be free,
in the air,
in life,
we have to know
that when we come down from it all,
we're going to be caught,
we're going to be safe.
The great hero is the least visible.
Trust the catcher.

— Henri Nouwen

The gift of Russian spiritual practice

Photo from the Library of Congress

I just had to show you a sample of some amazing 100 year old color photos the story of which is truly fascinating. Here's a description of the church pictured above:

Russian churches featured exterior and interior decoration in the forms of mosaics, frescoes, and carvings, often in brilliant colors. The Church of the Resurrection in Kostroma in the northern part of European Russia was built in the 1650s and demonstrates the exuberant decoration of the exterior characteristic of its period. However, in spite of the dramatic exterior, the church is noted primarily for its interior wall paintings.

Amazingly enough, this picture was taken in 1910.

You can see the entire exhibit right here.

Now let me share with you something for your contemplation that comes from the Russian Orthodox tradition:

The Jesus Prayer is also called the Prayer of the Heart. In Orthodoxy, the mind and heart are to be used as one. St Theophan tells us to keep our "mind in the heart" at all times. Heart means the physical muscle pumping blood, and emotions/feelings, and the innermost core of the person, the spirit. Heart is associated with the physical organ, but not identical with it. Heart means our innermost chamber, our secret dwelling place where God lives.
...
Someone said the heart is a dimension of interior consciousness, awareness, where we come in touch with an inner space, a space of no dimensions. This consciousness is timeless, the place where tears reside and deep contact with the present moment abide, and from which restful movement comes. Acting out of our heart means to act lightly, with vigor and enthusiasm. When not in that inner awareness, we are restless, agitated and self-concerned.

There is within us a space, a field of the heart, in which we find a Divine Reality, and from which we are called to live. The mind, then, is to descend into that inner sanctuary, by means of the Jesus Prayer or wordless contemplation, and to stay there throughout our active day, and evening. We descend with our mind into our heart, and we live there.

The excerpt above is from an article entitled "Saying the Jesus Prayer" by Albert S Rossi.

There are several forms of the Jesus Prayer. The one I typically use is this: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me."

Three by Desmond

Tibetan mandala (Commons)

These so utterly represent the way he thinks!

I give great thanks to God that he has created a Dalai Lama. Do you really think, as some have argued, that God will be saying: 'You know, that guy, the Dalai Lama, is not bad. What a pity he's not a Christian'? I don't think that is the case - because, you see, God is not a Christian.
...
We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.
...
So people actually, if they want to know, "What is God like?" they would have to look at you and me and see us as being compassionate, because God is compassionate, as being loving, because God is loving.

-- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

A way of looking at art

Artist: Margret Hofheinz-Döring

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I rather like this:

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

- Andre Glide

Saint Aidan's Day

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Aidan's prayer:

Leave me alone with God as much as may be.

As the tide draws the waters close in upon the shore,

Make me an island, set apart,

alone with you, God, holy to you.

Then with the turning of the tide

prepare me to carry your presence to the busy world beyond,

the world that rushes in on me

till the waters come again and fold me back to you.

I found it here.