Simply being alongside another

Artist: Elpidiforowitsch Borissow-Mussatow

Image from Wikimedia Commons

It's one of those stories by an unknown author. And it's a good one:

There was once an elderly, despondent woman in a nursing home. She wouldn't speak to anyone or request anything. She merely existed - rocking in her creaky old rocking chair.

The old woman didn't have many visitors. But every couple mornings, a concerned and wise young nurse would go into her room. She didn't try to speak or ask questions of the old lady. She simply pulled up another rocking chair beside the old woman and rocked with her.

Weeks or months later, the old woman finally spoke."Thank you," she said. "Thank you for rocking with me."

I wonder how many hurting people are out there silently pleading with the rest of us, "Don't try to fix me; just be with me."

An irresistible and holy desire

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Today is Bastille Day, the French national holiday. So it seems fitting to bring you something from an influential French thinker and mystic. I refer, of course, to Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who was a paleontologist and a philospopher. He influenced me hugely in the early 70s when there was a revival of popular interest in his work.

There is so much I could quote here. But I bring you two passages which are very meaningful to me today. Here's the first:

In the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.

More and more I am convinced that "Why?" is the most useless question anyone came up with. A better question is, rather, "Why not?" and then for us to move on to "What now?"

And here's a way we can all (any time, anywhere, whether clergy or lay) say Mass and say it rightly:

Since once again, O Lord, in the steppes of Asia, I have no bread, no wine, no altar, I will raise myself above those symbols to the pure majesty of reality, and I will offer to you, I, your priest, upon the altar of the entire earth, the labor and the suffering of the world. Receive, O Lord, in its totality the Host which creation, drawn by your magnetism, presents to you at the dawn of a new day. This bread, our effort, is in itself, I know, nothing but an immense disintegration. This wine, our anguish, as yet, alas! is only an evaporating beverage. But in the depths of this inchoate Mass you have placed —I am certain, for I feel it— an irresistible and holy desire that moves us all, the impious as well as the faithful to cry out: "O Lord, make us one!"

How captivating and awe-inspiring to see the entire earth as one's altar and then to perceive, by faith, the "pure majesty of reality".

What if we said to the Holy One every day, "This bread, this my effort, is my body broken for you."

And then, "This wine, this my anguish, is my blood shed for you."

Really. What if we did this?
~~~

Designer: Monica Van der Mars

The cost of faithfulness

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Oh, there is so much richness in this morning's lessons:

"Righteousness and peace have kissed each other."

"Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people..."

"King David [was] leaping and dancing before the LORD."

But the most dramatic lesson involves the beheading of John the Baptist.

Here's a brief reflection I found on this event:

Here faithfulness and violence, not faithfulness and steadfast love, go hand in hand. This very disturbing scene raises difficult questions for anybody and any community that lives “against-the-cultural-grain.” Should John have said nothing and self-protectively kept his objections to himself? After all, the chances of Herod and Herodias changing their ways just because a locust-eating prophet criticized them were not high. Would silence have been more prudent as well as self-preserving? Or would it have been cowardly and unfaithful, an opportunity to address a significant issue lost? How do we discern which is which?

Just lately, I've had occassion to be very disheartened by the silence and self-preserving prudence of a number of church authorities. It's understandable, of course. (No one wants to get his or her head chopped off!) Still, isn't the Christian faith all about cultivating the fidelity and courage necessary to live out our baptism even when that involves real risk?

What is God's position anyway?

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I found the following comment after an article over on Alternet:

The most dangerous words ever uttered:

"God is ON my side."

The most healing words ever uttered:

"God is AT my side."

Amazing how one little word can make all the difference.

-- Dr. Rick Lippin

Lectio Divina Meditation

I'm not sure that "Lectio Divnia Meditation" is really the best title for the above video but that's what the producer called it and I imagine the video emerged from her lectio.

It is certainly evocative.

And I like it.

UPDATE: Here's a little article on what Lectio Divina is all about.

UPDATE 2: I just found the following video which offers a very clear and accessible summary of the usual lectio steps:

The real problem

Lego Church

Look, I don't mean to come across as cynical or anything but I think this guy really has a point here:

The problem is not that the churches are filled with empty pews, but that the pews are filled with empty people.

-- Charlie Shedd

Awe

Image from Wikimedia Commons

There are many, many wonderful stories about the Ba`al Shem Tov. Here's a teaching that is simple and direct but has great appeal to me right now. I love this first sentence:

When you want to pray, it should be with awe. This is the gate through which one enters before God. Say to yourself, “To whom do I wish to bind myself? To the One who created all worlds with His word, who gives them existence and sustains them.” Think about God's loftiness and greatness, and you will then be able to enter the supernal worlds.

Learning how to be

Artist: Hildegard of Bingen

All the great mystics say this - and the great reformers, too. Why then do so many torture themselves trying to "get it right"?

People should think less about what they ought to do and more about what they ought to be. If only their being were good, their works would shine forth brightly. Do not imagine that you can ground your salvation upon actions; it must rest on what you are. The ground upon which good character rests is the very same ground from which a person's work derives its value, namely, a mind wholly turned to God.

-- Meister Eckhart

What is a prophet?

"Ezekiel"

Artist: Jose Andres de Vera y Paysal

Image frome Wikimedia Commons

I was looking for something to post tonight that would go with this morning's readings and I found this marvelous sentence:

A prophet is not one who looks into the future, but one who has insight into the present.

It is from a brief article entitled "Who Does He Think He Is?" by Dianne Bergant, C.S.A. in America magazine. It is very thought provoking - the article, I mean - and I recommend that you go on over and read the whole thing. It won't take very long.

A founding father speaks

Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts...in which all religions agree.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Sacred Harp - in honor of the day

I well remember the first time I heard this music live. It stands my hair on end just to think about it!

A Happy Fourth to you all!

Something about the Bible

"Still Life with Bible"

Artist: Vincent van Gogh

Image from Wikimedia Commons

The following is not a new idea, of course, to people who visit this site. However it is wonderfully articulated in this paragraph:

Literalism gets its name from its insistence that what we find in the Bible is not just the Word of God but the very words of God. The distinction is of tremendous importance. The phrase "Word of God" as used in the Bible itself, notably in the opening sentences of the Fourth Gospel, is an English translation of a Greek word, Logos, which was in wide use among philosophers at the time the New Testament was written. It connotes the creative, outgoing, self-revealing activity of God. The Logos was not a particular divine utterance, but God's overall message to mankind. It was not necessarily communicated verbally in speech or writing. Indeed, the whole point of Christianity is that the supreme communication of the Word took place when it was expressed through a human life and personality in Jesus Christ.

-- Louis Cassels

I remember reading somewhere that the sacred syllable "Om" is used for that Greek word "Logos" when the New Testament is translated into Sanskrit. Here's a sentence I just found on the web:

"Yet another interpretation equates Om with the Greek, “logos,” “the word”, found at the beginning of St John’s gospel."

You can find it right here.

~~~

Christ enthroned

From the Book of Kells

Image from Wikimedia Commons

If you're ever in Dublin, please please, please go see the Book of Kells. It is not to be missed!

The centrality of prayer

Prayer necklaces in the market of Old Jerusalem

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Gordon Cosby founded the incredible ecumenical church in Washington, D.C. known as the Church of the Saviour. Below I've given you the opening words of an article written in 1976 called The Invisible World.

Nothing in the Christian life works unless we get the hang of prayer. Christianity as a theological system, as an ethical and moral system, simply won't do. Unless we can connect with another order of reality, the whole thing is just too exhausting to try to work through.

Prayer is learning the art of the connection. It is the heart of what the Christian life is all about...

I'm sad to say that many people do indeed see Christianity as a theological system and as an ethical and moral system and they view prayer as nice but (if you press them about it) really optional.

Here is a very interesting bit of information about Church of the Saviour:

Never more than 200 members, the church actually seemed to discourage growth. You can only join for one year at a time. If you do not re-apply each year, your membership automatically lapses. But, you have to attend the School of Christian Living one evening a week for two years before you can move from apprentice membership to full membership. No congregation has ever taken more seriously the path of discipleship.

What were the results? Hundreds of faith-based ministries have been started over the years, including a community health center, a residential treatment center for women with AIDS, hundreds of units of low-cost housing, a jobs program that placed 800 unemployed individuals last year, FLOC (For the Love of Children, a movement that revamped how foster care is done in DC), Alabaster Jar (a movement of artists who are people of faith and express faith in their art), the influential Wellspring retreat center, a small college, and Potter's House, what many consider the original Christian coffeehouse ministry which still operates in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood on Columbia Road in Washington.

Something for those people who put "church growth" (as in swelling the numbers) before ministry and Christian formation to think about, huh?

Contemplation

"Contemplation"

Artist: Horace Weston Taylor

Image from Wikimedia Commons

In contemplation of created things
By steps we may ascend to God.

-- John Milton

Pentecost 4

"Christ & the Woman with the Issue of Blood"

Artist: Paolo Veronese

Here's a paragraph from a sermon based on this morning's gospel reading:

Reaching through the gender barrier, stretching across the ritual purity boundaries, this woman displays extraordinary faith, and Jesus recognizes it. Unlike the other miracle stories, Jesus does not pronounce any healing words. He does not recoil or regard himself contaminated. Jesus does nothing to bring the attention back to Him. Instead, he overwhelms her with gentleness. Jesus does not do anything but acknowledge her. He simply calls her "daughter;" and in so doing, he not only gives her the blessing that no one else was willing to give, he acknowledges the power of female faith. In seeking the source of the healing, he cites it as being her own faith. Her courage to break through the conditioning of a lifetime, brings her a condition she can barely remember: peace.

-- The Rev. Sarah Jackson Shelton

I'm very moved by this - and inspired, too. "Courage to break through the conditioning of a lifetime." Let us all pray for such courage however it may be needed right now in each of our lives.

The Church's survival?

"Metochites presents his church to Christ"

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here's the question: Does the Church exist for its own sake or for the sake of seeking and serving Christ in all people?*

The introverted church is one which puts its own survival before its mission, its own identity above its task, its internal concerns before its apostolate, its rituals before its ministry. Undue emphasis on the static structure of the Church has led to the disappearance of a significant lay ministry in denominational Protestantism.

-- Gibson Winter

*Please take a look at the baptismal covenant in the Book of Common Prayer 1979.

Our moral duty?

"Examination of a Witch"

Artist: Thompkins H. Matteson

Image from Wikimedia Commons

It troubles me so much that Christianity has turned into some sort of purity cult in many quarters:

There is an idea abroad among moral people that they should make their neighbors good. One person I have to make good: myself. But my duty to my neighbor is much more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make him happy if I may.

-- Robert Louis Stevenson

Something about good and evil

"Paradise"

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I read some Berdyaev when I was an undergraduate and I remember being very influenced by him - although I don't remember coming across the following passage. And I certainly can't say that I understand it. It strikes me as being rather something like a Zen koan -- something you have to tease away at and ponder and let soak in until the rational mind gives up and the teaching or saying simply becomes a part of who and what you are:

For Christian consciousness, paradise is the Kingdom of Christ and is unthinkable apart from Christ. But this changes everything. The cross and the crucifixion enter into the bliss of paradise. The Son of God and the Son of Man descends into hell to free those who suffer there... To conquer evil, the good must crucify itself.

-- Nicholas Berdyaev