Scaling the mountain within

Artist: Bunchō Tani

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I was very influenced by Elizabeth O'Connor during the period in which I was attempting to discern whether or not to enter the religious life. Here's something quite wonderful that she said:

Every single one of us has a good work to do in life. This good work not only accomplishes something needed in the world, but completes something in us. When it is finished, a new work emerges that will help make green a desert place as well as scale another mountain inside ourselves.

I don't think by "good work to do in life" she means anything particularly grand as the world would evaluate such work. It can be very hidden indeed or really quite simple. Nevertheless, that good work is something that is truly needed and something that helps us grow interiorly as well.

Information versus knowledge

"Jesus multiplies the loaves and fish"
Creative Commons attribution

This morning's gospel reading is, of course, about the feeding of the five thousand. Here's part of a sermon by The Rev. Kate Huey that explores some of its implications:

The disciples of Jesus were overwhelmed by the need before them. If they didn't feel a responsibility to meet that need, Jesus certainly raised their consciousness. They tried to assess the situation, measure their resources, and figure out a solution, but they seemed to feel powerless in the face of so many hungry people. Cheryl Bridges Johns draws a contrast between the power of God that was about to burst forth and the power that we think we have today: the power of knowledge. However, the better word she uses for today's knowledge is "information," and perhaps information disempowers us by discouraging us with the "objective reality" of what lies before us, the statistics and hard cold facts (is it any wonder they're called hard and cold?).

On the other hand, John's Gospel is "all about knowledge as power," not the knowledge-as-information that inundates us but "love's knowledge" which "multiplies the meager resources and makes a way forward when knowledge comes to its end….in the hands of Jesus, little can become much, the few can become the many, and the weak can become strong." Imagine, Johns suggests, God responding to our prayers for the world's needs with the question, "What do you have?"

I found Johns' commentary quite thought-provoking, because I often feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of problems and need of the world. And yet, what would happen if we trusted in the power of God to multiply in amazing ways the resources we have, and what would happen if we saw this as a communal question, not simply a personal one? What if we looked around and saw the extravagant generosity with which God has provided an abundance for us all, and marveled at this great wonder? Would we be moved to be part of a dazzling work of God to re-create our shared life in justice and compassion?

I am intrigued by the distinction made here between knowledge and information and the idea that mere information can, in fact, be disempowering. I'm also very, very moved by the question "What do you have?" in this context.

Aids to contemplation

Artist: D. Kristen Herrington

There's a whole series of marvelous mandalas by this artist over on Beliefnet this morning. I recommend that you go take a look and browse through them all!

Blue true dream

Artist: Konrad Mägi

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here is a little jewel of a poem:

Yes

I thank God for most this
amazing
day; for the leaping greenly
spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;
and for everything
which is natural, which is
infinite, which is yes.

-- e. e. cummings

True comprehension

"Abraham and Sara"

Artist: Marc Chagall

This is very encouarging to me right now:

Discipleship is not limited to what you can understand - it must transcend all comprehension. Plunge into the deep waters beyond your own understanding…. Bewilderment is the true comprehension. Not to know where you are going is the true knowledge. In this way Abraham went forth from his father, not knowing where he was going.

-- Martin Luther

"Bewilderment is the true comprehension." What a powerful paradox. For it is the key, I'm sure of it, to letting go.

The mystical experience

Detail: The Mystical Nativity
Artist: Sandro Botticelli
Image from Wikimedia Commons

I think what happens to many of us is that we have our natural mysticism knocked out of us at an early age. And this is very sad:

Every one of us is a mystic. We may or may not realize it, we may not even like it. But whether we know it or not, whether we accept it or not, mystical experience is always there, inviting us on a journey of ultimate discovery. We have been given the gift of life in this perplexing world to become who we ultimately are: creatures of boundless love, caring compassion, and wisdom. Existence is a summons to the eternal journey of the sage - the sage we all are, if only we could see.

-- Brother Wayne Teasdale

Saint Mary of Magdala

Artist: Andrea del Sarto
Image from Wikimedia Commons

So many traditional paintings of Mary Magdalene depict her as a penitent but biblical scholars assure us that there is no scriptual justification for identifying her with the unnamed prostitute in the gospels. And so today I bring you an image of her as the first witness to the ressurection. This even led to her being called "the apostle to the apostles".

Here is a poem by by Rainer Maria Rilke (translation: Ann Conrad Lammers) about the scene depicted above:

The Risen One

Until his final hour he had never

refused her anything or turned away,

lest she should turn their love to public praise.

Now she sank down beside the cross, disguised,

heavy with the largest stones of love

like jewels in the cover of her pain.

But later, when she came back to his grave

with tearful face, intending to anoint,

she found him resurrected for her sake,

saying with greater blessedness, "Do not--"

She understood it in her hollow first:

how with finality he now forbade

her, strengthened by his death, the oils' relief

or any intimation of a touch:

because he wished to make of her the lover

who needs no more to lean on her beloved,

as, swept away by joy in such enormous

storms, she mounts even beyond his

voice.

Contemplation and justice

"The blessed Ranieri frees the poor from a Florentine jail"

Artist: Sassetta

Image from Wikimedia Commons

So many people sadly believe that contemplation means shutting the world out. Actually, it is only through authentic contemplation that we can engage the world as it is:

To live a contemplative life, to be spiritual, does not mean that we spend life in some kind of sacred spa designed to save us from having to deal with the down and dirty parts of life. The contemplative life is not spiritual escapism. Contemplation is immersion in the God who created the world for all of us…. And so must we do whatever justice must be done in our time if we claim to be serious about really sinking into the heart of God.

-- Joan Chittister

Come away to a deserted place

Artist: Francis Cadell

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here's the bit in this morning's gospel reading that really caught my attention today:

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while." For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves.

And now I want to share with you a short passage from a sermon by The Rev. Dr. Ozzie E. Smith, Jr.:

Howard Thurman in a message entitled The Genuine in You, said, and I paraphrase, failing to listen to the sound of the genuine in ourselves is to render ourselves always on the ends of strings being pulled by someone else. Taking time to be still and know refreshes us to remember both who and whose we are. As Jesus says in this text, "Come, let's go to a deserted place all by ourselves and rest awhile." This, I believe, is pleasing to God and ultimately will be valuable to those we seek to serve.

I actually preached on the above passage myself this morning but I was thinking of the instruction to come to a deserted place as a remedy against burn out. And that it is. But I had not considered that it's the only way we will truly know ourselves so that we will not be manipulated by other people who seek to exploit us.

Instructing ourselves in joy

"Peasant Woman Sitting in the Grass"

Artist: Nicolae Grigorescu

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I love Mary Oliver's verse and have for a long time. Here's one of her poems I found today that is new to me:

Why I Wake Early

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for—
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world—
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant—
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these—
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

This poet truly understands the life of mindfulness and contemplation. "Prayers that are made out of grass." Aren't those wonderful words? I think I'll put a little vase of grass on the shrine in my oratory!

Motivation and encouragement

Starfish painting by Earnell

Occupational Training Center project

It's an old story and very probably you've heard it before. But, for some reason, I thought about it again the other day:

An old man was walking along the beach, when he came upon a part of the sand where thousands of starfish had washed ashore. A little further down the beach he saw a young woman, who was picking up the starfish one at a time and tossing them back into the ocean. "Oh you silly girl," he exclaimed. "You can't possibly save all of these starfish. There's too many." The woman smiled and said, "I know. But I can save this one, " and she tossed another into the ocean, "and this one", toss, "and this one..."

There are a number of versions of this. In one version, the creatures being saved are seahorses and the person tossing them back is a little boy. The old man says, "What you're doing doesn't matter," and the little boy says, "It matters to this one."

I like to remember this story when I'm feeling discouraged for any reason.

Please don't neglect your silence

"Silence interieur"

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here's why it's so important for us to learn to meditate. Because without meditative skills we will not know how to access the silence of which Merton speaks:

The reality that is present to us and in us: call it being … or Silence. And the simple fact that by being attentive, by learning to listen (or recovering the natural capacity to listen) we can find ourself engulfed in such happiness that it cannot be explained: the happiness of being at one with everything in that hidden ground of Love for which there can be no explanations. May we all grow in grace and peace, and not neglect the silence that is printed in the center of our being. It will not fail us.

-- Thomas Merton

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

God's great lovers

Artist: Rembrandt

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Spiritual reading is a regular, essential part of the life of prayer, and particularly is it the support of adoring prayer. It is important to increase our sense of God's richness and wonder by reading what his great lovers have said about him.

— Evelyn Underhill

Art and spirituality

Artist: Paul Serusier

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Ah! Here is why I try to give you great (or at least interesting) art:

All art that really draws us to look at it deeply is spiritual. Art accepts all the sadness, and transforms it implicitly affirming that beauty is essentially the presence of God.

— Sister Wendy Beckett in The Mystical Now

Three for Father's Day

Artist: Carl Schweninger
Image from Wikimedia Commons

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

~ Theodore M. Hesburgh

I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection.

~ Sigmond Freud

It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.

~ Anne Sexton

Today

Artist: Ernestine Grindal

Today the summer has come at my window with its signs and murmurs...

Now it is time to sit quiet face to face with Thee,

and to sing dedication of life

in this silent and overflowing leisure.

- Rabindranath Tagore

Hearty thanksgiving for cats!

Only today did I find out about St. Gertrude of Nivelles and her existence gladdens my heart.

You can read about her here.

Here is a prayer I found that I wish all would pray with sincerity:

Hear our humble prayer, O God, for our friends the animals,
especially for animals who are suffering;
for animals that are overworked, underfed and cruelly treated;
for all wistful creatures in captivity that beat their wings against bars;
for any that are hunted or lost or deserted or frightened or hungry;
for all that must be put to death.

We entreat for them all your mercy and pity,
and for those who deal with them
we ask a heart of compassion and gentle hands and kindly words.
Make us, ourselves, to be true friends to animals,
and so to share the blessings of the merciful.

Amen. May it be so.

Encouragement

The Little Prince encourages his rose

Dear Readers,

Forgive me for my lack a posting the past few days. I have been grieving the loss of my Diocesan position and experiencing the pain of rejection that has gone with it.

I have been encouraged by these words of St. Teresa of Avila:

Let nothing disturb thee.
Let nothing afright thee.
All things pass.
God never changes.

And also the following by Jack Kerouac!

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

May they be an encouragement to each of you as well!

A current challenge I'm facing

Dear Readers,

Here's an email I sent out to a number of friends and family members last Friday:

Dear friends and loved ones,

This morning I received a certified letter from the bishop of Oklahoma informing me that, for financial reasons, my position with the diocese is being eliminated and that my employment will be discontinued effective December 31, 2009.

I had already begun the process of petitioning for early retirement and was hoping to qualify for medical retirement. That effort now seems to have been preempted unless there is some legal loophole I don't know about.

I'm confident that I can raise enough money to live on through my work at the Center (St. John's Center for Spiritual Formation here in Tulsa). My big concern, of course, is health care coverage. The law gives me 18 months of extended group coverage if I pay what it costs my previous employer. As of today that cost is $611 a month. After that I am essentially uninsurable privately because of my medical history. I will need to come up with some plan to provide medical coverage for myself until I'm eligible for Medicare when I'm 65. (I turn 60 next month, by the way.)

Well, that's the news, folks! Do keep me in your thoughts and prayers and if anybody has any ideas regarding my predicament, I'll be glad to hear them!

Every blessing to you all,
Ellie

Of course, there's more to this story. The "official" reason the Diocese is giving has to do with budgetary concerns. However the reality is that the new bishop has disliked me from the get go -- for reasons that continue to escape me. It's all very sad.

I will probably say more about this later. For now, this will have to do.

~~~

Sunday art blogging

The nave of St. Martin's in Cologne

Image from Wikimedia Commons

One day nearer

"Road with Cypress and Star"

Artist: Vincent van Gogh

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here's something for those times when the journey seems particularly difficult:

Salutation

Did you choose the journey, friend?
No, nor I;
But to make it cheerfully,
Let us try.
When the day is dark, I pray,
Sing a song to cheer the way,
For tomorrow we will be
One day nearer to the sea.

Did you choose the journey, friend?
No, nor I;
But we know the end will come
By and by.
All today we bear the load
Up the weary winding road,
But tomorrow we may be
At the Inn in company.

~Ruth Sterry

Please notice that the word "Inn" is capitalized. That's really all I want to say right now.

Something about betrayal

Artist: Hugo Simberg

Image from Wikimedia Commons

This really speaks to me today. I'll have to talk about why some other time:

The Church, rightly conceived, is the whole covenant people called to serve in the world. The clergy are also part of the laity, and their true function is to help equip the laity to be the Servant People. If they turn aside to rule and to secure their own status, they have betrayed the calling of the special ministry.

-- Franklin H. Littell

Something about sharing

St. Francis giving his mantle to a poor man

Artist: Giotto

Image from Wikimedia Commons

So sad that we seem to have lost this:

The early Christians did not share their resources out of obligation, guilt or in obedience to a new rule called “equality.” They shared their goods out of a tremendous experience of joy and spontaneous offering. They had experienced the Holy Spirit in their midst, and their response was to share everything they had….

-- Jim Wallis

Prayer of utter delight in the Eucharist

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Somehow, this prayer never came to my attention before today. I love its exuberance, its joy. I'm especially captivated by the words "torrent of pleasure":

Grant that my soul may hunger after you, the Bread of Angels, the Refreshment of holy souls, our daily and supersubstantial Bread, who has all sweetness, and every pleasurable delight. You, whom the Angels desire to look into, may my heart ever hunger after and feed upon; and may my soul be filled with your sweetness. May I ever thirst for you, the Fountain of life, the Fountain of wisdom and knowledge, the Fountain of eternal light, the Torrent of pleasure, the Richness of the House of God. Let me ever compass you, seek you, stretch towards you, arrive at you, meditate upon you, speak of you, and do all things to the praise and glory of your holy Name, with humility and discretion, with love and delight, with readiness and affection, with perseverence even unto the end. And always be my hope and my whole confidence; my riches, my delight, my pleasure, and my joy; my rest and tranquility; my peace; my sweetness; my food and refreshment; my refuge and my help; my wisdom, my portion, my possession, and my treasure; in whom my mind and heart may firmly and unchangeably be fixed and rooted, henceforth and forevermore. Amen.

-- St Bonaventure

What does it mean to pray in Christ's name?

Ancient cross close to Crazywell Pool on southern Dartmoor (England)

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Sometimes, I really want to shout this from the housetops:

Many people have a very strangely childish notion, that "praying in the name of Christ" means simply the addition of the words "through Jesus Christ our Lord" at the end of their prayers. But depend upon it, they do not by adding these words, or any words, bring it about that their prayers should be in the name of Christ. To pray in the name of Christ means to pray in such a way as represents Christ. The representative always must speak in the spirit and meaning of those for whom he speaks. If Christ is our representative, that must be because He speaks our wishes, or what we ought to make our wishes; and if we are to pray in the name of Christ, that means that we are, however far off, expressing His wishes and intentions.

-- Charles Gore

The fundamentalists who, on public occasions when the setting is clearly interfaith, make a fuss about tacking those words on have truly missed the point.

Trinity Sunday

Image from The Book of Threes

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through the belief in the threeness,
Through the confession of the oneness
Of the Creator of Creation.

-- from St. Patrick's Breastplate

Here's a lovely Trinitarian thought:

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

-- Henry David Thoreau

Now I want to tell you about an amazing website I found by accident while looking for an image appropriate for the day. It's called The Book of Threes and it explores how "three-ness" shows up in all sorts of ways -- in history, philosophy, mythology, art, humor, sports, and much more!

Go over there and have fun in honor of the day!

A whole new way of looking

An illustration to Milton's “Paradise Regained”

Artist: William Blake

Jim Marion’s suggestion is that the Kingdom of Heaven is really a metaphor for a state of consciousness; it is not a place you go to, but a place you come from. It is a whole new way of looking at the world, a transformed awareness that literally turns the world into a different place.

-- Cynthia Bourgeault, from The Wisdom Jesus

The importance of the inner life

Artist: Piero di Cosimo

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I've come across this a number of times and have always loved it:

I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.

-- Diane Ackerman

Beautiful things

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I'm delighted to have found the following proverb. It is really utterly lovely:

The most beautiful things in the universe are the starry heavens above us and the feeling of duty within us.

-- Indian proverb

Grace and receptivity

Artist: Francisco de Zurbarán

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Sadly, many of us think of grace primarily as a doctrine rather than a spiritual practice. This is largely due to theological controversies during the 16th Century that continue to speak to our divisions in the Church today.

But I want to share with you something from the website Spirituality and Practice about grace:

Grace is a gift of God. Because it comes to us at God's initiative, there are some things we can't do about grace. We can't earn it. We can't control it. We don't have to deserve it.

If grace is out of your hands, so to speak, how do you engage in the spiritual practice of grace? Accept that you are accepted. Practice receiving. Receive objects, love, help. Notice when presents and presence come to you without your effort.

We're talking about both receptivity and humility here. Something very difficult for many westerners - especially Americans.

Something about gratefulness

Pewter "stones"

Here is another wonderful excerpt from the works of Brother David Steindl-Rast:

Day and night gifts keep pelting down on us. If we were aware of this, gratefulness would overwhelm us. But we go through life in a daze. A power failure makes us aware of what a gift electricity is; a sprained ankle lets us appreciate walking as a gift, a sleepless night, sleep. How much we are missing in life by noticing gifts only when we are suddenly deprived of them! But this can be changed. We need some methodical exercise in gratefulness. Years ago, I devised a method for myself which has proved quite helpful. Every night I note in a pocket calendar one thing for which I have never before been consciously thankful. Do you think it is difficult to find a new reason for gratitude each day? Not just one, but three and four and five pop into my mind, some evenings. It is hard to imagine how long I would have to live to exhaust the supply.

It's true. Try it. Really. And I really love this sentence: "How much we are missing in life by noticing gifts only when we are suddenly deprived of them!"

Interior prayer

Artist: Theodore Robinson

Image from Wikimedia Commons

You know, I would think the following would be rather obvious but, sadly, many church people don't see it this way:

Without meditative and contemplative prayer the sacramental life can become shallow and formal and can lack interior depth. It is essential that the liturgical movement with its great emphasis upon the corporate action of the faithful in worship be accompanied by no less emphasis upon interior prayer.

-- Michael Ramsey

By the way, Michael Ramsey was Archbishop of Canterbury during my formative years and I admired him very much and was greatly influenced by him.