pondering love

"Let them ponder the love of the Lord..."
(A phrase from Benedictine Daily Prayer that grabbed at me this morning)

Richard Rohr or someone I read recently (been doing my share of reading, you know) said that the grace-filled life, this way of spiritual formation, must be grounded in an experience and awareness of God's unfathomable love.
To ponder this love...would, I think, catapult us into a fuller experience of it - where we are more aware and attentive to His love throughout the day.

Ponder the love of the Lord. Ponder. I love that word!

The love of the Lord - where do I see evidence of it? I could look at various material and circumstantial provisions... perhaps He does show His love for us in this way. But it's got to go far beyond this, or we'd have to say He doesn't much love the child soldiers of Africa or the starving masses in Haiti. Perhaps His love is more evident in the many gifts we overlook. The momentary treasures (He is, afterall, found in the Present Moment) that we take for granted (this may sound romanticized, but bear with me)... the feel of the wind on our cheeks, the warmth of the sun on our backs...the gifts of sight and hearing, color and sound. Breath. Oh, what about this idea that He created our bodies to be as dependent on breath as our souls are dependent on Him? Or the knowledge that His longing for full relationship with me is deeper and more cutting than our most severe pangs of homesickness or any other tension we are forced to embrace.

Here….Nouwen knocks ‘em dead every time:
“This inexhaustible love between the Father and the Son includes and yet transcends all forms of love known to us. It includes the love of a father and mother, a brother and sister, a husband and wife, a teacher and friend. Bit it also goes far beyond the many limited and limiting human experiences of love we know. It is a caring yet demanding love. It is a supportive yet severe love. It is a gentle yet strong love. It is a love that gives life yet accepts death. In this divine love Jesus was sent into the world, to this divine love Jesus offered himself on the cross. This all-embracing love, which epitomizes the relationship between the Father and the Son, is a divine Person, coequal with the Father and the Son. It has a personal name. It is called the Holy Spirit.” (Making All Things New 48-49)

Questions in my journal that I plan to follow up on:
-Where do I see evidence of His love throughout the day – in every moment and place?
-If I were to find or create a picture that represents His love (as best I can understand it), what would it be like? What would it in/exclude? What objects, colors, shapes, textures?

Ordinary Sacraments...again.

Ohhh....another quote from Nouwen: "When God took on flesh in Jesus Christ, the uncreated and the created, the eternal and the temporal, the divine and the human became united. This unity meant that all that is mortal now points to the immortal, all that is finite now points to the infinite. In and through Jesus all creation has become like a splendid veil, through which the face of God is revealed to us.This is called the sacramental quality of the created order. All that is is sacred because all that is speaks of God's redeeming love. Seas and winds, mountains and trees, sun, moon, and stars, and all the animals and people have become sacred windows offering us glimpses of God."

In a time of worship last night - alone - I was graced with one of those experiences of...just knowing His love. Reading in John 1 (such an amazing expression of His love) this morning, in the Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible, the footnotes asked: How does it impact the way we live out our creation to recognize it as the work not only of the Father, but of the entire trinity?

God the Father shows great love in creating us. And I am in no way trying to "down-play" this role....but I am particularly struck by the roles of God the Son and God the Spirit, The expression of God's love though the Incarnation communicates the great worth of our flesh-and-bone existence. Our lives here and now are not worthless, but priceless. The deep expression of love and trust in sending the Holy Spirit (thus designating us as the ongoing incarnation of Christ in the world - go chew on that for a while) adds infinitely more to the reality of Jesus' life on earth. Drolling through our lives with a religious emphasis on "heaven when we die" or on the "rapture," and overlooking the beauty and value of life here and now, regardless of the filth and pain that often comes with it...is an insult to His love for us!

If we really believed this...how would it change the ways we engage in life on a day to day basis?

Mojo Wisdom

Mojo (for those of you wondering who this is, he is hands down the coolest professor I've had in my life) said something in class today....and I just had to share part of it. We're discussing contemplative prayer and lectio divina, a contemplative approach to reading Scripture. Here we go.....

"What is the relationship between head and heart—between information and transformation? For Augustine, conversion was not a matter of the intellect. He believed Christianity was true, he simply couldn’t do it. Peter Kreeft in Christianity for Modern Pagans insists: 'Christianity is not a hypothesis, it is a proposal of marriage.' (That’s my quote of the decade ;o). It is a matter of covenant commitment and submission, in other words, not of some intellectual formulae. 'You are reading?' queries Jerome. 'No. Your betrothed is talking to you, that is Christ, who is united with you.' Lectio is about passion, the burning longing and Eros Rolheiser alerts us to. 'Didn’t our hearts burn within us,' ask the two disciples who met Jesus on the Emmaus road. 'Didn’t they burn within us—when?—when he opened the Word to us, when he led us to the deeper understanding about the Christ.'"

A marriage propsal! My betrothed talking to me! Makes me want to go spend some time with the Scriptures.....

Majesty

[maj-uh-stee] noun. regal, lofty, stately dignity; imposing character; grandeur; supreme greatness and authority; sovereignty; from the latin root magnus, meaning large.

"The Lord is King, with majesty enthroned..." ~in Psalm 93

"The Lord is great and worthy of praise, to be feared above all gods..." ~in Psalm 96

"It was the Lord who made the heavens, His are majesty and state and power and splendor in His holy place..." ~in Psalm 96

"Be still and know that I am God, supreme among the nations, supreme in all the earth..." ~in Psalm 46

The bigness and astounding, unfathomable beauty of this being who has always existed and will never cease existing - this should stike up in my heart a deep awe...deep desire to obey...deep realization of His goodness and mercy and love. That he is goodness itself. He is mercy and love. His presence is found - or can be found - in every object, time place, situation. I can see him there...if I will only lay aside my anxious fretting and constant efforts to manage all of life. Be still and know that I am God.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart...This is a God who can be trusted. So obviously. So deeply. But sometimes - most times - it's as though I am saying, "I don't know how well I can trust you. Prove yourself to me!"

What utter silliness. Thoughtless, shallow conlcusions. Deeply embedded pride.

And yet he loves me...giving further evidence of His majesty.

Wrestling with God

Genesis 32:22-32
But during the night he got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He got them safely across the brook along with all his possessions.
But Jacob stayed behind by himself, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he couldn't get the best of Jacob as they wrestled, he deliberately threw Jacob's hip out of joint.
The man said, "Let me go; it's daybreak."
Jacob said, "I'm not letting you go 'til you bless me."
The man said," What's your name?"
He answered, "Jacob."
The man said, "But no longer. Your name is no longer Jacob. From now on it's Israel (God-Wrestler); you've wrestled with God and you've come through."

This is something I'm still pondering from my quiet time this morning. As I sat with this passage, I was restless and agitated. Why does this idea of wrestling with God make me so uncomfortable?

Is it because that's what I'm doing?
Is it because that's what I'm afraid to do?
Is it okay to wrestle with God?
Is winning a wrestling match with God actually a good thing?

Names are important. The name Jacob means "manipulator." What's the difference between being a manipulator and being a God-wrestler?
Jacob was trying to manipulate outcomes in his life--he was moving toward a good end (reconciliation with his brother), but with the wrong motives (his own comfort and well-being). I can see this tendency in my own life.