reality check

"Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take."

A familiar prayer to most. I always thought it was kinda morbid. Tonight I found out there's a second, not-so-popular verse:
"Our days begin with trouble here,
Our life is but a span,
And cruel death is always near,
So frail a thing is man."

Ah, sweet dreams, my child. But really....how would we live life differently if we were RAISED with a greater awareness that we are "but a breath"?

Desolation?

Honestly, I have no idea what to write.

There's a lot swirling around inside. The last few days have been characterized by what Ignatius might have called desolation (thank you, Chris, for sharing this link - it's been a lifeline). Without digging too much up - I don't knwo how helpful hashing it all out again would be - here are some of my journalings...perhaps it will be helpful to anyone who might read it.

Hopelessness. Extremely complex thought patterns (trying to figure “me” out). Loss of vision. Emotional ups and downs. Absence of a real sense of His presence. Ick. Desolation? One reason desolation comes is “our own negligence of spiritual discipline. ‘We are tepid and slothful.’” Seems strange to admit this after several weeks of the most deep, life-changing, formational “class” I’ve ever taken. But it’s true, I think.
“In this life there is no finished symphony…”
Has the desolation of the last few days been the fruit of neglecting disciplines that would help me remember this fundamental truth? Disciplines of chastity? In other words, have I been careless in the placement of my hopes and affections?

Bear in mind, Rolheiser (The Holy Longing), isn't looking at chastity as purely to do with sexual abstinence. Rather, he sees it as relating to many and varied aspects of life. Patience is key in his description of chastity. Interestingly, it looks like Ignatius saw patience as key in surviving desolation...

“To be chaste is to experience people, things, places, entertainment, the phases of our lives, and sex in a way that does not violate them or ourselves. To be chaste is to experience things reverently, in such a way that the experience leaves both them and ourselves more, not less, integrated…
…we are chaste when we do not let impatience, irreverence, or selfishness ruin what is a gift by somehow violating it. Conversely, we lack chastity when we cross boundaries prematurely or irreverently, when we violate anything and somehow reduce what it is. Chastity is respect, reverence, and patience. Its fruits are integration, gratitude and joy. Lack of chastity is impatience, irreverence, and violation. Its fruits are disintegration of soul, bitterness, and cynicism” (The Holy Longing 202).
I’m really thinking this is at the root of the complexity of my thought life, the fear of not changing….being driven by desires for my future, becoming the “right” sort of person by the time such-and-such happens. Discontent now to become what I should be by then, if that makes any sense. But…then there’s the nagging question: If I am so discontent now, will it be any different when that time (whatever it may be) comes?

As I'm continuing the readings for class this week, I'm beginning to see that this time of desolation has carried purpose. I have a feeling there will be more blog posts on this topic....

Homesick at home.

I'm feeling homesick. Homesick at home. Really. It's loads of fun. What do you do with that? It's so weird...
"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not mean the universe is a fraud…earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing" ~CS Lewis
Maybe that's what it is. I don't know how else to explain it. Feels like crap. Maybe I just need to spend a little me n' God time. I guess it has been a bit of a fragmented day.

impatience

"To become impatient is to want what we do not have, and not to want what we do have. In so doing, the soul is handed over to its passions, and neither reasoning nor faith can hold it back, so trouble is it. Such weakness! Such swerving away from the right path!
As long as we desire the soul-sickness that brings us suffering - to us it is not sickness - why would we make our sickness a reality by ceasing to desire it?
Inner peace exists not in the flesh but in the will. We can hold onto peace in the midst of the most violent suffering, as long as the will remains firm and submissive to God despite its abhorrence of the situation. Peace on this earth consists in accepting the things that are contrary to our desires, not in being exempted from suffering them, nor in being delivered from all temptations."
~Fenelon

Ha! What can I add to that?! I just keep running into this stuff. Letting go, surrender, submission, losing control....ya' think God's talkin' to me?

What is it that makes me think that I'm handling things on my own? People issues, work tasks, pressure to be "creative," family stuff, church problems.......it's all very, very heavy for a person who is waaaaaay too small to shoulder the load.
Letting go has been (and still is) a strong theme over the last few weeks. It makes so much sense, really. And wouldn't it make life a lot more fun? My brother teases me that I have a stunted sense of humor - or sporadic at least. And it's no wonder....afterall, if all the problems in the world are mine to carry, manage, manipulate, and express an opinion about, there wouldn't be much to laugh at.
Sabbath...I have a feeling this is step one. It's something I make half-hearted attempts at, but I heard Rob Bell talk about it some in Velvet Elvis. For one whole day....."produce" nothing, "accomplish" nothing, grasp for nothing but enjoying God, his world, and his love for me? Ohhh...that would be a breath of fresh air! Do I have the guts to actually DO this? I think.....I do.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

(Ok...I just thought I'd note: there is nothing pretty or easy about this prayer. It's a tough call to a radical life....of peace. :)

Ordinary Sacraments

"Sacraments are very specific events in which God touches us through creation and transforms us into living Christs." ~Henri Nouwen

I long for the depth and fruitfulness of life seen in Brother Lawrence, Frank Laubach, and others like them. Where ordinary life is consistently lived as a sacrament - channels through which God touches our hearts, speaks into our lives, and does his transforming work. The "daily grind" holds potential for becoming every bit as holy and sacred as the Eucharist. We are, after all, the ongoing incarnation of God in the world.

Contemplative prayer is like....

Contemplative prayer beckons me to loosen my strangle-hold on life. It whispers of a freedom, intimacy and joy in life that I have only barely tasted – a life of seeing and knowing God and others for who they are, instead of what I demand them to be. This life is….(gulp) just over the cliff. All I have to do is let go. Let go of managing my schedule, my health, my friendships, my relationship with God. Letting go of the many words and feral thought-life that plague me. Simple, right?

The problem is that this “managed” life is sooooo real to me. Like the cliff. Rock solid and “safe.” I don’t know what’s over the cliff! I only know that it appears to be a very long way down. And what will happen to my tidy packaging of life if I take the leap? Over the cliff can be a frightening place.

But that is where the light shines. And in those moments of solitude and silent prayer…those times when the Jesus Prayer settles so sweetly in my heart and trickles into the air around me…those seconds when typing emails at work becomes a holy sacrament…that is when I know that in letting go, in putting my full weight into the fall, I’ll find a Hand. Simple, silent, and still. It catches me gently and there I am held above the raging waters, finally free to be my true self, to love others as they are, and to live intimately with my Abba.

So my grip loosens…my shoulders relax…and with Luther’s prayer (“I am Yours, save me!”) as my only remaining “defense,” my hands open and I’m falling.

Lord, free me from care for myself.

After a rain shower

Sitting out on the front porch for the tail end of a rain shower...spent some time in silent prayer and just listening to the sounds...Jesus, of course, was sitting in the chair next to me. :o)
When the rain was falling, everything actually seemed quieter. As it stopped, the sounds of traffic on the highway (motors running and tires swishing over the wet pavement) and chainsaws running (at the new "bear mall" across the street) took over. But even with that it's possible to find silence. Listening carefully....you can "peel back" a layer of sound to reveal another and another and another....until you really can hear the silence from which all these sounds emerge. This sounds crazy, doesn't it? Oh well. If I gotta loose my mind, it'd be better to loose it on the front porch in God's Presence than anxious and busy on the job or...whatever.
Back to the layers...
Peel back the most obvious sounds...and you can hear the phone ringing in the house and water coming off the roof to splash rather noisily into the grass. Peel that back...you can hear birds twittering. Peel that back....you hear your own breathing. Take it deeper and deeper...until you're finally aware of this constant undertone of silence. It's really there! Listen to it for a minute or two and you'll find your body relaxing, your mind and heart opening up....and there's peace. And joy. And contentment.
...then a motorcycle brooooooooommmmms through the quiet.
But can the body, mind, and heart continue to rest in the silence in the midst of outward noise?

The deconstructive effects of silence/solitude

"When we discover ourselves "hidden with Christ in God," we don't need any kind of self-image at all. I hope this doesn't sound too esoteric, because it isn't; it's what happens in true prayer.
This is what will happen when we expose ourselves to silence and stop exposing ourselves to the judgments of the world; when we stop continuously "picking up" the energy of others; when we stop thinking about what others think of us and what they take us to be. We are who we are in God—no more and no less." ~Richard Rohr

I usually thing of silence as....quiet. There's inner silence, outer silence....there's even a sort of an undertone of silence that can be heard regardless of the noises going on around you. But it's even more than this. Mulholland (Invitation to a Journey) defines silence as "the deep inner reversal of that grasping, controlling mode of being that so characterizes life in our culture...relinquishing to God our control of our relationship with God"(pp 136-137). Nouwen (Way of the Heart) says that silence keeps us from becoming entangled in the world, from extinguishing the inner fire of God's Spirit, and from slipping into the wasteful use of words that is so prevalent in our world.

Solitude has a more outward quality to it. Going to a place apart...alone. But it is even more than this. Both Mulholland and Nouwen look at solitude as an unmasking of sorts. The (sometimes painful) tearing away of the many faces, fluffs and scaffolds wrenched, hammered, and soaked into us by the surrounding culture/society. It is the "furnace of transformation," where all that is not truly me is incinerated, completely demolished. Gee. Sounds like fun.

Silence, Nouwen says, is solitude in action - solitude taken out of a place apart and carried into the daily grind. Silence "completes and intensifies" solitude. So they are inseparably linked. And they work together at the task of creative demolition. What a beautiful mess.

Standing By

In Rembrandt’s painting of the prodigal, the character(s) I identify with may vary from day to day, moment to moment, depending on who I am with, what I am doing, my hormonal balance, the weather conditions, and just about anything else! Sometimes I feel the brokenness of the prodigal; sometimes the anger and judgment of the brother; and every once in a while I offer someone the love of the Father. Overall, though, I am generally the man in the very back. Hidden. Awkward. Not quite fitting in anywhere. Looking on the scene with longing. Learning by others’ actions the value of being “defective,” wrecked, broken.

Who are you?

Faith

In an ongoing conversation with friends, I've been thinking some about faith. What is faith?
Hebrews 11:1 is typically the verse cited when a definition is needed. So I looked it up in several versions...
When we read words like substance, evidence, assurance, conviction, and proof, do we assume that faith = certainty, absence of doubt? If this is faith, then either we must admit we are a hopeless cause or we must deny simple facts of reality.
What if faith is more than this? We may say it is, but do our lives reflact that reality?

"The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see."

Hebrews 11:1, the Message

What if faith is trust? There will probably still be darkness, and perhaps nothing - not even the smallest light - to lead us on. But it does not shake our confidence that the Lord is my shepherd. In Waking, Matthew Sanford writes, "Stop moving...let the eyes adust...allow for stillness...then see what's possible."

Believing Abba is big enough to work within our current limitations...

Passages

Death is a passage to new life. That sounds very beautiful, but few of us desire to make this passage. It might be helpful to realise that our final passage is preceded by many earlier passages. When we are born we make a passage from life in the womb to life in the family. When we go to school we make a passage from life in the family to life in the larger community. When we get married we make a passage from a life with many options to a life committed to one person. When we retire we make a passage from a life of clearly defined work to a life asking for new creativity and wisdom. Each of these passages is a death leading to new life. When we live these passages well, we are becoming more prepared for our final passage.
~Daily Meditation from the Henri Nouwen Society

What passage(s) am I making at this point in my life? School is the biggie for me right now...but are there less obvious passages-more easily overlooked? The gradual increase in my involvement on the job; stepping further (also very gradually) into the unfamiliar territory of adulthood; even small changes in attitude toward present circumstances and the people around me.
Am I living these passages well - with attention to the Present Moment, awareness of my utter helplessness and need of God, and great hopes for what is to come?
How will I allow these passages to shape me?
In what ways can I be with others as these changes take place?

Christ's words to me...

(Put your name in place of mine...I'm pretty sure He'd like to say this to you as well.)


Barbara, I love you. Not "if" or "but." I love you more fully, more deeply than you will ever imagine. Being with you constantly and teaching you, helping you to be increasingly sensitive to those inner leanings - the whisperings of Holy Spirit - brings such joy to my heart. I'm not mad at you or even wishing you could be other than what you are. I only see you and love you as you are and am so excited to be with you as you grow in your likeness to our Father.
I love you, Barbara...I love you! And I soooo deeply desire your growth and transformation. This is our journey together. You're not alone. Hold my hand. Be in me. Let me wrap myself around you and be in you. Don't try to change yourself. You are precious to me, and I know you inside and out. I see the reality and fullness of what you are and I still love and hold you. So when you see something in yourself that is frightening and sinful...don't turn to resistance and rejection...but to prayer, supplication, thanksgiving, humility.
This is your life. Accept it. Receive it. And rest in me. Together we'll see your heart come to glorious union with our Father.

Afternoon thoughts....still at work.

I'm unsettled. Or maybe I'm settled....in a distracted, disjointed, not-here sort of place. I haven't kept my "God-appointments" today. Sorry, Abba. You are near me. You always stay so near, loving and guiding and healing and speaking...and I, like a teather-ball, just keep spinning and pulling and bouncing around. Stop the motion, constant action, constant thought. Just be. Breathe. What am I resisting? Staying later at work...the feeling of distraction or failure...the irritating habits of those around me. What gifts am I overlooking? A few moments alone and quiet to recollect...an easy job that provides financial resources...a clean, warm jacket to wear in a cold office...blueberry white tea...family keeping in touch with me throughout the day...so many, many gifts. Breath. Sight. Thought. How might I be abusing these gifts? By inattention... misdirection...or just plain laziness.
Here I am, Abba. Can I really just accept this moment as it is...without demanding that it be something else?
"Let your face shine on us, O Lord, and we shall be saved."

Inspiration...

For the changes taking place as I begin my journey at Spring Arbor...and the changes I feel pressing inside, yet to be manifest....This is "For a New Beginning"...from John O'Donohue's book of blessings:

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.

Awakening your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.


This can warm the hearts of most people, I am sure. I hope it is as embracing for you as it has been for me.

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.

Lessons from the garden...

I had the day off at both jobs....so I stayed home most of the day and got to work with Dad in our 50'x50' garden. It's beautiful! He's worked so hard on it since before school was even out (he teaches 4th grade on the Mescalero Apache reservation). We're gonna have more squash, melons, peas, onions, and potatoes than we'll know what to do with!

Anyway...so I spent some time pulling weeds today. We're trying to grow it all organically, so no weed-killer allowed - which means that we spend plenty of time pulling the sneaky little things up! Some of them were actually quite pretty...green topped leaves with red-purple undersides.

As I pecked at the damp soil with my mud-crusted fingers, getting as many of the little ones as I could....I thought about two things:

1)Weeds, no matter how big or small, consume space and nutrients needed by the garden plants. If the garden is to bear fruit as the gardener intends, the plants must have room to grow and adaquate nutrients. The weeds must be pulled. What in my life needs to be weeded out?

2)Dad has set up a system of soaker hoses until we can afford to put in drip irrigation. One thing is certain.....weeds love to grow right underneath the hose. It's wet and protected, I guess....and that's where I found most of them. You can't say, "Oh! Weeds like water....so we'll stop watering the garden!" The garden would die. The water is necessary...thus the hoses are necessary. But when weeding, it's good to check underneath the hose often and well....pull the weeds while they're still small.

There are good things set in place in my life - disciplines, routines. But it's important to look under the surface of these things - to check for little things that might be growing that could be harmful in the future. Pride, fear, and works-based salvation (a very sneaky weed, that one)...things like that. This requires attention...time....care...and lots of grace.

The happening...

Well, with (now...starting today!) two part-time jobs, church work, house work, and occasional graphic design jobs....I've been going non-stop. Except for my quiet times in the mornings and my fairly relazed evenings. And there are moments of quiet throughout the day - if not in my circumstances, then at least in my heart.

From this morning's meditation:
In God alone be at rest, O my soul. There is no rest to be found in others' approval. There is no rest to be found in productivity...accomplishments...a "perfect" schedule...money...an "attractive" body...In God alone.

In God alone be at rest, O my soul.

O my soul.

In God alone be at rest.

At rest.

In God alone be...be. Be.

In God alone...alone. Alone.

In God.

The countdown...

Nine weeks.

It's actually coming up much more quickly than I thought it would.

My first class at SAU starts on August 25. This is the master's program of my dreams! Yet there's this nagging apprehension. It won't go away. Afraid I won't measure up. That I'll be in way over my head. And maybe I will. But that's when we grow, right?

But there's a world of difference between fear and dread. I'm not dreading this...not at all. I really feel that this is something God is leading. But fear. That's another story. But for me, change always brings a rash of butterflies in the stomach and self-doubt.

This too shall pass.

The key is to remember that He's my shepherd. Regardless of any accomplishment or failure, excited anticipation or fear. I lack nothing.

Monastic Rhythm

It's odd to me...that something experienced over a short, 5-day period...could uncover such a deep longing within me. During my time in Pecos, one of the things that I found deeply helpful, and hated most to leave behind, was the steady monastic rhythm. We rise, we pray, spend time in silence, we sing, we eat, we work….we rest. The daily prayer included Vigils (6:30am), lectio (7:00am), and Lauds (7:30am); after breakfast and a few hours of activity, midday prayer (Noon), followed by a few more hours of work; then Vespers (5:00pm), dinner, and Compline before bed.
When I first got there, the liturgy was strange to me and I felt smothered by an intense sense of loneliness. The last two days of the retreat became more restful...it got to where I was longing for the time that the bell would ring and we could go to the chapel...into the silence...with the voices of the Brothers and Sisters leading us once again through the Psalms and prayers. On the last day I skipped the final lecture (it was even on St. Francis!!) so I could go sit alone in the chapel before midday prayer. The rhythm becomes a life-giving entity...that somehow allows the mind to dwell more continuously on the Source of Life.

After I got home, I had to opportunity to meet and talk with a man who used to be a Franciscan monk. He talked about that rhythm. He talked about the joys of a contemplative life. But he emphasized the importance of finding that rhythm in everyday life outside the monastery. It must be possible to find a place of full integration…this is my hope.

Here are a few paragraphs from an excellent article by Christine Sine entitled, "Why a Rule of Life?"....check out the full article when you can.

...For many of us, the thought of developing a rule of life conjures up images of legalistic rules and regulations that take away the joy of spontaneous expressions of faith. This was what my friend Michael thought when he first went to spend a few weeks at a local monastery: “You know this business of stopping for prayer five times a day? I thought it would be really restricting,” he told me. “I actually found the opposite to be true. We all knew that no matter what we were doing, when the chapel bell rang, we laid down our tools and headed for prayer. It took the focus away from work as the most important thing to God.”

Creating a rule of life should be a response to being loved by God, and feeling moved to become what God calls us to be in this world. It makes us very aware of how we spend our time each day and of how we might spend it better. Our awareness of this gap motivates us to change so that God becomes our focus rather than work or family or even Christian ministry. A rule can give us the courage and discipline to form new routines that reward us with growing intimacy with God. In her helpful book Why Not Celebrate! Sara Wenger Shenk says, “If it isn’t possible to know the quickening presence of God in the everyday routine, one might as well ship religiosity off to a seminary library and leave it there. Either God is God of all of life, or God is on the reserve shelf, available and relevant only to a sanctified elite.” The daily repetition of simple practices that focus our hearts on God does far more to nurture deep, meaningful spiritual growth than the occasional “mountain top” experience...

...Establishing a rule usually begins with disciplines of prayer and the daily reading of Scripture, but it also provides time for study and reflection, encompasses physical work, time to celebrate with and serve others, and the need for leisure and rest. Practicing a rule of life is a community affair. Practicing our faith in community with others moves us against the grain of our individualistic culture. There is strength in joining forces with others who have a similar hunger and desire to live the way of Jesus in the here and now.
I am convinced that to be a follower of Christ we must intentionally work to develop spiritual practices that put our faith and its rhythms at the center of all we are and do. Only then can we find a healthy life of stability and richness that easily withstands the pressures and stresses of our culture.