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?

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?

Holding in tension...

Ronald Rolheiser, in The Holy Longing, talks about biblical pondering. It's not, he says, the same as study or sitting down to theologizer about a person or situation. It is to hold in tension. To rest in pain, knowing that the Lord is my Shepherd regardless. It is to resist the temptation to seek a premature solution to that tension. It is to allow patience to have its perfect work...in physical pain, broken relationships, unpleasent circumstances, singleness, etc. It is to rest in the assurance of his Presence - which keeps me from fear....which, in turn, keeps me from anger depression, addiction.
Now...keeping that in mind, as I've been reading Matthew Sanford's memoir and tapping into other resources for yoga and similar practices, I keep hearing talk of "putting boudaries on your pain." Putting boundaries on my pain?? What does this mean?

As Mom and I walk up Escalante or La Canada (two streets with painfully steep hills that we alternately inflict on ourselves), the burning in my legs travels up my back and into my back, neck, and arms. If I were to create a physical picture of this pain, this tension, it would be radiating outward from my body. My mind becomes consumed with the desire to reach the tops of the hill - or to stop and turn around! To escape the discomfort. It is difficult to view the Lord as my Shepherd and the world around me as ultimately safe...because I am projecting my pain into the world around me. The air around my head smolders with it.
If, on the other hand, I put boudaries on my pain....it is contained. I view my body as a solid, non-permiable container for that pain. The pain, the tension, is contained rather than being allowed to seep into my environment. It becomes easier to know that he is my Shepherd and that I am ultimately safe. And if I am ultimately safe, there is no need to act out my fear (striking out in anger, depression, addiction). I live in that tension. I hold it. I refuse to seek premature escape or relief. So it comes, full circle, back to Rolheiser.
This is true not only of physical pain, but of psychological, relational, circumstantial pain as well. Any kind of element that is contrary to what we assume to be good, right, or ideal.

Now...also think about a child, afraid or in some degree of pain, going to her Daddy to be held. The child is seeking to have boudaries to her pain. Her Daddy is there, arms around her. The pain is contained and Daddy loves her...the world is ultimately safe. So God is/does for us.

Loneliness vs. Solitude

Loneliness: Alone someplace. Restless for companionship.
Solitude: No longer pulled apart by elements in the environment. Able to percieve/understand this world from a quiet inner center.

Nouwen says that our lives constantly fluctuate between these two poles: loneliness and solitude. The elements that influence this fluctuation are largely beyond our power to control - "too many known and unknown factors play roles in the balance of our inner life" for us to be able to fully understand where we are on this continuum. But as we become incresingly aware of the existence of these two poles and attentive to the little fluctuations we experience from moment to moment...we are no longer lost and we can make conscious and intentional moves toward solitude.
A first step in the direction of solitude might be to watch for times when I seek to secure comfort in a person, job, hobby, movie, book....iPod. Coming to the realization that nothing can satisfy the loneliness I feel. As I turn to God to satisfy my loneliness, I find that inner center from which I can observe and engage with the world...with greater clarity and understanding.
Solitude is the key to right action flowing from a right heart - a heart made right by intensive communion with God's presence in that secret inner sanctuary.

Loneliness?

"An impatient person is unwilling to wait upon God." ~J. Kang

Patience is key; a virtue that does not come easily or naturally to me. Yet if I had it...much of the pressure I feel to move ahead would dissolve. And it is a hot pressure. I feel it. I succumb to it--more often than I'd like to admit. A person who waits on God's timing will most likely not be moving, at least in certain ways, according to the unspoken and omnipresent timeline of society.

Think about it - what the reward of patience would be...

Less pressure now to move, move, move.

Greater peace.

A quieter heart - more able to know His heart.

The best long-term result

A better formed/forming heart.

Isn't this more attractive to me than always pushing ahead, pressured for the temporal pleasure of fitting in to the society that surrounds me? Like Juno, I find that normalcy just isn't really my thing. As far as major life transitions...I haven't been much for following the "timeline" that so many people seem to expect. And is there anything really wrong with that?

So why continue allowing that pressure to affect me?

"A waiting moment will never be a wasted moment." ~J. Kang

"If this entire universe is a desperate attempt of love to incarnate itself, then 'important duties' which keep us from helping little people are not duties but sins - or am I all the while trying to justify my own failure?" ~Frank Laubach

Everything in the surrounding culture would tell me that I am somehow failing because I am "behind" - meaning that I have not, at my age, accomplished the things "normally" accomplished by an individual at my age. But perhaps the duties of normalcy are, or can be, sins that keep me so busy with my own life/accomplishments that I have no time to do things that God would have me do.

Letting go...again.

"A king is not saved by his great army;
a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
The war horse is a vain hope for victory,
and by its great might is cannot save.

Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love,
to deliver their soul from death,
and to keep them alive in famine.

Our soul waits for the Lord;
He is our help and shield.
Our heart is glad in Him,
because we trust in His holy name."

~Psalm 33:16-21


I may not be a king, and I may not have armies and war horses...but the idea holds true. And it's carries over to any number of issues and circumstances. Career development, relationships, impression management, business matters...maybe even politically? Now that would be revolutionary.

Letting go...

In God's upside-down order (aka: His kingdom...the range of His effective rule)....where the weak and powerless, the harassed and helpless are actually the "blessed"....where a shepherd boy would approach (and defeat) a giant that a war-weathered king would avoid...where a refugee baby in the midst of goverment-sanctioned genocide could redeem creation...

In a kingdom such as this...surely it's safe to let go of the constant compulsion to justify myself, manage others' opinions of me, and do what I can to be "successful"...isn't it?

There's something very...safe...about letting go. If you think about it, that seems like quite a contradiction. Like a child who finally pushes off the side of the swimming pool to float into the open arms of her father. Between the time she lets go of the ledge and the time that her father's arms come around her...there's a moment of breathless fear. Am I going down? But once she is in her father's arms, she is brought into a realization of the wider world around her. She finds that there is more to life than the tiny details of her excursion in the pool. She knows she can look around and splash and play...without fear of sinking. You never know....she might just get adventurous.

Letting go...

"Uncrowd my heart, O God
'Til silence speaks
in your still, small voice.
Turn me away from
the hearing of words,
the making of words,
and the confusion of much speaking
to listening,
waiting,
stillness,
and silence..."
~From Esther DeWaal's "Lost in Wonder"

Listening...waiting...stillness...silence. These require relinquishment. Letting go. Releasing the many, many things that tear at my heart and constantly demand all thought, full attention. Turning away from my own "wisdom"...that nagging urge to figure it out. Abandoning myself, instead, to God's power. His grace. His generative life-giving Spirit that gives all life and meaning and depth...and defies description. Being cheerfully expectant of the next glimpse I catch of his work in my life and in the world around me.

His Hands and Feet

Had lunch with a friend yesterday...we got to talking about how comfortable and safe our lives are compared to others in the world. I live a comfortable and safe life. I guard that. I like to think that it's "God's best," but recently I've started to wonder if that's really the case. I look at the lives of the saints--Francis, Bonhoeffer, Mother Teresa; contemporaries like Shane Claiborne and others in this new monasticism...and I see a quality of life that sparkles. It catches my attention and urges me to join in. But where to begin?

In an email I received from Christianity Today, Camerin Courtney wrote...
"It's one of the conundrums of living in our modern age: We want to make a difference in the world, but often we don't know how.
We're hyper-aware of the problems in our broken world; our televisions, newspapers, and internet connections bring us daily news about genocide on the other side of the planet and school shootings in our own country's heartland. In the face of so much brokenness and pain, we can feel too powerless, too busy, too overwhelmed by the magnitude of the need.
And yet, as Christians we're called to be Christ's hands and feet bringing help and hope to a broken world. We who have the only power to truly change lives living within us have this awesome responsibility and privilege. "

Shane Claiborne tells about a newspaper cartoon he read once...Two people are talking, and one remarks that he'd like to know why God allows so much suffering in the world. The other says,
"So why don't you ask him?"
"Well, I'm afraid."
"Why?"
"I'm afraid he'll ask me the same question."


God, why do you allow all of this suffering? Why don't you do something about it?

Why don't you do something about it?

Good question.

On the Value of Suffering-Part Two

Is there really comfort and ease to be found in seeking comfort and ease? Or is this pursuit actually the foundation of an unhappy, discontented life?
John Ortberg tells about an experiment, done a number of years back, in which an amoeba was placed in an "ideal," stress-free environment. It died.
Stress, strain, discomfort are catalysts to growth. And growth is what we do--from conception to coffin and beyond.

Maybe....could it possibly be...that joy, contentment, and true meaning in life elude us because because we go about obtaining them in all the wrong ways? Could it be that real joy, contentment, and meaning are found as we accept our lives for what they are, stop trying to escape them, and instead really live them?
I'm not talking about living a passive and defeated life, but rather an actively receptive one. This doesn't mean we should never act to change circumstances, but action is taken from a place of prayer and stillness.

"Can you detect even the slightest element within yourself of not wanting to be doing what you are doing? That is a denial of life, and so a truly successful outcome is not possible.
If you can detect this within yourself, can you also drop it and be total in what you do?"
~Eckhart Tolle

On the Value of Suffering - Part One

I did a lectio (found in Solo) yesterday morning in Leviticus 4:32-35. A seemingly "dry" passage has started an interesting train of thought. I don't fully understand the why behind Old Testament animal sacrifice, but it does give some insight into how seriously God takes sin. The Israelites' pathway to reconciliation with God and atonement for their sins was sacrifice. Outwardly the path may look different for us today, but it is essentially the same: sacrifice.

Sacrifice: the surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim (1).

In sacrifice, we are willing to give up something we enjoy, value, or even need in order to be reconciled to God (made compatible with Him, 1). The Israelites gave a chief source of provision; God gave His Son...what am I to give? There are obvious things--like time and money--and there are more essential things. Deeper things. Things that I assume to be basic rights, to which I should and must have complete and continuous access. Like my will. The circumstances I deem "successful" or "meaningful." The schedule and activities that contrubute to what I have determined pertinent to a "decent life." Giving this up for the sake of relationship with God...this is sacrifice. Sacrifice implies suffering. Suffering is not a hot item in today's American culture. We like to be comfortable and in control. We like to have the approval of others--or at least not have to deal with those who don't approve of us. This seeking our own way is what dominates the flow of our lives."What do you seek here, since this world is not your resting place? Your true home is heaven; therefore remember that...All things are passing, and you yourself with them... Let all your thoughts be with the Most High...If you cannot contemplate high and heavenly things, take refuge in the Passion of Christ, and love to dwell within His Sacred Wounds. For if you devoutly seek the Wounds the Jesus and the precious marks of His Passion, you will find great strength in all troubles... Christ was willing to suffer and to be despised; and do you presume to complain? Chist had enemies and slanderers; and do you expect all men to be your friends and benefactors? How will your patience be crowned if you are unwilling to endure hardship? Suffer with Christ, and for Christ, if you wish to reign with Christ." ~Thomas a' Kempis (2) Good, huh? In a recent sermon at MPPC (3) entitled, "Why Faith Won't Feel Like It's Working," Scott Scruggs was sharing on Jesus' often-misunderstood statement, "In this world you will have trouble..." Trouble...is the pressure of being torn between world-conformity and God-conformity.
...is the blind-siding effects of plan taking an unexpected turn.
...is the disappointment and discouragement of realizing your life isn't turning out the way you had expected and hoped.
It's what Peter encountered after he got out of the boat to walk (on the water, mind you) to Jesus. He saw the wind and had a choice to make: look at the wind or look at Christ.
It's what Jesus encountered as he prayed in the garden before He was arrested--an intense and very natural urge to avoid what He knew was coming. He had a choice to make: look at the pain or look to His Father.

I seek to live an easy life. There. The truth is out. I'm attracted to jobs, career plans, schedules, people, activities that will be easy for me and assure the greatest possible comfort and ease. How can I expect to be exempt from "trouble"? I was recently with a friend who is living in a very painful family situation. Through frustrated tears she said, "My life just hasn't turned out at all like I had expected." How can I expect to be exempt from this?

1. http://www.dictionary.com/
2. The Imitation of Christ
3. http://www.mppc.org/