Category Archives: Life

Journey Into Humility

09 Friday Jan 2015

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Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. -Apostle Paul, Philippians 2:5-8

I know a man, once at the top of his profession.  He has a long list of credentials. He travelled the world as a representative of the world’s largest company in his industry. He worked with other companies and governments on matters of international regulation.  At times he had individual’s lives in his hands.  Now, he works in what most consider as an entry level job in his profession.

I know a woman, considered an expert in her field.  She held a prominent position in one of the largest organizations of its kind in the world.  She knows state and federal law applicable to her field.  She has spoken at national conventions and has consulted across the country. She has coached and influenced the lives of hundreds.  Now it is hard for her to be accepted into an occasional volunteer position in her field.

I know a man, once a spiritual leader of hundreds, ordained by his denomination.  He has years of advanced study behind him.  He has taught at the university level and led spiritual retreats across the country.  He now attends a beginners class with other new believers in his own faith.

Humility is a curious thing.  Someone once said that the moment we think we are humble we have lost it.  We often think of a humble person as one who does not seek to be noticed and if noticed is quick to deflect praise and give credit to another.  The humble person might say, “I didn’t do anything special,” or “I didn’t do anything anyone else would’t have done,” or “I didn’t really contribute anything, Jane did much more than I did.”

I think this is humility, but that it is so much more.

Let’s go a little deeper and consider cleaning toilets.  I have cleaned toilets for Christ.  In my zeal to help another, I have cleaned toilets on occasion.  And I have come to see the pride in that: “Look at me, everyone, I am such a good Christian that I clean toilets.”  There is no humility in that attitude!  But, what if the only job you could get is cleaning toilets?  What if, despite all of your years of schooling, your vast experience and expertise, your accumulated wisdom, etc., what if all anyone would hire you to do is to clean toilets?  This is a different level of humility.  Would you take the job or would you consider it beneath you?  If you took the job, would you do it daily as though you were doing it for God?

Deeper.  Imagine a private screening of your life story, but you see your actions through the eyes of others.    You see and hear the real story behind the story, how hurtful your actions have been, how self-centered your life really is…the lasting pain you have caused another.  My first response would be to quickly look around to ensure no one else was watching my movie.  Could you stand to watch as the all scenes unfolded or would you hide your eyes during the painful moments and relish the joyful ones?  Would you have the courage to not rationalize away all that you saw, but to face who you are?

Still deeper.  Think of what it would be like to reveal to another human the darkest side of yourself through the stories of the deeds and thoughts you have just witnessed.  Facing the shame of who we are is hard enough in the privacy of our own minds; however, would you have the courage to reveal it to another?  Not just to reveal the things you could bear revealing, but to reveal the deepest, darkest part of you?  What would it do to us?  Would we feel crushed?    Or…would we feel sorrow in the depths of our soul?

It is here, I believe, that humility and repentance become one.

But this is the one to whom I [God] will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at My word.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart— These, O God, You will not despise.

True humility is an emptiness of self so that one can turn to and be filled with God (repentance).  It is realizing that we are nothing but dust with the life-giving breath of the Holy Spirit in us making us into the image of God Himself.  It is realizing that, as dust, we cannot even fully grasp the fulness of our own wretchedness.  However, it is not, ultimately, self-abuse.

St Gregory of Sanai says it well:

…true humility does not say humble words, nor does it assume humble looks, it does not force oneself either to think humbly of oneself, or to abuse oneself in self-belittlement. Although all such things are the beginning, the manifestations and the various aspects of humility, humility itself is grace, given from above. There are two kinds of humility, as the holy fathers teach: to deem oneself the lowest of all beings and to ascribe to God all one’s good actions. The first is the beginning, the second the end.

Choose Life

13 Thursday Mar 2014

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I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days…

—Moses (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)

The debate over homosexuality is a hot-button issue about many things: moral right and wrong, human rights, love, happiness, natural law, the definition of marriage…

As important as these issues are, I don’t believe they should be the focus, at least not for Christians.  The debate over homosexuality should be a discussion about one thing and only one thing: what brings us life.

And this focus should apply not just to homosexuality but to all behavior, sexual and otherwise.

Here’s a question: Why did Jesus die for us?  If you have ever been to Sunday school or watched a sporting event you know about John 3:16—

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son [Jesus], that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Life.

Jesus said later in the same book of the Bible that He came so that we might “have life and life more abundantly.”  Sadly, that is not often the message of Christians.  Too often we reduce Christianity to a list of moral rights and wrongs rather than an invitation into abundant life with God.    We wag our fingers at Christians and non-Christians alike when we see what we believe is unbiblical behavior; we judge and scoff at and scold people for not being “good.”

When we reduce Christianity to a list of rights and wrongs we say that Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection were God’s way of making bad people good.  Sadly, we turn God into some kind of supernatural Santa Clause who keeps a list of who has been naughty and nice and doles out eternal presents or lumps of coal.

Like many of you, I don’t want to worship that kind of god either.

But…what if Jesus’ death was not about making bad people good?  What if it was only about offering life to dead people?  If the latter is the case, then the Bible can be no longer viewed as Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth; rather, through its stories God tells us and shows us the way that people fully alive with Him normally live, and Jesus’ life is the exemplar.  Further, the Bible shows us of God’s eagerness to be with us and the lengths He will go to help us to participate in His life.

Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good, Jesus came to offer life to dead people.

I know a little something about living without God—living as a dead person with my dead-person behaviors.  I wanted to be the master of my own universe, to fulfill all of my own desires.

I know from my own experience that dead people act out because they don’t know any better, it is simply “natural” for them to act this way.  You Christians sometimes got mad at me, but I didn’t know any better.  Rarely was I invited into life; rather, it was pointed out to me that I was acting badly.

It doesn’t matter whether the dead-person behavior born out of greed, pride, gluttony, power-mongering, anger, or lust (homosexuality or premarital heterosexual sex)—and the list goes on and on—dead people will naturally do the things of dead people.  Sure, dead people can perform good and great acts, too, but even those acts come from the vestiges of God’s morality since we are all made in His image and will not in and of themselves bring life to the dead.

Sin is not the things we do that are wrong, where “wrong” is defined as acting against biblical rules.  No.  Sin is our state of being separated from God.  When God calls us to turn to Him and  then to obey Him, He does so only because wants to unite us to Himself, He wants to bring us into a relationship with Him where we will find the abundant life He has for us; therefore, following His way for us to live is simply the way people fully alive in relationship with Him try to live their lives.

God is inviting us into the fullness of abundant life; He is not an all-powerful Killjoy…

God is inviting us into the fullness of abundant life; He is not an all-powerful Killjoy trying to ruin our fun and quench our desires.  Obeying God does not prevent us from enjoying life.  Quite the contrary!  Obeying God frees us to live the abundant life He wants for us.  We are oppressed only when we allow ourselves to be held captive by our attempts to satiate our own unbridled passions and desires.

This is the heart of the Bible message: God only wants for us to be our best, to be fully alive, to become the person He created us to be, which only occurs when we are in relationship with Him.  This is real Love, His for us.

But, participating in God’s life takes effort, just like any relationship worth having.  I must put forth effort into changing my old, dead-person habits for the sake of our relationship, relying on the power of God’s Holy Spirit within me to increasingly transform me over my lifetime into a person fully and abundantly alive and participating in His life.

Yes, I still battle many of my old, dead-person habits.  And lately, it seems, God has been unfailing in pointing out to me just how much I still act like a dead person.  Curiously, His pointing this out gives me hope because it reminds me of His love for me and that I can only find abundant life with Him.  And it helps me to have compassion for the still dead people and for other dead-acting Christians and makes me want to offer them the same hope I am finding with Him.

God is calling each one of us out of dead-person life and into a life fully alive with Him.  God is love and can only act toward us out of love; however, His love for us precludes Him from accepting something less for us that He has intended.

So, the choices in our lives, Christian and non-Christian alike, are not about right and wrong and who has the moral high-ground.  All of our daily choices of behavior really boil down to a single choice that we repeat every moment of every day: it is the choice between behaving as a human being alive with God or behaving as one dead and apart from God.

Respond to God’s invitation.  Choose life.

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days…

—Moses (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)

Head’s Down

06 Monday Jan 2014

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Earth’s crammed with heaven
And every bush afire with God.
And every bush afire with God.
But only he who sees takes of his shoes
The rest sit around and pluck blackberries…

    —Elizabeth Barrett Browning, from “Aurora Leigh,” book 7

“Head’s down” is an old phrase used in aviation, specifically among pilots, to indicate that the pilot is busy with something inside the cockpit, such as reading a checklist or looking at navigational maps.  In an airplane with two pilots, one might say to the other, “I’m going head’s down to program the navigation computer for landing.”  It can be important for the other pilot to know because other than when flying in the clouds (a relatively short time in an average flight) it is critical for both pilots to be “head’s up” and looking out the window; after all, it is ultimately the pilots’ responsibility to see and avoid other airplanes as well as prevent an unscheduled encounter with the ground.

pierPilots are not the only ones who periodically operate head’s down.  Recently, a women was walking head’s down, intently browsing on her cellphone. Distracted by what she was doing, she walked off a pier and fell into the ocean.  Rescuers found her floating on her back holding her cell phone out of the water.  I’m sure you know that this is only one incident in a growing trend of people walking, driving, dining, or in any number of circumstances, being distracted by their phones.  Increasingly, it seems, we are a culture that moves through life with our collective heads down.

It is easy to point at technology as the cause; however, I think it has only made a common problem worse.  I think we have always been head’s down people.  But now I’ve switched the meaning of “head’s down” just a little.  Rather than being attentive to something right in front of us, I intend “head’s down” to mean our radical self-absorption.  Mankind, by nature, is generally a self-absorbed, head’s down creature.

Lately, out of the circumstances of my own life, I’ve been wondering about Moses.  Perhaps you know his story, found in four of the first five books of the Bible (Exodus – Deuteronomy).  Born a Hebrew slave, his mom placed the infant Moses in a basket  and set him afloat in the Nile river.  She did this to avoid his death at the hands of Egyptian soldiers ordered to kill all infant Hebrew boys as a form of population control.  The basket was found by the Egyptian pharaoh’s daughter who adopted him as her own.  He grew up in Pharaoh’s house.  As a man, the Bible tells us, he killed an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew slave and then fled to Midian to escape the death penalty.

If Jewish legend is to be believed, Moses grew up to be a man of great education and influence in Pharaoh’s court.  After killing the Egyptian at the age of 27, he fled to Ethiopia and served as their king for forty years, eventually unseated because he was not Ethiopian.  It was then at age 67 that he moved to Midian where he become a shepherd, married Zipporah, and had a family.

Here is where my imagination takes over.

As a shepherd, I imagine him in the desert feeling like a caged animal.  He once had it all: a powerful man in Pharaoh’s court and then the the king of Ethiopia.  He had the world at his feet.  Now, he is a shepherd.  I imagine him emotionally exhausted and unhappy, consumed with the what-if’s of the past and scheming to achieve his desired future: a return to prominence.  I can see him in my mind’s eye, alone with the sheep “in the back of the desert”, so head’s down, so self-absorbed with his own misery, that every day for years he walked past God in the burning bush without noticing.  And God let him walk by each day, inviting him with flames but never calling out to him to stop.

In the Bible, God often uses the desert as a teaching tool.  Again and again, people, including Jesus, find themselves in the desert facing the greatest battle of all, the battle with themselves.  For Moses, I imagine God using the desert to begin to transform him from someone who lives head’s down in the inner torment of his life as a shepherd and into someone who lives head’s up.  Only on the day he was first able to begin to look past his circumstances—the day he finally went head’s up—was the day he saw the bush literally afire with God, and he stopped.  And only when he stopped did God speak to him (“when the Lord saw that he stopped to look, God called to him…”).

Barrett Browning is right.  The Earth is crammed full of heaven.  Every bush is aflame with God.  Rather than take off our shoes, we are so busy with our Blackberrys (smart phone or other self-absorbed distraction) that we no longer notice God—not that we ever did—and we walk off the piers in our lives suddenly finding ourselves floating in the ocean, holding up our phones, waiting for someone to rescue us.

In our radical self-absorption we miss God at evercampfirey turn and we wonder why we are so often cold and wet.  Perhaps it is time for each of us to find a piece of desert, to enter our own cell and let God teach us to live life head’s up, with our eyes on Him alone.

Come, remove your shoes and sit for awhile by the warmth of a bush afire with God.

The Cell

12 Thursday Dec 2013

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In Scetis, a brother went to see Abba Moses to ask for advice. The old man said, “Go and sit in your cell and your cell will teach you everything.”

Nearly 1700 years ago the small vanguard of what would grow to more than 100,000 people left civilization and moved into the deserts of Egypt and Syria.  They were the first monks (from the Greek, meaning “single” or “alone”); we know them today as the Desert Mothers and Fathers.

When Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion the Roman persecution of Christians ceased.  Being a Christian became easy, even fashionable, so much so that these Christian women and men left for the hard living of the desert.

These early monks lived in caves or small dwellings, known as cells. They lived radically isolated and simple lives practicing a disciplined (ascetic) life that we would consider quite extreme by today’s standards.  Yet, their lives were attractive to many—even then people would travel great distances for a word of wisdom from these monks.

This kind of simple life can be attractive to us, particularly in our frenetic world.  We long for the slower pace.  But I’m not talking about seeking after a simple life for the sake of escaping the pace of the world.  What drove these women and men into the deserts was not their desire to escape society and live simply; rather, it was their desire to directly confront the root cause of all battles…ourselves…and this was their chosen battlefield.

You see, must have been from a the cell that Pogo’s creator finally met the enemy and discovered he was us.  It was from his literal prison cell that Solzhenitsyn came to understand that the line separating good from evil does not run between countries or classes of people or political parties but through the heart of each of us.

But to enter one’s cell without the Christian God is to join the path of a downward spiral to the nothingness of Sarte’s existentialism, the place of ultimate hopelessness.  By contrast, the great hopefulness contained within the writings of these early monks remains with as much veracity today as it had 1700 years ago.

Here is something I have learned: you do not have to become a monk living in the desert or a monastery to experience life in a monastic cell.  Life in a cell can be had in the desert or in the midst of a bustling, modern city.  There is a cell awaiting each of us if we would only seek it.

The path to eternal life is difficult.  The gate of entry is narrow and the path is hard.  I am coming to believe that eventually, in this world or the next, each of us must learn what our cell has to teach us; more correctly, to allow God to shape us into the image of His Son, Jesus, who is leading us into life with the Trinity: Father, Son, and Spirit.  There is no other path.

Perhaps you know of such a person, a monk-in-the-world; they can be recognized as ones who strive to live with God at a different pace and with a different set of priorities.  You might even envy their life.  Be careful of what you wish.

What is a cell?

A cell is more a state of being than a geographical place.  When we decide to respond to Jesus’ invitation to seek our true selves in Him we move into our cell.  But what does this really mean?  It means that we begin to learn to stop hiding from God in fear.  We begin learning to step out from behind the things that we believe define us or we let distract us; things, such as job titles, street addresses, school names on our diplomas, emails, the number of zeros on our paychecks, prior accomplishments, the shape of our bodies, names on the labels on our clothes, task lists, immersion in the lives of favorite celebrities, constant music, TV shows, 401(k)s, cell phones, texting, number of Facebook friends…these things and more feed our false identity and distract us with their allure.

What awaits us in our cell?

In our cell there are several beings present.  We often think of the monk living a solitary life.  This is not so.  God (the persons of the Father, Son, and Spirit) and the Devil and his minions are in our cell with us.

In our cell we discover that the battle takes place within the very being of the ourselves with God encouraging, beckoning, and strengthening and Satan taunting, accusing, and attacking.

In our cell we discover that in each moment we face a choice, “With whom will I side in the battle?”

In our cell we learn that we can choose poorly and there are consequences.

In our cell we ask the most profound questions of life.  Questions such as, Who am I?  What does it mean to be human?  What lies beyond this life?  From where does my worth come?  How do I really measure a successful and productive life?  In what (or whom) do I actually trust?  Where do I find hope for today?  What will tomorrow bring?  How do I know whether this path is the right path?   Am I really loved by God?  How much longer?

In our cell the lies we have believed all of our lives are gradually exposed.

In our cell we revisit the precipitating events for our deepest wounds.

In our cell we confront head-on temptation from the eight deadly thoughts that torment us: gluttony, lust, covetousness, anger, dejection, acedia, vainglory, and pride.

In our cell we experience physical, emotional, and spiritual hardship.

In our cell we learn that no woman or man can survive their cell without the presence of God; we are simply unable to withstand the company of our sinful selves on our own.

What does our cell teach us?

In our cell we learn to distinguish between the voices of God and Satan.

In our cell we learn how to choose God, and when we choose poorly we find God who is always calling to us, helping us, and urging us to turn back toward Him.

In our cell one by one the questions we had begin to dissolve as we draw closer to God Himself.  We ask. He answers, “I AM.”  Mysteriously, that answer begins to satisfy us.

In our cell we gradually begin to learn that Truth is a Person and not a set of rules.

In our cell we come to understand what it really means that by His wounds we are healed.

In our cells we find new memories of our past traumas in which Jesus was indeed present though we knew it not at the time.

In our cells we learn disciplines that help us cooperate with God as He gradually digs out the roots of all temptations and our heart of stone is gradually replaced by God’s heart of flesh.

In our cell we learn that mysteriously through the work of the Holy Spirit our perseverance in the trials changes our character, and we find real hope.

In our cell we learn that we are God’s beloved son or daughter in whom He is well pleased and we begin to hear Him singing over us.

The real beauty of the cell

Each of the lessons from our cell is the Holy Spirit’s way of teaching us a new step of the Divine dance with the Trinity.  As we are able to grow in our confidence in our ability to move with God to the rhythms of His grace we begin cooperate with God and allow Him to work in us, gradually we are stripped of all that we have learned to hide behind and we will once again stand before God, clothed in His righteousness and unafraid.  True self being led gracefully across the dance floor by the Trinity.

God’s Will

03 Monday Jun 2013

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For the glory of God is a living man; and the life of man consists in beholding God.

–Irenaeus; Against Heresies, 4.20.7.

For Christians, finding God’s will is of supreme importance.  Because we say we love God and believe He wants the best for us, we strive to live “in His will for us.”  In the prayer Jesus taught us to pray, we say ”Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

However, many of us want a fax, a text, an email, a telegram, handwriting on the wall, God speaking in our ear…some direct form of communication from God that will tell us straight out what to do and which is the right path ahead.  We want this because of our fundamental misunderstanding of God’s nature or our own laziness at putting in the work required in a relationship with God.  These manifests themselves in a myriad of ways: 1) we are afraid of offending God because deep down we believe He is our adversary and not our greatest supporter; 2) it is easier to live by direct command than by faith; 3) if we make a mistake, however we might come to believe that, we don’t believe God will redeem it for our good; 4) we think if we find God’s will it will be like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and our life will be great as we define it.  I’m sure you can think of other distorted reasons for finding God’s will.

Of course there are those of us who want to find God’s will because of our love for God and deep desire to please Him.

Regardless of your motivation, have you ever stopped to ask, “Regarding what I can discern, what is God’s fundamental will for me?”

Jules Toner, in his book, Discerning God’s Will, a study on Ignatius of Loyola’s writings on discernment, believes Ignatius understood God’s fundamental will for us to be for our greater glory.  That’s right, our greater glory.  Or, if we are not disposed toward Him, to lessen the harm to us.  Toner puts it this way:

The greater glory that God wills for us is our greater participation in his eternal and infinite glory.  It is from God its giver and to God who is glorified in us.  It is in us as our fullness of life and for us whose happiness is in being glory to God and giving his glory to each other. (23)

It sounds circular, doesn’t it.  God wants our greater glory so that we glorify Him.  Not so, because it all precedes from God.  One meaning of the word “glory,” as used in the Bible, is “the essence of a person.”  So, God gives us His glory so that we might become truly who we were created to be: humans in relationship with Him.  Only in this way can we escape our false identities woven out of the lies around us that tell us how we should live and what makes us significant.

As Irenaeus says, above, we glorify God by becoming all that He created us to be…fully human, and the only way that happens is in relationship with God.  And this is the essence of our life-long journey with God: the gradual shedding of the lies so that our true selves begin to emerge.  Only the experience of God’s love can cause such a transformation.

The greater glory that God wills for us is our greater participation in his eternal and infinite glory.

In practice, our desire to find God’s will is usually triggered by a choice before us.  We try to find God’s will within the context of a specific concrete situation including the people involved.  And, because we are each different, God’s will for me in a specific situation may differ from His will for you in a similar situation.  As we ponder God’s will and finally choose, our choice must always, as far as we are able to ascertain, bring God the greater glory.  Regarding what we have said above, this means that we choose that which we believe will bring us into closer relationship with Him.

Becoming our true selves in relationship with Him, that is His glory given to us and His fundamental will for us.

Rhythm of Life

09 Thursday May 2013

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Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.  –Jesus. (Gospel of Matthew c11, v28-29.  The Message.)

From somewhere in the Caribbean…

I was forty feet underwater.  In front of me was a large rock, perhaps 20 feet across.  It was coral encrusted and the fish were swarming.

I like scuba diving.  I find it peaceful; there is something about the rhythmic flow of air from the tank through the regulator into my lungs, then from my lungs through the regulator and into the water, bubbling up past my ears, that I find soothing.  The rush of air in, bubbles out. Breathe in.  Breathe out.  In.  Out.  A beautiful rhythm.

Too, it is so restful to be in a state that feels gravity free.  Divers call it “neutral buoyancy”–weighted just so that the diver, when motionless, neither floats up nor sinks down, but stays at the depth he or she is.  It must be like the weightlessness the astronauts experience (they do, in fact, train for space by being underwater in very large pools).  You move along by kicking your fin-encased feet and when you stop kicking you drift to a stop and find yourself simply suspended in the water; floating underwater, if I can use that term, as one might float in space.  Remarkable.  I’ve often wondered whether that sense of serenity while floating motionless submerged in water taps into some long ago memory of floating in the womb.

Rhythmically breathing in and out, floating weightless, the remarkable sense of quiet amidst the comforting sounds of the compressed air, and the beauty of fish and coral and sea floor…that, for me, is the majesty of scuba diving.

So, why then, if all is supposed to be tranquil, am I frustrated and fighting so hard as I float nearly upright along a vertical face of this rock?

Earlier in the dive, while swimming along a sandy bottom, I had discovered the forty feet of water above me did not dampen out the effects of the three to four foot surface swells.  Swimming perpendicular to the swells resulted in my being pushed three feet to the right, then three feet to the left.  Right.  Left.  Right.  Left.  It was lulling, sideways rhythm of a rocking motion as I progress across the bottom.

What was even more fun was swimming parallel to the surface swells.  If I did not kick at all I discovered I would move back three feet, then forward three feet.  If I kicked while the sea motion tried to move me back, I could hold my place and then I would be propelled forward much faster than normal when the motion of the water changed direction.  So, swimming in the direction of the swells became a rhythm of resisting the motion by kicking to stay in place, then resting as the current moved me forward.  Kick.  Rest.  Kick.  Rest.  Another delightful rhythm.

Now, something, I no longer remember what, had caught my attention on the face of this rock and I wanted to float peacefully and examine this thing.  What had been another enjoyable rhythm of diving–swimming with motion of the swell–had now become a great annoyance as it kept me from doing what I wanted in the way I wanted to do it.  I was thrashing about trying to maintain my depth and keep from being pushed into the rock by the now irritating to and fro of the ocean.  My arms and legs flailed.  My breathing quickened and was erratic at my exertion.  Finally, I gave up and moved away from the rock face.

That’s when I noticed the fish below me.  Beautifully colored angelfish, parrotfish, trigger Imagefish, and others moved easily around the coral darting in to nibble on a tasty piece of coral, playing tag and follow the leader while swooping in and out of narrow passages, or just resting as the motion of the water rocked them back and forth.  Motion or not, those fish were at home in their element.  It is what they knew, all they had even known.  They didn’t fight the water; rather, they had learned to move along their desired way within the larger context  of the rhythm of the water.

At that moment I realized just how much it was I who was the “fish out of water.”  To these small fish, the motion of the water was something they had experienced all of their lives.  They knew no different.  I, on the other hand, having grown up surrounded by air that rarely moves with the force to knock me off my course and with my feet firmly planted on the ground to give me great leverage to move, thrashed about in this alien environment unable to cope with this gentle motion of the water.  I didn’t embrace the rhythm of the water, moving with it that I might see what the rock had presented to me.  No, I had fought it trying to force the ocean to submit to my will and missed what the rock had for me to see.

I’m often a fish out of water in the spiritual realm, too.  Like the verse at the top says, there is a rhythm of life with Jesus.  We are invited into it.  Too often I find myself as unfamiliar with the spiritual world as I am with the undersea world. I try to bend Jesus’ rhythm to my will and, just like my ocean experience, I end up thrashing about unable to enjoy Jesus’ natural tranquility in the moment.  I think the Apostle Paul had begun to learn the secret of living in the rhythm of Jesus when he said:

Actually, I don’t have a sense of needing anything personally. I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.  (Paul’s letter to the Philippians, c4, v11-13.  The Message.)

I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.

If we get so close to Jesus that we become relationally one with Him, as He has invited us to be, then we will move with His rhythm and the turbulence around us will be unnoticed, just as it was for those fish.  Like Paul, we will be content in all situations because we are moving with the rhythm of Jesus–contentment will be natural for us.

The spiritual realm of Father God, Son Jesus, and the Spirit, which bursts forth from Their relationship, is actually our natural home, it is when we fix our eyes on this world or try to impose our will on the rhythm of Jesus that we thrash about and lose what He offers in the moment.

Draw closer to Jesus, respond to His invitation to move as He moves.  That is the first thing.  Join Him in His rhythm and find in the depths of your soul His peace in the midst of the turbulence and currents of life.  Let His Spirit teach you: pay attention to your life and when you notice yourself thrashing about, struggling to maintain your depth, your breathing has become erratic and the tranquility is gone, you are fighting the rhythm of Jesus rather than moving with it.  Stop.  Let your heart, mind, and soul reengage with Jesus to feel His rhythm.  Everything else, the second things, flow out of the rhythm of relationship with Jesus.

Navigating Life

25 Monday Feb 2013

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[Alice went on,] “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where—” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“—so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
–Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“Are you leaving from? Or are you going to?”–a recent question to me from a friend.

Sometimes I wonder whether life isn’t just a simple navigational problem. I used to be an airline pilot. For each flight I knew where I was starting from; where I was going; why I was going there; what the obstacles were between here and there (e.g., weather, mountains); what the best route of flight was for the triple goals of maintaining the schedule, fuel economy, and passenger comfort; and how much fuel I needed to get there.

My journey through life has often seemed less precise. There have been times when I have been leaving from somewhere; I have found the situation I’m in intolerable for any number of reasons and I’m off to something else, anything else “so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” as Alice says. I’ve left where I am with no clear destination in mind. In “leaving from” I knew my starting point but any of many destinations will do.

That’s the thing about leaving from. The destination is often unknown; when I have wanted to leave where I am all that I know is that I want to be where I am now not. My reasons for leaving have sometimes been to escape: escape from the big city, escape from life in a cubicle, escape from a dreary job, escape from routine, escape from a difficult situation, escape from painful memories…escape to anywhere but here.

For some, a life of leaving is enjoyable. No roots, no commitment, no responsibilities…it is the journey that matters. It is a life of exploration and excitement. Spontaneity rules. Perhaps you
have seen the t-shirt that says, “Not everyone who wanders is lost.”

I have a natural curiosity and restlessness that has often provided fuel for my life’s journey. It has been the driving force behind some of my leavings. “The grass is greener,” I have told myself more than once, “just on the other side of the next fence.” Just over there it will be better, there will be new things to see and learn, new experiences to be had. And, often that has proved true.

Recently, however, I’ve begun to think differently about leaving. No, not about changing locations, but about the idea of “leaving from” vs “going to.” In “going to” the destination is known. One can start a going to journey from anywhere, but the destination is known. As I reflected on years of leaving–I’ve lived in 9 states and had 5 careers, so far–here is the realization to which I’ve come, strange as it may sound to some: all of my leavings have been goings. Whether fueled by curiosity, restlessness, or escape, all of my instances of leaving have been caused by my search for something, by being drawn toward something that has been unknown to me for most of my life.

In his little book, Happiness & Contemplation, philosopher Pieper claims that “man craves by nature happiness and bliss.” By nature we crave it, it is hard-wired into us. “Why do you want to be happy?” asks Pieper. It is a question we never ask because it has no answer. We just do want it…by nature. Now there’s a lot more to this happiness thing than can be said here, but if he is right, and I think he is, then all leavings are indeed goings…going toward happiness, even if we don’t know what that is for us. Of course, some believe they are undeserving of happiness, but that is for another time.

Why do you want to be happy?

If I am simply a creation of random mutation and natural selection, then it would seen happiness should be within my grasp. Happiness should come from surviving, from achieving the four F’s: flee, fight, food, and fornication, these are all that are required for an organism’s basic survival. And yet…for millennia philosophers have known this about happiness: truest happiness is a gift, it comes to us from outside our souls. We can act to get things or to do things, each which brings us some measure of happiness; however, that which quenches our deepest thirst for happiness comes from outside of us, from contemplating the greatest good.

An African bishop named Augustine, alive some 1700 years ago in present-day Algiers, had an early life of wandering, of leaving-from-while-really-going-to…he has helped me to understand my own journey happiness. He said, “You have made us and directed us toward Yourself and our heart is restless until we rest in you” (Confessions 1.1)

You have made us and directed us toward Yourself and our heart is restless until we rest in you.

I am created by God to be in a loving relationship with Him; outside of that I will always be incomplete and unhappy in the depths of my soul. And not just any god will do, the god must be the God of tri-unity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, each a person, each person God, yet together the one God…the great mystery of the God of Christianity. The single-person gods of other beliefs will simply not do here; a single-person god would find happiness by contemplating self, the worst sort of self-centeredness. No, none of these single-person gods are like the intrinsically outward-facing Christian God of eternal love between Father-Son-Spirit; a God of happiness spent in eternal contemplation of the Other.  It is this God that yearns for a loving relationship with each of us.

Happiness, then, comes from contemplating the greatest good, the God of Christianity. He made use that way; it is our nature. Poet T.S. Eliot described for me my journey back to God in a few lines from his poem “Little Giddings“:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

The Nights

07 Thursday Feb 2013

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I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.
~Vincent Van Gogh

How long the night seems to one kept awake by pain.
~Bernard Joseph Saurin, Blanche et Guiscard, translated

—–

12:30 am. No sign of sleep.

It is dark, quiet, at least in the world external to my mind, nothing is moving about…what is it about the night?

—–

There are sleepless nights that I find friendly. During these nights, there are no demands on my mind–other than the nagging back-of-my-mind reminder that the alarm clock will soon sound and I’ll be tired all day. But on these nights, even that seems an easy price to pay.

During these kinds of nights my soul feels free. During the daylight, you see, there are rules to be followed and responsibilities to perform and schedules to keep; I never feel quite free to let my mind roam: free to think thoughts that seem important to think, free to bend over and examine what is under every thought-rock, free to contemplate all there is. During the daylight hours, whenever I do let my mind roam so, I miss my turn or the driver behind me honks because the light has gone green–someone went around me today. In the daylight, I’ve found, I must always be attentive to the outer world, to be present to something or some other. How constricting and tiresome it can be.

In the early 1940s, before the US entered World War II, American pilot John Gillespie Magee Jr. wrote the poem, “High Flight,” to express what it was like for him to fly. Sadly, Magee died in a midair collision shortly after penning this poem. Having also flown, his poem is meaningful to me. And, it describes the free feeling I have in my soul during this kind of night, these friendly nights. Here’s is Magee’s poem:

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth 
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; 
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth 
Of sun-split clouds…and done a hundred things 
You have not dreamed of…wheeled and soared and swung 
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, 
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung 
My eager craft through footless halls of air. 
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue 
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace 
Where never lark, or even eagle flew. 
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod 
The high untrespassed sanctity of space 
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

“Touching the face of God” is a phrase that resonates deeply within me. You see, contemplation, the highest form of knowing, is a form of reaching out and touching the face of God; it is beholding in love one’s Beloved. It is the greatest form of happiness. Wonderful nights!

—–

There is another night, the kind when freedom is replaced by exhaustion. During these nights my mind may race from thought to thought like a glutton shoveling food with both hands, never stopping to savor. Still other times my mind repeats thoughts, rehearsing them over and over and over and over like a scratched 45. Are you old enough to have used a record player?

—–

There is a worse night: a night of torment. There have been many of these lately. In these nights I am awake with a problem or pending conflict, my mind churning and grinding, breaking thought boulders into rocks, then into peebles, then into fine sand. Finally, after what can be hours, the problem is diagnosed, the conflict seen for what it is. And then…

…a solution begins to form. My mind shifts gears, now whining, high pitched at a very high RPM, rapidly sifting through ideas, combinations and connections with other thoughts are made, evaluated, and discarded or retained. A web of solution slowly takes shape, layer upon layer. The earlier layers are forgotten and must be rediscovered; a higher gear yet, and the whining in my head again increases in pitch with the change in RPM. Finally, the problem is solved, elegantly or the path to resolving conflict is found, usually by a dramatic, self-righteous speech. I am eager for the morrow! But wait! Is this really the answer? And, it begins again, the boulders have reformed. Is this what insanity is like? It is certainly Satan’s playground.

20130207-013139.jpg

The worst part of these nights of torment is the appearance of the light of day. Photons strike the hard-won solution or reflect the words of the self-righteous speech only to illuminate the foolishness. The night was a waste. Now I’m just tired.

—–

Worst yet are the nights filled with the pain of love. A number of spiritual writers throughout the centuries refer to God’s “wound of love.” It is the deep longing for God that He inflicts upon us, a painful yearning that will never be fully satisfied until after death. A night of sleepless longing filled with happiness and joy.

It is at this point I find that the circle is completed, the nights of wounded longing meet the friendly nights of a freed soul…

—–

1:25am, and still no sign of sleep.

Ears That Do Not Hear

24 Thursday Jan 2013

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I have recently seen a figure published that there are nearly 200 million English-language blog sites on the web, and that worldwide the total begins to approach one billion.    —http://www.rickmylander.com/2013/01/blog-blah-blah.html?m=1

This is the way a friend of mine introduces his new blog.  Imagine, 200 million English-language blog sites, nearly 1 billion world-wide.  If we added in emails, tweets, Facebook posts, Google+, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and the myriad of other electronic outlets for our thoughts, how many words per minute pouring out of us do you suppose that represents?  So many of us with so much to say.  This blog is but one more…

For the sake of brevity, let me label everything “spoken” into the electronic world by humanity as iSpeak.

Is it that the billions of us iSpeaking away really have something to say?  Is my voice so different from the others that my words find a unique place among the billions of billions of words being iSpoken into the aether?  Well, yes.  Ultimately, I do think we each have something unique to say.  After all, we are each unique persons who see the world just a little differently than the other.  My voice, yours, too, is indeed unique in this universe.

Here is an odd turn in the road that my mind is walking: the connection between iSpeaking and casual sex.  About casual sex, philosopher Joseph Pieper says this: “The encounter that is sheer sex and nothing else has rightly been called deceptive in character.  For the moment, an illusion of union arises; but without love this apparent union of two strangers leaves them more remote from each other than they were before” (Faith, Hope, Love).

Is iSpeaking like having the deceptive casual sex as Pieper describes, an experience that leaves strangers farther apart?  I think so.  Consider Margaret Guenther’s thought from her terrific book, Holy Listening: “In a way, not to be heard is not to exist.”

In a way, not to be heard is not to exist.

Loneliness is perhaps both our fundamental condition and fundamental fear.  It is our fundamental condition because we are estranged from God who made us; it is only in relationship with Him that we find our true identity.  To be truly alone is to be unaffirmed as a human, do be, well, as though dead.  Sadly, this is our deepest condition.  We are estranged from each other and, if we are honest, from ourselves.  Even Christians, those who have accepted the act of Jesus on the cross as God’s act of overcoming the estrangement, find ourselves struggling with loneliness as we long to be with God, face-to-face.

So, what has all this to do with iSpeaking?  A speaker without a listener is like Pieper’s two deceived, casual lovers.  Broadcasting my words into the electronic aether deceives me into thinking I matter, that I’m not alone.  However, with no listener is that really true?

A quick test: how many of you fellow iSpeakers are disappointed when no one “likes,” “follows,” or “comments” on your words?  Surely you feel it…particularly if you have iSpoken something important to you.  Perhaps you have only some who follow you; perhaps you have a legion.  How many followers is enough to make you feel as though you matter?  I wager that the number will never be high enough to make us feel as though we exist.

If Guenther is right, and I think she is, then we may iSpeak all we want, we may even garner a multitude of followers; yet, without being heard it is as though we don’t exist.  Could it be that billions of words that we iSpeak acutually come out of our own desperate need to be heard?  At the depths of our individual souls aren’t we each searching for someone to listen, someone who will say to us, “What you says matters; you exist”?  I want someone to affirm that it is good that I exist; this is the bedrock of what it means to be loved, which is our most fundamental need.  And being heard is a cornerstone of the goodness of my existence being affirmed. 

Our need to be loved extends beyond the electronic iWorld and into the rWorld (real world).  So many people speaking, so much verbal noise, so much information to convey, so much to do, hurry, hurry, HURRY…  We are growing deaf to each other.  Do any of us really hear? Or, with no listeners are we all in danger of becoming extinct to each other?

Another test: Name a person in your life who really hears you, who lets you finish a thought even if it means periods of silence; a person who will let you feel what you feel without trying to correct or fix you.  In my experience few can name such a person.

All is not lost.  There is a way out of the noise.

We can practice hospitality.  Sure, it is an old fashioned notion.  Webster defines hospitality as the act of receiving another in a kind and liberally generous manner without expecting a reward.  But, we’ve no time for hospitality these days.  We move too fast and are too tightly scheduled.  Productivity reigns.  The ancient idea of leisure, contemplating something for its own sake, is gone.  And yet listening, at its core, is the best kind of leisurely hospitality.  It is the hospitality of making room within your own soul to invite the other in as you listen.

iSpeaking has its place.  I write because it helps me think and I post it because perhaps another wonders about the same things.  But, I will fall into despair if I hope to have my existence affirmed in this way; while you may read this, I can never really know whether I have been heard by you.

So, find another human being and practice hospitality.  Hear their words, notice their voice inflections, see their body language, look into their eyes, quiet your own desire to be heard, talk as little as you need, ignore your desire to fix them, be attentive to your own internal responses as they talk allowing your emotions and feelings to connect with theirs…offer the hospitality of inviting them in to your very soul.  Give the other the very, very rare gift of being heard.  For a short time, one fewer voice in the world will not be missed.

Safe

09 Wednesday Jan 2013

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Jesus put his arms around each one and whispered, “I didn’t come to just give you good things; I came to give you Me, my Father, and the Holy Spirit. In Us, you have real life. You’re safe.”
–Presence (unpublished…coming soon)

Philosopher and theologian Dallas Willard is fond of asking the following question: “If you could use only one word to describe Jesus, what would that word be?” You can probably imagine the answers: God, Savior, Teacher, Fraud, Risen, Redeemer, Liar, Beloved, Lord, Friend, Christ, Lunatic, Rock, Son, Messiah, Fictitious, Healer, Love…perhaps you have your own one-word description.

Willard’s word is “relaxed.” Perhaps I have a different image of a “relaxed” person than Dr. Willard intends. From Webster: Lacking precision? No, Jesus was very precise. At rest or at ease? Often; however that whole sweating blood episode before His beating and crucifixion didn’t seem too relaxing. Easy of manner? I imaging Jesus as assuredly intense. “Relaxed” doesn’t fit for me.

“Safe.” I like this word. To be clear, I don’t think it is the best word to describe Jesus; however, I do think it is a great word to describe His response as He moved about in the world.

The world around us is a scary place. There are murders, rapes, robberies, assaults, fiscal cliffs, car crashes, wars, falls, scrapes, bumps, bruises, insults, betrayals, hunger, bankruptcy, homelessness, fights, loneliness, sickness, disease, and so much more. One has only to watch the evening news.

There is a great scene in the 1991 movie, Grand Canyon. Suburbanite Mac’s car breaks down at night in the inner city of Los Angeles. While he is waiting for the tow truck, a carload of young thugs threaten him. Tow truck driver Simon arrives and in a confrontation with the thugs says, “I don’t know if you know it, but the world ain’t supposed to be this way.” Mac isn’t supposed to be afraid, the thugs aren’t supposed to be waiving guns, and by extension there aren’t supposed to be a poor inner city or young men forced to prove their toughness or…well, it goes on and on. It reaches all the way back to the Garden. It ain’t supposed to be this way.

Isn’t that true. Somewhere, deep down inside of us we know that the world is dangerous, we agree with Simon, the world ain’t supposed be this way. We should be safe.

Now, I feel safe in one regard: I know my eternal destiny, to use the Christian vernacular. I am completely assured that when I die I will be with the Christian God for all of eternity. I will be safe. To quote God’s promise:

And I heard a loud voice from God, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.”

That is safe! It is safety guarantied by God Himself, creator of all the heavens and the universe. Right now I feel safe in that way, a future safeness, a safeness-to-come. I’m sure Jesus also felt that kind of safeness-to-come.

What about right now. Do I have to live in fear now and wait for the safety-to-come? Did Jesus? No, to both. Is it as simple as a choice? My choice? Yes, to both.

Don’t be afraid any longer, only believe.
–Jesus

Jesus felt safe by letting go. Jesus had no expectations of His own, only expectancy of His Father’s fulfilled promises. By contrast, I have expectations and plenty of them, and most of my life’s expectations have been tightly interwoven with the American Dream. Too, my expectancy of God-at-work has been low. “God helps those who help themselves” after all. I work hard for my daily bread, my refrigerator is full; I don’t have to expect God to keep His promise. (Oh, that last quote is from Benjamin Franklin, not God.)

I have learned that my expectations keep my eyes firmly locked on me; it is my expectation of how my life should be, my expectation of how the world should be, and my expectation of how God must act. My expectations put me in the center of my world and offers the illusion of me in charge of my life and the world and God, and that’s the whole problem, isn’t it. In fact, that’s the root of the problem: man trying to be God. Expectations only lead to fear, the fear of failed expectations.

Expectancy is different. Expectancy as practiced by Jesus is God-centered. My life for His glory; Jesus’ choice must be mine. No expectations. I am God’s adopted son. I have all of the rights of His son. He loves me and will treat me and care for me as the beloved son that I am, including dashing my expectations as He conforms me into the likeness of Jesus. Those are not my expectations, those are God’s promises. To the extent that I, with His help (and He does most of the work!), can let go of my own expectations and hold on only to the expectancy that my Father will love me and treat me as He has promised, no matter what that means for my personal circumstances, then I will feel safe. I will be safe. Fear will be gone. My life for His glory.

Jesus didn’t come just to give me things to fulfill my expectations, He came to give me Himself in loving relationship. Only in relationship with Him will I be safe, and I will have life and have it abundantly.

That’s the way things are supposed to be.