I Can Only Imagine

27 Tuesday Dec 2022

Posted by CurateMike in All, Journey, Self, Trust, Uncategorized

Tags

Father, Gift, God, Holy spirit, hope, Jesus, Love, Pain, Sacrifice, Son, Trinity

I can only imagine
What it will be like
When I walk by Your side
I can only imagine
What my eyes would see
When Your face is before me
I can only imagine

Surrounded  by Your glory
What will my heart feel?
Will I dance for You Jesus
Or in awe of You be still?
Will I stand in Your presence
Or to my knees, will I fall?
Will I sing hallelujah?
Will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine
I can only imagine
“I Can Only Imagine,” Mercy Me

If you’ve listened to Christian radio since 2002 you have undoubtably heard this song, “I Can Only Imagine,” by Mercy Me. It was the most popular Christian song played in 2002 and even cracked the mainstream chart Top 100 in 2003. As a matter is full disclosure, I have seen the band twice, and each time they have performed this song. It is a great song.

For all humans, it captures our deepest longing, as Augustine famously said, “Our hearts are restless until it rests with [God].” For the Christian, the lyric is particularly powerful. It provides a magnificent vision of what it will be like when we are finally face-to-face with our greatest love…Jesus. The song’s words express our deepest emotions and longing in a way that most of us cannot formulate.

I’d like to be able to tell you that the imagery certainly captures what I hope to experience: the overwhelming relief of a good finish to my life, a race well run, a battle well fought, along with the overwhelming sense of wonder and worship at finally being in the presence of ineffable glory of Jesus Himself. To finally find true rest in God free from the weariness of this world.

I’d like to be able to tell you that…but I can’t.

The Divine Liturgy celebrated in the Orthodox church (“Eastern Orthodox”) has been an enigma to my western, enlightened mind. A mystery would be a better description…and a “mystery” in the truest sense. From the opening words of the Liturgy, “Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit now and forever unto ages of ages” to the final “Amen,” the Church has always assumed that during the Divine Liturgy the worshippers are actually(!) in the Kingdom that is both at hand and is to come, the place where all time exists in the present moment: Christ, the lamb slain before creation; the promise to Abraham; the Passover meal, the Last Supper, and the final Wedding Banquet; the giving of the Law to Moses; the birth, death, resurrection, and second coming of Jesus…all moments present in the moment. Further, in the Kingdom, where every knee now bows, we are worshipping God with all those who were, are, and will yet be, and with the tens of thousands of angelic beings. During the Liturgy we are in the very presence of the Most Holy Trinity, which means Jesus is also there, and Jesus is most literally fully present in bodily form in the transfigured bread and wine.

Honestly, though, during the Liturgy it is usually hard for me to feel like I am actually in the Kingdom and in the presence God, but it is not about “feeling” a particular way; rather it is about my faith, believing it to be true.

I can only image…Given this mystery of the Divine Liturgy, I don’t have to image what it will be like in God’s presence as though it is some future event. I can dare say I am in His presence during every Liturgy. And the body and blood of Jesus literally become part of me as I ingest Him from the Eucharist chalice. However, for me, being in Jesus’ presence it bears no resemblance to the song, above. Often, my feet and back ache from standing and I’m quite distracted by kids or others moving about or by my own mind wandering to the events of yesterday and tomorrow.

In those moments when I am able to tame the distractions, I do become aware of the Kingdom and I am overcome by the words of the Liturgy: “It is meet and right to hymn Thee, to bless Thee, to praise Thee, to give thanks unto Thee, and to worship Thee in every place of Thy dominion; for Thou art God ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever-existing, and eternally the same…”

And then I am immediately aware how far I am from God in my expression of love for Him and my neighbor. Sometimes I do have the urge to fall to my knees, as the song imagines, but it is in repentance for my failure to be able to love Him and you, dear reader, as He loves both of us.

Such is being in the actual presence of the consuming fire that is God.

Being in the presence of God brings me pain and shame from my Pride, Anger, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Avarice, Slothfulness…each of these is at work within me to lead me away from Life Himself. I feel the shame. And, I experience the pain of His all-consuming fire that is His love for me as the Spirit slowly, so slowly, works in me to burn away the goat in my heart. I pray there will be found some sheep in me and that I will be saved through the His loving fire.

Being in the presence of God brings me fear. I too often believe the words of the serpent telling me that I can’t trust God. I want retain control of just enough of my own life so I can salvage it in the event I find I can’t really trust God. I’m like the character in the C.S. Lewis novel, The Great Divorce, who has a lizard-parasite on his shoulder. He is afraid for it to be removed; he doesn’t believe he will become truly himself without it. Like him, I’m comfortable with my demons; removing them is to give up control, to move toward the unknown—in trusting faith. I pray I would have the faith of Christ and come to fully trust God.

Despite the pain, shame, and fear I experience in His presence, I can’t seem to stop walking deeper into His fire. Where else would I go? Jesus has the words of eternal life. His refining fire draws me like a moth. What God most wants from me is no more than He has already offered to me: Himself. He has first offered me a gift that cost Him the death of His Son; it is His gift to me of immeasurable cost and value. What He wants from me is a gift of similar value: all of me. But God’s refining fire still burns me—this is the suffering of becoming one with God. Yet God doesn’t want my fear and pain and shame; He is not a wrathful God. Rather, me bearing my fear, shame, and pain is the cost I to me to give the gift of myself to Him. And when I can no longer bear it, God offers me rest along the way.

While there have been many article written and movies made that focus on Jesus’ agony of His scourging and subsequent death on the cross, the biblical writers actually have little to say about it. Rather, they focus on God’s gift to us in the person of Jesus and the joy of Christ as He faced the cross…His gift to us. This should inform how we think of sacrificial gift-giving.

Rather than me focusing on my suffering, my pain, my shame, and my fear, I should focus on the gift I want to give God—the all-of-me-I-am-able-to-give gift. It is by focusing on the gift and not the cost where we find the peace and joy of Christ. This, after all, is His promise: “Come to Me and I will give you rest.” There is no need to imagine. We can experience it now.

Humanity and Humans

10 Tuesday Aug 2021

Posted by CurateMike in All, Culture, Humankind, Social Justice, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Father, God, Holy spirit, Humanity, Humans, Jesus, Love, Movements, Protests, War

In 2001, Al-Qaeda operatives hijacked four US commercial airliners. Thousands died that day and later, as a result of the attack. In October of that same year, the US staged a retaliatory invasion of Afghanistan. In 2003, the “war on terrorism” was expanded to include Iraq. As a result, uncounted more combatants have died. And then there are the “unintended consequences”: the individual Afghani’s and Iraqi’s who were killed or otherwise had their lives upended.

One writer, tracing the history of the United States, says the US has been at war for all but 21 years of her existence. The US has been warring for 224 out of 245 years. That’s 91%. Oh my.

Over the course of human history, there have been civil wars, religious wars, wars of liberation, cultural wars, territorial wars, and now cyber wars. The list is long. And, even when not in an actual war with another country, we use the language of war; the US continues to wage the war on drugs and the war on poverty.

And, it is not just actual shooting wars in which we engage.

Last week in Texas there was a 4-day march to the capital called the “Moral March.” The main focus of the march was to emphasize the need to protect our democracy by ensuring voting rights for all (against what is seen by some as the Texas legislature’s move to restrict voting rights). Famed civil rights advocate Jesse Jackson was involved as was someone from the “Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival” and an organization called “Repairers of the Breach.” The name of God was invoked to justify the march. The organizers also used powerful imagery from the US Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and even the biblical Old Testament story of Moses and the Red Sea. They use the language of war: “choose a side”; “stop attacks on democracy.” I’m sure their opponents use similar war language.

Wars, marches, programs, movements…many seem well intentioned to stamp out some real or perceived injustice in the world; they all have one thing in common: humans are involved. Sadly, it seems, we are the cause of the very injustice we seek to eradicate.

Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, while addressing the 1978 graduating class at Harvard, said this:

This tilt of freedom toward evil has come about gradually, but it evidently stems from a humanistic and benevolent concept according to which man—the master of the world—does not bear any evil within himself, and all the defects of life are caused by misguided social systems, which must therefore be corrected.

In his book, The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky’s Father Zossima says:

[T]hrowing your own indolence and impotence on others you will end by sharing the pride of Satan and murmuring against God. Of the pride of Satan what I think is this: it is hard for us on earth to comprehend it, and therefore it is so easy to fall into error and to share it, even imagining that we are doing something grand and fine.

What if the entire so-called “modern project,” which tells us that the evil is not in us, but that we must make social programs or governments better to improve all areas of our humanity is one of simply joining in the “pride of Satan.” What if Satan is simply encouraging us toward doing “grand and fine” things to fix humanity by such ways as wars of liberation, marches for morality, nationwide programs for the poor and afflicted, renewing urban areas, and on and on.

Perhaps there is a different way, a different sort of progress available to us.

Again, Father Zossima:

There is only one means of salvation, take yourself and make yourself responsible for all men’s sins, that is the truth, you know, friends, for as soon as you sincerely make yourself responsible for everything and for all men, you will see at once that it is really so, and that you are to blame for every one and for all things.

There is a popular story told of theologian G.K. Chesterton. According to the story, in the early 1900s, the London times asked Chesterton to contribute to a series of articles explaining what is wrong with the world. Chesterton is said to have replied on a post card with the words, “What is wrong with the world today: I am.”

Chesterton was not being contrite. The Christian Apostle James, writes:

Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. (James 4:1-3)

I am the problem with the world.

That is a profoundly counter-cultural statement in a world that blames the ills of humanity on political and social systems (and their proponents). It is a statement that runs counter to my deeply-held belief that the world would be a better place if everyone were just more like me.

I am the problem with the world.

Returning to Solzhenitsyn, who said elsewhere:

Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.

If the “modern project” is indeed really just a shell game and that the real need is not for better social programs or political systems, what can I do? If I am the world’s problem, then how now shall I live?

Imagine spending less time anxious over “causes for humanity” and more time trying to acquire the fullness of the Holy Spirt of the Christian God so that I might better love God and my neighbor. What if I were to primarily focus on doing the next good thing that confronts me, not for “humanity,” but for the human being standing before me. For my neighbor. One Orthodox saint said that we love God only as well as we love our neighbor. Another says that a good Christian life consists of helping 5 or 6 people you encounter. Neither of these saints, nor does Jesus, speak to helping “humanity”; rather, they talk about helping and loving humans. Loving formless, faceless “humanity” is easy; loving a single human being is very hard work.

This kind of life and love is only truly possible with help from God. Acquiring this help, the help of the Holy Spirit, is the main goal of our lives. In his book, On Acquisition of the Holy Spirit, Orthodox St. Seraphim of Sarov says:

Acquiring the Spirit of God is the true aim of our Christian life, while prayer, fasting, almsgiving and other good works done for Christ’s sake are merely means for acquiring the Spirit of God.

Working to acquire the Holy Spirit is a way to begin to quiet the passions raging within my own soul, the passions that cause so much trouble for me, for those around me, and for the world; it is the way toward gaining that peace that passes understanding that the Apostle Paul writes about.

Returning to the 9/11 attacks back in 2001. Rather than starting another war, the “war on terrorism,” I have often wondered what would have happened had the US simply turned the other cheek.

If you want to join a war, a movement, or a cause, here is the place to start: fight the battle within, the one we each face against our own disordered passions. Ask God to help. He is faithful.

A final work from St Seraphim:

Aquire the peace of the Holy Spirit and a thousand souls around you will be saved.

Choosing Sides

13 Wednesday Jan 2021

Posted by CurateMike in All, Journey, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

choice, choose, Father, God, Holy spirit, Son, spiritual battle, Trinity

In a recent blog, Father Stephen Freeman described faith as loyalty, perhaps as a simple as choosing sides. I found that to be a wonderful pragmatic definition of faith, one that tied in so nicely with my other, recent reading and writing.

In my own previous musing on the reality of the spiritual battle between good and evil, I mentioned that we must choose a side in the battle. As I continue to contemplate the true nature of reality, I am convinced that there is no middle ground available for us, no neutral territory for us to inhabit. One may claim to be agnostic; however, that, too, is to choose a side. There is only a binary choice available to us.

How can this be?

To be human is to be made for worship. It is how we were created. Throughout history, humans have worshipped many things. We have and continue to worship a god or gods or other people. We can worship immaterial things, such as knowledge, feelings, security, science, and religion. We can worship money. We can worship any number of material things: clothes, cars, hobbies, boats, jewelry, books, etc. (this could be a very long list!).

What does it mean to worship something?

Our common understanding of worship someone or some thing means that we offer a sacrifice to that which we worship. Historically, sacrifices have consisted of such things as blood—human or animal—crops, prepared food or drink, jewels, and money. Over time, we humans have offered as a sacrifice anything we consider precious—that which we treasure most—to some one or some thing we have worshipped.

As modern humans, we typically no longer think in this way. We believe that worship and sacrifice are for primitive people, that we are well beyond those silly, unscientific things. Yet, to us modern people, the most precious thing we have is our time and our money. To what, then, do we offer our time and money? Just look at your calendar or your checkbook or your screen time (phone, tablet, computer, or television). Find where you spend your time and money and you will know who or what it is that you worship.

This is not an original thought from me. Jesus said it first: “Where your treasure is, there is your heart.”

If, then, to be human is to be a worshiping being, then so also to be human is to choose that which we will worship. And, choosing who or what we worship constitutes choosing sides in the battle. So, find where you put what you treasure and you will find who or what side you have chosen by knowing who or what you worship.

Why choose? Isn’t it enough to just do good things and to be kind to others?

St Gregory Palamas said, “If God does not act in us everything done by us is sin.” To our modern ears, that sounds like such a harsh, judgmental statement. To use the modern language, Palamas’ statement sounds shaming and cancelling. But that’s only because Christianity, in many circles, has become a moral religion aimed at appeasing a wrathful God rather than an ongoing, relational existence with a loving God. It is fashionable to think that if I “do good” or am generally a “good person” (and how we define “good” is a subject for another blog), then God will not be mad at me and I will go to heaven or obtain whatever other reward I may imagine.

But, as someone said, Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people alive. Sin is rightly defined as our turning away from God, turning toward death rather than life. Sin—death—is our broken relationship with God, not the bad deed.

Here is a better image of reality. We are in a war zone, caught between two warring factions: God and His angels vs. the fallen angels (demons). Like when the Allied forces began marching across Europe in WWII, God is advancing on His enemies. God’s victory in the spiritual war is inevitable; however, also like WWII, the battles will continue to the very end. And here is a most important point. We, humankind, are not God’s enemies. Et me say that again. Humankind are not Enemies of God. We are caught in the crossfire and God is trying to save us. We have been enslaved by the enemy and God offers all of us the path to freedom. The choice is ours. Each of us can choose either to turn to God or to remain with God’s enemy.

The decision to choose God brings the battle to us. More literally, it ignites the battle within us. The sin that has infected us and is within us is a powerful enemy. The Apostle, St Paul, admits of his own, ongoing struggle against sin: “..the good that I want to do, I do not do; but the evil I want not to do, that I practice.” Choosing God is not a one-time decision, even for a saint like Paul. We choose God day-by-day, sometimes moment-by-moment. The great St Anthony once said, “Each day I arise from bed and say to myself, ‘Today I begin again’.”

So, what does it look like to choose God moment-by-moment?

Below are 55 practical ways to choose the Christian God in everyday life; they are ways we can offer our worship to Him. Before you read them, remember two things. First, this is not a “to do” list. Recall Palamas’ words, above…without God, doing all of these things is still sin because Christianity is primarily about relationship. Second, Christianity is not about becoming a “better” human. It is about turning to God and joining in His life. These 55 things are simply things that help us to join in with God’s life. But here’s the catch: you will fail at them. Often. In this life you can actually expect very little “improvement” in yourself. So, when you fail, turn back to God, confess your failure, ask Him for forgiveness, then get back in the battle.

Choose God. You are not alone in the battle.

55 Maxims for Christian Living
Father Thomas Hopko

Be always with Christ.
Pray as you can, not as you want.
Have a keepable rule of prayer that you do by discipline.
Say the Lord’s Prayer several times a day.
Have a short prayer that you constantly repeat when your mind is not occupied with other things.
Make some prostrations when you pray.
Eat good foods in moderation.
Keep the Church’s fasting rules.
Spend some time in silence every day.
Do acts of mercy in secret.
Go to liturgical church services regularly.
Go to confession and communion regularly.
Do not engage intrusive thoughts and feelings. Cut them off at the start.
Reveal all your thoughts and feelings regularly to a trusted person.
Read the scriptures regularly.
Read good books a little at a time.
Cultivate communion with the saints.
Be an ordinary person.
Be polite with everyone.
Maintain cleanliness and order in your home.
Have a healthy, wholesome hobby.
Exercise regularly.
Live a day, and a part of a day, at a time.
Be totally honest, first of all, with yourself.
Be faithful in little things.
Do your work, and then forget it.
Do the most difficult and painful things first.
Face reality.
Be grateful in all things.
Be cheerful.
Be simple, hidden, quiet and small.
Never bring attention to yourself.
Listen when people talk to you.
Be awake and be attentive.
Think and talk about things no more than necessary.
When we speak, speak simply, clearly, firmly and directly.
Flee imagination, analysis, figuring things out.
Flee carnal, sexual things at their first appearance.
Don’t complain, mumble, murmur or whine.
Don’t compare yourself with anyone.
Don’t seek or expect praise or pity from anyone.
Don’t judge anyone for anything.
Don’t try to convince anyone of anything.
Don’t defend or justify yourself.
Be defined and bound by God alone.
Accept criticism gratefully but test it critically.
Give advice to others only when asked or obligated to do so.
Do nothing for anyone that they can and should do for themselves.
Have a daily schedule of activities, avoiding whim and caprice.
Be merciful with yourself and with others.
Have no expectations except to be fiercely tempted to your last breath.
Focus exclusively on God and light, not on sin and darkness.
Endure the trial of yourself and your own faults and sins peacefully, serenely, because you know that God’s mercy is greater than your wretchedness.
When we fall, get up immediately and start over.
Get help when you need it, without fear and without shame.

What If…

28 Monday Dec 2020

Posted by CurateMike in Church, Death, Healing, Life, Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Church, desert fathers, Father, God, Holy spirit, Jesus, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, orthodoxy, Son

In the beginning of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series (Fellowship of the Ring), we read of the Hobbits living their everyday lives in a way we would consider normal: there is juicy gossip, a party with fireworks, mischievous kids…the things of normal life we all would recognize. However, we are soon introduced to an enchanted world with Elves and other beings, and the Dark Lord Sauron. Tolkien opens our eyes to a larger reality: against the background of the normalcy of the Hobbit’s lives, there is a battle underway for all of Middle-earth.

What if this were true for us. Like Hobbits, we go about our daily lives concerned about our families, our jobs, our personal finances, the stuff we own or desire to own, politics, sports, the weather, etc. What if, as in Tolkien’s Middle-earth, our world is actually enchanted, good and sinister beings exist, and there is a battle, of which we are largely unaware, underway.

To switch stories, in C.S. Lewis’ book, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, the wicked White Witch introduces Edmund to the addictive treat, Turkish Delight. With it, she is able to distract Edmund from her true intentions to rule over Narnia as a cold and snowy land and to entice him to join with her.

What if this were true for us. In the United States and the Western world we are easily distracted: our high standard of living, the internet, social media, the entertainment industry, sports, the never-ending news cycle, toys we have or want, computers, phones, tablets…it is a long list. What if, as in Narnia,these things are given to us as Turkish Delight, used by an enemy to distract us and to entice us to acquiesce to or outright join the dark forces in the battle.

In the Bible’s New Testament, St Paul says this:
…we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

There is a indeed a battle raging. However, it is not a battle for a geographical kingdom, such as Middle-earth or Narnia. Rather, it is a battle for the Kingdom of God that exists within us. In this battle, we are both the battleground and the prize! The battle is for our very being and the battleground is raging right now around us and within us.

In Tolkien’s and Lewis’ fictional fights beings suffer wounds or delusion as a result of the battle. It is true for us in our battle. But what if each of us is born into our enchanted world with a wound, an illness that darkens our soul and blinds us to our enchanted reality and the battle around us and within us.

Each of us has a part of our being called a Nous. Nous is an uncommon word to us modern people. In classical philosophy, nous “is a term for the faculty of the human mind necessary for understanding what is true or real” (Wikipedia). It is often believed to be the center of “reason.” However, centuries ago, Orthodox Christianity re-purposed the word to mean “the eye of the soul, which some Church Fathers also call the heart, [it] is the center of man and is where true (spiritual) knowledge is validated” (Orthodoxwiki). It is much more than “reason,” it is the faculty that allows us access to the immaterial world around us and to know things that are beyond our reason. Most importantly, our nous allows us to know God. (“The Limits of Human Reason” podcast)

Each and every one of us was born with and suffers from an illness of our nous. This part of our being, originally given to us to know God, to “see” the enchanted reality all around us, and to recognize good and evil, has been darkened and blinded; we were born with this condition. Consequently, we go through life focused on ourselves, we engage in survival of the fittest, just like all of the plants and animals of nature.

But God doesn’t leave us in this wounded state, He reaches out to each person to awaken us to the battle around us and within us. And how He tries to awaken us is unique to each of us. To one He speaks directly, to another He sends a messenger, to yet another He speaks through the circumstances of our lives.

Once awakened to the reality of the battle, we may choose to ignore it and try to live in a safe world of our own making, continuing to gather and feast on Turkish Delight. Or perhaps we will choose to join the rulers of darkness who are continually at work around us and within us to win us as their prize. After all, joining the dark powers may bring us power, prosperity, and sensual pleasure, albeit only in this life on Earth; however, the price is the continued darkening of our nous.

God longs for us to choose Him. He longs to heal our wounded nous. God has a hospital and a cure for us. It is the Church.

You may strongly disagree. Perhaps you have been to a church and found no help; rather, you have found only judgement because you don’t meet some standard of behavior. That is like waking up one morning realizing you are very sick. You go to the hospital only to be told you cannot enter until you are well. That is not the true Church.

All too often a church focuses only on the “rules” for our spiritual life. When the goal of a church is only on the “formulation” of man’s character, his ethical propriety, and his becoming a ‘good’ person and a ‘good’ citizen” then it is acting like a courtroom rather than a hospital. In the Church-courtroom we experience only “empty moralism…a superficiality” rather than finding the love of God and His healing. Sadly, many have experienced this Church-courtroom and revolted against God; but, who can blame them? Why would anyone want to worship a God like that.

Sick people don’t need a courtroom. Sick people don’t need to be told they aren’t acting like healed people. Sick people need a hospital. And, sick people need a cure.

The true Church has always been a hospital that exists to offer a cure for our illness, our woundedness, our spiritual blindness—our darkened nous. The goal of Christianity has never been about making us into “good” people. The world is full of “good” people who are still dead people. The goal of Christianity has always been to make dead people alive! The path to life is the path of the healing for our nous so that we can see God and join Him in His life.

In God’s Church-hospital, all are welcome. The Church is filled with people who range from those who do not yet know the extent of their sickness and seriousness of their wounds to those who are well along the path to being healed.

What if you actually believed in the reality that an epic battle is raging, that your very being is both the battleground and the prize. What if you believe that you can choose which side to be on in the battle. What if you believe there is a hospital offering you both care and cure for your wounds. And, most importantly, what if you believethis hospital’s Physician loves you more than you can ever imagine.

What if you believed all of these things…would it change your life?

Beauty

10 Tuesday Nov 2020

Posted by CurateMike in All, Healing, Life, Uncategorized

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Art, Beauty, Christ, God, Holy Spiorit, Love, Modern Art, virtues

Brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.
—St Paul, Philippians 4:8

The concept of beauty has been on my mind for quite awhile. Beauty is of one of the three classical virtues, the others being Goodness and Truth. Dr. Timothy G. Patitsas, in his new book, The Ethics of Beauty, advocates that we must first look to Beauty (rather than Goodness or Truth) to fill us with life. Beauty is life-giving.

Patitsas argues from “St Dionysius the Areopagite and the Fathers that followed him” that as “the beautiful appearing of God” hovered over the deep (Genesis 1:1-2), non-being became inflamed with love of God’s beauty and willingly left its non-being, becoming “gloriously alive.” (Pg 45) Patitsas goes on to argue that if we first get caught up in the intellectual pursuit of Goodness and Truth without first allowing ourselves to fall in love with God’s Beauty, we will become “imprisoned in the self.”

My thinking on Beauty has intersected with my thinking about Luck, Life, and God (my previous post). In that post, I said I have come to believe that while God does not cause the tragic events in our lives, He does permit them and He meets us in them. If being in love with beauty draws us toward life and away from non-being, then how can I learn to not just see the tragedy and become cynical about life and God? How can I learn to see beyond the ugly and find Beauty—God—in the midst of tragedy?

Certainly I can find beauty in nature. Recall a sunset that has been like a fire setting the sky ablaze. We know the physics: nuclear fission combines hydrogen atoms into helium; the Earth’s atmosphere filters out the blue spectrum; the Earth orbits the sun and turns on its axis. However, knowing these rational things about the sunset are not what stops our breath and fill us with wonder and awe; rather, the beauty of the sunset transcends the natural and reveals to us something more, something unseen.

The same thing can occur in art. Here is a photograph of Michelangelo’s masterpiece, “Pieta.” It depicts the dead Jesus laying across the lap of His mother, Mary. Regardless of your beliefs, the sight of a dead child in the arms of the mother is as a tragic a sight as there can be. As a man, I cannot grasp the depth of the pain that a mother would experience.

And yet, this work is considered to be one of the great works of art. Through it, we witness a great tragedy while at the same time experiencing its overwhelming beauty. How can this be?

The tragedy of the scene is manifold. For the Christian, we see God dead at our hands. All of us, Christian or not, see a man in his early 30s, dead, a life cut short. We also see the grieving mother. While we may not have experienced the loss of a child, likely each of us knows the pain of a life cut short; or, we have experienced loss due to death. Most know what is like to feel the pain and emptiness when someone we love dies: the extraordinary pain of grief that feels as though it is crushing the very life out of us as we struggle simply to take our next breath. Viewing this statue, we relive our own pain as memories flood in; we are filled with empathy for Mary.

And, we see more. In the tragedy of Jesus’ death and Mary’s loss we also see the very essence of what makes us human: love. Without love there is no grief. Mother Mary’s pain is a window into the depth of love. Too, without love, there is no self-sacrifice. Jesus willingly gave up His life for us, that we might be saved from death. Mary would have willingly traded places with her Son. “There is no greater love than to give your life for another,” said Jesus.

Michelangelo speaks to us in the universal language of life, pain, joy, suffering, and death. In this work he shows us the beauty of love is its rawest form. It is as though his work is a portal through which we can see through the tragedy and glimpse true reality beyond this world. And isn’t that the function of true art, whether sculpture, painting, literature, poetry, music…? True art has the power to transform both the tragic and the ordinary into the extraordinary, to give us a glimpse into true reality; it lifts the veil separating the natural from the rest of reality. When art does this, when it succeeds in opening the portal to reveal all of true reality, then it is truly beautiful.

All art is not created equal. Contrast Michelangelo’s work with this photograph of Salvador Dali’s painting of Jesus’ crucifixion (“Corpus Hypercubus”). That is Dali’s wife looking on. Francis Schaefer (Art and the Bible) argues that modern artists no longer use a language common to us all; therefore, he says, without help we cannot know what the artist is trying to say to us. I find this to be true of Dali’s work. I view it and I experience a sense of “wow” at the artwork itself, but I do not experience awe in the depths of my soul that I feel when seeing Michelangelo’s statue.

And this is the problem with art that “wows” us. So much of modern art, for me, either speaks a language I don’t understand without explanation, or seeks to shock me with the tragedy and absurdity of life. “Wow” is like a drug; we constantly need more. It seems like so much of modern art is left to try become increasingly abstract or shocking to satisfy our desire for more “wow.” Too often it is meant to inspire in the viewer anger, cynicism, or despair. Rarely does modern art inspire awe by revealing the beauty often hidden in reality.

For 2000 years the Christian Church has been filled with icons. These icons are not intended to be photo realistic depictions of people or historical events. Icons are a way we can see through the portal and experience God’s Kingdom now. In worship, surrounded by icons, we enter into the reality of the Kingdom of God with Jesus, the angels, and all the saints praying for us and awaiting us. We know we are worshiping God with all of creation. Icons are always beautiful.

What about our day-to-day life?

We each know that life is difficult and it is relentless. Life is too often filled with seemingly senseless tragedy, ours or that of others. I began this blog with Patitsas’ (The Ethics of Beauty) claim that we must find transformative beauty to endure tragedy around us or heal from tragedy that has happened to us. Recall too, above, that St Dionysius said creation willingly left its non-being for being when encountering the love of God, the ultimate Beauty.

For us, we can find beauty in nature and in true art. And, perhaps most importantly we can find it in another place.

Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is within us. Each human, is made in the image of God; therefore, each of us has the potential to be an icon of Jesus, the God-man. When you weep with me in my suffering, laugh with me in my happiness, rejoice with me in my joy, smile at me, offer a kind word, help me when I need help…when you do these things for me, in you I see the Beauty of Christ; in your beauty I see beyond the natural, survival-of-the-fittest world and experience through you the Beauty of Christ’s selflessness toward all of humanity. Through you I experience the Kingdom of God. If I am able to do these things for you, then you, too, can experience God’s Beauty and Kingdom in this life.

The gift of Christ’s Beauty is our greatest gift to each other; this is why we are to told by God to love our neighbor. Through our giving and receiving love we each offer the other the opportunity to gaze upon the Beauty of God and to experience His Kingdom; we remind each other of our moment-by-moment choice to willingly move away from the non-being of our self-centeredness and toward the healing of our soul and body and have fullness of life in the love of God.

St Paul exhorts us to always strive toward Beauty:

I consider [the things I have obtained as] garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him…Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
—Philippian’s 3:8-9, 12-14

Let’s choose Beauty. Choose love. Choose life.

______________________________________________________________________

The Ethics of Beauty—Timothy Patitsas

“Why Beauty Matters”—Roger Scruton

Naturally—Rick Mylander’s reflections on creation and Christian spirituality

Them and Us

22 Tuesday Sep 2020

Posted by CurateMike in Uncategorized

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“Those” people. We each have “them” in our lives. You know who “they” are. “Those” people. “They” are not us.

“They” are the ones that disagree with us politically: “they” are red and we are blue, or we are blue and “they” red. Perhaps “they“ are religious or a particular kind of religious that we find offensive. Maybe “they” are irreligious. Have you noticed that “they” rarely drive as well as we do. “Those” people are the ones who have different ideas from us about sex and relationships and marriage, and “they “ are so blasted insistent on the correctness of “their” views. Often, “they” refuse to live and let live; rather, “they” prefer to tell us what to do or to shove “their” lifestyle down our throats. If only “they” would listen to us and our own good advice for “their” lives.

Sometimes those people are entire people groups. “Their” culture is different: “they” have different music from ours, “they” like different food. Maybe “their” skin is a different color than ours or “their” accent is strange, if “they” even speak our language at all. “They” often don’t look or dress like us. Perhaps “they” are younger than us, or older.

Those people. “They” are all around us, aren’t “they.” Certainly our lives would be better if it weren’t for “them.” Wouldn’t the world be a better place if it weren’t for “them”? If only “they” would listen to us, we could fix “them.” If only “they” were more like us.

C.S. Lewis was a British writer who lived during the first two-thirds of the 1900s. You might know him from the Chronicles of Narnia movies released over the past fifteen years. During a talk in 1942, he said this:

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.
—C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”

Lewis says we have never met a “mere mortal.” Of course! Each of us is made in the image of God and through our cooperation with the work of the Holy Spirit in us, each can be transformed into the likeness of God (Genesis ref). This has been the view of the Christian Church since the beginning. However, Lewis says something else that shouldn’t be overlooked:

All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations.

The destinations to which he refers is Heaven or Hell: our experience the eternal loving presence of God or the eternal torment of the loving presence of God whom we have rejected all of our lives.

Back to “those” people. Lewis is saying to me that I have a hand in making “them” into “those” people. How can that possibly be? In our post-Enlightenment, modernist world, individualism is the governing philosophy. I am autonomous and responsible for me alone. My rational choices determine my life, is the current thinking. So, if you are one of “them,” it is entirely your responsibility, right?

Wrong.

That has never been the case, regardless of what modern philosophers say. And, it has never been the position of the Christian Church.

Take, for example, our current experience of racism in this country. Each of us is influenced and effected by the issue. And, it is not entirely of our making; it is a largely product of our ancestors actions and was handed down to us. While we are not guilty of their sins, not one of us can be fully autonomous and unaffected by the actions of those before us (and around us).

As a Christian, when considering “those” people I must come to grips with the reality that by my sin I have helped make “them” into “those” people, as Lewis said and the Church has known all along.

Remember one of the early examples of Chaos Theory: the minute wind currents created by a butterfly flapping its wings in the southern hemisphere could cause a hurricane in the northern hemisphere. Similarly, my sin against you could start a chain of events that results in a catastrophic event. But, even if it doesn’t, my sin against you adds to the general fallenness of the world in which you and I both live, and it makes life harder for you, even if only in a small way.

What a curious and uncomfortable thing it is to look at one of “them” and think I bear at least some responsibility for their thoughts and actions. It is quite disconcerting, actually.

For many years, the Christian Orthodox Church has held an annual forgiveness service (Forgiveness Vespers). During this service, lines form. The person on the outside says, “Forgive me, a sinner.” The person on the inside replies, “God forgives, and so do I.” Then she asks for forgiveness in turn. The end result of the ceremony is that every person asks forgiveness from every other person present.

This service usually begins with nervous laughter and ends with tears and an overwhelming sense of God’s mercy on us all. There is a powerful sense of spiritual cleanliness.

From a Christian Orthodox prayer book:

For all the sins of men I repent before You, O Most Merciful Lord. Indeed, the seed of all sins flows in my blood! With my effort and Your mercy I choke this wicked crop of weeds day and night, so that no tare may sprout in the field of the Lord, but only pure wheat…For all the history of mankind from Adam to me, a sinner, I repent; for all history is in my blood. For I am in Adam and Adam is in me.
— St. Nikolai Velimirovic, Prayers by the Lake

The next time you encounter one of “them,” or even one of “us,” remember this prayer. And remember, as C.S. Lewis said, above, no one, them or us, is a mere mortal.

Forgive me, a sinner.

Yet, God

17 Friday Jul 2020

Posted by CurateMike in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Patience, Waiting on God

YET, adverb

Still; the state remaining the same.
Still; in a new degree.

(Websters Dictionary—1828)

Yet. It’s a good, little word. Webster says it can be used as two different forms: as a conjunction (joining thoughts) or as an adverb (modifier). As an adverb, it can have eight different meanings, according to Mr Webster. Two are listed, above.

In Psalm 74 (Greek Septuagint—73) the writer laments the absence of God. “Oh God, why have You rejected us forever?” The hyperbole emphasizes the anguish to follow. The enemy, we read, has destroyed the sanctuary of God, defiling all the Jews held sacred. The enemy intends to subdue the chosen people of God. Into the seeming void shouts the writer, “Where are You, God?”

And then, in the midst of his crumbling world, he says something remarkable: “Yet, God is my King from old.”

The bad guys have overrun us…yet, God…
The enemy has burned down the Temple…yet, God…
We are to be enslaved…yet, God…
There is no sign of You, Lord…yet, God…

Faith and trust in God when all around is crumbling.

Fast forward hundreds of years.

He said He was God. They saw Him perform miracles, so many miracles: the blind see, the deaf hear, demons cast out, nature tamed, and dead people brought back to life. Then, He was hanging on a cross, then dead, then laid in the tomb. His followers huddled together, afraid. It seemed as though evil had won. Did they shout into the seeming void, “Where are You, God?”

The bad guys captured Jesus…yet, God….
The enemy killed Him…yet, God…
He is in the tomb and in Hades…yet, God…

Faith and trust in God when all around us is crumbling.

Two thousand years later.

A virus is running amok among us. States, once United, are now Red or Blue. Lives don’t matter: Black, unborn, or old. There are too many #MeToos to count. Politicians seek the upper hand rather than solutions. Russia, China, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, the Middle East, Central and South America, Africa—all hot spots of challenge or unrest or both. Do you shout into the seeming void, “where are You, God?”

Unemployment is high…yet, God…
National elections are coming…yet, God…
Western culture has dis-invited God…yet, God…

Yet, God. Two words. Six letters. One comma.

Yet, God is my king from old.

Faith and trust in God when all around us is crumbling.

The Role of Tradition

25 Tuesday Oct 2016

Posted by CurateMike in Church, Journey, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Church, Jesus, Reformers, Tradition

My job recently had me in a hotel at the location of “the big game” of the college football weekend. Both schools have a long tradition in college football. Both schools are ranked in the Top 10. Both schools are undefeated. This game has implications for the images-1 eventual college national championship.

The town is full of supporters from both schools and there is quite a palpable energy in everyone I meet who is associated with either school. In each camp there is a shared experience among alumni that transcends age, gender, race, and ethnicity. Strangers become friends as they share in something bigger than they each are.

My Dad attended one of the schools, so I have a favorite in the game; however, I am not really vested in the game. In fact, I’m quite outside of the experience of those around me, unable to really connect even were I to wear the team logo. I am outside the experience because I never shared the experience of the traditions of my Dad’s school; I am not part of its history and its history is not in me. I am not a continuation of the stories of the people who attended, the heroes and anti-heroes and just plain folk. It is the shared experience of the tradition makes the community and the community passes on the traditions.

Every strong culture has its long-held traditions. These cultures can be as diverse as ethnic groups, religious groups, colleges, military branches or units, and even gangs…each, if it is a strong community, has traditions that are kept by the community and passed on to willing participants by the community. One’s participation in the established cultural tradition is the way one becomes part of the community.

In 1943, C.S.Lewis published a book entitled The Abolition of Man in which he critiqued the English educational system breaking from passing on tradition. He said:

[Previous generations of educators] did not cut men to some pattern they had chosen. They handed on what they had received: they initiated the young neophyte into the mystery of humanity which over-arched him and them alike. It was but old birds teaching young birds to fly.

Lewis’ point: without the educators “handing on what they had received,” our understanding of what it is to be human would diminish to the point abolishment.

In the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia and tried to remake the Cambodian culture with mass killings. They instituted Zero Year in which they determined to destroy or discard all Cambodian tradition and begin anew (beginning with year zero) from scratch. Like the communist re-education camps, their aim was to remake culture by abolishing the old.

The central pole in the Christian tent is that of our becoming. We are to partake of God’s divine nature, to become one with Him as the Three, Father, Son and Spirit, are one. An early saying of the Church was that we are becoming by Grace what God is by nature. To be a Christian is not just to have a “personal relationship with Christ” but to become part of the body of Christ, which is the Church. The Church must be a faithful keeper and transmitter of the tradition of the community. To be part of this community and to experience its fullness, you must experience life within the community. There is no other way to “become” like Christ. From within our engagement with the Church, the Way, the Truth, and the Life is transmitted to us.

In western Protestant Christianity, tradition has gotten a bad rap. I grew up in a small Midwestern town. There was one “parochial” school, a Catholic elementary school. Some of my friends had to eat fish on Fridays (this was in the days prior to Vatican II). In my Protestant Church I learned about the heroes of the Reformation and how they rescued the faith from “those Catholics” who, among other things, held to tradition.

And yet, Protestant Churches have their own traditions. Alter calls, the “sinners prayer,” Sunday worship as a song followed by a time of greeting then two more songs then a forty minute sermon and a closing song…all tradition. We simply cannot “become” without tradition even if we have to reform them.

Now, imagine following Jesus around during His time of ministry. Think of what you would have seen, learned, and experienced about what it was to live as a Christian. Imagine seeing Jesus’ mother, Mary, to observe up close the day-to-day life of the one “highly favored” and chosen by God. “Arghhh,” we might says we looked at our own lives, “that is what it looks like to live as a highly favored one of God!” Imagine following Peter or Paul…wouldn’t you be immersed so much more in the ways of living a life of Christ than had they simply tossed you a book to read!

The cry of the Reformers was Sola Scriptura, Scripture alone. And yet from Scripture alone the reformers, Luther, Zwingli, then Calvin, could not agree on a central dogma of Christianity: the Eucharist. Something more than Scripture must be needed.

Scripture itself is a product of tradition and is foremost among the traditions. Scripture we have today was finally determined because the Churches of the 300s were all generally reading the same writings. In other words, the canon of Scripture we now have simply came from the Church leaders recognition that these were the traditional books being read. And, the Church members agreed to keep reading them.

Now some will argue that Jesus was angered by tradition. He is sometimes referred to as a rebel because He was no fan of some of the Jewish tradition of His day. “Woe to you…hypocrites…” were His words to those who had created tradition in the name of religion that they might enhance their own power and stature. But He also followed tradition, engaging in the manner of worship common during His time.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” His life is the way of Christian life in as much as we are able to follow Him in our fallenness. The Apostles received this life of the Father from Christ through the Spirit. They who succeeded the Apostles passed on this way of life to the next generation (Paul: “I give to you what I received by tradition…”), and they to the next, to the next, to the next…down to us. We inherit a way of life from within the Church: a community formed by Tradition, that keeps the Tradition, and passes on the Tradition.

Andrew Louth, in his book, Discerning the Mystery, suggest this:

…ultimately the tradition of the Church is the Spirit, that what is passed on from age to age in the bosom of the Church is the Spirit, making us sons in the Son, enabling us to call on the Father, and thus share in the communion of the Trinity.

By distancing ourselves from Tradition we have lost our way. There are tens of thousands of Christian denominations in the world, each claiming to have the right interpretation of Scripture. We are not the “one, holy, apostolic church” of our early creed and I don’t think we can reformulate the meaning into a spiritual oneness rather than a physical oneness. I believe Jesus meant what He said when He told us we were one. Paul, too, said we were to be one Church, one body of Christ. How can we hope to show others the truth of God if we cannot settle on it ourselves.

From Tevye (Fiddler on the Roof):

But here, in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn’t easy. You may ask ‘Why do we stay up there if it’s so dangerous?’ Well, we stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: tradition!

Tens of thousands of denominations, the Church is indeed losing her balance. What is the path forward? Tevye says it: Holy Tradition. That which was received by the Apostles and passed on is still in practice today. Come home and see.

If you want to read more, you might enjoy these articles:

Scripture and Tradition

Teaching the Tradition

Land of the Free

10 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by CurateMike in Journey, Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
“Star Spangled Banner”

As a country, we just celebrated our 240th anniversary. And, during these centuries, as a country we have upheld personal freedom as a primary value.

As a “child of the 60’s,” I remember the freedom movements driven by our desire to throw off authority and live more freely (“Tune in, turn on, and drop out”; “Don’t trust anyone over 30”). In our country today, we are seeing the logical extension of that youthful drive for freedom in that not only can one marry regardless of gender, but one can now self-determine one’s gender.

From that beginning in my formative years, personal freedom has remained a big part of my life. Growing up believing I could be anything I wanted to be, I have had four different “career” types of jobs. I have lived in nine different states. I even eschewed having kids believing they would only inhibit my personal freedom.

The Church herself has not been exempt from our human drive for this kind of freedom. In the 11th century, the Patriarch of Rome broke away from the other Patriarchs of the One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church over a disagreement regarding the nature of the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Great Schism separated what we now call the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. Five hundred years later, Luther and Zwingli sought additional freedoms and turned their backs on the authority of Rome and the Traditions of the both the Roman Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, and Protestantism was born. Now, there are thousands of denominations within Protestantism.

No Freedom in Freedom
Jazz great Branford Marsalis has been quoted as saying about playing Jazz: “You don’t play what you feel. There’s only freedom in structure, my man. There’s no freedom in freedom.”

As I look back over my life, now being closer to the end than the beginning, I can see the effect of my avoiding some of the traditional structure of life and trying to find “freedom in freedom.” As I have flittered about trying this and that, I now find I have few generational “family traditions” and no one to pass them on to. I have no life-long friends. What I had always thought was “personal freedom” now appears to me more like self-induced slavery.

I see a parallel in my journey with God, as well. I worked for a time as a pastor of a small, but mainstream Protestant denomination. I felt as though I was working hard for God, but my relationship with Him was stagnated. After a time I found myself in physical and emotional anguish, longing for a deeper relationship with Him. I didn’t know how to pursue such a relationship. I knew to engage in some of the ancient practices, such as fasting, but I was unsure how. For example, I knew it is biblically important to fast, but I often wondered how much fasting was enough. Was it just up to me to decide how much and when to fast? I began to read various authors, but I couldn’t understand what made this author or that author the expert on a fasting rule? Some simply said to “let the the Holy Spirit guide you.” I discovered that the “voice of the Spirit” can sound an awful lot like mine!

Then I found others with a similar longing for God. Before long I was deeply engaged in the Protestant spiritual formation and spiritual direction movements. These were–and still are–wonderful movements based on practices of the ancient Church. Their intent is to help participants move toward a deeper relationship with Christ.

As part of this work, I was meeting regularly with a couple of groups of local pastors and lay leaders from various Protestant denominations. We were trying to develop the path toward a deeper relationship with God that we could offer to churches. Reading books, developing spiritual community, meetings with a spiritual director, a deepening prayer life, engaging in the spiritual disciplines, and spiritual retreats were all part of the path we developed.

At the same time I became trained as a Spiritual Director. I would meet one-on-one with others who were seeking a deeper relationship with God. I would offer them the path my colleagues and I were discovering. I was helping to lead spiritual retreats across the country, introducing others to this path we had found.

Wandering in a Desert
After a few years, my work with these groups and my attempts to spiritually guide others left me feeling even more lost. In my research, I discovered that a number of organizations were publishing books on the path they had discovered. It felt just like the rise of “denominationalism” all over again! Ours was just one more path among many.

I began to wonder whether the freedom to worship God as I wanted was not freedom at all. I found Marsalis’ words true; there was no freedom in my personal freedom to follow the worship path I had found with others. There were too many choices, too many authors, too many individual ways to worship. What made me think my way was God’s way?

Worse yet, I was discovering that I could no longer give guidance to those I was supposed to be directing toward a deeper relationship with God…all I could offer was the smorgasbord of choices I had found myself. Without knowing why, I began to feel like I was operating outside of the Church. You know the church, that Spirit-filled body of Christ Paul talks about. Did it even exist anymore in that sense, I wondered.

I stopped giving spiritual guidance. I stopped leading retreats. I stopped blogging.

Old Testament and New Worship
Our God is a God of order and structure. Reading through the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch), one easily sees that God gave the Jews a structure for worship. In these books He is attentive to the smallest detail in the order and manner of worship of Him. The Jews were not free to worship Him as they saw fit. God new there was no freedom in freedom, so He gave them plenty of structure.

On that first Sunday morning after Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was given to the Church, the Apostles and earliest Church members did not create a worship experience from a blank page. After all, they were Jews. Instead, they began to modify the structured worship of their Jewish tradition based on God’s revelation of Jesus, the God-man. Psalms were still sung. Scripture was still read and interpreted, but from the perspective of the revealed Christ. Sacrifice still continued, but no longer animal sacrifice. Instead, they partook of the sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God: the Eucharist. In short, they maintained the long traditions of the original Jewish “Church” but now modified and interpreted through the revelation of Christ.

The Ancient Path
Thus says the Lord: “Stand in the ways and see, and ask about the eternal pathways of the Lord. See what the good way is and walk in it. Here you will find purification for your souls.” (Jeremiah 6:16)

Over time, the Church, that Spirit-filled body of Christ made up of monastics, ordained clergy, and laity, have been led by God onto the path toward oneness with Him. And that path is a way life. It is a life of prayer, fasting, and alms giving, a life of participating in the sacraments of the Church, and a life of liturgical worship. It is not a path on which one picks and chooses as one individually desires; there is no freedom in that kind of freedom. Rather, as Marsalis suggests, it is a path of freedom within structure, a structure provided by 2000 years of the Spirit-indwelled Church.

After years of searching, I have finally found freedom in worship. It came not from pursuing my own path to communion with God; rather, it came from beginning to give up my personal freedom and worshipping God from within the structure of the “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church,” as we say in the Nicene Creed. No longer do I need to try and decide how I think is best to worship God.

It is a very new path for me. I’ve only been on it for a few years. I still do not give spiritual guidance. I still do not lead retreats. But, I may blog a little if only, and this has always been the primary reason for this blog, to help me think.

curacy

~ thoughts from the desert

Category Archives: Uncategorized

I Can Only Imagine

Choosing Sides

What If…

Beauty

Them and Us

Yet, God

The Role of Tradition

Land of the Free