Tag Archives: Trinity

I Am Number One

30 Sunday Aug 2020

Posted by in All, Journey, Prayer

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This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.
—Apostle Paul in a letter to St Timothy (1Timothy 1:15)

I believe, O Lord, and I confess that You are truly the Christ, the Son of the living God, who came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.
—From a Christian (Eastern) Orthodox Pre-Communion Prayer

Prior to receiving communion, many Christians pray the pre-communion prayer, above, in which each pray-er claims to be “the chief of all sinners.” In other words, as I pray this prayer, I claim that “I am the number one sinner of all time.” That is saying a lot; it is quite a claim for one’s self.

Now, I can certainly say this prayer with a prideful heart and with false humility with the intent of garnering either praise from you for my remarkable piety (“Wow, you really are a very religious person!”), or to seek a compliment from you (“Awww, you really are a great person; don’t be so hard on yourself.”)

Presume for a moment, however, that I mean it sincerely, “I am the chief of all sinners.”  Can that really be true?  Let’s make a simple comparison.  Consider the following dictators and the deaths attributed to them and their respective regimes:

  • Mao Zedong (China): 31 million deaths
  • Adolf Hitler (Nazi Germany): 19 million deaths
  • Joseph Stalin (Russia): 9 million deaths

Does that seem an unfair comparison? Certainly I’m not that bad. Then how about an average mass murderer who might only kill tens of people. Am I really a worse sinner than that?

What about my friend who cheats on his taxes?  Am I worse than that?

At some point, as I compare my sins to the sins of others, likely I can find a place to rank myself among them, which means that I’m not really the chief of sinners; maybe I’m just an average sinner, no better or worse than most people I know.

Here’s another story from the Bible, a story Jesus tells of two men: one a religious leader and the other a hated tax collector (Luke 18:9-14).  The tax collector, realizing how sinful he is, won’t even look upwards to Heaven; rather, he cries out to God for mercy.  Nearby, the religious man thanks God that he is not as bad as those robbers and tax collectors because he does many good, religious things (praying, fasting, giving money, etc.).  Which man does Jesus praise?  The tax collector.

So, it strikes me that if I try to rank myself—I’m not as bad as Hitler but not as good as Mother Teresa—I am like the religious man in the story, above, the man that Jesus condemns.

Jesus wants me to be like the tax collector…so, in that light, what does it mean for me to say, “I’m the chief of all sinners”?  It means just that: I’m the worst of the lot…I’m the worst sinner of all humankind, past, present, and future.  

This doesn’t mean I’m a worse person than everyone else; no, we are all created equal and in the image of God.  However, I am the worse sinner of all.

Yes, God forgives sins for those who repent of them. Not only does He forgive, but He removes our sins from us “as far as the East is from the West” (Psalm 103:12).  So, for me to be the worst sinner must also mean I am the least repentant, which puts my eternal salvation in danger.  

Here is another story. Many years ago (~AD250-350) there lived a man who gave away his fortune to live in the desert of Egypt to seek God. Today, we know him as St. Anthony. One day, after living in the desert for many years, Anthony was in prayer when he heard a voice:
“Anthony! You have still not achieved the worth of the leather tanner who lives in Alexandria.” The next morning Anthony got himself to Alexandria and went to the leather tanner pointed out to him and said: “Tell me of your deeds, because I came here from the desert for this reason.” The leather tanner was greatly surprised at the saint’s request and answered him humbly: “I do not know about me, whether I did anything good. For this reason I get up early from bed, and rather than leaving for work, I say to myself: all the inhabitants of this city, from the greatest to the least, will enter the Kingdom of God for their virtuous deeds, but I alone will go unto eternal tortures for my sins. And these words I repeat in my heart before I go to sleep.” Upon hearing this, Anthony answered: “Truly, my son, you, a skilled craftsman sitting quietly in his home, have gained the Kingdom of God; but I, although I have spent my whole life in the desert, yet I have not gained spiritual wisdom, I have not reached the level of consciousness that you express with your words.”

From this story, not only am I the chief of all sinners, but I should believe that all of you will enter the Kingdom of God and only I will not because of my poor repentance. Or, in the words of other saints over the centuries, “All will be saved, only I will be lost.”

In a previous blog I wrote of our contemplating the Beauty of God. So, for me to say, “All will be saved, only I will be lost” is not to engage in unhealthy, self condemnation; rather, it is the natural result of seeing my own wretchedness in the light of God’s perfect Beauty. It is me recognizing that I have nothing to commend in and of myself. Therefore, I cannot see your sins, I cannot judge you because I become so aware of my own sin. I am the worst of all sinners. I can’t justify my thoughts or my behavior by comparing myself to you or anyone else because there is no one worse than me.

Let me be as practical as I can. It doesn’t matter what is the color of your skin. It doesn’t matter who or what you call your god. It doesn’t matter whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, whether you are Democrat, Republican, or something else. It doesn’t matter whether you are straight or one or more of the LGBTQ+ letters. It doesn’t matter whether you are in prison for a small crime or a heinous crime. It doesn’t matter your addiction of choice. It doesn’t matter how you treated your significant other or your kids or your friends today. It does’t matter what you are thinking of doing tomorrow. I am a worse sinner than you. I am THE worst sinner of all.

What do I do with this realization?  How do I cope with this understanding of myself?

Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.

—St. Paul the Apostle; 2Corinthians 7:10

St. Porphyrious tells me I can respond to this realization in one of two ways. First, I can let it drive me into despondency. I can beat myself up for every failure to live up to God’s standard. I can become so self-critical that I become useless; worse, joyless. This is unhealthy shame. It is “worldly sorrow” (2Corinthians 7:10) and is from Satan. The second, better response is from God. It drives me to prayer and to deeper, continual repentance and confession. I don’t wallow in my sinful act, nor do I relive it; rather, I confess it, repent of it, and move past it trusting in God’s forgiveness (which means I must forgive myself!). This is healthy shame; it brings humility. It is the “Godly sorrow” (2Corinthians 7:10) which brings me to repentance and gives me the joy of Jesus. It drives me onward and upward toward God and His beauty.

Returning to St. Paul the Apostle and his claim to be the chief of all sinners. In another letter he goes on to say:
I do not count myself as have attained Jesus’ perfection; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14).

This is the better way to which God exhorts us. By becoming our own harshest accusers, there is no more Satan can do to us. I accuse myself before God before Satan can. As the realization of me being the “chief of sinners” becomes part of who I am, as it was with St Paul and the leather tanner, above, I trust I will take on the humility of Christ. I trust I will begin to love and serve others who are my “betters.” I trust I will more readily cry out to God for His mercy, as did the tax collector and the leather tanner, which is the best prayer of all.

Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

–The ancient “Jesus Prayer”

From Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion:
[This is] the one perspective by which the Christian is allowed to think of universal salvation [that all will go to Heaven]: “all will be saved, only I will perish.” It flows from the inner spiritual experience of a [person] deeply conscious of [one’s] sinfulness and brought to repentance for [one’s] own sins and imperfection. Such repentance necessarily includes thoughts of eternal torments, not for others, but for oneself, as well as the hope for salvation, not for oneself, but for everyone else.

It is our transformation into Christlikeness and His humility through the power of Holy Spirit and the Church that gives witness to our faith.

Social Justice and The Great Divide

18 Tuesday Aug 2020

Posted by in Social Justice

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It seems like a trivially obvious observation to say that the US is a country divided.  Politics, religion, entertainment, racial issues, sports, poverty, fashion, taxation…and, of course, face masks…everywhere one turns there seems opportunity to express our disagreement with another.

For the purposes of this post, I am interested in the divide over social justice: how we treat others.  I want to think about the division at the national policy level and at the personal level.

I came across an interesting way to think of our division in the approach to social justice in Timothy Patitsas’ recent book, The Ethics of Beauty.  Patitsas claims that in the “old world” (pre-Enlightment period) it was widely accepted that there were two, competing methods of approaching social justice.

First, there is the “you get what you fairly deserve,” pull yourself up by our own bootstraps, meaning.  This is the equal opportunity meaning: everyone has the chance to make it, so what you fairly get in life is directly related to what you make of your opportunity.  This might be considered pure capitalism.

The second meaning is that the benefits and rewards of society should be distributed fairly among all, that “no one is left behind.”  This is the equal outcome meaning: everyone should fairly receive in the distribution of societal benefits and rewards based on needs regardless of their effort.  This might be considered pure socialism.

The first meaning, equal opportunity, is in fact built into the DNA of the USA.  Our Declaration of Independence says people are created equal and each has the unalienable right of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  After all, the American narrative is that we are the land of the free where everyone has the opportunity to make it, to achieve the “American Dream.”

Yet, the Statue of Liberty says something about equal outcome, and that is also part of the DNA of the USA:

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

The implication of this is that we are a country that throws open our borders and freely shares what we have with the less fortunate.

In reality, the ideal of “equal opportunity is just that, an ideal.  Philosophers talk of something called “moral luck.”  Whether we are born with physical or mental challenges, make decisions that turn out poorly,  born to bad parents, or are struck down by “accidents,” these are the kinds of things that effect our lives that are simply beyond our control.  This is what is meant by moral luck.  It is these things we refer to as our “baggage,” and we all have baggage!

So, we need both methods…each of us must pull our own weight as we can while realizing that because of moral luck all of us need some help and some of us will always need help.

Patitsas, drawing on the work of a number of other scholars, notes that these two conflicting methods of social justice have existed throughout human civilization.  Some of us are drawn to one method or the other and many of us are somewhere along the continuum between the two extremes.  While there can seem like an insurmountable divide between these two competing methods, in truth, both are needed.  Extreme “equal opportunity” is heartless and cruel.  Extreme “equal outcome” is mindless and enabling.

Throughout history a third, mediating force was sometimes present to bring these two competing views into balance: the Christian Church bringing the love of Christ.  At its historical best, the State and the Church worked together (e.g., symphonia in the Byzantine Empire) to let the love of Christ balance equal opportunity with equal outcome to approach Christ-like social justice.

At the national policy-making level in the USA, we have separated Church and State.  We have strayed from the intent of the country’s founders and moved away from a Judeo-Christian based value system (Oz Guinness, A Free People’s Suicide).  Hence, there is no third way readily available to help us find balance in our approach to social justice; rather, we are left with only a power based approach focused primarily on the either/or of equal opportunity and equal outcome.

Governments and Churches can seem like big, impersonal institutions.   Trying to solve the nation problem of unjust social justice can seem overwhelming.  National policies, while often necessary, are sweeping scope and take their aim at humanity rather than at individual humans.  So, I want to look at social justice from a personal perspective.

Join me in a “thought experiment”:  I am walking in the city and I come across a homeless person asking for money.  This person seems mostly like your average, normal, healthy person, just dirty and asking for money.  I notice they are standing near a storefront with a help wanted sign in the window.  What will I do?  I wonder to myself, “Do they really need a helping hand (equal outcome) or do they simply not want to work (equal opportunity)?”  The internal debate begins: Should I give them some money?  Should I exercise “tough love” and point at the storefront sign and say, “get a job”?  I am at war within myself.  I need the same third mediating force: the love of Christ.

There is no one-size-fits-all response to homeless people, to continue this example, even with public policy.  Here are two biblical stories to make my point.  In the first story, a woman is caught in adultery by Jewish leaders and brought to Jesus with the expectation that He will condemn her to death by stoning (John 8:1-11).  Note that the man was not brought to Jesus, only the woman.  Jesus first turns the table on her accusers and says, “Let the one of you with no sin throw the first stone at her.”  When the accusers sheepishly leave, Jesus turns to the woman and says, “Go and sin no more.”  That’s all He says.  He doesn’t offer her counseling, or console her over the injustice of the man being unaccused, or even give her a sympathetic shoulder.  No, He gives her an impossible command: “Go and sin no more” and sends her away. That is very tough love.

In the second story, Jesus meets a woman who in the heat of the day has come to the local well to get water (John 4:1-42).  She has two culturally shameful things against her: She is a Samaritan, a second class citizen in Jewish society; and she has been married five times and is now living with a guy, which is why she is getting water in the heat of the day…even her fellow Samaritan’s don’t want to have anything to do with her.  To her, Jesus speaks very kindly and offers her the path to eternal life; further, he tells her explicitly who He is (God!), which He rarely did with anyone.

Two women, both in the wrong, and both given very different responses from Jesus.  Because He is God (all knowing and loving), we must assume His responses were designed exactly to bring about the best for each woman.  There are many similar stories in the Bible…one answer to social justice clearly does not fit all circumstances. 

These stories of Jesus remind me of the great golf teacher, Harvey Penick.  He was a master at teaching someone the game of golf, not because he molded his students into a one-size-fits-all approach to golf, but because he saw and taught each student as an individual.  As evidence, he would not let another golfer observe the lesson he gave a student because what he told the student was designed exactly for them and no other.  He worried that the observer would take instruction not meant for them and try to apply it tho their game.  Penick, like Jesus in the stories above, told each person exactly what they individually needed to hear.

It is so easy for us to use the Bible or the sayings of the early church fathers or writings of saints to find a one-size-fits-all answer in the application of our approach to social justice.  However, to balance the right solutions between equal opportunity and equal outcome to the current problems of social justice requires that we see others around us as individual persons, not just as faceless “humanity.

Jesus walked everywhere.  He moved at 3 miles per hour, which means he saw the person in front of him.  Each of us needs to slow down and see the person in front of us, our “neighbor,” and to love them as Jesus does.  Me, one-on-one with you—there is no male or female, black or white, Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal or progressive—rather, there is only you and me, each made in the image of God and infinitely precious to Him.  But, to love you as God loves you means I have to love God and draw ever nearer to Him in a loving relationship.  Only in this way can I begin to love you like Christ does and offer you social justice as God would.

Drawing ever closer toward oneness with Jesus is the divine goal for humankind (John 17:3, 25-26; 2Peter 1:4).  It was Jesus’ goal for the two women.  We should want it for ourselves and for each other.  This is real social justice.  Oneness with God is what the Church calls, theosis.

So, my best response to the current problems of unjust social justice is to begin with me.  I must draw closer to Jesus.  If I do otherwise, then I only add to the problems in the world.  St. Seraphim of Sarov said, “Aquire the Spirit of Peace (Holy Spirit) and a thousand around you will be saved.”  Only by my putting forth some effort and myreceivingthe undeserved kindness of God can I acquire His Spirit.  And only then can I begin to see you and to respond to you, my neighbor, and to love you as an individual just as Jesus loves both of us.  God’s love is the only way to mediate between equal opportunity and equal outcome.

In reality there is no great divide on the issue of social justice, there is only the love of God for all of us.

Deeper into the Desert

24 Sunday May 2015

Posted by in All, Journey

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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.

“Little Giddings”
(No. 4 of “Four Quartets”)
T.S. Eliot

I started this blog nearly three years ago as a way of publicly recording my wanderings in the desert with God. I fancied myself as a western Poustinik…one called into the desert by God and whom would then periodically return with a message for the village. Being a Poustinik felt like my role in the church in which I was an associate pastor.

There have been significant changes in my life since I started writing here, changes which have included two major job changes and a move to another state. Perhaps you notice from the dates of the blog entries that I have only posted twice in the last year. Circumstances in my life have brought me to a point of working out of the vocational pastorate. But, that is not why my blogging has greatly decreased.

Over the past couple of years I have been discovering Eastern Orthodoxy. That journey has culminated (can one use that word with a journey that is really just beginning?) with me and my wife being received into the Church on Holy Saturday. We have finally come home.

We have seen the true light! We have received the heavenly Spirit! We have found the true Faith! Worshipping the undivided Trinity, who has saved us.

This is from a prayer sung during the Liturgy. The Orthodox believe the fullness of the faith–the fullness of God–is found by participating in the ancient Church. I’m not going to try to defend that statement; I don’t feel a need to. I simply believe it is true because the Church Herself proclaims it. I am experiencing it.

The Orthodox also believe that God is incomprehensible, but that you have the know Him to know that. Like Eliot’s poem, I have been exploring God for many years now, including sixty hours of formal, post graduate study. With Eliot’s traveller, I feel like I have arrived back at the beginning of my exploration: an infant in Christ.

The Orthodox Divine Liturgy is the very real journey from this world into the kingdom of God itself worshipping the Trinity with all the heavenly hosts, and then returning to this world. In my participation in this journey I have realized that I am only beginning to glimpse the incomprehensibility of God, only beginning to realize just how little I know Him and His revealed nature.

Before Him, before the men and women past and present who have given their lives to Him in a way that is so far beyond anything I have done I simply have nothing to say. Rather, I need to be quiet and listen and experience God through Him and His worldly saints.

I pray God draws me deeper into the desert, deeper into Him. Perhaps I’ll write here again here one day. Only God knows.

Choose Life

13 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by in All, Life

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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)

The Cell

12 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by in All, Life

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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.

Rewards in Heaven

31 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in Heaven and Hell

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…anyone who comes to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. (Biblical book of Hebrews, c11, v6)

 Rewards in heaven.  The Bible is clear that there will be rewards in heaven.  Since the rewards are in heaven, then it seems clear that the reward is more than making it to heaven itself.  So, should we make of these rewards?

Some believe the rewards will be tangible, material things.  For example, read the following verse:

In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. (Jesus, The Gospel of John, c14, v2)

Some Christians, using this verse, imagine the rewards in heaven will be a house, sometimes we use the word “mansion” found in some biblical translations.  To demonstrate our humility, we say something like, “I don’t care if I live in an outhouse as long as I am in heaven.”  We say it as a joke; however, in my conversations with Christians it seems clear that many are expecting some sort of tangible gift from God as a reward.

I think that this is dangerous thinking for at least three reasons.  First of all, we can turn God into Santa Clause.  ”God knows,” according to this thinking, “who has been naughty or nice.”  He will check his list twice and give me a present corresponding to my degree of goodness.  Therefore, if I am particularly saintly (usually as defined by the individual) I will find a big mansion waiting for me when I get to heaven.

Second, we turn following Jesus into a competition.  Talk of mansions or other tangible rewards invites a response of our competitive nature.  While we would never say it outright, we easily imagine ourselves living in a mansion larger or smaller than an other.

Third, recall a Christmas morning as a child.  You have been anticipating a particular present for perhaps months.  Finally, the morning arrives and you rip open the package to find the very gift for which you have longed.  For the next hours, days, or perhaps weeks, it is the center of your life.  Yet, eventually you set aside the gift for increasingly longer periods until one day you discover it in the attic, now only a fond reminder of a happy past.

I suspect that a material reward in heaven would be the same.  How far along the long corridor of eternal time will I travel before my mansion becomes passé?  I know myself to well.  It will not take long.

If our rewards are not material in nature, then what are they?  What should we expect when we get to heaven?  Jesus tells us.  He says that eternal life is knowing the true God (Father) and Jesus Himself.  The “knowing” spoken of by Jesus is the deepest, most intimate knowing possible between two beings…a mysterious union.  It is not “knowing about”; rather, it is the knowing that comes from living life with an other.  This level of intimacy does not come from a casual life together; rather, it is the result of a life of intention together through all the good times and the messy times, wanting the best for the other.

If this idea of spending an eternity to get to know God seems foreign to you, you are not alone.  In our consumerist Western culture we measure success in terms of material things, including money; perhaps you remember the old bumper sticker, “He who dies with the most toys wins.”  Also, in our world of social media, our idea of knowing people has become more about “friending” an other than expending the time and energy and commitment it takes to really know the other.

Let me propose something to you with a question.  What if our rewards in heaven is based on relationship and not materialism?  What if my reward is to finally come face-to-face with the God I love?

Certainly even in this there are “levels” of reward.  Imaging running into an acquaintance after some years.  It will likely be a nice reunion.  Contrast that with two lovers reunited after a similar period of separation.  The latter brings a sense of happiness and feeling of fulfillment, a greater “reward” than the former.

I believe it will be similar with God.  Once I am able to see His face will it be as an acquaintance or as a lover?  Don’t hear me speaking disparagingly of only being acquainted with God.  This may be as far as we have progressed in our journey with Him.  However, it would be sad if I had the chance for a deeper relationship with God and didn’t want more.

I believe that this is what God wants for us and with us.  Our Trinitarian viewpoint provides us with an image of a God of three persons—Father, Son, Spirit—who are eternally outward focused and other centered.  God is love, after all.  We were created to be in loving union with Him.  Our union with Him is a reward for Him, too, as He joins with us, His beloved daughters and sons.

If I’m right and if eternal life is to be in a loving relationship with God, to know Him in the most intimate sense, then why wait?  Why not start now so that when you get to heaven you will run into the arms of the one you most love.  What better reward could there be?

The Glory of God and Abraham Maslow

07 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by in All, Trust

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God then told Elijah, “Get out of here, and fast. Head east and hide out at the Kerith Ravine on the other side of the Jordan River. You can drink fresh water from the brook; I’ve ordered the ravens to feed you.”  Elijah obeyed God’s orders. He went and camped in the Kerith canyon on the other side of the Jordan. And sure enough, ravens brought him his meals, both breakfast and supper, and he drank from the brook.

Biblical book, 1Kings, ch 17, verses 2-6

In 1943, American psychologist Abraham Maslow published a work asserting that humans are motivated by an ascending set of needs.  It is sometimes represented by a triangle with our most basic needs, our physiological needs, at the bottom and moving up towards our highest need, self-actualization.

maslow-need-hierarchy

While I doubt that the complexity of human behavior and motivation can be boiled down to a few simple categories, my own recent experience of needing has gotten me thinking about trusting God with respect to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Then, in my mind I contrasted my degree of trust in God at Level 5 with my imagined trust at Level 1, physiological needs.  Trusting in God for my next bite of food or drink of water seemed in my imagination to require a deeper, more radical kind of trust than that at Level 5.  Certainly achieving some level of self-actualization is not as life-or-death as one’s need for food and water.  Could God really be trusted at this level?

I first began wondering whether the strength of my trust in God was somehow related to the stage of need in my life as represented by Maslow.  For example, if I felt the four lower needs were met and I was striving for Level 5, self-actualization, I might find it easy–casual might be a better word–to trust God.  As I cried out to him to become who He created me to be, I could console myself in the fact that He is indeed at work in me, but that becoming my true self is at least a lifelong journey.  I found could relax a bit because the lower needs were met.

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

Then a very old saint, Irenaeus, came to mind.  “For the glory of God is a living man; and the life of man consists of beholding God,” he said nearly nineteen centuries ago (Against Heresies, 4.20.7).  Then in my mind the pyramid representing Maslow flipped on its head and disintegrated.  I exist because God wanted to share with me His loving life within the Trinitarian community–the magnificent relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Regaining unity with the Christian God is the recognized goal of one’s life with God and, in that, God is glorified as we become who we are created to be: His children who behold Him and join in loving relationship with Him.

For the maturing Christian, the needs of physiology, safety, socializing, and esteem increasingly take a back seat to actualization.  However, it is not Maslow’s self-actualization in the sense of a self-help project I undertake for myself.  It is quite the contrary.  The journey toward actualization–to being reunited with God–”is not a question of merits but of co-operation, of a synergy of two wills, divine and human” (Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church).  I join in with what God is doing in me.

Here is where the life of a Christian becomes so contrary to what we grasp by our senses and what we know in our minds: that we must take care of, or someone must provide for first our basic needs and then our subsequent needs for us finally to be happy and fulfilled.  No.

The Christian life is my turning “towards God of [my] own free will and with all [my] longing” (Lossky).  Early on I learn to pray for my basic needs–”Give me this day my daily bread”–but as I mature with God my needs change from things to a singular longing for Him.  My faith becomes that of gazing at Him and my trust in Him becomes ruthless.  “Little by little the soul reintegrates itself, regains its unity, and particular petitions begin to disappear making them superfluous, as God answers prayer by making manifest His all-embracing providence.  There is an end to petition when the soul entrusts itself wholly to the will of God.” (Lossky).

God knows and provides for all of our needs in His way and His timing as He draws us toward Him; we gaze upon His face as we seek to follow His leading–it is the Divine Dance.  This is the state of a person truly alive, and persons on this journey bring glory God.  It is a state in which even the “great saints” of human history moved in and out of; after all, our deification, being united in relationship with God, is a very, very long journey.

So, get on the dance floor with God; its okay if you step on His toes as you learn the steps and rhythm of the dance and to follow His lead.

Contemplative Prayer

05 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by in All, Prayer

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I remember the story of the old peasant, in the time of the Curé d’Ars, who spent long moments at the back of the church gazing at the image of Jesus.  One day someone asked him: “What are you doing during all this time?”. . . “I don’t do anything. I look at Him and He looks at me.”

The practice of contemplative prayer takes a lot of heat from some corners of Christianity.  It is seen by some as unbiblical or to Catholic or to passive or to quiet or to mystic or a waste of time.  Is this true?

There has been much written on both sides of the debate; rather than rehash these arguments I’d like to look at it from two different perspectives.

First is to imagine what God was doing before creation.  To even ask this question forces one to wrestle with the preceding questions of the nature of time itself and God’s relationship to it.  For example: When did time begin?  Is time itself dynamic or static?  Does God exist within time now or outside of time?  Has God changed His relationship with time?  If so, has God changed?

I believe the arguments are better that prior to creating, God existed timelessly and without beginning.  To exist timelessly means that God existed “changelessly alone, and no event disturbs this tranquility.  There is no before, no after, no temporal passage, no future phase of His life.  There is just God.” (Time and Eternity, Wm Lane Craig).  If so, then, one cannot even ask the question, “What did God do prior to creation?”.  God did not do anything, He could only be, only exist as God.

However, God has eternally existed as the three-in-one God: Father, Son [Jesus], Holy Spirit.  Somehow in this unchanging timelessness God has the ability to love.  Jesus, while on earth in human physical form, said this: …”for You [Father God] loved me [Jesus] before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). Further, this changeless timelessness allowed Jesus to exist in a state of glory with His Father (John 17:5).  So, whatever we mean by a state of timelessness before creation–an existence of perfect tranquility–it must allow for love and glory between persons.

What if this timeless state was a state of perfect contemplation?  Father experiencing the Son, the Son experiencing the Father, each in perfectly loving union with the Other through the Spirit.  Perhaps this is perfect contemplation.

A second perspective is to consider what it means to be happy.  Plato (Symposium) recognized that our desire for happiness is intrinsic to us; we desire to be happy by nature.  In practice, we notice that we don’t seem to ask each other, “Why do you want to be happy?”  None of us would know the answer…it just seems obvious that we would due to something beyond us.

Yet, in our pursuit to fulfill our desire for happiness we run headlong into the paradox of hedonism: we desire happiness by nature; however, we cannot make ourselves happy.  This itself is a source of great unhappiness; our deepest desire is for something that we cannot give ourselves.  We seem to expend great time, energy, and resources seeking happiness.  We collect stuff, have adventures, change jobs, pack our heads with knowledge, and perhaps even collect people in our pursuit of our own happiness.  This may succeed for some time; however, we seem to know in the depths of our soul that the happiness gained even from the best of these things is somehow lacking.  We find ourselves desiring something more, something deeper than pleasure gained from them.

Back to God.  As a perfect being, God is perfectly happy.  He depends on nothing for His happiness, He finds perfect happiness in Himself alone not needing us or any of His creation.  And, as we saw above, prior to creation God was in perfect contemplation within Himself, Father, Son, Spirit.  Perfect happiness in perfect contemplation.

One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord…

Psalm 27:4

What, then, if our happiness comes from contemplation?  As the image-bearers of God, this shouldn’t surprise us.  If God Himself was perfectly happy in timeless contemplation before creating the universe, why wouldn’t we also find happiness in contemplation?  Who among us has not contemplated a particularly beautiful sunset, a work of art, a piece of music, etc., and found some kind of deep happiness in that moment?

If we find happiness in contemplating these earthly things, how much more so will we find in contemplating God?  “The common element in all the special forms of contemplation,” says philosopher Joseph Pieper, “is the loving, yearning, affirming bent toward happiness which is the same as God Himself…love alone makes it possible for contemplation to satiate the human heart with the experience of supreme happiness” (Happiness & Contemplation).

“In…contemplation,” Pieper goes on to say, “man takes a step out of time.”  Evelyn Underhill puts it this way: “This is the ‘passive union’ of contemplation: a temporary condition in which the subject receives a double conviction of ineffable happiness and ultimate reality” (Mysticism).

Perhaps in the fleeting moments of true contemplative prayer we step out of time and into the timelessness of our eternal God where we find both true happiness and ultimate reality.

Navigating Life

25 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by in All, Life

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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.

Why Us?

19 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by in All, Love

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Jesus turned and saw Andrew and another following, and said to them, “What do you seek?” They said to Him, “Rabbi (which translated means Teacher), where are You staying?” He said to them, “Come, and you will see.” So they came and saw where He was staying; and they stayed with Him that day…later, Andrew went and found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Christ.”
–The Gospel of John, Chapter 1, verses 38-41, paraphrased

Have you ever wondered why God created us? After all, we seem to be a lot of trouble for Him, so much so that He once destroyed “every living thing” that He had made, except Noah and his family and at least representative pairs of all animals and birds.

But, why would God create us? Some point to Isaiah’s words that say God created us for His glory. Surely this is true. The Westminster Shorter Catechism tells us that “the chief end of man” is “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Again, surely this is true. Still, somehow all of this seems a little sterile to me. Using a human relationship, I can glorify a human king by being an upright, obedient subject and by showing proper respect to the king. But beyond that I might never have any relationship with the king.

God moved me beyond my early notion of bringing Him glory when I began to understand Jesus when He said that eternal life is to “know the only true God [the Father] and Jesus Christ whom He sent.” Here, the Greek work for “know” means the most intimate relationship we can imagine. So, to combine the Scriptures, somehow my intimate relationship with God glorifies Him.

But, again, why? What is it about God that wants a relationship with me and yearns for me to have a relationship with Him…a relationship He wants so badly that He, in the person of Jesus, died to have it?

I think have found the answer; and of course I’m not the first to come to this. Here is how I am currently thinking about this question of the creation of mankind. Have you ever had an experience that you found so joy-filled that you couldn’t wait to share it? An experience you just couldn’t wait to invite another into hoping they, too, would share your joy? As a kid I was always inviting other kids to play football or baseball in the park; it was so much fun for me and I wanted us all to have fun. As an adult I encourage friends to go to a particular restaurant or to go see a movie…all things that have brought me joy. Even better are the events in which I share the joy with them, such as shared meals or movies. I really enjoy golf. I find great joy in being outside and walking the course. The (very) occasional good shot I hit is also joyful. My pleasure from golf was actually enhanced when my wife began to play and we could share the joy of the game. It seems natural to us to invite others into that which we have found joyful and in that act find our own joy enhanced; so natural is it that I believe it is part of who we are, part of being made “in the image and likeness” of God.

So, now I imagine the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; I imagine the perfect love that exists in the relationship, so perfect that the three are distinct and yet one, unified in love. I imagine the joyous love that must always be present within the Trinity, so present that the Apostle John says that God is love. I find it easy to imagine that God, immersed in perfect love and the resulting joy would want to share that experience; not just by showering others with love but by inviting others in to that experience of love. With whom did God choose to share His experience? Us…He created us to share the experience of love with Him, to enter into the same relationship with God that Jesus has with His Father.

With whom did God choose to share His experience? Us…He created us to share the experience of love with Him, to enter into the same relationship with God that Jesus has with His Father.

Can there be any truth more profound? I think not. When Jesus walked the earth He continually invited others along. “Follow Me” was His urging. Some followed; most didn’t. This inviting is, I believe, at the heart of what Jesus means when as His last words to His followers before being crucified He prays for us to be relationally “one” with He and our Father (John 17:22-26).

I have had a few deeply mystical encounters with God in which I have experienced the briefest taste of His love for me. Its power is incapacitating in the moment. The result of each encounter has always been the deepening of my love for Him. And I have the great fortune of experiencing perhaps the best possible human expression of God’s love in my marriage and also with a small, deeply loving community of committed Jesus followers. These experiences have been important events that have moved me along the path of being transformed into the likeness of Jesus. Here is something I’ve discovered along the way: the more I become like Christ, the more I experience the kind of love that exists within the Trinity, and the more I respond to His invitation to join in His love, the more I long for others to experience it…I long to share with you the experience God is sharing with me.

So, I say to you, whoever you are reading this, I have found the Christ…come, and you too will see.