Breath of holy fire
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Pentecost Sunday
John 16:12-13
Jesus told his disciples, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”
Jesus, born such an ordinary man from ordinary Nazareth, is about to experience an ordinary death, killed on a cross between criminals. But Jesus’ words and deeds aren’t ordinary at all. Jesus has always spoken clearly from his heart about God. He has called him Father, and now he calls him Spirit.
The “scandal” that God would choose to be enfleshed in Jesus (the word “incarnation” has been used at least since the fourth century to describe God becoming a man capable of suffering and sickness and death) confuses Jesus’ disciples, his brothers and sisters. They have understood God as essentially separate from them. Jesus’ life with them challenges that belief.
His words, “I and my Father are one” and then “you will do greater things than these,” insist that his followers know God as he does, from within themselves. God desires to be known as the true core of their being.
This isn’t just an idea. For Jesus it has been a life. He wants that for his flock. There is so much more for him to say, but they can’t understand it coming from him, the man Jesus. So when he leaves “the Spirit of truth will guide you into all the truth.”
Jesus emptied himself so that the Spirit would pray in him and love in him. Now we are invited to empty ourselves so that the Spirit of Jesus might pray in us and love in us.
In Too Deep for Words, Thelma Hall quotes a mystic and a poet. First the mystic:
It’s a risky thing to pray, and the danger is that our very prayers get between God and us. The great thing in prayer is not to pray, but to go directly to God. If saying your prayers is an obstacle to prayer, cut it out! Let Jesus pray. Thank God Jesus is praying. Forget yourself. Enter into the prayer of Jesus. – Thomas Merton
In the experience of our own emptying, it becomes more clear what Augustine meant when he said in one Christmas morning sermon, “God became man so that man might become God.” Merton continues, “Let prayer pray within you … This means a deep awareness of our true inner identity … (that) by grace we are Christ. Our relationship with God is that of Christ to the Father in the Spirit.”
We lose nothing. We gain everything. All the world and inside me too becomes God … God … God. What have I ever lost by dying this way? Jesus asks rhetorically, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” And so Hall quotes the poet:
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries. (Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh)
The blackberries are still there once I sense the fire. And what I think is really cool is they way those blackberries taste, eating them with Jesus, shoes off, breathing deep together, turning our faces to the wind.
Bless the Lord, o my soul. You works are wonderful; we know that full and well. May your glory endure forever, may you be glad in all your works. May you be glad in each of us. Renew the face of the earth. Thank you for living in us, breathing in us, Being in us.
http://christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1096
Prayer life
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Seventh Sunday of Easter
John 17:16-17
Jesus prayed, “They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth.”
David Benner titles the next-to-last chapter of his book Opening to God, “Life as Prayer, Prayer as Life.” Jesus invites his loved ones to live into the world, leading with the love he has shown them by giving himself to them. They can love this way day after day, suffering after suffering, because they are “consecrated” – set apart, made holy, made pure and true. They are consecrated by God’s “word.” And God’s word is truth.
Benner’s book describes a classic devotional method of reading the Bible called “lectio divina.” For example, begin with the first three verses of Psalm 23 in your favorite translation. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; he leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake” (NKJV). Read it slowly, read it aloud. Read it four times:
The first time (in Latin, lectio), just listen. Pay attention. Use your senses to anchor yourself in the moment. “Suspend your thoughts and allow awareness to develop.” Benner calls this the “Prayer of Attending.”
Read it again (in Latin, meditatio). Now think reflectively, weighing the words. What word or phrase especially rings out for you? Listen for meaning, measure your emotion, use your imagination. This “Prayer of Pondering” is more “wordy” than the prayer of attending. My thinking mind has a chance to do what it does best.
But what goes on inside my head is not the end-all-be-all. Read the three verses for a third time (in Latin, oratio). Benner calls this the “Prayer of Response.” What does this word call out of me? How is God inviting me out of my circling thoughts? What shall I DO? (Or perhaps, stop doing.) I might draw a picture, or write a poem, or make cookies for our neighbor, or take a few deep breaths, slow down and take a nap. I might ride my bike to a nearby flowing stream and sit awhile. Perhaps there is a new pattern God wants me to see, something to cut through habit or laziness of spirit and arouse my heart. He’ll show me how.
All these three ways of prayer might be what St. John of the Cross calls “leaning in toward God.” They are very active, they depend on my energy and will, and consequently I am still the doer, the controller, the subject. Yet, I want to give up this position to God. I want to echo Mary’s prayer, “Lord, let it be done unto me …”
So I am not finished yet. My prayer as attending and pondering and responding help me “intend” to be led by my shepherd. Now read the verses one more time (in Latin, contemplatio), and surrender to the “Prayer of Being.” With all the work you’ve done behind you, just rest. Sit. Repeat a word or two to clear your mind if it clutters up again. Wait. Be still.
As your mind quiets, then God’s word, finally best heard in silence, becomes clearly true.
My soul blesses you, O Lord; bless your holy name. Remind me always of your “benefits.” Let me forget nothing, and when I do, remind me again. You are true. My mere “notions” are surrounded and loved into submission by your truth. Sweet Jesus.
http://christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1094
Opening to Jesus
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Sixth Sunday of Easter
John 15:12
Jesus said, “Love each other in the same way that I have loved you.”
In Shaped by the Word Robert Mulholland says each of us is “a word spoken by God into the world.” We are precious, not just in God’s sight, but in each other’s. Mulholland, a New Testament scholar, also suggests an alternative translation for Mark 12:30-31. The two greatest commandments, Jesus says, are “Love the Lord your God will all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength. And the second is another way of saying the same thing: Love your neighbor as yourself.”
I can only love this way because Jesus loves me. And as Jesus loves me, there is nothing else I can do. Without Jesus it’s impossible to love like this. With Jesus it’s impossible not to love like this.
James Finley avoids the double negative, saying it this way: “Without Christ we are nothing. The Father creates us moment by moment through Christ the Word … Our reality is then our union with God who is reality itself” (The Awakening Call).
Now married and a father, Finley spent many years under the spiritual direction of Thomas Merton at Gethsemani monastery in Kentucky. During that time he read practically nothing but scripture, philosophy, The Cloud of Unknowing and the works of St. John of the Cross.
When I seek fulfillment outside my union with God, when I become attached to the beauty or worth of anything made, any “creature,” it is the same as refusing to let God “create me moment by moment.” Yet, that is just what I do. With Paul in Romans 7, what I want to do I do not do. What I do not want to do, I do. Who will rescue me from this body of death?
I cannot rescue myself. That kind of striving caused the problem in the first place. So – and here Finley paraphrases John of the Cross – “we sit.”
“We sit in the torment of our separation from the delight that is God. We sit in the poverty of our loss of the wealth that is God. We sit as an act of childlike confidence that God’s will for us to share in his delight, to be heirs of the wealth he is, will be realized within us.”
Not that I sit out the serving and the work and the getting the soup ready, washing the dishes, cleaning up for tomorrow. Not that. But when none of that really floats my boat anymore, and when my prayers run dry, and when not much seems to matter, … in the absence of the attention and praise and satisfaction which my ego always demands, God’s rescue operation gets under way. God is reclaiming what he gave me as a gift but I have taken over for myself.
And then, wonder of wonders, I begin to love like Jesus loves me.
Hold me in your hands, heavenly Father. Whisper to me the name you have known me by for all eternity, and sing your songs to me while I cry and fall asleep in your arms. Teach me by your touch this way you have of loving. You are so good, you are so good.
http://christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1093
Ally, Aly in free
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Fifth Sunday of Easter
John 15:4
Jesus said to those he loved, “Remain in me, as I remain in you.”
This week our kids can sing their joys into the song of Isaiah, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a daughter is given.” Only four days old, Aly Grace Sandel rests already in so many promises. “I have called you by name, and you are mine … I remain in you … I will take you to myself.”
Harmonics spin their way through music inside every note. So nature sings and round us rings when every baby’s born. Spring is so musical! The birds cover their babies while they grow, and we hold our children close. Chris and Melissa’s hearts beat with the love of God. It pours in, and pours out again. All over Aly, all over Jack.
We are loved. Some of the words we might say or hear at these moments of birth: “Welcome to the world. I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve prepared a special place for you to live. I will not leave you, no matter what. You have all the time you need. I’m so glad you’re a girl. In all the world, there has never been another like you.”
John says in his letter, “The way we know that Jesus remains in us is from the Spirit he gave us.” God doesn’t play hide and seek. So we never need to run and hide. Or cover our eyes. Jesus is near. Jesus is close. Jesus holds Aly in his arms. He is singing to her.
Free from fear, we can open our eyes, rejoice, and watch her grow.
In the assembly of your people, Lord, we praise you. All the families of the nations bow down before you. We live in you alone, and we proclaim You to a people just born, and yet to be born. You are the Lord. You are good. You love us, and so we can love you. (Psalm 22)
http://twitter.com/#!/MelissaSandel/status/198562910652481536/photo/1
http://christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1091
Sheeps and shepherd
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Fourth Sunday of Easter
John 10:14-15
Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.”
The conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees intensifies in chapter nine, when Jesus restores the sight of a man born blind. Of course, this happens on the Sabbath, the day most precious to Jesus and his Father and, ironically, to the Pharisees as well.
For Jesus the Sabbath is often the day when his Father releases power in him to heal others. It is the day like no other when God’s love for his children is clear and available. But for the Pharisees, the Sabbath is a day when they express their love for God by doing nothing. Generation after generation of teachers reinforced this rule. Just be with God. No walking, not much talking, no work. And of course, healing is usually not an option. Men don’t heal each other. Only God does that.
I hope the Pharisees know, as did Jesus, that God loves them. This doing no thing sounds a lot like what I desire in my times of solitude and silence. So what happened? Why do the Pharisees act out of obedience but so patently NOT out of love?
Jesus speaks confidently of his pedigree, of his family, and of the words he hears from his Father. The two are intimate, and they work together on everything. Neither is a good shepherd without the other.
I suppose the Pharisee thinks Jesus is out of his mind, because he has not experienced this intimacy himself. Has he never called God his Father? If not, he probably does not know the feeling of being a son. The Pharisee has trouble being one of the sheep. And consequently he makes a lousy shepherd. He insists on obedience above all, within himself as much as anyone else, and in the midst, love is lost.
Jesus is not going to settle for this. So he brings God’s love to every encounter, every word, every moment. He speaks and acts, and says, “Believe it … or not.” They must kill him to get him to stop.
And of course, even that plan was God’s, not theirs. There just is no stopping God.
It is better, Lord, to take refuge in you than to trust in man. That’s an understatement! But as you make us into love as you are love, we might become more trustworthy to each other. Let my surrender to your shaping be for gladness, Father. Let your loving me become my loving you.
http://christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1088
Be careful what you ask for
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Third Sunday of Easter
Luke 24:45-47
Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And he said to them, “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations.”
Two excellent questions to ask about any scripture: “What is God doing?” and “What should I do?” But I must ask the first question first. “What should I do” is mostly answered as I understand some of what God is doing.
What is God doing? Jesus invites his beloved to understand what he understands. In the midst of this mystery, the disciples are more available to his teaching than before. They are in awe at his reappearance, they are rejoicing in his presence, so they listen closer than they did before Jesus was crucified. And His teaching has never been better. Jesus relishes the idea that as he leaves, the Holy Spirit hovers over the waters and the earth, just as it was at the beginning. God is not going anywhere, God is not leaving, God is spreading out!
What should I do? Although awe is temporary and most rejoicing is ephemeral, these experiences soften my heart and open my mind. I must seek them out. I am most ready to listen and grow when I know without doubt that I am not God. That often requires chastening, chafing, friction, pain. When Jesus appears in the midst of this, it is clearer than ever that God is God. And I am not. My ears and mind are open.
After this happened to Job, he said, in his down and dirty way, “I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42). He had seen God in a way he had never known before. It put him on his face, because he knew for himself the power of God’s creative justice and His unending love.
This is an experience I want more rather than less.
So, Lord, when I ask for you to make me safe and secure, I don’t tell you how. Not any more. On the cross Jesus said, “Father into thy hands I commend myself. I commit myself.” Yes. Like he said.
http://christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1087
Writing on my heart
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Second Sunday of Easter
John 20:30-31
Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.
What kind of memory box do I want to leave for my kids? It’s fun for me to look back to successes in school, to accomplishments and awards. Do they care about those? I doubt it. What about my creations – photos that are just about perfect, poems that slip through the air like birdsong, some darn good short stories? They might read them once, admire them once. And then of course there are the tales of my adventures …
Jesus’ memory box was full to the brim with moments when he pointed those around him toward his Father. “I only do what my Father is doing.” “Our Father, who art in heaven …” “Father, into thy hands I commit myself.” He washed the feet of his disciples and told them to follow his example. Humble yourself, become the last, be the servant of all. Give away all you have to buy the pearl of great price. There is only one way to live, only one thing to live for: find the Father.
When Jesus’ touch or words (or spittle) healed an injury or chronic illness, he pointed the healed person toward her community and toward her Father. Those people never forgot their own personal encounter with Jesus. Surely they told the story over and over, even though Jesus often told them to be silent.
During a lifetime of eighty Lents, give or take, what are the ways I have let Jesus point me toward our Father? Which ways in 2012? How do I do the same for others? I think of moments when I either made someone or something better or worse because of something I did or said. It’s not usually obvious. Healing happens in many mysterious ways, and most of the healing occurs later, after we are long gone from the one we smiled at or prayed with or touched.
Eighty Lents … that’s 3200 days. Jesus teaches us how to celebrate these holidays. He shows us how to believe in him and through that belief, have life in his name.
And so, we pray to you, Jesus, for your grace and fullness to overwhelm each day in the world with love. Let the week ahead rise up and meet us walking with you, talking, hearts burning as we see everything with new eyes.
http://christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=107
