The notion that God is absent is the fundamental illusion of the human condition. —Thomas Keating
“Fundamental illusion” can be a way of life! But it does not have to be that way. Most of the wise people we all admire have a story about how they moved beyond their self-contained understanding to become who they became. Some found a hope deep inside that is vastly better than wishing and waiting for one’s illusions to be validated.
I think the best and deepest way that leads beyond ordinary, self-limited thinking and into hope is the way of meditation. Cynthia Bourgeault, my inspiration for this series, agrees:
Meditation, more than any other spiritual practice, nurtures the latent capacities within us that can perceive and respond to divine hope. In the classic language of our tradition, these capacities are known as the “spiritual senses.”
That little paragraph might have seemed so weird to a few of you, it drove you right back into your egoic thinking! So hang on.
“Egoic thinking” is another way of describing our limited, ordinary awareness. It simply means we humans have the capacity to stand outside ourselves and look at ourselves. As far as we know, we are the only species who can do this. Tigers don’t think, “I have a quick temper.” And whales don’t say, “I am really glad to be going north; I’m a cold-water kind of whale.” And tigers and whales don’t write children’s books where tigers and whales seem cute when they reflect. Humans can imagine these different realities, looking back and forward, dreaming and visioning. It is a great thing about us.
Egoic thinking is great…until it’s not
The downside of this reflexive capacity, Bourgeault says, “is the tendency to experience one’s personal identity as separate — composed of distinct qualities, defined by what holds one apart from the whole.” We can basically live in “our own little world” (my mother used to say!), revolving around our own sun — ourselves.
As a result of being alone and trapped within the boundaries of our limited senses, we all have a separation anxiety streak running through us because we really need and want to be together, not separate. To feel secure, the ego needs a lot of reassurance from others. It can’t get enough praise, security, accomplishment, etc. to help it overcome that dreadful sense of being left out, or thrown out, or just generally failing to be a full self in community. You can see how quickly we have all been driven into sin by this innate anxiety. And you can see why Jesus calls us to see our true selves in God’s grace, to look at ravens and lilies flourishing, to stop worrying and “seek first for the kingdom of God” as the means of becoming free of what is depriving us of joy.
Field of Lilies – Tiffany Studios, c. 1910.
Meditative prayer is a way of discovering and nurturing the latent capacity to see and experience life beyond our ordinary awareness. We can all perceive and respond to “the Mercy” I talked about last week. Nurturing our spiritual awareness is the primary way to experience the “mystical hope” I talked about the week before, the hope which is near and not the outcome of all our striving.
The centering prayer Bourgeault teaches is “a basic, no-nonsense method of self-emptying — simply letting go of thoughts as they arise — to help practitioners break out of their compulsive attachment to thinking and entrust themselves to the deeper stillness of God.” [Here is Martin Laird’s take on it.] The essence of this kind of meditation is not keeping a perfectly clear mind. The essence is recognizing the moment when one is distracted and willingly turning back into the stillness of the Mercy, toward hope. The essence is turning toward the meeting place we have inside as an act of faith and honor; letting go of our own stuff and holding a space open for all God gives and all God is.
We need to get beyond self-awareness and its evil twin: self-centeredness
We have a “self” awareness that is beyond the egoic capacity that makes us human — we also have spiritual awareness. Meditation leads us out of ego-centered consciousness and into a space where we meet God.
You may know almost every other feeling you can have better than the feeling of communion with God! Even so, someone has said we can meet God without even trying by 1) having a near-death experience or by 2) falling deeply in love. I do not wish you the first short cut and I do wish for you the latter. But I wish for us most of all the careful cultivation of meditation, which is the everyday path to knowing and loving God. Meditation is the discipline that helps us “die daily” as Paul says he does, and helps us be one in love as he hopes we will be. The prayer of meditation puts a stick in the spokes of our outer awareness and leads us into the warmth and abundance of our inner awareness and into hope in the Mercy.
It is a hard world right now. Maybe you are pretty numb like a newscaster said she was after covering the damage Trump and Hegseth have done to Iran and to the future of the U.S. Or maybe you are afraid of more smoke from Canada and the extreme weather of our new climate. If it were not a hard world, we’d probably make it one. So it is time to pray.
Have you listened to Jesus saying this to you lately?
Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Basic to that easy yoke is the prayer of meditation. We keep turning to it in our anxiety and fatigue and it keeps turning us toward hope.
Try it again. We certainly fit into the first two lines, for the most part. Maybe his “easy yoke” is meditation where we experience his gentleness and self-giving heart. As a result of staying in that “yoke” maybe we do find rest for our souls. Sounds like Jesus would love to bring us into the hope he carries, even through his suffering, doesn’t it?
If you are just keeping your nose above water, trying to be a Christian at work somehow, this post might help. It is about how we learn to relate to God in real time, not sometime or some-other-time-when-I-have-time, but all the time.
At the center of the classic dialogue Jesus followers have been having about prayer is the duality of physical and spiritual, the same duality Jesus masters for us. I think the old words “cataphatic” and “apophatic” have been well-used to describe the more physical/right brain/positive practices and the more spiritual/left brain/negative practices that help us connect with God. The two words also describe two ways of thinking (and doing theology) that might be affecting how you do your job – or survive it.
Oversimply put, a cataphatic approach to God (and life) looks at what can happen in a given time and place. I see it as “doing my best with what I’ve got.“ Maybe it is what “the glass is half full” kind of people do. People often use the word “positive” to explain this way, or moving along the via affirmativa. So when we describe God from this view we see what God is (e.g., “God is love,” “God is omnipresent”).
Likewise, oversimply put, an apophatic approach to God (and life) looks at what is NOT happening in time and place at all, because things about God are beyond us. I see it as looking for what is best because I am not there yet. God is pouring out whatever can be in a glass and I want to be a vessel which can be filled. People often use the word “negative” to explain this way, or moving along the via subtractiva. So when we describe God from this view, we see what God is not, recognizing how God transcends human comprehension (e.g. “God is not evil,” “God is not limited by human notions of what is good”).
Very few people who deliberately seek God practice exclusively along a positive or negative way. But you may lean one way or another. If this discussion helps you see yourself more clearly or open a door to living a richer life, I’ve hit the mark.
Cataphatic ways
Cataphatic thinking focuses on positive attributes, using words, images, and concepts to describe God. It emphasizes that we can know God through revelation and creation.
So my hero, Francis of Assisi, is well known for wandering through the Umbrian countryside seeing the depths of God in a leaf and communing with Brother Sun and Sister Moon. Walk into most Catholic or Orthodox church buildings and it is a cataphatic explosion: statues, bells, incense and a focus on the Eucharist. I think Pentecostal churches take it a step further, emphasizing the power of God in the here and now.
So if your job is a pain or you’re bored with it, you might try on some cataphatic thinking when you arrive. In every person and every task there is some kind of beauty to be found; Jesus is present in the people and in the moment. That’s why we can do all things to the glory of God! Plus, you are there at work with Jesus by your side. Your aliveness is a gift to give and God-with-you is ready to love and serve.
Apophatic ways
Apophatic thinking focuses on denying any limited human concept of God. It argues that because God is infinite, positive statements are inherently inadequate, leading people to “strip away” any images or thoughts in order to experience God’s transcendence.
Many of us have been taught to meditate by emptying ourselves to make space for God’s Spirit. I agree that God is deeply met in silence. When you walk into many Protestant church buildings, they are stripped of ornamentation that might distract from God’s transcendence. They are empty spaces where God and his people represent the Spirit and not spaces full of imagery which traps God in time. The emphasis is on the word coming from the outside, not inside. Like Martin Luther says: “This life is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise.” (I tried to talk about the excesses of this last week).
So if your job is a pain or you are bored with it, you might try on some apophatic thinking while you are there. At times it makes sense to take a break and return to silence somewhere, even if it is in a bathroom stall. After finishing a task you could rest in God’s presence, if even for ten seconds, letting everything go before you pick something up again. You could put a post it somewhere with a quote that reminds of you who you really are. How about, “Nothing in all creation will be able to separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus”? All the monks centered their day on this process: work and prayer.
This discussion is also common sense
Some people might say I’m describing the different ways extraverts and introverts approach life. And that may be true. Extraverts lean into relationships and the present moment to feel alive, and introverts need alone time to rejuvenate. Nobody is just one thing or another, I don’t think (or I could positively say “I think,” right?). If you are an extravert, you might need to make a few friends at work and not get isolated. If you are an introvert, you might need to find a park nearby to have lunch alone.
Health experts talk about positive and negative approaches without God in them at all. For instance, think about dieting. Positive approaches to dieting talk adding nutrient-dense foods (vegetables, fruits, whole grains) to crowd out less-healthy options. They call for mindful eating — paying attention to hunger and fullness cues rather than following rigid, external rules. They encourage forming sustainable habits, making small, consistent changes, and having self-compassion — viewing setbacks as part of the process rather than a failure. They’re behind the Health at Every Size (HAES) discussion.
My pastor is a “health at every size” kind of Christian. He especially likes to help us see God in every person. Sometimes even I think he could be less about what we feel and more about what we think.
Negative approaches to dieting are all about limiting food or eliminating entire food groups. They organize schedules for eating, like “intermittent fasting.” They talk about “good” or “bad” eating, demonstrated by all the eating plans you can buy even geared to your body type. They often motivate with an eye on perfection, like a perfectly fit Pelaton coach cheering you on from the screen.
I’ve had more pastors like Martin Luther, who see life as a struggle against sin and a constant effort to know God. Those folks sometimes create church members accustomed to being motivated by criticism.
So the ancient Christian practices of prayer either come from common sense or created it. You decide. Regardless, which way do you lean? It is probably making a difference at work.
Who are you at work?
I got to thinking about all this because I spoke with someone who treated their job in an apophatic way. When they went home and had their “real life” they were one person, but at work they were “on the job” and felt constrained to act like a job person. They were on an unconscious via negative:
At work I am what I am not.
Work is what I am not.
God is not in the work but I need the money.
One of my older acquaintances was talking about the challenge they felt when training new, younger workers to replace those who were on the way out. At one point they were looking for one of these new employees because their team was trying to solve a client’s problem before the day ended, as they had promised to do. They asked someone where she was and they told him, “Oh. She left. She goes home at 4:30.” The boss was finding some meaning and life in the job, the team, and their success. The new hire saw the job as limited, unfulfilling, only worth so much time. One was more cataphatic and one more apophatic.
I think most of us are apophatic when it comes to the job. We see it as what it is not. And we generally see it as a place where God is not. As a result, we end up not something, ourselves. Maybe we are a good employee. But we are an employee and not ourselves. We’ve got to be “on” at work but our hearts are often “off” and that hurts.
Last Friday, on Howard Thurman day, he gave us a good way to balance out the negative and positive way. He said:
There is a quiet courage that comes from an inward spring of confidence in the meaning and significance of life. Such courage is an underground river, flowing far beneath the shifting events of one’s experience, keeping alive a thousand little springs of action.
When I go to work, I need to operate out of an “inward spring of confidence” that flows from my experience of God with me. That experience is going to take some apophatic practice through which I have created a space where I can meet God no matter what is happening, because I met God when nothing was happening.
That spring of living water welling up in me keeps “alive a thousand springs of action.” Every day is full of the sights, sounds and loves of God. The “shifting events” of the workplace are full of cataphatic opportunities to love, tell the truth, and be exemplary. If Jesus were wandering around your workplace in the guise of a boss or a new hire, he would certainly find someone to love. And he would see the beauty all around him – you’d be there, after all.
I told my beautiful, challenged acquaintance their workplace in their giant company was a vast territory where they could meet God in hundreds of ways every day. Even their suffering at the hands of godless capitalists could have meaning if they were not just NOT at work. You might have different advice. I recently fixed my comments function, so now you can let us all know what you feel and think, if you like.
I went to a large memorial service recently. It was full of stories and very moving because the woman being remembered was influential and beloved. I went because she prayed for me.
When we first landed in Philadelphia to plant a church, I knew we were likely to fail if we did not call on gifted people to pray for us. I collected scores of people to intercede who got a regular letter listing our triumphs and trials. Grace Holland was among the first to join in. Whenever I saw her she told me how she was praying and often had a question about something in our letter that intrigued her. She might not have known how much that meant to me; and she might not have really cared, since praying was a reward in itself for her.
Grace’s family is so full of faith and the wildness missionary kids often carry it would have been hard not to have an interesting and spiritually-stimulating morning at the memorial they held. I had a wonderful time. In fact, I have kept mentalizing about it, which led me to write this post.
As a person who has led many meetings for stories, teaching, ceremony and worship, I know members of an audience are not having a singular experience. At any given moment, someone is receiving what is offered with their ordinary awareness, perhaps exclusively. Others will be experiencing it with their spiritual awareness. Still others are blessed in their deepest hearts with an awareness of the presence of God.
Thomas Keating, the main instigator in the Centering Prayer movement which got rolling in the 1970s, drew a simple target graphic to explain his common-sense description of what is happening when we turn toward God. I have been re-reading Cynthia Bourgeault’s classic expansion on his chart in Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening.
Ordinary awareness
Some people who attended the funeral probably experienced it entirely with their ordinary awareness. They might have been children. They could have been a distant relation or acquaintance unfamiliar with the family or their brand of Christianity and were caught up with the curiosity of it all. Or they may have been spiritually undeveloped due to lack of opportunity or resistance. People with childhood trauma or children of parents who did not nurture a secure attachment often find it difficult to connect with other people or God and spend much of their time feeling so responsible for their well-being they can’t do anything else.
Ordinary awareness is the reflexive consciousness that only humans have, as far as we know. I have several pictures of a son staring at his fist as a baby coming to the realization he is a separate being from his mother. We all have the capacity to stand outside ourselves and look upon ourselves in the third person. We come to know ourselves as distinct from others with attributes and gifts that need to be expressed to “be ourselves.”
So I experienced the funeral with my ordinary awareness. For instance, I thought I had left with plenty of time to spare after the long drive from Philly to Harrisburg. But I actually just made it to the memorial in time, since the turnpike was jammed due to a car having caught fire. We saw it melted on the shoulder with its poor owners watching the firemen mop up. The feelings stuck with me. Then I entered a large meeting room with quite a few people I had not seen for years and a few I did not want to see. My “monkey mind” was hopping.
At any given moment our awareness is full of stimulating things coming at us which often stimulate things we have stored up: random thoughts, memories, associations and sensations. We get “triggered,” we like to say, and habitual reactions may lead to a chain reaction that can set off our anxiety. If we did not have that sense of “self” that can step back and see what is going on, we might not be able to endure the chaos. That self-reflexive “I” is probing and measuring the universe all day, and even when we dream it asks things like, “How am I doing?” “Is it safe here?” “What did she mean by that?” “Am I OK?”
Bourgeault says, “Another name for ‘ordinary awareness’ is ‘egoic thinking.’ It is the normal functioning zone of the human mind. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Ph.D., a bishop, a nuclear physicist; how brilliantly intellectual or intensely devout you may be. Without spiritual training, your sense of the world and your sense of yourself will be formed at this level of awareness. Even the so-called self-awareness tools of our times, from psychotherapy to Meyers-Briggs personality typing to the enneagram, spend most of their effort merely resorting and clarifying the characteristics: ‘I am an INFP,’ ‘a gut-centered type,’ ‘a five,’ etc. This may add insights into the workings of the personality, but it’s till ordinary awareness.
Spiritual awareness
The funeral lasted about two hours. So there was a lot of opportunity for ordinary awareness. Plus I had to catch up with some old friends which occupied my mind and heart with pleasantries and tragedies.
Thinking together about our experience afterward, my wife and I realized that shortly after we arrived we had already soaked up the emotion swirling around the room, as a psychologist and psychotherapist might be prone to do. We were primed to be moved beyond our ordinary awareness and into our spiritual awareness. Grace was a well-known worshiper, so a time for that was included. Almost with the first note, both of us began to cry. And we were drawn beyond ourselves.
As the worship continued, it would have been hard to miss the experience of spiritual awareness all humans are equipped to have whether someone was a Jesus follower of not. The meeting was like a first glimpse of Yosemite Valley, which seems to make everyone pause with awe. I first experienced such wonder under the stars in the Anza-Borrego desert. You may have felt it during a beautiful fall sunset last week. At times I have been drawn in when my friends were dancing or we were meeting an emergency together. And, of course, babies have been born.
Bourgeault says “spiritual awareness is actually a way of perceiving, just as ordinary awareness is a way of perceiving. As with ordinary awareness, there is a sense of identity or selfhood generated through this mode of perception. The big difference between them is that whereas ordinary awareness perceives through self-reflective consciousness, which splits the world into subject and object; spiritual awareness perceives through an intuitive grasp of the whole and an innate sense of belonging. It’s something like sounding the note G on the piano and instantly hearing the D and the B that surround it and make it a chord. And since spiritual awareness is perception based on harmony, the sense of selfhood arising out of it is not plagued by that sense of isolation and anxiety that dominates life at the ordinary level of awareness.“
Holy Spirit awareness.
I was delighted with the smorgasbord of spiritual food we shared with Grace Holland’s family. I think she would have loved it – even the parts she thought we not fully baked yet. She would have loved how the meeting regularly veered into a thin place where we could reach into the bull’s-eye of the target, the goal Father Keating called our “divine awareness.”
The moment in the meeting I remember most, and these moments are usually relatively fleeting for all of us, was when we sang one of Grace’s favorite songs. Her son, Mike, recounted it was a tune that might pop into her ordinary awareness and lead her beyond it at any moment. I have also been moved by it since Maranatha Music released it on Praise 4 in 1980: “I Love you Lord.”
The song arose in the late 1970’s when it tumbled out during Laurie Klein’s quiet time before her toddler woke up. It found its way to Jack Hayford’s Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California, which I visited. It was recorded by several musicians in the budding Christian music scene, including 2nd Chapter of Acts, who I followed. It gained general recognition when Maranatha! Music published it and now Korean choirs sing it, too.
As we sang it, I felt the presence of God course through my body. I was one with God, with those gathered and with everyone who has sang that song throughout my life and throughout the world. I enjoy remembering that experience.
We all have a place at the center of us where our own being and God’s being are mysteriously interwoven, even if we are not aware of it. Bourgeault says, “The divine indwelling is the cornerstone of contemplative prayer. Thomas Keating refers to it as ‘our personal big bang,’ for it reveals the Source of our own being – the explosion of divine love into form which first gave rise to our personal life. It also reveals the direction our heart must travel for a constantly renewed intimacy with this Source. As we enter contemplative prayer, we draw near the wellspring from which our being flows.“
The whole world is full of glory
The big, noisy funeral I attended did not have much silence at all. Maybe I will leave that as a request for own funeral. But I carried a silent place with me as I attended which has been formed by years of attention to God-with-us. We meet God deep within us and all around us. It is beautiful when a song flows out of your personal, private quiet time. But the whole earth is full of the glory of God. We meet God-with-us wherever we go. We can’t make an appointment, per se, but we can expect that glory to erupt into our awareness.
Bourgeault points out that ordinary awareness and spiritual awareness are both necessary for functioning in this world. “But the idea in spiritual transformation is to integrate and reprioritize these levels so that our ordinary awareness is in alignment with and in service to our spiritual awareness (which in turn, as we have seen, is in service to the divine awareness). In that alignment our being flows rightly, from innermost out. When something needs to be done in the outer world, we have sufficient ego strength to do it. But unlike ordinary awareness, which is always doing things to assert itself or fulfill itself, action grounded in our spiritual awareness merely flows out of the divine abundance without regard to outcome or any need to draw attention to itself.”
To hear her family and pastors talk about her, the heart of God and Grace’s own heart were in a deep embrace at the center of her and much of her action flowed from that abundant life. I took that away as a lesson. But more so, I experienced its legacy at her funeral and joined with her in the eternal life of it.
Faith feels kind of fragile. This is a message from 2016, but I think it still works for this year, when passion is blunted and fear is high.
Don’t struggle with prayer
Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. — Colossians 4:12
Epaphras struggled in prayer, wrestled. It was hard. If we do not learn to pray, our faith dies. In every era of life, the struggle is different. When we suffer, it is especially hard to pray and especially fruitful.
So how do we learn how to pray? A father from the Desert was asked by a novice “Abba, how do I pray?” The father answered, “Pray and the prayer will teach you everything.”
That’s a good piece of direction. Here are some more specific hints.
Establish a minimal daily routine.Reaching consistency is the most important goal.
Get warmed up to pray. Use a book or an app, maybe. Look over your notes from Sunday. Read the Bible or the writings of great guides – they whet your appetite for prayer.
Create a praying atmosphere. Use icons, candles, incense, prayer beads. They all contribute to decreasing distraction and increasing Holy Spirit awareness.
Artsy prayer corner
Involve both the spirit and the body. Kneel or stand, bow your head, raise your hands, lay prostrate.
Set reasonable expectations. In a society that enjoys instant gratification every day, one can abandon prayer after a couple of “failed” attempts. Prayer takes patience.
Don’t obsess on mystical experiences. It is important to discern among the spirits. Visions and experiences need to sit and prove themselves. Our pride can deceive us. We can turn prayer into an achievement or a competition
Remember that prayer is more than your “quiet time.”It is linked with repentance, humility, charity and fasting, etc. It happens in community. It is being in the presence of God all day and staying in dialogue.
Prayer is an encounter with God, is building up a personal relationship that needs nurturing and perseverance. The more we communicate the closer we become to any person and to the person of God. The conversation becomes more rewarding every time.
You have already been doing some evaluation by going through the list above. Make a plan to implement the element of the list that moved you the most — or maybe the one that seems to be the greatest struggle.
Let your sharing erode
We were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority. Instead, we were like young children among you.
Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well. – 1 Thessalonians 2:6-8
The Thessalonians have a tight community and they are experiencing the kinds of things people in community fear. Some people take advantage. Other people hold back. A few people try to hold things together and end up feeling burned out. There is always a pull towards isolation and tepidity. We’re made for that by sin. If we let our sharing erode our faith could die.
Paul writes his letter so that the new life of his church plant won’t get wrecked by the unconscious erosion of their sharing – not just of money (although that is a big thing in Thessaloniki) but of love and the kind of covenant keeping that makes family out of strangers.
He uses his own sharing as an example. When he came to town, he was purposely dependent on them. He could have been in power, but he was like a child. Likewise, they were dependent on him. He was like a mother and they were defenseless children. Why? It was love. Love moved him to share the good news of Jesus which is all about God’s love moving Jesus to share eternal life. What’s more, love moved Paul, just like God, to share this life personally. Paul’s message wasn’t about love, it was love in the flesh.
After a while, sharing money or sharing life in community can feel wearing if they lose connection with passionate love – a love so deliberate it comes from heaven in Jesus or walks from Syria to Greece in Paul. When is the last time you shared in an extraordinary way? How long has it been since you checked to see if your passion is fairly represented in how you share your money? Celebrate the joys, if they reflect your answer. Pray for courage and confidence if the answer presents a challenge.
Be threatened into silence
“What are we going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everyone living in Jerusalem knows they have performed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it. But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no longer to anyone in this name.”
Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” – Acts 4:16-20
It is interesting to wonder what is going on with Peter. When confronted in the courtyard the night of Jesus’ trial, he denied he was a Jesus follower three times! After he received the Holy Spirit, he performed a miracle and refused to stop talking about it when the same court that condemned Jesus ordered him to do so. Not long after, however, when he travelled to Antioch, to Paul’s church of Gentiles and Jews, he “began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group” (see Galatians 2:11-21). Even the boldest among us can be threatened into silence. It neuters our faith. We become hypocrites who supposedly have a faith with public principles, yet we are afraid of the consequences of being public.
These days, people are afraid to say something on Facebook because they might look like the kind of person who would say something on Facebook! If they talk about Jesus or their church, they are afraid someone will judge them for being too into themselves, or too aggressive, or too something, so they are shamed by the very thought of being shamed by the latest judge.
But if you can’t talk about Jesus like you talk about your latest vacation, or your family, or the various causes that heighten your passion, hasn’t your faith become of no consequence? What does it mean if the Lord is not the most consequential person alive from the dead?
Pray: Give me boldness to speak about what I have seen and heard of You.
Maybe you should imagine frightening situations — like telling your parents you are a Christian, or telling some significant person about what you now believe. You might rehearse talking about it in front of the mirror – that might lessen the terror when you actually encounter the real-life situation. Sharing your fears with others might help, too. Talk to them about what you felt and decided when you read today’s reading.
Write down your story of faith so you can really see it. Then you won’t need to invent it on the spot when you feel like you have an antagonist looking at you skeptically. Hold up your story to God as an offering and say, like Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Stop making new friends
“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift. – Matthew 5:23-4
In the long run, worship and prayer easily become very singular, personal, private. You are probably reading this alone and it never crosses your mind to share the experience with others. The U.S. is so steeped in individualism, you probably rarely think or asking for help or sharing personal things. The reading for today speaks into such a situation – the Jewish people having a long, insular faith devoted to staying free from outside influences.
Jesus suggests the worshiper leave the scene of the sacrifice as it is being enacted when he or she realizes the real impurity must be expiated relationally. They remember how they have wronged someone and must make it right. The work of the altar is about reconciliation. And that is not just healing a breech between a person and God, but healing the breech in a divided heart so prone to ignoring sins against love.
Our faith is neutered when we stop making friends with new people because we busy at our altars – doing church, satisfied in prayer, happy for therapy, stabilized enough to make money and buy insulating comforts. Whole churches effectively close their doors because they are busily grooming the relationships they have already domesticated. None of the New Testament writers recommend anything but pushing into new relationship territory. Jesus would have us love our enemies – just because we can.
Pray: Remind me Lord when I come to prayer and ignore my sins against love.
Obviously, when Jesus says “be reconciled” he is talking about people who have something legitimately against us, not just that they are upset and we should feel responsible. We are to be free to love with abandon, we are not abandoned to repairing every breech.
Dare to think beyond the security of your present life with God and the people of God. Who should become your new friend? Where should you go looking for a new friend?
While we are at it, let’s look at our church as a whole. Are we allowing people to become our friends? Do we think of them, even as we are worshiping, or would that seem like a violation of our space?
Put the church on the other side of a boundary
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness….
[E]ven if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me. – Philippians 2:5-7…17-18
Who is God? Look at Jesus and you can see. There He is making himself nothing, finding a way to express self-giving love in the most redemptive way possible. Who am I in Christ? Paul often says “Look at me. I am the chief of sinners being used by God. Here I am emptying myself, pouring myself out like Jesus.” Both Jesus and Paul are demonstrating the joy of knowing and expressing their true selves. Even though Jesus is making himself a slave and Paul is in prison for his faith, they rejoice.
People who have grown up with this message often hear it upside down, as if this selflessness was a demand, not a promise. They have been so required, they have never chosen, and have a grown up faith that is full of boundaries. They are still pouring themselves out of their false self, not out of the inexhaustible joy in the Spirit. God and God’s people end up threats who will steal life, not give it.
These generalities don’t fit every person, since people are not standard. But the idea is worth pondering. If you are putting the church and its work on the other side of a boundary, if you have to “set a boundary” so you will feel comfortable or safe, what does that mean? Could your faith be more a reaction than an action? Isn’t it being neutered if the very thing that should give it life seems to be stealing it? Jesus and Paul don’t seem to be losing the promise and holding back even though their circumstances are dire.
Pray: Help me to get out of myself and into the Body.
Consider what script is running in your head about the church, in particular. Note your resentments and fears, your disappointments and resistance. It does not matter if they are legitimate or not. But they could be neutering your faith.
Try crossing your boundary. Volunteer to give your spiritual gift in a practical way. Go to the Sunday meeting four times in a row with the intention of pouring yourself into them, “on the sacrifice and service of someone’s faith.” Or do that thing you have been intending to do as a representative of God’s people and don’t tell a soul, just do it whether anyone notices or is there to judge it or not.
These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
One of the things that neuters faith, hope and love the quickest is imposing a new holiness code. Paul is against it. He respects the Law of Moses and the interpretations that grew up around it. But Jesus shows it to be the mere tutor it was, not the standard it pretends to be. Likewise, he tries to undermine the latest teachings of the latest lawgivers who find a reading in the stars or a vision by which to order everyone according to their new rules of purity. He calls is “delighting in false humility” and being “puffed up with idle notions.”
There are so many good things that are, in essence, disconnected from the head, who is Christ, but are very connected to the latest political theory or scientific realities. We can look “liberal” like we are into the latest thing, while we are very conservative, practicing the oldest of deceptions. Wearing nonexploitive clothes, drinking the right coffee, eating farm direct produce, biking, practicing the right kind of yoga, not vaccinating your child, being fit, not bathing, having a beard, voting Green, not voting, protesting a lack of diversity, judging inappropriate speech – the younger one is, the more rules there seem to be! There is a new holiness code, but Jesus did not make it up!
Pray: Help me see beyond the shadows to Christ.
Good intentions are the shadows of the real good to come, which is connected to the head, from whom the whole body grows as God causes it to grow. Take a moment to be freely and securely connected to the head as part of the body of Christ, free of any false criteria that condemns you.
Take a brief inventory of (not a condemning look at) your “identity.” What parts of your “lifestyle” are really based on the rules of people? Can you name a few rules you can safely live without in the light of Jesus? Get rid of some “shoulds” that could lock you up.
“Trust” the leaders instead of being responsible
I can’t impress this on you too strongly. God is looking over your shoulder. Christ himself is the Judge, with the final say on everyone, living and dead. He is about to break into the open with his rule, so proclaim the Message with intensity; keep on your watch. Challenge, warn, and urge your people. Don’t ever quit. Just keep it simple.
You’re going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food—catchy opinions that tickle their fancy. They’ll turn their backs on truth and chase mirages. But you—keep your eye on what you’re doing; accept the hard times along with the good; keep the Message alive; do a thorough job as God’s servant. – 2 Timothy 4:1-5 (The Message)
Timothy was Paul’s apprentice. He was young, but he was put in charge of leading one of the churches. He faced a lot of things that make many people his age run from responsibility: hard work, opposition, people without a stomach for the truth. The main thing that neuters faith might be that people want their leaders to have faith for them, even force it on them, provide them a weekly mirage of it, be a larger than life example of it to enjoy vicariously.
A church should be devoted to apprenticing responsible leaders. There should be about one in every ten people. That means if sixty groups or missions got started this year, the ten founders in each one would all need a leaders the church produced. The generative capacity of the whole church will be neutered if we are not able to do that.
You might not need to be a group or mission leader, but you do need to be responsible to give what you have been given. It is not the leaders’ church. You do not attend “Rod’s church” (someone called it that). It is the Lord’s church. And, as Paul warned Timothy, “God is looking over your shoulder. Christ himself is the Judge, with the final say on everyone, living and dead. He is about to break into the open with his rule, so proclaim the Message with intensity; keep on your watch.” We would like this judgment to somehow be non-threatening, but it is a threat. We don’t get to live someone else’s life; we are responsible for the one we have. We can’t “trust our leaders” and let them decide everything and do everything; we need to be our part of the team.
Pray: Help me keep my eye on what I’m; accept the hard times along with the good; keep the Message alive; do a thorough job as God’s servant.
Maybe you do not have the stomach for this “solid teaching.” Or maybe you are surrounded by people whole have weak stomachs, so you feel kind of embarrassed to eat a rich diet. It doesn’t matter; we need to eat the bread of life and not turn away when Jesus offers us his body and blood. We are called and honored with good work to do. We must not make the mistake of being untrustworthy.
Are there any responsibilities you have been given as part of the body that you are shirking and letting one of the leaders do?
I ended my service to Circle of Hope as an itinerant, teaching in the meetings of our various congregations. This message was delivered to Frankford Ave at the beginning of Lent, 2018.
I was on retreat this past week, partially to get myself ready for Lent. As I meditated on my journal from the last quarter, I was astounded. For one thing, the Eagles won the Superbowl and the city was inexplicably happy! Maybe even you were happy for a second!
The second astounding thing: I was sick for six weeks. I had a whole Advent of sickness. In December, I went to a huge conference in California. (Yes, that is an intro video by the Dalai Lama). I coughed through the whole conference so loudly and deeply that psychotherapists would turn around and give me concerned looks — probably that blonde woman right there in front of me above. But did I pray? Well yes, I did. It was strange sickness. It was tempting not to pray, to just rely on the miracle of Nyquil and then fall into despair when Nyquil let me down and I was coughing in the night sitting up in a chair because laying down smothered me. It turned to bronchitis and I bet I had some pneumonia.
Then Gwen had an accident as a result of catching flu. She fell in the bathroom and fractured 7 ribs. We ended up in ICU health hell. I had to wear a mask for days. The hospital was much worse than I expected. But did I pray? Well yes. But, surprisingly, it was off and on. It seems like my disciplines are much better when I am on vacation or on retreat, not living my normal life. Surprisingly, If there is a problem, one of the first things to go might be prayer — this is not totally true, of course, but I have found it oddly true of me — and it may be true of you. Gwen, on the other hand, prayed a lot. She had a whole season of rib repair and pain in which to do it. If your life is being changed, you need God, right? Better pray.
Just how weakly constituted, wicked, and selfish we really are is often revealed when we are under duress. I feel bad so I lash out or blame. I feel bad so I withdraw or get resentful. I feel bad so I wait for somebody to come and find me and love me; if they don’t, I go into anger and despair, just like I must have reacted when my mother was talking on the phone instead of changing my diapers (there were only “land-line” phones). What do you do when you feel bad? Ask your husband or wife, if you have one; they can probably tell you. Ask your office mates or team members; they probably have an idea. But do you pray?
That is the question
So that is my main question to you tonight. Do you pray? And it is my question to the whole church. Does anybody pray? A whole Lent is laying before us, a whole prayer season. But will we even do it? Why or why not? Big question.
2018 is going to be wonderful in so many ways. You were announcing it a while back. You will have a new building façade to go with your new neighborhood. Circle Thrift thrives even after a hold up. Your losses from last year have opened the door to newness this year.
But 2018 it is going to be hard, too. Trump is president, and whether you like him or not, he creates havoc and possibly war – or so an 80 billion dollar uptick in military resources might imply. We will have a midterm election and people will think it is the most important thing in the world. The 1% will still be stealing all the money, leaking oil out of their pipelines (like the biggest one ever happening right now off the coast of China), seeing how little they can give us (like healthcare) for as much as they can get in profit, and maybe the general economy will run hot, but maybe it will drop, and we will be left holding the bag, not the 1%. Marginalized people will be exploited, deported, murdered. We, I hope just not you, will have relationship problems, physical problems, employment problems, kid problems, church problems, faith problems, But will you pray?
I think the key issue of getting into the deep water with Jesus and finding that you can have a sustainable life of faith, hope and love is all about prayer.
What is prayer?
When I keep saying the word “prayer” tonight I mean it as an umbrella term. Prayer is all the ways we communicate with God and I immediately need to add, all the ways we commune with God, and connect with God.
So, in my definition there are a lot of subheadings under the heading prayer, some of which you may be more adept at and familiar with than others:
We can sing a prayer: “Oh Lord hear my prayer.”
We can speak a prayer out loud, either together or in private: “Have mercy on me Lord.”
Prayer is intercession: I pray “Help Gwen, she is sick.” (Try it personally, right now: “Touch____they need you.”)
Prayer is asking for something, supplication: “Help me. I am needy.”
Prayer is worship, which is kind of a category all its own: “I praise you Lord.”
Prayer is contemplation – silence, thoughtless. Communing in the deep silence of God. (Try that for ten seconds, right now).
Prayer is meditation – mindful, thought-concentrated. You hear a lot about this, because it is how we “pray without ceasing.” I think it is a good. (Try it. Meditate on something I have said so far, right now). Or just become quiet and let God show you something you need to see or hear right now. Or just be loved. Be touched. Be led. Be turned toward God.
There are a lot of ways to pray. But do you pray? Maybe not – I am not judging you, but I am obviously exhorting you to do it. It is the entry point to the deep, healing, joyful, sustaining life of the Holy Spirit. Prayer is us participating with the Spirit alive in us by the resurrection of Jesus.
Will we get into it?
I like swimming across the lake at our family retreat in the Poconos. But I often don’t like getting into the lake. I am not really a jumper or diver by nature (although that is what I eventually do). You know those people who throw down their towel at the beach and just run in — never been one of those. I’m not even really a slider (but sometimes I try that) — sit on the edge of dock, stick a toe in, slowly get acclimated. I tend to push those people in — it is just taking too long — it seems like torture. So I have a getting in problem when it comes to the lake.
So I understand why some of us rarely, if ever, pray, even though we want to be Jesus-followers and we are devoted to God. We have a getting in problem when it comes to prayer. Prayer is like the deep water of faith. We have to get in it. But it is kind of a shock to the system to pray, like getting into a cold, mysterious lake. I like it when I am in there, even though I am kind of afraid what might be under the surface. But I have to get in. We need to keep getting into the deep water of prayer. It may not be a problem for you. But I haven’t met too many people for whom it is not.
I think we are great at helping people get into prayer. We have Sunday meetings to jump in. We have cell meetings to ease in. But some people are still squeamish about these meetings. They are avoidant or standoffish because they don’t want to get into prayer — that water feels too shocking. “It might be too cold or too something. I will get wet. I don’t know how to swim well. I did not bring a hair dryer. I’m too wicked to be seen in a prayer suit.”
We also offer people a lot of resources for how to pray alone. That is a very important discipline to nurture : how to be one on one with God, But does anyone do it?
What is happening with you when you pray.
Even tonight? What has been happening? I hope you have been looking at how you work.
As I close up, let me give you a few pointers for how to begin or keep praying by using this very famous psalm. You can tell that my goal is to get you praying, not just talk about praying so you can fail or succeed at applying my principles, later.
A lot of you already know this prayer in the beautiful old language of the 1611 Bible commissioned in England by King James. Let’s pray it together right now.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. — Psalm 23 King James Version (KJV)
It is a premade prayer you can use. Six lines. Easy to memorize. I have memorized it, but I have my own version made up of all the different translations I know. I pray it in the night when I wake up anxious and I need to focus on something other than on what I am focusing. I turn it into “You are my shepherd, Lord,” for one thing.
Here is a version from the New Revised Standard Version. I like this version of the Bible because it gets rid of unnecessary male pronouns for God and is still quite beautiful. In this psalm they did not change it because the writer is a male shepherd and he has traded his leadership for God, seeing himself as a sheep. But do what you like, if you are a female shepherd. If you let the world’s identity politics keep you from getting into the water, that is sad.
Pray it out loud.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.
Now let me end by trying to keep you thinking about how this prayer works so you can let it lead you into the deep water and keep praying. It has lovely, basic things to teach.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Prayer is a constant changing of mind. The shepherd/psalmist accepts that the tables are turned. He is like one of his sheep and God is the loving, attentive shepherd. Even deeper, God, who is like my shepherd, cares for me personally. I am not just part of the herd. I shall not want. I will have what I need. Some of us need to begin all our prayer with that line, since we don’t show up that deeply yet. This is God; this is me. God is my caregiver; I am beloved. God is listening for me; I am praying.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
for his name’s sake.
Prayer is turning toward the presence of God. God is with me. In Jesus, God is even more completely with me, no one is left out. Jesus is one of us. Even if you were only like a sheep, green pastures and still waters sound wonderful. If you are a human, a restored soul and a right path sound wonderful. Prayer brings us to those places. God is with us. So we turn to prayer.
I think this is the heart of getting into the deep places right here. See if you can dive in, or ease in, or find a way into the water.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Prayer is turning into the discomfort and away from the evil. Oh my goodness! I had to pray this prayer when Gwen was hooked up on a hundred machines in ICU! It felt like such a dark valley. But I was comforted as I faced that darkness with God.
Sometimes I pray that second part in hope, not in full feeling. My cup is up and Jesus keeps filling it, but I need to turn again and again, because my cup seems to have a hole in it. I wish it were not so, but I wake up hungry and frightened. People I expected to love me don’t love me. Institutions I thought would be on my side do not protect me. I need to pray: the Lord is my shepherd, he restores my soul, even in this dark valley.
Prayer is turning into that reality and sitting down at the table, day after day, and experiencing, eventually, how God is with me, taking care of me. I have many fears and opponents, but God is on my side. So pray.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.
Prayer is turning into hope and the promise. If you read this like it is just a fact, you might never pray it. How can the psalmist know that goodness will follow him? What if something terrible happens?
If you wonder that, too, go back to the first part of the psalm and pray it again. Turn into it.
Change your mind.
Turn into the presence.
Turn into the discomfort and away from evil.
Feel the comfort and the goodness.
Then you pray this last line. Maybe this final stanza should have been preceded with an “Ah.” The psalmist got somewhere. “Ah! Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Oh yes! I will dwell in the house of God, like a child of God, my whole life long, forever.” So I pray.
So wonderful! Of course everyone prays!
Try diving in to that last part. So hopeful. So trusting. So not like the world usually is. Pray it again, slowly. Maybe do it again until it sinks in.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.
For me during the past few months prayer has been all about the turning. Even during this evening I have been more aware than ever, I think, that I need to keep turning.
Turning away from how my mind usually works and diving in.
Remembering how wonderful it feels to swim freely in the water and not resisting the entry.
Turning to face what I fear and believing God will comfort me and seat me at the table as a beloved child.
Ah.
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Today is Odo of Cluny Day! Europe was not the same after he ignited a reform movement in the 900’s that influenced the continent for good. Get to know him at The Transhistorical Body.
I made a trip to the front desk to get the gel packs the OT suggested when she heard about our icemaker breaking. On my way, I stopped by the mailbox and soon opened my Peace and Justice Journal from MCC. {MCC U.S. National Peace and Justice Ministries]. It was all about the Congo. It made me smile.
Just in case you can’t quite place it.
Some of you might wonder, “Why in the world would any news from Congo make you smile?” — especially when your icemaker is broken! It’s true, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the most desperate places in the world — so much suffering! The Human Development Index places it at 180 out of 193 countries (2022). It is completely off the radar of most Americans. But ever since I read King Leopold’s Ghost around 1999, I can’t keep it out of my mind. Having met MCC workers from the Congo and followed the scant news we get about it, I’ve developed an affection.
Plus, this week, on Oct. 12, it is Simon Kimbangu Day (see The Transhistorical Body]. The Congo has produced some amazing Christians. Oct 29 is Christophe Munzihirwa Day. Add to this that one of the most inspiring books of the last decade is Emmanuel Katongole’s Born from Lament: The Theology and Politics of Hope in Africa in which he shares first-hand stories of Jesus followers in the Congo leading the way.
Shush child
In the midst of my own turmoil, which has a decidedly “first world” look to it, I am hoping for some encouragement. You probably are, too, since you are facing an election, a Middle East war and your own troubles. If you’re from the U.S., you might have some connections in North Carolina or in the other areas pummeled by Hurricane Helene – our NC contacts survived relatively well, but they are surrounded by devastation and grief. I am going to say few more words about the Congo, but first, let’s all take a minute in God’s arms and receive a collective shushing.
Don’t fear, because I am with you;
don’t be afraid, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you,
I will surely help you;
I will hold you
with my righteous strong hand. — Isaiah 41:10 (CEB)
When I first read that verse as a kid, I heard, “You need to stop fearing, because it is wrong to fear when God is with you – and he might be displeased.” Maybe I needed that for a developmental season.
But in my later years I hear God shushing me like I used to softly speak to my troubled babies and grandchildren: “Shhh. Don’t be afraid, I am with you. I will always be here as long as I have breath.” When God, the eternal breath of the Spirit, shushes, it is truly an unending promise along with immediate comfort.
I suppose you know we instinctively started shushing babies as soon as they were born because we could feel their shock at entering a world of new and unfamiliar sounds. I suppose when we feel overwhelmed, our bodies may remember the time we experienced our own initial trauma. Shushing recreates the familiar sounds of the womb, providing a sense of comfort and security for that dear baby.
Nowadays, we have machines that shush for us. Some of us create a womblike environment in which to sleep, we are so anxious and so surrounded by anxiety-producing sounds. It is hard to sleep in my neighborhood because there are drag races on a street nearby – one of the last in Philly without a big speed bump! You may have fireworks and sirens going off all night. But be careful how you cope. I think after we are six years old, or so, we had better take care not to become dependent on a machine to sleep.
For now, would you like to slowly go through that shushing word from God, stored up there in Isaiah for you? I think it should take you six deep breaths to get through it. Take a deep breath and slowly read a clause as you exhale. Take a next slow inhale through your nose and gently exhale as you move through all six lines. If you do it again, that is even better.
Shush over the Congo
Now maybe we can consider the Congo and the 115 million people who live there. Over 7 million of the Congolese are displaced persons, driven from their homes by conflict or corruption. It is hard to say just how many refugees add to the population, but there are hundreds of thousands from Burundi, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Rwanda. That list of countries sounds like a litany of war, terror and starvation to me, a wound on the world.
We have to consider the Congo because raw materials in the eastern part of it are essential for the world’s rush to replace fossil fuels and save the planet. To reach the zero emissions targets by 2050 will mean a 600% increase in mineral demand. The provinces of North and South Kivu, bordering Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi are crucial to providing the global supply chains with the coltan, gold, and cassiterite which fuel green economies.
Kivu is also the home of the largest and fastest growing population of displaced people. DR Congo has 250 local armed groups and 14 foreign armed groups fighting for territory, mines or other resources in the country. In North Kivu, one major armed group, M-23, controls much of northern part of the province. They control key coltan mining villages where people make their money in illegal mines, excavating without machinery. M-23 uses motorcycles, trucks and boats to smuggle coltan into neighboring countries in order to avoid the heavy taxes levied on mineral sales inside DR Congo. Imagine living there, if you aren’t there right now.
Knowing about the Congo can be overwhelming — especially when you feel burdened with problems of your own. I can relate to that. I hope this is not true of you, but I cycled in and out of feeling overwhelmed last week. I needed to turn and turn again into that loving embrace of God, who surrounds me with grace and feeds my hope. There are so many things that are far beyond our capacity to control! If we still feel we need to do that, we have to shrink our world until it is very small. If we keep ourselves that small, the Congo might as well be on another planet. Anything outside your apartment might feel foreign!
We all need some encouragement. Even though this post is filled with difficult things, I hope it also encourages you to latch on to the vast resources of God at your disposal.
Here is a final prayer to acknowledge our need to turn into God and hear the shush of our loving parent — if your are a Mennonite, you might recognize it from Voices Together. Again, take it slow, one breath a line.
Gracious God, when there is nothing we can say,
We give you thanks that your Spirit intercedes for us
with sighs too deep for words.
Loving God, when there is nothing we can do,
we give you thanks that you are working for good
in this world of struggle and pain.
Holy God, when there is nothing else we know,
we still give thanks that nothing in life or in death,
nothing in heaven or on earth,
nothing in this world or the world to come
will ever separate us from your great love through Jesus Christ.
Maybe we should all try that again, praying with the millions of faithful Congolese people, with the people suffering from the aftermath of the hurricane and other disasters. Pray it with the many people pouring out love, skill, time, and resources to help them, and with the faithful lovers in your own life who are there for you, or will be, often when you least expect them and rarely because you feel you deserve them.
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Further resources for learning about the Congo and climate issues:
On the 4th of July we got together with a few people from our church to pray for the country. Independence Day is one of the “Other Major Feasts” in the Episcopal Church.
I was happy to do it. All week my clients, family and friends were stressed out by Biden’s stupor and Trump’s lies at the debate. Then the Supreme Court changed more fundamental principles with their wild logic. Everyone, from all sides of the political spectrum, is upset, thrashing about in a great wave of distress washing over the country. Once people are tossed about and “white with foam,” they are mad because they are jostled and dripping.
So it was good to read this portion of Psalm 33 from the day’s liturgy on Independence Day:
There is no king that can be saved by a mighty army;
a strong man is not delivered by his great strength.
The horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
for all its strength it cannot save.
Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon those who fear him,
on those who wait upon his love
to pluck their lives from death,
and to feed them in time of famine.
Our soul waits for the Lord;
he is our help and our shield. — Psalm 33:16-20
This is basic wisdom handed down from the Jews and vivified in Jesus, the Prince of Peace, the Way the Truth and the Life. Wait for the Lord.
We are so tempted
I have been thinking about Psalm 33 ever since that morning prayer, and about all those beloved people I have seen who are wondering what happened to their peace and worse, wondering what horrible thing might happen next. Many of them were anxious long before a wave of anxiety hit them. Many of them were mistrusting before before lies descended on them from all angles.
So what should we all do? It would be tempting to rely on some “mighty army” to save us. Violence is in the air we breath, right now.
For instance, here is something Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, offered last Monday:
“That Supreme Court ruling yesterday on immunity is vital, and it’s vital for a lot of reasons…” [He added the nation needs a strong leader because] “the radical left…has taken over our institutions…[W]e are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” (July 1)
It would be tempting to take matters into our own hands, since it appears God will not be doing what we want, and to be the arbiter of life and death ourselves. After all, there are these kinds of candidates:
“The New Republic published a June 30 video of North Carolina lieutenant governor Mark Robinson [start at 53:00], currently the Republican nominee for governor of North Carolina, saying to a church audience about their opponents—whom he identified in a scattershot speech as anything from communists to “wicked people” to those standing against “conservatives”—”Kill them! Some liberal somewhere is gonna say that sounds awful. Too bad!… Some folks need killing! It’s time for somebody to say it.” (from Heather Richardson)
As if the pandemic were not enough to set us on our heads, there has been so much more. U.S. citizens seem awash in fear and it is clouding their judgment. Every radical that promises victory and vengeance seems plausible — even to Jesus followers!
We’ve got to do something, of course. But what is it? Infiltrate the police? Blow things up? Write books and make speeches? Build a bomb shelter? It seems like almost anything seems plausible and everything seems impossible.
In the face of all that, here are my suggestions, hatched after prayer featuring Psalm 33.
Don’t put your trust in chariots, obey God, not men.
Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. — Psalm 20:7 (NIV)
But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.” — Acts 5:29 NASB
In the U.S. people are likely to say, “The other side of the political divide is trusting in guns not God! We are obeying God/the truth/the Constitution!” So maybe we should amplify Psalm 33 to mean, “Don’t trust in the big principle of the moment, in the media’s narrative of reality, in your own prejudices or trauma reactions. Trust in the Lord Jesus, present with you in troubled times, just like he weathered the storm with his disciples.”
It is a year for putting those verses (above) on a post-its and sticking them to our computers or dashboards.
Maybe you could add a few other notes:
“Don’t think of 2024 like you are fighting to rule the empire.” Be a Jesus follower.
Or “Making the best deal for yourself is not the essence of life.” Jesus already gave you the best possible deal, anyway.
Or “Nothing works, so anything might work.” We all feel so guilty for having the wrong political candidates and leaving our children a mess and causing global warming. We’re overwhelmed with our failure to make things work right. Let Go. Let God. And that will free you to be your best self.
Return to the basics
I really wanted to go to that prayer time on the 4th! It felt good and right to pray. It felt necessary to pray in the face of national hysteria or despair.
We are tempted to do everything but what is the secret goodness we bring to the world: Prayer. Community. Worship. But practicing our reality with sincerity makes the world a place where that goodness can and does happen, where our Savior is among us all. If no one sees you or comes to your meeting, don’t worry about it. We are doing a spiritual work, not gaining a market share. Think eternally and act minute by minute.
Assert the truth
I know we are truth challenged, but Jesus isn’t. I know we have variations on what the priority truths are. Don’t worry about it. Jesus fed 5000 with a few loave sand fish, he can use the meager truth he has to work with.
Quite often, during spiritual direction, a person will be up in the air. They don’t know what to think or do. And I often will say, “I think you may know more than you can grasp right now. Let’s be quiet and listen.” It is often surprising just how quickly the right thought or feeling becomes clear.
As for me, I think it has already been revealed that Jesus is my fundamental truth. I mention him a lot and just see what happens. Grace, justice, hope seem to be truths I can follow through every situation. I think my proverb is: Be present with your best, don’t just reactively argue with what is worst. Whatever I have to bring to the world is what it is in who I am and what I do because Jesus is with me.
Embrace unknowing, curiosity, trust, love.
I am meeting with several bewildered couples and experiencing our fractious HOA. So I know people are very tempted to apply whatever power they have to “take someone out.” Like the candidate said, “Some people just need to be killed!” You think that is absurd until you witness people wrecking their marriage or taking down their own community because they are sure some other person is wrong and will ruin them.
Fear feeds the what ifs. Anxiety becomes its own logic. I often suggest to married people, “Really, you do not know what is going to happen. You do not know what can change and grow.” Jesus followers are not fools waiting to get devoured by lions prowling around, of course, but they are also not afraid, because they are already taken care of. They don’t have to know what will happen. They have a destiny. So they can enter toxic times with hope. They can brazenly love their enemies. They can pick out what they can trust and let the chaff blow away.
The seed planting we do always seems small in the face of frightening threats. But each seed has the possibility to grow into the life-changing tree under which some overwhelmed American needs to rest.
My wife does not turn her phone off at night because we have been listening for children calling in the dark for over forty years, so why stop now? Some unknown person called at 3:30 the other night and then called again a short time later. I hear they called again after I had left in a daze.
I started my day in the dark because I could not get back to sleep and got all sorts of things accomplished. I have many new duties these days. Then I saw clients and oversaw the installation of our long-overdue window in the façade of our counseling offices. After I came home and tried to fix the TV, which had lost its sound, I was, again, a bit dazed. I asked, “Was it just last night those phone calls came?”
As I sat down to reflect and pray the next morning, one of my favorite verses came to mind. I had just said to God, “I am not sure who I am right now.” It turns out, that was a good move, since turning to look into the face of “the perfect law, the law of liberty” immediately reassured me that I was still in the presence of the One who loves me. And then I remembered James.
Be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing. — James 1:22-4
Reflection
I’m in a season when I often wake up and say, as I am reflecting, “I need more reflection.” I will eventually take some extended time or take a retreat, which I need to do. But I also need to remember that the day-to-day discipline of taking as much time as possible to deliberately turn toward God has transformed my life.
I think it was the same for James, too. And he is not shy about taking a dig at us in his book of wisdom for lagging in transformation. He basically says, “If you don’t do something deliberate about the new reality you have entered, you’ll still be like a person who doesn’t seem to know what they look like. You’ll still be checking yourself out in every mirror you pass, or in store windows and phone screens. You will never quite know what you’re doing because you’re still looking at your old self in the mirror instead of the transformed self Jesus has made you.”
Why do we love to look in the mirror? — well, at least most of us love it, or at least can’t help doing it. We have a magnifying mirror in our bathroom for advanced plucking, but I also use it to eliminate those stray hairs old men grow. I admit a bit of fascination about how different I look over time. The reflection of my face tells my history, collects my criticism, and always reminds me I reached my peak beauty decades ago. It is easy to forget, day by day, just who we are for all we have been and all we are not. We’re fascinated by our own story, and there it is looking at us.
James is trying to change our usual mirror experience. He comes right out and says it, “That old law you lived by was a pack of lies.” We deceived ourselves so much, we got trapped in checking ourselves out all the time to see if we were performing well, to see if things were all under control. The old law ended up being about regretting who we were and fearing who we need to become. Very few of us looked in the mirror and said, “Yes. You’re crushing it.”
The new law, which is really the oldest law from which the world was created, the law of love, is not like the endless self-criticism and defensiveness that saddled us to fear. It is a law of liberty, a lens through which we see ourselves as God gives us to become.
Facing up to your new face
The other day I said something impolitic in a private meeting and I offended someone. They wrote a letter to me and my board members, publicly shaming me and demanding an apology. I apologized, since I should watch what I say (James has something to say about our tongues right after today’s quote!). Someone called me and wondered if my apology had just given an adversary something to weaponize! Trump has taught us all to deceive and deceive ourselves, to be perpetually defensive. But I wondered if my friend was not right. We’ll see.
With my apology, I was trying to “face up to my new face.” I am in new situations these days. I often wonder “Who am I?” I keep learning who I am by turning away from the mirror of merely me and looking into the mirror where God is looking back at me. How does one do that?
1) Looking is also doing.
Most people see James’ teaching as, “You need to take care of some widows, not just sit there like a saved lump!” I think that’s a fair interpretation.
But James did not get to his teaching about doing the word just by visiting widows. I think he first looked deeply into the new law as part of his rhythm. Being a doer of the word means looking into the law of liberty. That is a basic “doing” that creates a “doer.”
2) Resisting deception is also doing.
I’ve heard many (and may have preached a few) sermons about people who merely listen to sermons (podcasts, videos, lectures, etc.) and think that is the essence of being a Christian. It is not, even if most Protestant churches have a big fat pulpit in the center of the meeting. Merely-hearers are taking in info to advance their project — they are “getting it right.” They are getting justified, over and over, which feels good as long as they are in the echo chamber. And they are creating an image that looks justified; they are a principle they can articulately justify (or just loudly defend). They are proving themselves, so when they check the mirror to see if they are still there, they will feel OK and maybe even feel like they deserve to represent Jesus.
James wants us to prove ourselves by doing what our true selves should do, not just get more material to shore up our weak sense of self. We’ve got enough material! But before James got to that conclusion, I think he had to go through the hard process of not deceiving himself. He, like all of us, had a story he lived by before he heard the story of Jesus. It is hard to say it, but we were deceiving ourselves, living a lie, and were desperate to get that lie justified. Facing up to our new face means looking at ourselves in new ways. When you look in the mirror and see “the Beloved of God” and not just “a wrinkly old man” or “a fat woman” or “the one who must not be seen,” or “a lot of work left to do,” we’re getting somewhere.
3) Receiving is also doing
In this era we tend to manualize everything. A co-worker is mastering A.I. at a ripe old age. They ask A.I. everything and it is amazing what gets produced. It is easy for us (or A.I., I guess) to take James and spit out best practices — reduce him to “Don’t just sit there, do something!” Since the world is warming at an alarming rate, that might be great advice. But he’s deeper than that.
James did not get to his advice about doing the word because he had a good idea or a revelation. He probably would not go to A.I. to find out who he is. He appears to have some personal experience. When he says, “If you persevere and keep acting for good with the freedom you have received from your past ways, you will be blessed,” I think he knew about being blessed that way. I don’t think he was channeling a theory.
If you cannot receive God’s blessing of new life and love in Jesus, you probably won’t keep acting. Receiving new life is the first thing we do. If you only feel “blessed” because you succeed as a Christian in the ways you thought of success in your old narrative, you’ll probably give up the whole Christian enterprise. Maybe you should, since you’re following yourself instead of Jesus.
The reality of being blessed is also an experience of being blessed. I turn to God because I am alive, not just trying to be alive. I am blessed because I live under God’s watchful eye, listening for me like a mother in the night, not just because, “I did the right thing and I ought to get something for it.” I reflect because I am a reflection, not just because I need to improve myself and figure out how to survive this day.
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Yesterday was Columba Day! He is one of my favorites of the apostles of the earliest Celtic church. He is larger-than-life, flawed, artistic, ambitious and leaves a legacy many still admire. Click his name and get to know him at The Transhistorical Body.
I added a couple of major commitments to my schedule. They are not like I just moved to Chicago for a new job; not like welcoming a new baby into the family; not like being enrolled at Philly’s University of the Arts and it shutting down in an instant; not like losing a lawsuit or finally ending up a felon after years of avoiding that outcome. But I am feeling the weight of new commitments. We all get new burdens placed on us, one time or another.
I got elected to my condo board, God help me. Plus I became more integral to my church. And I was feeling full enough before those things happened, since I have a job, like most of you do. I have a dearly loved family nearby. I have trips to take. I have to figure out the City of Philadelphia’s websites periodically and wonder what has happened to my latest lost online shopping delivery — not to mention Gaza, and it is 126 degrees in New Delhi.
Staying
In the midst of all this, I noticed my prayer felt a little stale, for lack of a better description. It was still bread, but not as nice as fresh-baked. I realized that almost as soon as I sat down to pray, I was tempted to get up. Or some days I had to admit that I did not sit down at all, the schedule was so pressing. So God and I felt a little like “ships passing in the night.” At least the Lord was moving and I was a bit adrift.
One day I had that restless feeling and decided, “I am going to stay here, even if all I do is feel like I need to get up.” I did not feel trapped or irritated. I did not feel sinful. But I did not feel like there was room for intimacy, either. So I stayed.
The image that popped into my mind as I stayed was one of the most famous scenes in the story of Jacob in Genesis. You probably remember it. He is finally going back to the territory of his forefathers, Isaac and Abraham, and he is about to meet his brother Esau, who he cheated out of his birthright as the older brother and who he hasn’t seen for fourteen years.
Contemporary icon by Deacon Nikita Andrejev. https://n-andrejev.squarespace.com/
Jacob’s all-nighter
Here is the part of the story that intrigued me the most. Jacob sent his family and all his possessions across the Jabbok ford and into his homeland, now a threatening place. He stayed on the other side by himself all night and wrestled with God until he was blessed.
I realized I was doing what every God-lover needs to do. I was staying. I was staying like Jacob stayed all night. Fortunately, I was not fearing the 400 men my brother was reportedly leading to meet me. I just had a lot to do, and people throw trash out their car windows where I live. I needed to stay.
The art of having a relationship with God and becoming a non-anxious presence yourself requires staying. I had to sit in the chair where I pray, stay on the bench or kneeler where I pray, go into a bathroom stall in the office where I can be alone and stay until I felt blessed.
It is not that I am not blessed when I am figuring out my condominium problems, or imagining how a traditional church can make a difference, or caring for my clients. I just don’t know I’m blessed. I have trouble feeling it. And I mean knowing in the “You dislocated my hip with a touch” sense; feeling in the “I am walking with a limp because of you” sense.
God dislocates me when I am located in my preoccupations, fears, lusts, or ignorance, you name it. He sets me walking in a way that demonstrates I have been with her. I love that reality. But it is hard to stay in it, unless I stay. My spiritual awareness happens in time and in a body and always will. I need to do the physical things that allow spiritual things to overwhelm what overwhelms me.
Michel Keck will sell you this work. Click the pic.
Stay and meet God
As you can tell, the Jacob story has been grounding me. In it, I could hear Jesus asking me to stay with him as he wrestled in prayer in the night in Gethsemane. Such praying comes to good result:
So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. — Genesis 32:30-31
The place where Jacob stayed was named Penuel: “God was seen there.” Jacob renamed that place for himself, Peniel: “I saw God here.”
Whatever we are facing today, whatever is built up from the past, we need to stay with God in it until we realize we are blessed. Go to the place you pray and stay there. Otherwise, our prayer could be a place where “God was seen sometime.” But I think each day needs to be marked with “I have seen God here.”
Thank you Jesus. God is with us. Here and now.
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Today is Kizito Day. He is one of the many Ugandan martyrs still remembered for keeping faith when it was new. Get to know this spiritual ancestor at https://www.transhistoricalbody.com/
Today is also Hudson Taylor Day. He is one of the most inventive, dedicated and strange missionaries ever. He made a huge impact in China. I think his story will challenge, puzzle and inspire you. Meet him at https://www.transhistoricalbody.com/
I have several copies of the “Peace Prayer,” attributed to St. Francis, on walls where I am likely to bump into it. (Don’t worry, you’ll bump into it down below, if you’ve never heard of it). I need to remember it in a world that is more about power than peace.
I do remember it. By now, after all that bumping, that prayer is etched on a convenient wall in my mind. So I had it on hand the other day when I needed it. And, like prayer often does, it inspired me to go beyond it. Maybe you’ll want to get someplace beyond what it usually offers you, too.
Some history of the Peace Prayer
There is no way Francis wrote “Make me an instrument of your peace.” For one thing, he rarely wrote anything about “me.” More relevant is the fact this prayer did not appear in general circulation until 1912. If a stray prayer of Francis of Assisi had been laying around for 700 years, someone would have known about it.
The prayer first appeared in Paris in small spiritual magazine called “La Clochette” (The Little Bell), the newsletter of La Ligue de la Sainte-Messe (The Holy Mass League). The league’s founder and editor of the newsletter was Father Esther Bouquerel (1855-1923). He published the prayer as written by “Anonymous” with the title of “Belle prière à faire pendant la messe” (A Beautiful Prayer to Say During the Mass). The author was probably Father Bouquerel himself, but the identity of the author remains a mystery.
The prayer was sent in French to Pope Benedict XV in 1915 by the aristocrat, Marquis Stanislas de La Rochethulon. This was soon followed by its 1916 appearance, in Italian, in L’Osservatore Romano [the Vatican’s daily newspaper] in the middle of World War I. Around 1920, the prayer was printed on the back of an image of St. Francis with the title “Prière pour la paix” (Prayer for Peace) but without being attributed to the saint. It was first attributed St. Francis in 1927 by a French Protestant Movement, Les Chevaliers du Prince de la Paix (The Knights of the Prince of Peace).
The first time it was published in English was probably in 1936 in Living Courageously, a book by Kirby Page, a Disciples of Christ minister, pacifist, social evangelist, writer and editor of The World Tomorrow. Page clearly attributed the text to Francis. During World War II and immediately after, this prayer for peace began circulating widely as the “Prayer of St. Francis,” especially through Francis Cardinal Spellman’s books. Over the years it has gained a worldwide popularity with people of all faiths. It was central to the gathering memorialized below.
Artwork memorializing the first World Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi (1986), with Pope John Paul II hosting religious leaders from around the world.
Let’s pray the prayer
There are four major wars raging in the world right now. It is time for a prayer for peace. Each war has caused over 10,000 deaths, or more, in the past two years (Wiki). Over fifty conflicts with fewer casualties are also ongoing.
Last week Reuters said Russia doubled its 2023 defense spending to more than $100 billion — a third of all the country’s public expenditure. In July, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research institute, calculated the U.S. had, so far, spent $75 billion in assistance to Ukraine; included was humanitarian, financial, and military support.
“Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me!” In a world at war in large ways and small, shouldn’t that be our daily prayer? The peace prayer is that kind of prayer. Let’s try it out:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
In the 1970’s, Franco Zeffirelli and Donovan put music in the mouth of Francis along with the erroneously attributed words, which is how I usually pray the prayer, too.
Add your own lines
In the middle of World War I a hopeful priest wrote a beautiful prayer. People picked up on it over time, translated it, tweaked it here and there in the process, put it on prayer cards. published it in magazines and bulletins, and said it was authorized by St. Francis, himself. I love it. Mother Teresa and Desmond Tutu loved it.
But I don’t think a recited prayer is very alive unless people keep rewriting it.
The other day, I remembered my old favorite prayer and the erroneous depiction of my favorite saint praying it. I was especially moved by “O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console.” I had been feeling a bit inconsolable. The prayer helped me turn from my “side screen” to look at the “big picture” of my life [post on turning].
As I prayed, I began to see all sorts of other ways I should be praying the same basic prayer. Once it set me on a roll, I kept on rolling! And I realized neglecting to do so would result in a lack of peace in me and there would be that much less peace in the world, too.
I now have a longer prayer to use — at least until I need to add something else! Here is the new stanza I added especially for me. If you need it, nothing prevents you from praying it with me!
Lord grant that I may not so much seek
to be found as to find;
to hold out for what I deserve as to give;
to evaluate what meets the test as to accept;
to justify my temper as to be patient;
to resist possible disappointments as to collect small joys;
to sort out the weaknesses of others as to relish their goodness;
to protect my safety as to risk what it takes to connect.
What should you be adding to the peace prayer?
Be careful as you meditate on that question. Note that Father Bouquerel/Francis said “grant that I may not so much” NOT “Grant that I may erase my needs and desires.” We love others as we love ourselves. Erasing yourself does not make others more alive. Being unhappy is not a price you pay for making others happy. Turning into what is better is an everyday necessity — thus, we love that great peace prayer when we face all our conflicts, inside and out.
Peace is a lot more likely to take root in our hearts if we love others like Jesus loves us. And that love for others will be a lot more authentic when we are at peace in the love of Jesus. Pray: “Lord you are the instrument of my peace; make me an instrument of your peace.”
When we first landed in Philadelphia to plant a church, I knew we were likely to fail if we did not call on gifted people to pray for us. I collected scores of people to intercede who got a regular letter listing our triumphs and trials. 
Then Gwen had an accident as a result of catching flu. She fell in the bathroom and fractured 7 ribs. We ended up in ICU health hell. I had to wear a mask for days. The hospital was much worse than I expected. But did I pray? Well yes. But, surprisingly, it was off and on. It seems like my disciplines are much better when I am on vacation or on retreat, not living my normal life. Surprisingly, If there is a problem, one of the first things to go might be prayer — this is not totally true, of course, but I have found it oddly true of me — and it may be true of you. Gwen, on the other hand, prayed a lot. She had a whole season of rib repair and pain in which to do it. If your life is being changed, you need God, right? Better pray.
Today is 
