I read one of Brian McLaren's questions last night in A New Kind of Christianity, and it brought together a whole lot of ideas I have been thinking about for quite a while, for myself personally, and as a spiritual director.
"How does spiritual formation in the way of Jesus differ from religious education in the way of Christianity?" (p. 170).
A few years ago, I was listening to a directee share about difficulties he was encountering with participating in institutional Christianity. And I have had many of the same difficulties. Then he asked me, "so what keeps you connected to Christianity?" The answer popped out of my mouth so fast, both of us were startled: "It's Jesus!" I have continued to reflect on the deep truth of that answer for me and for who I believe God is calling me to be. My own journey as a follower of Jesus began during a prayer group (40 years ago last month), when my inner being felt overwhelmed by love that I knew, without any doubt, was that of Jesus for me. That experience of deep, unconditional, unmerited and consistent Love has been the "touchstone" of my journey as a Christian.
Lately, I (and many other people) are finding that it can be embarrassing to identify as a Christian: there are so many ways that some Christians and some churches are demonstrating hate, judgment, rejection of anyone who is different, scandalous/abusive behavior, greed....the list could go on. I looked for a quote I have heard attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." (The attribution to him is disputed, but it is still a good quote!)
So, back to McLaren's question: how do I become more like Jesus? How do I "live Christ," or, as Paul said, what does it look like to say "I have been crucified with Christ and yet I am alive; yet it is no longer I, but Christ living me." (Galatians 5:19b-20) I know I can only to do that, only one moment at a time, and only by the continuing grace of God. I do need the fellowship of other followers of Jesus, in the church I attend, in the church as "the body of Christ" (locally and globally, past, present, and future), and with other seekers who yearn to know God deeply, whatever that looks like for and in them.
When I focus on Jesus and who he calls me to be, the many problems I have with the institutional church and with "Christians" whose behavior makes me cringe (as I am sure my behavior does for others at times!), become the background, not the foreground, of what it means for me to be a follower of Jesus. What if the goal of church could become, as McLaren says on the same page, "not simply to pump knowledge into people, but to train them in the "way of love," so they may do the "work of the Lord," empowered by the Holy Spirity, as the embodiment of Christ."?
What do YOU think?
Friday, May 20, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Rubber Meeting the Road, on days when being faithful is hard
I am being reminded in prayer (again) that the reason I am blogging and developing my spiritual direction practice is because I feel called to these ministries. I get tangled up in worrying about whether I will be successful or if I may have made a mistake in discerning my calling, or maybe no one really wants what I have to offer (an old voice in my head, the tape of which I sense God trying to erase). I am not writing this today because I am trying to elicit responses, but because I need to be reminded that my only criteria for "success" is whether or not I am being faithful to what I believe God wants me to do. I need to speak this truth for myself and as a witness, today, for anyone who reads this, to the challenges of setting aside all other criteria. Doubt, distraction, fear, anxiety, all compete for my attention with the still, small voice I trust is coming from God.
I believe that God is affirming my call in many small ways, drawing my attention to books I need to read, ways I need to reach out, prayers I need to pray. I also am connecting to a number of people, my pastor, my spiritual director, spiritual friends, other spiritual directors, who affirm what I am doing. I have to trust one moment at a time and keep responding to the guidance I receive in prayer and from others. How seductive it is to long for approval, numbers, acclaim, "success" in the way the world defines it, and how utterly distracting it is from who God is calling me to be when I move toward those markers.
The quote below is one I have returned to over and over since one of my spiritual directors, many years ago, gave me her copy of Evelyn Underhill's The Spiritual Life. I need to read this again often at this stage of my journey:
"Our place is not the auditorium but the stage—or, as the case may be, the field, workshop, study, laboratory—because we ourselves form part of the creative apparatus of God, or at least are meant to form part of the creative apparatus of God. He made us in order to use us, and use us in the most profitable way; for His purpose, not ours. To live a spiritual life means subordinating all other interests to that single fact. Sometimes our positions seems to be that of tools; taken up when wanted, used in ways which we had not expected for an object on which our opinion is not asked, and then laid down. Sometimes we are the currency used in some great operation, of which the purpose is not revealed to us. Sometimes we are servants, left year in, year out to the same monotonous job. Sometimes we are conscious fellow-workers with the Perfect, striving to bring the Kingdom in. But whatever our particular place or job may be, it means the austere conditions of the workshop, not the free-lance activities of the messy but well-meaning amateur; clocking in at the right time and tending the machine in the right way. Sometimes, perhaps, carrying on for years with a machine we do not very well understand and do not enjoy; because it needs doing, and no one else is available. Or accepting the situation quite quietly, when a job we felt that we were managing excellently is taken away. Taking responsibility if we are called to it, or just bringing the workers their dinner, cleaning and sharpening the tools. All self-willed choices and obstinacy drained out of what we thought to be our work; so that it becomes more and more God’s work in us."
I believe that God is affirming my call in many small ways, drawing my attention to books I need to read, ways I need to reach out, prayers I need to pray. I also am connecting to a number of people, my pastor, my spiritual director, spiritual friends, other spiritual directors, who affirm what I am doing. I have to trust one moment at a time and keep responding to the guidance I receive in prayer and from others. How seductive it is to long for approval, numbers, acclaim, "success" in the way the world defines it, and how utterly distracting it is from who God is calling me to be when I move toward those markers.
The quote below is one I have returned to over and over since one of my spiritual directors, many years ago, gave me her copy of Evelyn Underhill's The Spiritual Life. I need to read this again often at this stage of my journey:
"Our place is not the auditorium but the stage—or, as the case may be, the field, workshop, study, laboratory—because we ourselves form part of the creative apparatus of God, or at least are meant to form part of the creative apparatus of God. He made us in order to use us, and use us in the most profitable way; for His purpose, not ours. To live a spiritual life means subordinating all other interests to that single fact. Sometimes our positions seems to be that of tools; taken up when wanted, used in ways which we had not expected for an object on which our opinion is not asked, and then laid down. Sometimes we are the currency used in some great operation, of which the purpose is not revealed to us. Sometimes we are servants, left year in, year out to the same monotonous job. Sometimes we are conscious fellow-workers with the Perfect, striving to bring the Kingdom in. But whatever our particular place or job may be, it means the austere conditions of the workshop, not the free-lance activities of the messy but well-meaning amateur; clocking in at the right time and tending the machine in the right way. Sometimes, perhaps, carrying on for years with a machine we do not very well understand and do not enjoy; because it needs doing, and no one else is available. Or accepting the situation quite quietly, when a job we felt that we were managing excellently is taken away. Taking responsibility if we are called to it, or just bringing the workers their dinner, cleaning and sharpening the tools. All self-willed choices and obstinacy drained out of what we thought to be our work; so that it becomes more and more God’s work in us."
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Believing Impossible Things at the Same Time
I have been reading Richard Rohr's The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See, and last Friday and Saturday I joined a sold-out crowd of other spiritual directors, ministers, and seekers, to hear him "unpack" his call to spirituality that is contemplative and non-dualistic. I (and many others) sense he is on to something as he writes and speaks about the need for both dualistic and non-dualistic thinking, about the importance of contemplative practice for moving beyond the "pigeonholes" of duality.
Duality is either/or, comparative, labelling thinking, that we need as we grow up and discover who we are in the world around us. We can't know what "short" is unless we know what "tall" is; we can't know what "up" means unless we learn what the word "down" means. We need these words and many others to try to make some sense of the world and who we are in relation to that world. The problem with duality comes, as Richard says, when we confuse words with reality: we become imprisoned in the illusion that our words are adequate to describe the essence of things. And the tragedy of dualistic thinking is that we use it to label and judge and distance people and groups and values, so that we believe we are "in," they are "out," we are "right," and they are "wrong," we are "good" and they are "bad." These distinctions can help us feel superior, safe, better about our selves (that we know deep down are really not that different from the "other"). But they are also terribly limiting...how do we transcend the boxes in which we find ourselves trapped?
What if that was what Jesus was trying to teach us when he said things like "anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be your slave" (Matthew 20:25, referring back to the story of those who "unfairly" received the same wage for working one hour as those who had worked all day, verses 1-16)? And the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is full of sayings that are so hard to understand that most of us for most of Christian history, have thought, "oh, that's nice" while we bypassed trying to hear what Jesus was calling us to: a life that goes beyond the labels of words, the categories that make us comfortable, the fuller, more abundant life that God was calling us to in that ultimate paradox of God becoming human, as a BABY (how fragile, how risky, how very strange).
Jesus the teacher of non-duality, trying to get us to transcend (go beyond the limits of) our labels and categories and comfort zones: what a concept! And how hard it has been for us to "get it." So hard, in fact, that his ultimate act of non-duality was to accept crucifixion as a consequence of his love for us, and then, THEN, come back to life after his disciples thought their world had ended. And we have had such a hard time understanding the deep implications of this, that (among other ways of trying to understand), Catholics have focused on the crucifixion (using the crucifix for all images of the Cross) and Protestants have focused on the resurrection (the "empty" Cross).
I'm not saying I really "get" the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus more than anyone else. But it's where words fail me and I have moments of utter awe and glimmers of how great Jesus' love for me, you, the world, was/is, to take his commitment to us to that extreme, that I move, a little, out of the boxes and categories into an experience, even if it's just for a split second, of just how much God loves me--and you, and the world. And that's also where contemplative prayer, just sitting and focusing on God, brings me, beyond the words to the deeper reality that words can never adequately express. That practice, which is simple but never easy, has become the "place" to which God keeps drawing me back, to reach the deepest parts of my being, beyond words. I long for companions with whom to share this practice; will you join me, once in a while?
Duality is either/or, comparative, labelling thinking, that we need as we grow up and discover who we are in the world around us. We can't know what "short" is unless we know what "tall" is; we can't know what "up" means unless we learn what the word "down" means. We need these words and many others to try to make some sense of the world and who we are in relation to that world. The problem with duality comes, as Richard says, when we confuse words with reality: we become imprisoned in the illusion that our words are adequate to describe the essence of things. And the tragedy of dualistic thinking is that we use it to label and judge and distance people and groups and values, so that we believe we are "in," they are "out," we are "right," and they are "wrong," we are "good" and they are "bad." These distinctions can help us feel superior, safe, better about our selves (that we know deep down are really not that different from the "other"). But they are also terribly limiting...how do we transcend the boxes in which we find ourselves trapped?
What if that was what Jesus was trying to teach us when he said things like "anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be your slave" (Matthew 20:25, referring back to the story of those who "unfairly" received the same wage for working one hour as those who had worked all day, verses 1-16)? And the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is full of sayings that are so hard to understand that most of us for most of Christian history, have thought, "oh, that's nice" while we bypassed trying to hear what Jesus was calling us to: a life that goes beyond the labels of words, the categories that make us comfortable, the fuller, more abundant life that God was calling us to in that ultimate paradox of God becoming human, as a BABY (how fragile, how risky, how very strange).
Jesus the teacher of non-duality, trying to get us to transcend (go beyond the limits of) our labels and categories and comfort zones: what a concept! And how hard it has been for us to "get it." So hard, in fact, that his ultimate act of non-duality was to accept crucifixion as a consequence of his love for us, and then, THEN, come back to life after his disciples thought their world had ended. And we have had such a hard time understanding the deep implications of this, that (among other ways of trying to understand), Catholics have focused on the crucifixion (using the crucifix for all images of the Cross) and Protestants have focused on the resurrection (the "empty" Cross).
I'm not saying I really "get" the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus more than anyone else. But it's where words fail me and I have moments of utter awe and glimmers of how great Jesus' love for me, you, the world, was/is, to take his commitment to us to that extreme, that I move, a little, out of the boxes and categories into an experience, even if it's just for a split second, of just how much God loves me--and you, and the world. And that's also where contemplative prayer, just sitting and focusing on God, brings me, beyond the words to the deeper reality that words can never adequately express. That practice, which is simple but never easy, has become the "place" to which God keeps drawing me back, to reach the deepest parts of my being, beyond words. I long for companions with whom to share this practice; will you join me, once in a while?
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