“a long loving gaze at the real…”

photo credit from Mike Raether.com

Maybe it is just me. Probably.

I have noticed that I am more enamored or more drawn to the “prescriptions” or commands of scripture than to the promises or to the declarations. I think it may be a result of my penchant to act or “do something.” Maybe you can relate to this, as well.

Think about the great command (or the sh’ma as found in Deuteronomy 6).

The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’” (Mark 12.29-30)

When you think about this statement do you hear the declaration or the command. (I hear some of you, “both!”) But I wonder when we think of the “great commandment” as it is called - what do we do with God’s declaration, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

Another example that we probably know by heart, the great commission.

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:18-20)

Again what are our ears drawn to - the declaration or the command; the prescription or the promise? I know we should be attentive to both, but where is our awareness greater? In my honest moments when I reflect on both of these passages, I hear the commands. I hear my duty. I hear my obligations. I hear the imperatives over the indicatives. I wonder in my reaction to act without really hearing the surrounding truths what am I missing?

Am I turning this vital faith into a human endeavor? Am I doing my own little thing oblivious to what God is up to in our world? Am I focusing on me rather than on Thee? Am I practicing a kind of deism, inattentive to the nearness and presence of God?

May I not glance past God’s promises and declarations - may I learn to like Mary ponder these statements and live out God’s commands in light of them. For if I “do” the commands - am I loving, if I am failing to listen for the one true God? Do I find myself so enamored or so focused on “making disciples” that I miss the presence of God in my midst (walking right by the figurative burning bushes around me)?

“If we take seriously the word of the risen Christ, ‘Know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time’ (Matthew 28:20), we should expect that He will be actively present in our lives. If our faith is alive and luminous we will be alert to moments, events, and occasions when the power of resurrection is brought to bear on our lives. Self-absorbed and inattentive, we fail to notice the subtle ways in which Jesus is snagging our attention.” [Brennan Manning in Abba’s Child p. 99-100]

A couple of weekends ago I had the opportunity to spend some time in a quiet spiritual retreat. It was a much needed and great opportunity. I spent a good portion of my time watching birds and sitting on a porch (when I wasn’t facilitating a couple of sessions).

My awareness of God and my time listening was pretty keen - which shocked me!

I held on to four words from my time… they were:

ALL
Will
Be
Well

The four words heard at four separate times made a pretty cool phrase.

Pretty amazing.

I am/was encouraged.

Do you get those crazy questions or thoughts that won’t let you go? They just keep rolling around in your mind - hitting you when you least expect it or hounding you when all you want to do is “veg-out?” Those mosquitoes on the mind just keep buzzing and buzzing in a threatening kind of way. I have had one of those suckers poking about my mind and heart the past couple of days - don’t know where it came from or when it will leave cause the question gets too close to “what it’s all about.” It is a question that I think right now I can’t answer the way I “should.” The answer is too revealing and disappointing.

I wish I could just smack this mosquito and put an end to this buzzing in my head.

The question:
Am I living from a posture or position of willfulness or willingness?

[Willfulness being a posture of stiff-armed distance that projects, “I am in control here;” and willingness is the position of the Gethsemane prayer, “not my will, but Thine be done.”]

The statement above is one I actually recall asking. I have thought it more often than I’d like along the Way as well. It is what motivated me to post the pictures in the previous post.

When you have been walking after God for 20+ years or far less for that matter - we can begin to think that merely accumulating years accounts for the growth of our soul. We know cognitively that this is false, but we can still believe it on other levels. So when the Mystery of the Universe comes in with a cosmic pruning shear or a chain saw and begins to lop off years of accumulated “growth” - it seems a fair question…

Is God killing me? Or keeping me?

Pruning and reshaping can sound pastoral and even “pretty” but as we go through the process we begin to see it as the great spiritual writer and mystic and poet St. John of the Cross states it, “the dark night of the soul.” We see it in light of the pain and desperation of Elijah’s flight to the desert. We begin to emote with our Lord in Gethsemane. And we begin to see beyond the burning hearts to the desperation and hopelessness of the pilgrims who couldn’t even recognize their Messiah and Master before them on the Emmaus road.

And if you have ever spent a sleepless night tossing and turning you know how LONG a night can last.

In these times of pruning and shaping the Spring time offers some hope. My faith can stop shaping me into question marks and for a moment I can rest and take hope in the buds and new life emerging around me.

So today I choose to say, the Potter prunes and reforms that I might in time reflect the Glory of my Maker even more.

In the beginning O God
You shaped my soul and set its weave
You formed my body
and gave it breath.
Renew me this day
in the image of your love.
O great God, grant me your light
O great God, grant me your grace
O great God, grant me your joy this day.
And let me be made pure
in the well of your health.
(prayer by J. Philip Newell from Celtic Prayers from Iona)

“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15. 1-5 NLT)

happy earth day.

Made me smile.
Made me wonder.
Made me pray along with her.

Hope it helps you smile, wonder and pray, as well.

One way I attempt to remain attentive to God and to increase my awareness of God’s nearness and presence is through saying “breath prayers.” One breath prayer I say countless times a day is the Jesus Prayer. (I posted about this here.) There are many other breath prayers that I have said throughout a given day… The following ones all come from scripture and could accompany and punctuate your days as you attempt to increase the frequency and duration of your holy moments.

[Note: the first phrase is said while breathing in and the second phrase is intended to coincide with exhaling.)

* “Speak Lord… for your servant hears” (Samuel, 1 Samuel 3:9 & 10, NKJV)
* “Give thanks to the Lord… for he is good” (David, 1 Chronicles 16:34)
* “The Lord is my Shepherd… I shall not want” (David, Psalm 23:1, KJV)
* “Taste and see… that the Lord is good” (David, Psalm 34:8)
* “Be still… and know that I am God” (Korah’s family, Psalm 46:10, KJV)
* “The Lord… will be [my] confidence” (Solomon, Proverbs 3:26)
* “The joy of the Lord… is [my] strength” (Nehemiah 8:10)
* “Let it be to me… according to your word” (Mary, Luke 1:38, NKJV)
* “Our Father… Hallowed be thy name” (Jesus, Matthew 6:9, KJV)
* “Father… glorify your name” (Jesus, John 12:28, NKJV)
* “Father… into your hands I commit my spirit” (Jesus, Luke 23:46, NKJV)
* “Live by the Spirit… Keep in step with the Spirit” (Paul, Galatians 5:25)
* “To live is Christ… and to die is gain” (Paul, Philippians 1:21, KJV)
* “In Christ’s humility… consider others better than yourselves” (Paul, Philippians 2:3)
* “I want to know Christ… and the power of his resurrection” (Paul, Philippians 3:10)
* “My God… will meet all your needs” (Paul, Philippians 4:19)

[Note - passages from New International Version (NIV) unless otherwise indicated]

In getting started with these simple prayers intended to accompany you on “your way;” begin your day with about 5 minutes of quietly reciting and repeating your breath prayer (do so in a relaxed and unhurried manner - learning the rhythm and wording of your prayer). After this “initiation” in repeating your prayer as you go throughout your day - in idle moments, in anxious moments, in moments of joy and when loved ones come to mind - return to reciting your breath prayer.

Peace.

If we are going to be passionate about the God of the Universe we must come to terms with God on God’s terms not our own. A god of our own construct is no god - but an idol of our own creation. God must be appreciated as God truly is; revealed on the terms God has determined and employed: through the created order and through the special revelation of Scripture. We need our faulty and incomplete images of God refreshed and re-oriented often for our calibration to understand and appreciate God seems to be easily skewed. The prescription for me is regular time in reflection/meditation on a portion of Scripture accompanied by being attentive to God’s presence in silence. Through doses of scriptural reality and times just “being with God” my life is reordered and my passion for God reignited.

“The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshipping men. … We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence.” (A. W. Tozer. The Knowledge of the Holy. The Attributes of God: Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper and Row. 1961. pg. 6).

Sometimes when we say this I think we are emphasizing the wrong part. I think we think, “become like Jesus; become like God.” This trips us up - and “becoming like God” was the temptation that led to the first sin in Genesis 3.

“Becoming like Jesus” is embracing Jesus as fully human - and becoming like him is embracing and striving to become “fully human.” This is our goal, and thus the goal of our spirituality, in my view.

Some inspiration:

“What, dear brothers, is more delightful than this voice of the Lord calling to us? See how the Lord in his love shows us the way of life. Clothed then with faith and performance of good works, let us set out on this way with the Gospel for our guide that we may deserve to see him who has called us to his kingdom”
(St. Benedict - RB: Prologue: 19-21).

“Ministry is service in the name of the Lord. It is bringing the good news to the poor, proclaiming liberty to captives and new sight to the blind, setting the downtrodden free and announcing the Lord’s year of favor (Luke 4:18). Spirituality is paying attention to the life of the spirit in us; it is going out to the desert or up to the mountain to pray; it is standing before the Lord with open heart and open mind; it is crying out, ‘Abba, Father’; it is contemplating the unspeakable beauty of our loving God.”
(Henri J. M. Nouwen)

“The work of Jesus was not a new set of ideals or principles for reforming or even revolutionizing society, but the establishment of a new community, a people that embodied forgiveness, sharing and self-sacrificing love in its rituals and discipline. In that sense, the visible church is not to be the bearer of Christ’s message, but to be the message.”
(Stanley Hauerwas)

“I have come to believe that by and large the human family all has the same secrets, which are both very telling and very important to tell. They are telling in the sense that they tell what is perhaps the central paradox of our condition — that what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else.

It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are even if we tell it only to ourselves — because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real things.”
(From Telling Secrets by Frederick Buechner. )

May we become fully human and thus become like Jesus.

“The Glory of God is man fully alive.”
(St. Irenaeus of Lyons)