James 24:7

I visited with Stanley Hauerwas several years ago in his office at Duke.  He was kind enough to take some time with me to talk about whatever I had on my mind. 

I cannot remember everything we talked about that day but I do remember that I asked him about something I had read.  Someone recounted the story of a hospital stay the very active Hauerwas endured.  

In the article he spoke about how Duke seminary students came to visit him but only showed up as "shimmering masses of availability."   At the time I was teaching seminary students about pastoral care myself so I asked him what he meant by that.

He told me that they came prepared to do whatever it was he needed doing but didn't come prepared to render ministry to him.  In other words, they didn't know what to do  but only waited for him, the sick one, to tell them.

I asked him what he would have preferred.  He said that he would have preferred it if they had brought him some of the bread and wine that was used the previous Sunday in the worship service at his church.

He went on to explain how isolating a hospital stay can be and how cut off from ordinary life he felt during that time.  Partaking of part of the bread and wine his community had used the Sunday before would have helped him feel joined to the community.

He went on to tell me that he went every Thursday to the Duke Chapel for Eucharist.  And then he said something I'll never forget: "Jim, this business of being a Christian is some real fleshy sh*#!"

He went on to remind me that we lived in bodies, that Jesus had 'in-caranated', that we were part of the BODY of Christ and that we love best when we love in the flesh...i.e. body to body, face to face, person to person.

I've never forgotten that conversation and only in part because of Hauerwas' colorful way of putting things.  I've thought about it many times as I have spent more and more time online...casting disembodied messages into cyberspace.  (Oh, how I love it though!)

I've been thinking about this idea of the sensual experience of God.   If Christian faith is "some real fleshy sh*#", then why is so much of it shoved up into our heads?  Why is so much of it about words and arguments around words?  Why isn't more of it sensual?

I'm going to riff on that a while.  However, until I do that think about the words of Hauerwas and the words of this old hymn by Bonar (1855) and then ask yourself: "Is there a place for the sensual encounter with God?"  (emphasis mine)

Here, O my Lord, I see thee face to face;
here would I touch and handle things unseen;
here grasp with firmer hand eternal grace,
and all my weariness upon thee lean.

Feast after feast thus comes and passes by;
yet, passing, points to the glad feast above,
giving sweet foretaste of the festal joy,
the Lamb's great bridal feast of bliss and love.

Intimacy with God. 

We hear it all the time.  Perhaps that is part of the problem...we hear it in the same way that we hear sound bites and cliches.   We hear it like we hear the beeping of a horn, a distant siren, so much Muzak.

Intimacy with God.

We would do better to savor it. We would do better to roll it around on our tongues while we purse our lips and draw in streams of air until the aroma of it fills our heads.

Intimacy with God.

We would do better to sink into it like a hot bath...to immerse ourselves in it...to inhale the steam of it until our passages are clear and enlarged.

Intimacy with God.

We would do better to wrap ourselves in it...to be warmed by it...to be snuggled in it.

Intimacy with God

We would do better to bask in it like a just-right-sun on a slightly breezy and cool April day.

We would do better in so many ways if we would just get over simply "hearing it".   To only hear it is to avoid encountering it.  To only hear it is to avoid engaging it, embracing it and being embraced by it.

To think of intimacy with God in terms of the above metaphors is to think sensually about our friendship with God. 

The thought of that scares us to death...at least some of us.  

To be sensual is to be attuned to the senses, to get out of your head (and maybe even out of your mind!) and to actually sense something.

But that's the rub!

How can the senses pertain to God?  The senses connect us to the physical world, the world of apples and rocks and birdsong and texture.  How can the senses pertain to Spirit, to God, to this intimacy with God?

Our struggle with that problem is part of what keeps us locked up in our own heads...thinking about God, postulating about God, wondering about God.

Since we assume that God does not pertain to the senses, how else are we to understand God if not with our heads, our minds?

Perhaps this bias against the sensual when it comes to God is why Christians have generated far, far more theology than they have art...at least in that last few centuries.

Words, upon words, upon words. 

Words to be parsed and to be analyzed.

Words to be debated.

Words to be systematized.

Words to launch wars large and small.

We'd rather talk about God than know God.

Our bias against the senses in matters of the Spirit are not only based on the disconnect between sense and Spirit.  They are based on something far more "sinister."

Sensuality, which again is about celebrating the senses, has been merged with sexuality.   We cannot speak of being 'sensual' without also being drawn into the 'sexual' and, sadly, we cannot be drawn into the sexual without being drawn into the lurid.

You need go no farther than the dictionary to see this.

Here's a quick cut 'n paste from dictionary.com:

Sensual....

The basic meaning of sensual is shoved all the way down to definition number five! 

Somehow sensual

hooked up with

sexual

and sexual

hooked up with

carnal/fleshly and

carnal/fleshly

hooked up with 

lewd and

lewd

hooked up with

materialistic (anti-spirit) and irreligious.

God!

No wonder we are scared of our own bodies, our own feelings.  No wonder we distance ourselves from ourselves by way of all kinds of substances.

Could we be filled with more self-disdain, more self-hatred?

We content ourselves to think about God, to hold God at some cold and calculated distance, to observe God from afar, through a microscope or a telescope. We satisfy ourselves with discussions over tea or coffee- depending upon denominational affiliation. 

We do so because we dare not draw God too close to the body, which we claim God made, lest God become tainted!

And all the while we become the most sexually marketed, sexually addicted people on earth.  Wonder if that is what comes from divorcing the sensual from the spiritual?

When Abba Joseph invited Abba Lot to become "all flame" he invited him to a spiritual life that was about as sensual as you could get.

How could anyone burst into flames and not "sense" it?   How could anyone burst into flames without "getting hot?"

I back up and ask myself: whose agenda was served by this project to de-sensualize the people of faith?  Whose agenda was served by freezing the people of faith and shoving them up into the freezers of their own minds?

I have my suspicions but I'll keep those to myself.

This much I know:  whoever it was did so because they knew that a people who dabble in God are far more easily controlled than a people who burn. 

Twelfth in a series of reflections on a story from the Desert Fathers)

"Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, 'Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?' then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, 'If you will, you can become all flame.'"

"If you will, you can become all flame."

This morning these words of Oswald Chambers from My Utmost for His Highest caught my eye.

"God’s revelation of Himself

to me

is influenced by my character,

not by God’s character."

While I could quibble with that, there is truth there.  My character - the history, the patterns, the convictions, the underlying way-of-being that I am- must play a major role in how I relate to God, especially in terms of how open I am to God.

Paul said as much about the Jews and the gentiles of his day.  "Jews demand miraculous signs and Gentiles demand wisdom..." (I Corinthians 1:22) Each class of folks had their own criteria by which to determine what was of God and what was not of God.  

Each one of us do too!

I look back over my years of searching the Bible, reading books and asking questions and see how often I have tried to construct some system of criteria by which to measure the presence or the will of God.   "If this, then God...If that, then not-God."

I read somewhere once that baseball managers study the "proneness" of opposing players. Their minions scout other teams and keep a record of how the oppossing players tend to hit.  Player A may be drawn to certain kinds of pitches under certain conditions.  He may be prone to hit into left center but not into right field.  Some managers have extensive data to support their views.  They want to know the opposing player's "proneness."

We tend to do that with God.  We search out God's proneness.

"I know it is of God when there is a miracle for God tends toward miracles!"

"I know it is of God when it is esoteric for God tends toward esoterica!"

"I know it is of God when it makes sense for God can only be a reasonable God!"

Isn't it interesting that we seldom hear anyone say: "I know it is of God because it is ordinary"?  How often do we hear anyone say: "I know God is at work in me when all people notice is the work in me but not me at all!"

Here is another of Oswald Chambers' insights:(My Utmost for His Highest: 11/16)

"But to do even the most humbling tasks to the glory of God takes the Almighty God Incarnate working in us. To be utterly unnoticeable requires God’s Spirit in us making us absolutely humanly His."

"To be utterly unnoticeable requires God's Spirit in us..."

Our own desires, our needs, our self-at-war-with-self tendencies, our agenda influences God's work with us and in us.

Abba Lot seems to have had a great deal of practice in this all-too-human practice of dabbling in self-selected spiritual practices.   While I cannot get into his head, I wonder if perhaps he engaged those practices as a way to hold God at bay while, at the same time, striving for deeper intimacy with God.

I try to imagine what my marriage would be like if I approached my wife with a recipe for marriage grounded in my expectations and convictions about how she works. 

I wonder how it would have gone over with her if I said: "Let's see.  Today I have pencilled in 10 minutes of conversation with you...three hugs...one kiss and one chore.   After that, I am done with you for the day."  

I take it back.  I don't need to imagine what my marriage would be like.  I know what it would be like.  It would be like being...unmarried.

Yet isn't that exactly how we approach God? 

"Let's see, God.  Today I have you pencilled in for a morning devotion, 5 minutes of prayer and a quick read from the Psalms."

And we wonder about our spiritual life?

We cannot "Abba Lot" our way to God.   We cannot assume that our way, based upon our character, is sufficient for that encounter with God. 

All we can assume is that our way suits us.

Eleventh in a series of reflections on a story from the Desert Fathers)

Again...here's the story:

"Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, 'Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?' then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, 'If you will, you can become all flame.'"

"If you will, you can become all flame."

What exactly is it that we choose?  Abba Joseph presented Abba Lot with two alternatives: stay the way you are, do what you currently do or become all flame.  

The choice between those alternatives was clear.  However, if Abba Lot selected the "all flame" option how would he embrace it?  "I want option two...so how do I embrace it?  Having selected it, how do I engage it?"

Abba Lot may have decided to become all flame.  However, he could not set himself on this-kind-of-fire.  

A long time ago when I was studying family therapy I learned about a phenomenon called the "Be Spontaneous Paradox".  The BSP is a relational pattern wherein one party in the relationship commands, orders or directs the other person in the relationship to do something which, by definition, cannot be commanded, ordered or directed.

"Fall in love with me!"

"Like me!"

"Catch fire."

What is the other to say: "Okay, I'll do that at 2 o'clock this afternoon?"

If the other does as commanded, the commander can never be sure that the other has really obeyed.

"Fall in love with me!"

"Okay!"

"Wait! How do I know you aren't just saying that or just 'falling in love with me' because I told you to?"

The BSP always sets up the one to whom it is directed  for failure.  If the commanded does as told, the commanded is suspect.  If the commanded  does not do as told, the the commanded is disobedient, uncaring and unresponsive.

Abba Joseph could order Abba Lot to "become all flame."  And Abba Lot could have command himself to become all flame. And both men could have experienced failure!

If you don't believe that, just try it.  Tell someone close to you to "catch fire." (Many a preacher has commanded the congregation to do just that!)  Or, tell yourself right now: "Catch fire!" (Many a Christian has told himself to do just that!)

The flame about which Abba Joseph spoke could not have been set by the one to whom he spoke.  On top of that, the flame about which Joseph spoke could not have been set by Joseph either.  He did not own a spiritual match.

We cannot order another or ourselves to "spontaneously combust."  If we cannot order that or even will that into being ("I will now spontaneously combust!") the choice we make to become "all flame" cannot be a choice, by effort of will, to burst into flames.

I think about the many times I have felt frustrated to the point of despair in my spiritual life.  I have wanted to burst into flame.  I have tried to burst into flame.  I have brow beat myself because I could not do it. I have spoken with many people over the years who have shared that same despair.

We all must come to terms with the fact that we cannot do that which cannot be done.  To bemoan the fact that I cannot catch fire and to blame myself for it is like bemoaning the fact and blaming myself that I cannot flap my arms and fly.

That I have wanted to and that you have wanted to exposes something deep in us... 

somewhere

in the recesses of our hearts and minds

 we believe that we are

 God. 

What else could we have believed when we thought that we, in our own power, could do that which is by nature impossible? 

But we do it all the time.  We play God.

• Have you ever tried to make someone love you?
• Have you ever tried to control another person? 
• Have you ever tried to remodel another person?
• Have you ever tried to root out a deep prejudice?
• Have you ever tried to make yourself feel something you just didn't feel?
• Have you ever tried to believe something you did not believe?
• Have you ever tried to not think a compulsive thought?

We cannot do the impossible but God can...and does.

Abba Joseph's offer to Abba Lot- "If you will, you can become all flame"- was an invititation to abandon his self-determined, dabbling, task oriented approach to matters of the Spirit and to embrace a relationship with the one who specializes in flame...

the one who might just as well be called The Firestarter.

Tenth in a series of reflections on a story from the Desert Fathers)

Again...here's the story:

"Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, 'Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?' then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, 'If you will, you can become all flame.'"

"If you will, you can become all flame."

Now this is the challenging part, this "...if you will."

Abba Joseph put Abba Lot into crisis with those words.  He offered him a pair of alternatives that, depending upon the choice he made, would set the course of his life. 

He could continue with the usual way of living: self-directed, dabbling, and task centered spiritual practice or he could choose to become all flame.  The choice was either/or not both/and.

The English word 'crisis' is a transliteration of the Greek word 'krisis', which means to judge, to decide, to separate.  The meanings of 'krisis' form a little narrative.  In crisis, in krisis, we make judgments, we decide, we choose- this vs. that. 

Insofar as a story is comprised of a beginning, a middle and and an end, krisis is its own story.  While krisis may last only a couple of seconds, the tension is palpable.

Jesus moved along and first one then another came to him.  "Follow me," he said.

To encounter Jesus is to enter into krisis:

• Lord I will follow you but first I must bury my father. 
• Lord I will follow you but first let me sell my property.
• Lord I will follow you but let me say good-bye to my family.

Our 'buts' don't fit in a krisis.  We cannot have it both ways.  We cannot put Jesus on hold. 

We judge.  We weigh our options.  We consider the outcomes.  We hold each up to the light of scrutiny.

We choose. We take the step knowing that nothing in the past, even the most recent past, can ever be taken back.   Our choices are irrevocable.

We live with our choices.  We follow the path we have selected.  We float in the stream into which we jumped.

We can change our minds but we cannot change our history.  We can change our minds but must live with missed moments.  We can change our minds but to count on that is to count on hours that are not (h)ours to count.

"If you will..."

Ninth in a series of reflections on a story from the Desert Fathers)

Again...here's the story:

"Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, 'Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?' then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, 'If you will, you can become all flame.'"

"If you will, you can become all flame."

The word fires imagination.

Fire consumes.

I think of Paul's letter to the church in Rome. After exploring the great salvational and redemptive work of God through Christ, Paul took everything he had written  to that point, laid it on the table and asked: "Now, what is the appropriate human response to all that God has done and is doing for us?" 

He wrote: "Present your bodies as living sacrifices..."

I wonder if the image of "living sacrifices" provided the backdrop for Abba Joseph's encouragement to Abba Lot. 

Sacrifices burned.

Fire consumed them.

All flame.

Fire heats

My hands freeze as I type these words.  Cold autumn rain mutes the gold outside my window.  The furnace fan whirs in the background.  My mind runs through the vents and down to the blue gas flame. I lift my hands to the fire.

The fire emits heat. 

emittere...(Latin)...e...'out'...mittere...'to send.'

I find an online Latin translator.  I play with words.

"to send God...emitto Deus"

"to send Christ...emitto Sacralogos"

"to send Holy Spirit...emitto flamen"

Flamen?  Holy Spirit. Flamen!

Fire Lights

"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."  (Matthew 5:14-16)

"...flame."

Could it be that Abba Joseph's word carries missional intent?   Could it be that Abba Joseph invited Abba Lot to put away his dabbling in matters of the Spirit so that he could be consumed in giving light and heat to those who crossed his path?

Could it be that inviting Abba Lot to become "flame" that Abba Joseph invited him to become all love?

(Eighth in a series of reflections on a story from the Desert Fathers)

Again...here's the story:

"Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, 'Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?' then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, 'If you will, you can become all flame.'"

"If you will, you can become all flame."

"...you can become..."

Abba Lot went to Abba Joseph with a list in mind.  He recounted the spiritual practices in which he engaged.  He sought to know what else he could do, what other practice he could add to his list.

Abba Joseph worked to disrupt the patterns of Abba Lot's way of thinking.  Rather than accept his agenda, his way of thinking about the spiritual life, Abba Joseph attempted to create a shift in Abba Lot's way of thought.

"If you will, you can become all flame."

"...you can become..."

Abba Lot requested one more thing to do.

Abba Joseph provided the one thing to become.

Joseph introduced Lot to the possible and invited him to embrace it.  To do so would require that Lot undergo a change, a transformative change, and become something other than what he was at present.

Transformative change....

Years ago, when I was studying family therapy, I was introduced to a theory of change.   Family therapists, like Desert Fathers, are into helping people undergo transformative change.  Some, who practice a form of therapy called "strategic therapy" do or say things in such a way as to create a crisis within the person they are helping not unlike the one I have been describing.

The theory I studied suggested that there are two kinds of change.  There is surface change and there is deep change. (They called it "first order change" and "second order change.")

Surface change, as the name implies, is "cosmetic", a word which, in its root, means "arrange".  They are changes that do not change anything.  They are simply arrangments and re-arrangements.

There are books on the coffee table.  Someone has been looking at them and left them scattered on the table.  You walk over and restack them.  You have created a change but only a change on the surface, only a cosmetic change.

You get up in the morning and your hair looks like the Australian outback.  You take a shower.  You comb your hair and do whatever magic you do.  You have made a change but only a surface change, a cosmetic change.

Deep changes are changes that occur beneath the surface.   Deep changes are changes that rewrite the rules, the convictions, the "heretofores", the principles.

Deep changes are "world rocking" changes.  They sometimes create confusion, bafflement, and anxiety but also excitement, a sense of anticipation, or yearning.

When we undergo deep changes we may feel destroyed or renewed.  In the throes of a deep change, the world as we know it fades into the background and we are confronted with what we might call a "new set of realities."

We may find out that we are not all we are cracked up to be.  We may find out that there is more to us than we knew.

We may find that we have been living a delusion.  We may wake up from a dream or even a nightmare.

Surface changes are transitional.  We move from this to that to the other.  We go through changes but the changes are rather predictable. We move from A to B to C to D.

Deep changes are transformative. We move from a world we knew to a world we do not know.  We move from A to 3 to Rock to...

I am reminded of the zen saying: "First the mountain is a mountain.  Then the mountain is not a mountain.  Then the mountain is a mountain."

Think of the Transfiguration.  Peter, James and John are with Jesus when he is transfigured.  Moses and Elijah appear at his side.  Then they are gone and, as the text says, "they looked up and there was no one but Jesus." (Matthew 17:1-8)

First there was Jesus and then there was not-Jesus (at least as they had known him to that point) and then there was Jesus. 

I bet they never looked at Jesus the same way again!

Abba Joseph wanted to create a deep change in Abba Lot.  He showed him his fingers "like ten lamps of flame".  He introduced him to a new possibility.  Rather than add something he could become something. 

Abba Joseph sought to re-write the underlying rules by which Abba Lot lived.  He offered him deep, transformative change.

Lot could go on adding exercise to exercise or he could become a sacramental presence.

(Sixth in a series of reflections on a story from the Desert Fathers)

Again...here's the story:

"Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, 'Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?' then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, 'If you will, you can become all flame.'"

I cannot help but think of Moses' encounter with the burning bush when I read about Abba Lot's encounter with Abba Joseph's ten "little lamps of fire."   

Here is the story of Moses' encounter:

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.  There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.  So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up."

When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!"
      And Moses said, "Here I am."

"Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground."  Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

I think of the burning bush because, like the burning bush, it seems that Abba Joseph's hands became "like 10 lamps of fire" without being consumed.  I wonder whether the original teller of this story drew from his memory of the burning bush. However, I also think of it because of what it might suggest about the relationship between "signs" and the "signified."

Finger Signs

Without getting too far afield in the intricacies of simile and metaphor or sign and symbol, I think of Joseph's human glow sticks in the neighborhood of those terms. 

At the risk of stating the obvious, Abba Joseph's fingers are signs that point beyond themselves to something else.   I take that risk because I know something about myself and about many, if not most, of us:

We can be rather dog-like.

Have you ever taken your dog out to play in the yard?  Have you ever seen a squirrel, pointed toward it, and shouted to the dog: "Squirrel!"  Have you ever noticed where the dog looks?

I've had dogs my whole life and every one of them has done the same thing:  When I point toward the squirrel they've looked at my finger.

We can be that way about signs.  Signs point beyond themselves yet we are easily intrigued by the signs themselves.  While the story does not say as much, I suspect Abba Lot, if he is anything like us, was taken back by the fingers.

"Wowwww...Abba Dude!  How did you do that?"

(I think of Simon the Sorcerer who followed the evangelist Philip around: "...astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw."  (Acts 8:1-25)  Simon did not seem nearly as intrigued by the Power toward whom the signs pointed as he was by the signs themselves.)

The burning bush, which was not consumed in its burning, was a sign that pointed beyond itself to God.  While Moses was drawn to the burning bush he was not distracted by the bush.  He was drawn by the sign, drawn perhaps even to the sign, but managed to see and hear that which was beyond the sign.

Abba Lot would have made a grave error had he become enamored of Abba Joseph's glowing fingers. Glowing finger were not the point.

The fingers, like all good fingers, point beyond themselves.

They point to God.

(Fourth in a series of reflections on a story of the Desert Fathers)

The question posed to Jesus by the Rich Young Ruler intrigues me.  "What must I do to inherit eternal life?"

"What must I do to inherit eternal life?"

The question intrigues me because of the issues it raises around the relationship between "doing" and "inheriting."   The young man's question links doing with inheriting and suggests that he believes that one earns "what's coming to him." 

One does not typically inherit something on the basis of what one does.  One inherits on the basis of who one is.  Usually,  children inherit their parents' estates by virtue of the relationship they bear to the parents.

While there are cases, perhaps many cases, of parents cutting children out of their wills because of something they did or failed to do, you do not often hear of someone inheriting something because he or she did X number of things to earn the inheritance.

It is possible.  However, I would suggest that even in the rare case where someone is put into the position of having to earn his inheritance that he or she usually bears some relation to the one setting the contingencies. For example, one could easily imagine a parent making the earning of a college degree a condition of inheritance for her child. 

However, at some point, one must determine when an inheritance is an inheritance and when it has become something other than an inheritance.  In other words, how much work must one do, how many conditions must one meet before one's inheritance becomes something on the order of a paycheck?

The question put to Jesus by the young prince is an intriguing question.  Until I am able to finish law school and plumb the depths of estate law, I will assume that his question is based upon the assumption of earning. 

What must I do...how many projects must I complete...how productive must I become...what principles must I follow so that I may inherit ( or deserve?) eternal life?  

Or, to put it another way, how can I put God in my debt?

I am not sure that Abba Lot wanted to put God in his debt.  However, he did seem to think of the spiritual life as a to-do list of tasks.   He enumerated to Abba Joseph the ways in which he dabbled in various spiritual practices and he asked: "What else can I do?"

His question is every bit as intriguing as the one posed by the Rich Young Ruler.

"What else can I do?" 

I imagine Abba Lot getting up one morning feeling rested.  I see him getting out his Day Planner (come on, he is old school!) and checking out the week ahead.  He sees that he has penciled in meditation for 9 a.m. and prayer for 9:30 a.m.   He notes that he is due to fast on the upcoming Thursday but only from 8 a.m. to noon since he has a luncheon at noon.

He looks up from his Day Planner and looks out of his window. "Hmmm...I live in the desert. Not much doing out here.  I think I have time for more practices but am just not sure which ones to add to my current list.  I know! I'll check by with Abba Joseph.  He'll know what other practices I might try."  

I see Abba Lot, this good and righteous man, studying his schedule, noting his "open spots" and seeking to fill in the blanks with even more spiritual practices in which to dabble.

"What else can I do?"

The  ever-doing "I" is at the center of his question. The "I" is the protagonist of his story, the center from which he operates, the point around which his spiritual world spins. 

Abba Lot sits in the center of himself, peruses the catalog of spiritual practices, checks the ones he will undertake and the ones to which he may return. He schedules his time. He makes his appointments with God.  He fits his practice into his self-perscribed agenda. As noted before, he makes his plan to undertake the spiritual life on his own terms.

"What else can I do?" 

 Abba Lot sees the spiritual life as a series of tasks to be undertaken and completed.  He seems to think that there is merit in the doing-for-the-sake-of-doing.  He seems to favor a check-list faith.

I do not see how his desires could be motivated by anything other than a desire to earn or to at least achieve.   Perhaps he thinks he can achieve wholeness through practice as practice.  Perhaps he thinks he must work to earn God's favor.  Perhaps he thinks that he needs to do more to keep up with (or surpass?) the hermit next door. 

His desire to add more or to do more is linked to some goal, some desire, some vision that promises some reward for effort rendered.

I know it is unfair of me to judge Abba Lot from this great distance but it does seem to me that Abba Lot thinks he can practice his way to God on his own terms.  He seems to believe that he, in himself, can reach wholeness by selecting the correct recipe of practices.

He seems to think that dabbling in the spiritual life is sufficient.  A little of this, a bit of that, a dash of the other.

He seems to think that the spiritual life is a matter of reaching a critical mass of practices.  I do this, I do that, now...what do I need to do next?

I may well be reading my character into his.  

But then...maybe that's the point of the story.

(Third in a series of reflections upon a story of the Desert Fathers)

Someone told me once about overhearing a woman complain to her friend about the reckless behavior of her unwed daughter: "If my daughter doesn't stop messin' around with that boyfriend of hers bad things are going to happen.  Why she almost got pregnant one time before!"

Even a statement that is an objective impossibility can display a certain truth.   We understand, even through our laughter, that the words point to a truth:  If that woman's daughter doesn't stop doing what she is doing she could get pregnant. 

The scripture contains many stories of the impossible almost:

I think of the Rich Young Ruler who came to Jesus only to end up "one last thing" short of discipleship.  (Matthew 19:16-26)

I remember King Agrippa whose admittedly ambiguous response to Paul's preaching suggested that he was "almost persuaded." (Acts 26:28)

I recall the church in Laodicea who was not quite cold and not quite hot but who was so far from "just right." (Revelation 3: 14 ff.)  

I ponder the meaning of Jesus' reply to the scribe who agreed with him concerning the greatest commandment: "you are not far from the kingdom of God." (Mark 12:34)

I  hear the words of Jesus about those who piled up words upon words as they prayed believing that they would be heard "for their much speaking." (Matthew 6:7)

I ruminate upon Paul's words that the day would come when there would be those who practice a form of godliness while denying the power of it.  (I Timothy 3:5)

I reach back to the prophets who castigated Israel for having fallen into the practice of offering sacrices of animals while neglecting works of justice and mercy. (Isaiah 1)

Abba Lot strikes me as a practitioner of the impossible almost.  While he did many good things, many right things, many appropriate things, his manner of doing them exemplified the impossible almost.   He embraced forms of godliness while missing the power behind them, above them, beneath them and within them.

This is evidenced by his words "I say my little office..." and "I fast a little..."  That propensity toward dabbling could be read into every practice he undertook.

I meditate a little...

I pray a little...

I can relate...a lot.

Maybe you can too.

Why might we play around the edges of faith like that?

I'll suggest some possibilities:

1. We might fear real transformative change.  What would happen if God did, as Annie Dillard put it, wake up and actually transform us?  How might that rattle our sense of identity?  How might it alter our plans, our schedules, our relationships?
2. We might be so committed to our ways of life that we are content to fit God in where we can.   We create these hectic lives of ours, one choice and one commitment at a time, and then find that we have so little room for God.  "Hmmm...Lord, I think I can pencil you in on Thursday...how does 3 p.m. sound?"
3. We might think that to genuinely encounter God and be transformed by the intimacy of that friendship is more than is necessary.  After all, some of us signed up as a quick and easy way to get our souls saved, gain some respectability and get the ticket for the glory train. 
4. We might think it all to be too much of a bother.  After all, why be "more religious" than is necessary?  Leave that for the monks and fanatics.
5. We might just lack the discipline.  After all, we may see we are not very disciplined about anything that doesn't just come naturally.  Chances are if we are not disciplined about diet and exercise and keeping a tidy space, we are probably not all that disciplined in matters of the Spirit.
6. We might just be bent that way.  Why is it that our resolutions do not work?  Why do we always fall back into our old ways of being?  Could it be that our falling back is an evidence of our fallenness?

So we dabble at it.  

A little prayer..

A bit of a devotional thought...

A little TV fast....

Abba Lot did not seem bothered by his dabbling.  He did not come to Abba Joseph perplexed over his dabbling.  No, he came to Abba Joseph to learn if there was anything else with which he could dabble.

The behaviorists remind us that we persist in that which pays.  If dabbling pays, we'll dabble.  A little prayer, a little devotional, a little meditation makes us feel that we are at least doing something, that we are at least trying, that we aren't all that bad and may be even a little better than most.  And, who knows, God is probably very pleased with us.

How interesting that we think God might be impressed by our impossible almosts when the scripture we love so much suggests otherwise.