James 24:7 - Spiritual Formation

Some Real Fleshy "Stuff"

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 14:33:53 -0500

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.

This is the hour of banquet and of song;
this is the heavenly table spread for me;
here let me feast, and feasting, still prolong
the hallowed hour of fellowship with thee.

Here would I feed upon the Bread of God,
here drink with thee the royal Wine of heaven;
here would I lay aside each earthly load,
here taste afresh the calm of sin forgiven.

I have no help but thine; nor do I need
another arm save thine to lean upon;
it is enough, my Lord, enough indeed;
my strength is in thy might, thy might alone.

Mine is the sin, but thine the righteousness:
mine is the guilt, but thine the cleansing
here is my robe, my refuge, and my peace;
thy Blood, thy righteousness, O Lord my God!

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

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:31:05 -0500

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....

1.	pertaining to, inclined to, or preoccupied with the gratification of the senses or appetites; carnal; fleshly.

2.	lacking in moral restraints; lewd or unchaste.

3.	arousing or exciting the senses or appetites.

4.	worldly; materialistic; irreligious.

5.	of or pertaining to the senses or physical sensation; sensory.

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.

We Do It OUR Wayyyy!

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:30:13 -0500

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.

The Firestarter

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 10:36:38 -0500

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

Again...here's the story:

"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.

In the Crossroads

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:14:42 -0500

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

Again...here's the story:

"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..."

Flame

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:37:26 -0500

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

Again...here's the story:

"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?

Doing to Becoming

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 08:24:03 -0500

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

Again...here's the story:

"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.

Beyond the Pointers

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 07:52:26 -0500

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

Again...here's the story:

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.

A To-Do List

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 07:28:00 -0500

(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.

The 'Impossible Almost'

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 07:41:00 -0500

(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:

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?
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?"
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.
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.
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.
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.

Reflections on a Story

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 19:33:12 -0400

(I will be reflecting on a story for the next several posts...)

That is one of my favorite stories from the Desert Fathers. I think about it and let my mind run with the question of what it might mean to become "all flame." The story invites each reader to contemplate its meaning in light of his or her situation and struggle. It asks us to identify with its two characters. Like all parables, it is more than a fantastic story, it is a mirror. I thought I would share some of my thinking about the story as a way to help others think about it too.

The story gives us a glimpse into the character of Abba Lot. He is a righteous man, one who wants to grow in the spiritual life. He engages in Christian spiritual practices and he wants to add more practices to his regimen.

However, at the risk of reading myself into his character, I suggest that the brief story reveals an ironic character. This ironic character is displayed in three ways.

First, Abba Lot seeks God from a position of self-reliance. The phrase "as far as I can" appears twice in the two sentences he utters. "As far as I can I read my little office..." "...As far as I can I purify my thoughts."

Second, Abba Lot undertakes a way of life through dabbling. The word "little" appears twice in the two sentences he utters. "I say my little office..." "I fast a little..."

Third, Abba Lot undertakes a way of life as a list of tasks. He asks the older Abba Joseph what else he can do as if the goal was to create a spiritual to-do list.

I doubt that Abba Loth expected the response he got from Abba Joseph. He may not have been prepared for Joseph to extend his hands toward the heavens while each finger burst into flames. And I doubt that Abba Lot was prepared for Abba Joseph's reply:

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

I have no way of knowing for sure but I think Joseph was trying to create a shift in Lot's thinking. I think he was trying to create a little mental crisis that would disorder Lot's thinking in the service of assisting him toward a higher/deeper/broader way of understanding.

The shift that Abba Joseph sought was around four themes:

First, Abba Joseph wanted Abba Lot to move from a way of "doing" to a way of "being". Lot was thinking in terms of one more thing he could do, while Joseph suggested that there was one thing than Lot could become.

Second, Abba Joseph wanted Abba Lot to move from a controlled way of being to a non-controlled way of being. Lot was not in the market for a total transformation. Lot wanted to continue with his usual way of going about his life. He was a man who did spiritual things. All he wanted was one more thing to do.

Joseph completely bypassed Lot's question and, rather than give him one more spiritual thing to do, he suggested he go on and become just one thing... "all flame."

Third, Abba Joseph wanted Abba Lot to move from from dabbling to burning. Joseph did not want Lot to stop at Joseph's fire-finger display. Joseph invited Lot to become "all flame."

All...flame.

Fourth, Abba Joseph wanted Abba Lot to move from distance to intimacy. Lot could continue his efforts to find just one more dead thing to do or he could actually experience something lively and alive.

The shift that Joseph invited Lot to was a shift from doing to being, from maintaining control to surrendering control, from dabbling to combusting, from distancing to experiencing.

The Bible is filled with these kinds of stories.

A couple of weeks ago I preached about Thomas and how he said, after Jesus had told the apostles that he was going away and that they knew how to get where he was going, "Lord, how can we know the way if we don't know where you are going?"

I likened Thomas to an engineer, a strategist, a goal-setter. A Tell-me-where-you-want-to-go-and-then-I-can-figure-out-how-to-get-there kind of guy. Jesus didn't say, "I'm going to X and you can get there by taking your first left and then your next right..."

Jesus said, "I AM the way..." Jesus was saying something like, "I AM GOD and GOD is the WAY to GOD."

Thomas sought the cool predictability of directions. Jesus offered the hot wildness of relationship.

I think of the Rich Young Ruler and how he came to Jesus seeking to know what he had to do to inherit eternal life. (Strange and revealing question since one inherits by virtue of who one is rather than what one does!) After running through the commandments with him and hearing the young man claim he had done and did do all of that, Jesus said, in effect: "Well, brother, why don't you just go on and burst into flames? Why don't you sell everything you have and give it to the poor and then come on and follow me!"

He was sorry but he just couldn't do it. I'm convinced that the problem was not his wealth per se as much as it was his desire to continue to live life on his own terms. To live life under his own control, to embrace the life he knew rather than the Life that knew him.

I read lines from one of Paul's prayers:

"I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3: 17b-19)

I hear it as an invitation to enter into the joy of experiencing the inexpressable and inexhaustable love of God to the point that we are filled with the very fullness of God.

I hear that prayer as an invitation to become "...all flame."

In the Cell of Uncertainty

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:06:00 -0500

"When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, 'Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?'" (Mt. 11: 2-3)

We do not know why John asked sent his disciples to ask the question of Jesus. Matthew does not tell us. Indeed, Matthew doesn't even seem interested in knowing.

However, that does not stop us from wondering and speculating. As a teacher once told me: "We believe in the maxim 'where the Bible speaks we speak and where the Bible is silent we are silent.' However, we also apparently believe in the maxim 'where the Bible speaks we are silent and where the Bible is silent we speak.'"

I know my own doubts and uncertainties. And, as a pastor, I often hear others express theirs as well. Sometimes life can be so hard that doubting is the best we can do. I read this text with those doubts rolling through the back of my mind.

I do not know whether John doubted or not. I do not know whether uncertainty crept into his dank cell or not. It may have been that John saw his destiny written on the prison wall and sent his disciples as a way to quell their doubts about the identity of Jesus. Perhaps John was engaged in a bit of "succession planning."

Whether it was because of his own doubts or because of the questions of his disciples, John did send them to Jesus with that question: "Are you the one who is to come or should we wait for another?"

My guess is that it is very hard to see the inbreaking reign of God from within the walls of a damp prison or as you are perched precariously atop a three-legged stool and straining to peer through a tiny, barred-up window.

I recognize the dangers of going beyond the text. Anything I say about John's motives in asking that question would be "arguing from silence."

However, I also recognize what happens to us when we are cut off from the world, imprisoned (if only for a time) in the darkness of doubt, shackled in the chains of despair, and fettered by fears. What seemed so clearly the case in the carefree daylight is lost in the shadow of the terrifying moment.

"Are you the one who is to come or should we wait for another?"

John had heard what Jesus was doing. (Note: Matthew says that John heard what the Messiah was doing!) But John heard about it in prison.

Perhaps from his own vantage "what Messiah was doing" was not what John thought the Messiah would or should be doing. Given his wilderness sermons, John may have imagined something more...earth shattering. After all, John had drawn terrifying word pictures of the ax being laid the roots and of days of wrath coming over the horizon.

Jesus did not say "I AM the ONE" to John's disciples. Jesus appealed to the words of the prophets, to the images of Jubilee and to the songs of Israel:

"Tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them." (vs. 4-5; NRSV)

Tell John that miracles abound but also tell him who the recipients of those graces are: the blind, the deaf, the dead, and the poor. The overlooked, the outcast, the forgotten are being seen, brought close and remembered.

And all of them...these poor...are hearing good news.

God is at work-perhaps in unexpected ways -but working nonetheless. Look closely and listen...you are locked for a time in your cell of despair but your experience is not the breadth and depth and height of God's working. The kingdom is breaking through and things spoken of by prophets, indeed the words of John are coming to pass...the world is being turned upside down as the kingdom of God breaks through in Jesus.

We don't know what the disciples of John did after that. We don't know whether they returned to John or not. We don't know whether John was satisfied by the reply of Jesus.

However, I cannot help but wonder: Did it cross John's mind what Jesus did not say? Did it strike him that Jesus did not say, "and the prisoners are set free"?

++++++++++

For resources related to the season of the church year or the Revised Common Lectionary go here.

For a series of questions for personal reflection/small group discussion on the RCL texts for the week go here.

A Season of Yearning

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 11:03:20 -0500

I am often put off by some of the Christmas songs because they are so sentimental, so romantic and so not-my- experience.

Sometimes I feel as if I am going to blow if I hear one more song about holiday cheer, faces all aglow, happy shoppers on their way down glistening, snow covered city sidewalks.

I live in the Atlanta area. The last time we had snow at Christmas was around the time the Magna Carta was being signed. And as for happy faces all aglow....ha!...I say, "Ha!"

I see harried faces (even hairy faces!), distracted faces and most of them anything but "all aglow."

I live in the suburbs. You see tail lights all aglow. You see strip malls. You see enough concrete and black top to cover Rhode Island. You see power cable, telephone lines and litter.

To many Christmas songs I say, "Bah!"

Unless....unless I hear those lyrics not as descriptions of what is but as yearnings of what could be.

Maybe there could be a day- even here in the 'burbs of HOTlanta"- when there is snow on the ground, happy people scurrying here and there with nothing more than a "Merry Christmas" on their breath.

Hearing those songs in that way may just rescue me from my humbuggery.

Reading the Isaiah texts in the Revised Common Lectionary is really what has rescued me from another season of singing, "Bah, bah, bah, bah, baaaah.." instead of "Fa la la la laaaa."

Listen to these words about the coming the Day of Lord...

"He shall judge between the nations and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn more any more." (2:4)

Or read these words and just imagine...

"The wolf shall sleep with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze together, their young shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the adder's den. They will not hurt or destroy on my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." (11:6-9 NRSV)

I suspect there were those who first heard Isaiah's words with a "bah" and a "humbug." They read the paper like everyone else; they watched the evening news. They worked in the sweatshops and traversed the market places.

No more war? No more studying war? No more tragedies? No more "nature red in tooth and claw."

Bah!

All those folks are gone. However, the words of Isaiah still stand and give their hope.

Isaiah expresses a vision. However...and this is important...Isaiah's vision is not simply the poetic expression of wishful thinking or overwrought romanticism. Isaiah is not Mel Torme sitting at a piano in California in the heat of summer writing about "chestnuts roasting on an open fire."

Isaiah speaks to human yearning, yes.

But the word Isaiah speaks, the vision that Isaiah describes is not Isaiah's word and not Isaiah's vision. His word and vision are not simply the yearnings of one man or the whole people.

This is the word and the vision of the God who is faithful and who will do what God promises.

Advent is the time of yearning...ours and God's!

Advent is the time when we are reminded that our deepest longings, the ones we offer up to heaven, will be met (and then some) by the God who never leaves us nor forsakes us!

On Becoming a Gratitudian III

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 09:26:55 -0500

As you may know we are experiencing a drought in Georgia, USA. Although we've had a good rain on this Thanksgiving morning, we are far behind what is needed to fill our reservoirs.

Indications are that within a few months the Atlanta area will be in a real water emergency if something drastic doesn't occur. Our governor, Sonny Perdue, has taken it on the chin from critics for leading "pray for rain" sessions on the steps of the state capital building.

To say that things are getting desperate would be an understatement.

As a result of the drought many of us are thinking more about water conservation. To this point, we have been so blessed with water that most of us took it for granted. That was wrong and you can be sure that our sins are finding us out.

For the past couple of weeks I have been thinking more about the matter of gratitude and have been trying to remember to articulate my thanks as often as possible.

A couple of days ago I wrote that giving thanks on a consistent basis helps us to realize that our lives and everything that comprises our lives is a gift given by the hand of God. I see the offer of ongoing thanksgiving as a practice that opens our eyes to the gift and gifts of life.

I think in the past I have thought that the way to become more thankful was to grow in my understanding of this "life-as-gift" idea so that I can be thankful. I am now beginning to see that it really is the other way around: we learn to see life and everything in our lives as gift when we undertake the practice of gratitude.

Continual thanksgiving helps us to remember that. (After all, how often do we give thanks for the things we believe we have earned?)

This "gift" awareness that is growing from the practice of gratitude touched me in a small way yesterday. I got into the shower and when I glanced up at the streaming shower head I saw that water as a gift and I immediately began to think about what a precious gift it is and how much I have to grow in my stewardship of it.

Later I was driving in my car thinking about that brief flash of insight when I began to say to myself: "Well, of course you see it as a gift NOW! That's called 'supply and demand'. Water is in short supply and that is why you see it as a gift."

I then thought: "No..that's why I see water a valuable. However, I do not think of all things that are valuable as gifts. Someone might work hard and believe that their home is a product of their hard labor. They would see their home as valuable but they would not necessarily see their home as a gift."

I don't think you can think about water or anything else in this life as gift without simultaneously thinking that there is a Giver.

The water flowing from my shower head? Yes, I pay for it. Yes, it is valuable and I am seeing its value grow everyday as the supply diminishes in this part of the world.

However, I see it primarily as a gift, a gift given by a loving God, a gift over which I am a steward.

Working on expressing gratitude is helping me see the world in a new light....the light of grace.

On Becoming a Gratitudian II

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:19:53 -0500

If we would become "gratitudians", that is, people whose lives are characterized by gratitude, we would do well to practice gratitude.

We become what we do.

Consider the words of Paul in Ephesians 5:20: "...be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." (NRSV)

Focus on those italicized words. Paul uses a participle, which denotes continuing action, underscores it with the word always, and underscores that with the phrases "at all times" and "for everything."

Do you think maybe Paul thought that giving thanks ought to be a constant practice among followers of Jesus?

I read that this way: Always keep on giving thanks all of the time for everything and in ever situation.

Paul doesn't seem to think there are occasions when we should not offer thanksgiving!

His call is for constant, consistent, ongoing, thanksgiving at all times and in every circumstance.

Now does that mean that we must constantly walk around repeating the words, "Thank you, thank you, thank you?" Well, that wouldn't be a bad practice would it? (It might get a little tedious, especially for those of us who are not multi-taskers!) But maybe that's what it would take for us to develop the habit of thanksgiving as we journey toward becoming gratitudians.

I think the deeper point is to become someone whose life is marked by gratitude, whose very being exudes gratitude, whose every gesture and word is filled with grace.

Such a person is a constant offering of gratitude.

Let me add one other thing here that goes beyond this text, something I just realized this week-end...More often than not, far more often (maybe even always!) Paul directs all thanksgiving to God.

While a few examples may exist of Paul offering thanks to a person, his practice seems to be to thank God for the person and for their actions. "I thank God for you.." is more often on the lips of Paul than a mere "Thank you..."

I had not noticed that before this week-end when I was flipping through my trusty Strong's Concordance and noticed time after time when Paul employed that kind of language.

I think that kind of 'thank you' is better than a straight to the face thank you.

When we thank God for someone (and/or for what they have done) we rightly name them and their action as "gift." They are not just accidentally in our lives and their presence and their action are not accidents either.

They are signs of God's grace.

In thanking God for others and their actions, we place ourselves, the other, and their their action toward us all within the province of grace.

We are thus living the moment in the domain of ultimate reality, that is, in the domain of the sacred. The ordinary give and take of life becomes charged with the grandeur of God.

I thank God for you! I thank God for your many kind words of encouragement. I thank God for good and patient people who read what I write because I have little choice but to write (or speak!) I thank God for you because without you I could not be me.

You see? My simple act of writing and your simple act of reading is a gift- a sign of grace, a sign of the love and presence of God!

Now what if we saw everyone and everything with those eyes?

More tomorrow.