I find today's reading amazingly healing.

I have realized lately that the last two years have been a "dark night of the soul" for myself and my family. Travelling through the dark, unsure of what is ahead, trying to walk a path that seems covered in fog ...

I believe the only thing that has got me through these difficult two years is reaching out for God and trusting that He had me well in hand and that, though the times seemed difficult, His plans for me were for good.

Everything I went through, the "dark night" has ended up being very cleansing. I would encourage anyone starting on such a journey to hold on to that - that it will cleanse you, and lead you to a better place.

I am willing to embrace with the whold of my heart the Spirit of God that is hovering around me in this very moment.  I am also aware that the Spirit of God does not simply hover around me but that it also dwells within.  So there are moments when I do not feel the hovering and that is often because the Spirit is resting from whatever the hovering function represents and is sitting in the place given to it. within my heart.

What holds me back from the hovering Spirit?  Good question.

I just finished spending some time with my confirmation class at Five Oaks.  The girls, fascinated by the activity at the bird feeder have wanted all weekend to feed birds from their hands.  I didn't think we would accomplish that this morning but I did think we could make a start.

So part of the instruction was on how not to present the birds with anything that resembles a threat.  That meant not standing between the birds, the feeder and their escape routes.  Easily accomplished.  The next step was stillness, being absolutely rigid.  Not so easily accomplished but they got the hang of it quickly.  The next step was calling the birds in, which I worked on.  Then it was up to the birds and they, trying to guage the threat did what they do, make an approach, pull up short and decide from there.

Two larger, male chicadees were the bravest and in short order we managed to progress to the point where they were making test approaches, getting closer  with every pass,  I noticed if they flew at the girls faces (not aggressively) that the girls would flinch and the birds would back up the process.

So I think that we shrink away from the sound of hovering wings and things that hover above us make us instinctively uneasy.  Which is why a hovering Holy Spirit might not be invitational.  And if that hovering Holy Spirit needs to take a couple of test approaches I think that there will be continuous flinching on our part.

As much as we want that hovering Holy Spirit to land upon us there may be something in the flurry of wings and proximity to our purposes which triggers defensiveness within us.

Grace and peace to you.

John

How willing are you to embrace wholeheartedly the Spirit of God hovering around you in this very moment? What might hold you back from that embrace?

“Hover”?

That’s an image alien to my experience, so I can’t really answer the question quite that way.

My experience would be that the spirit of god, god herself, envelops me. He/she doesn’t go part way: rather, I’ll be inclined to hang back because I am distracted by god’s enrapturing beauty and abundance. I lack a sense of orientation within god, or a sense of it. Is that embracing wholeheartedly, or missing the cue?

I have, several times. been so overtaken with wonder that human speech can be so fascinatingly expressive, and even at the existence of speech, and what it would be like without it, that I have missed what's being said. Is that just absent-mindedness? udeness? Or a learned disposition… I'd want to suggest that I'm being too attentive at such times, not inattentive.

We have a bagpiper friend in Rome who’d been a Vatican tour guide at one point in his varied life. He offered us a tour of our own. St Peter’s Square was a mass of freshly un-canned tour-bus occupants — débouchees from around the World — like a dripping layer of jam on a slab of bread: impenetrable. Our friend led us in a door, and talked to a couple of Swiss Guard who were persuaded to smile and step aside for us. I noticed our friend was wearing a lapel badge that seemed to play a part in this. From here we were led here, there, through doors, up steps, down steps, along vacant corridors, into and out of this extremely ornate gallery packed with tour-jam, in and out of another, and on to yet another… we gawped at stunning statuary and amazing frescos, murals, massively gilt-framed paintings, and painted ceilings, the carved wood and stone, gilded and painted…   our friend was darting us through short cuts and across internal passages, listening at doors before entering and slickly avoiding some backroom staff but breezily engaging others in passing… always in a hurry from one explosion of colour and beauty to another. And suddenly we found ourselves in the Sistine Chapel — staring up at Michaelangelo’s famous ceiling, illuminated by the incessant flicker of camera flashes from a sea of Japanese tourists, oblivious to the “no camera flash” signs and the guards… and then we were standing in awe in the Bsilica before the famous Pieta: a stunning, indescribably moving artwork. And then we were back in the Roman sun. We’d done a rush tour of the Vatican in about three hours. Signs posted for the queues outside stated that the likely waiting time to get into the Basilica was six hours.

We felt we’d experienced something surreal, something amazing, historic, unique, divine… overwhelming: the impressions came too thick and fast for reflection; images from those three hours still detonate like fireworks in my dreams… but they are in their turn dwarfed by the beauty and abundance that’s EVERYWHERE. Somehow our “Vatican Dash” gave me a faith-jolt in the way I now find myself far more widely prised open to unreflective awe… it wasn’t entirely a new experience, but I experienced it in a new way that day.

Unreflective awe is, I find, a good way to approach so much in life: the images come back to dance in my dreams and put  the slow-grinding wheels of inexact reason and impoverished understanding into perspective. They make me weep in the night and celebrate in my soul, they bring me unquenchable rushes of joy.

Hover? When I look, I’m too engulfed by immediate intensities. Rather, to get through the day and focus on the trivia, I close down my apertures, but there are always lingering sensations that never go away.

The words ‘fear’ and ‘afraid’ are used in scripture many times. Why would this be so? When were you afraid, what helped you?

What we read as “fear” in scripture seems to have several contrasting meanings. One, for example — the Hebrew word “yarey” — is related to the idea of flowing and is about awe… reverence.

The Greek word “phobos” that also crops up in scripture is the origin of our word “phobic” with all its implications of not looking, of shutting out, of “fleeing” and “avoiding”.

In psychology, I learned about primal, physiology-rooted fear and the “fight or flight” impulse.

And in today’s reflection, there’s the idea of “fear of dying”: would that be phobic or awe-filled?

These are all very different ideas and they simply don’t hang together too well in the contexts of our contemporary culture and society, where “anxiety” is widely understood as an expression of fear. Anxiety is, though, different again. It’s typically an inwardly-focused idea about helplessness, powerlessness; awe-type “fear”, on the other hand, is outwardly focused about submission.

I don’t think “god” quite gets powerlessness the way we do (she has less experience). To us, powerlessness is what we experience through the creation of a competitive, money-rooted system of governance: it’s deprivation, not awe. In “god sense” that’s simply injustice. And anxiety heightens the powerlessness; it deepens the injustice.

I got over my capacity for physical fear and everyday “anxiety” in my youth, partly through my dad’s teaching and partly through personal experiences… then a transforming spiritual experience blew me away into awe instead.

I delight in awe: awe liberates, inspires, empowers. Awe obliterates fear in the “phobos” sense.

The prayer offered in today’s reflection speaks of “hope”: personally, I find “trust” more accessible, helpful and freeing. “Hope” often means getting life on our terms and I often hear is expressing “want”… and life is not about fulfilling our “wants”: it’s our “wants” that lock us into deprivation and injustice. The reflection speaks of desire for a “miracle”: the miracle is there in the capacity for desire.

I’m sure I’m now going to sound insensitive, wanting in compassion and cruel… but I don’t know how else to put it: fear of death, of the unknown, is silly, self-indulgent — masochistic.

We are all dying. We are all going to die. We don’t know how and we don’t know when. From the moment of birth, “the worst” is always possible.

Tomorrow may at last deliver something truly, utterly, incomprehensibly awful? Why do we keep dramatizing and believing that?

God gives us life. Life is not intended as the opportunity to wall ourselves into personal comfort and delusions of security, it’s to take risks, to lift others up, to be there for others’ victims, to be immersed In joy and pain, loss and celebration, beauty and abundance… it’s to open to the extreme marvels of being a sentient being in an infinite universe and not leave another single being under boots of imposed misery — in fear and under oppression. Far less is it for us to expend energy in explorations of personal discomfort.

What we most need is trust.

Matthew 6 (19?-34): offers a beautiful reassurance, even in these times:

“No one can serve two masters. Either s/he will hate the one and love the other, or s/he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters…

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ?  And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how god clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?  So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

And, I like this:

Hebrews 13 (5-6): Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." I’d endorse that.

Look at the birds of the air:

… find your calm centre and take courage.

Part of the reason fear appears so frequently is because of translational limitation.  Often "reverence" is the concept captured by the text rather than the notion of "frightening."  Why more recent translations have chosen not to reflect that is beyonde my comprehension.  Still, the presence of God is not unthreatening.  The enormity of God's presence does overshadow our own sense of self from time to time and a feeling of trepidation is not unwarranted.  One may get into a stall with a horse believing that a familiarity with that horse is enough of a safeguard.  If the horse decides to lean on you that level of familiarity quickly becomes uncomfortable.

There are obvious instances when "fear" means to be afraid.  I think that for the most part those texts are dealt with in context of the narrative itself.  For example, almost everytime an angel appears it has to start the conversation with an exhortation to individuals to, "be not afraid."  Angels are fearsome creatures (not the hallmark cherubs of Cupid fame) so their presence probably inspires fear until they reveal their reason for being present.

When fear has been the by product of God expressing immanence what has helped has been doing the things one normally does when hoping not to be noticed.  Silence, stillness, holding one's breath and praying fervantly that one will not be noticed..  My experience of such moments is that God will communicate what is necessary and/or back off on the immanence a smidgen until a level is reached in which the individual can cope  God never not notices.

What aspects of my life have I been reflecting on?  Most of my self-reflection, in Lent and otherwise focusses primarily on the things that I can control.  My reactions and perceptions as well as the words I choose to communicate.

Grace and peace to you.

John

When I am afraid it helps me to try and focus on God . . . either by talking, singing, praying.  It helps me to trust that nothing is going to happen to me in any given moment that God and I can't handle together.

I'm struggling with my meditation the last few days . . . I can't see to concentrate . . . I think for a few days I'm just going to let it go and not worry about it, but rather just enjoy the time with God, and if my thoughts run, just gently bring myself back into God's presence.

Day 18 - Tuesday: Spiritual but Not Religious

Who do you know who is religious according to your perceptions? Who do you know who is spiritual? How are you religious? How are you spiritual?

BIG QUESTIONS!!!!

Religion is the head stuff for me. Religions have histories; spirituality is simply part of being human, like breathing. Religion assumes that people can have a handle on "god"; sprituality teaches us that nothing could be further from the truth. Religion rests on logic, the processes of the human mind; spirituality rests on raw experience.

"Religious" is an attitude that can be applied to any dimension of life or structured organisation of thought: monetarism is a "religious" but spiritually empty approach to the economy: it is an insistence on a consistent interpretative approach to everything. It's an organised, internally consistent "discipline". And, as such, a religious approach easily becomes an inflexible world view, and a trap.

Religions are fascinating for their narratives… they are the cultural rationalization of spirituality and they all have important things to say about people as much as about "god". I ENJOY religion for all of this.

Though it’s a claim that’s often made, religions do not uniformly share or express “the golden rule”. The contexts and meanings of that idea vary widely enough for it to be understood in deeply different ways. People have killed and persecuted each other over those differences.

Religions are all “right” because of what they reveal, and all “wrong” because of what they fail to express. It’s not easy in any language or culture to make the connections between the “word” of religion and the “word” of the spirit. Religions triy to close this gap obliquely through ritual, symbol, doctrine and experience-based insight (through retreats and this study, for example).

Spirituality, on the other hand, is inescapable. It’s not like a bothersome stone in the shoe that we can throw away; it’s more like life-blood that we absolutely depend upon but can avoid thinking about very much untill something goes wrong.

Spirituality has a HOLD on me.

You can reject a religion; you cannot reject your spirituality.

Religion is like a cookbook; cookbooks exist for every possible taste, preference and cultural orientation and cannot, on their own, make a good cook. Sprituality is like a feast: the cookbooks can help but remain optional… it's the celebration and nourishment that matter… and the great cook inspires the good recipe book.

We can get along without conscious spiritual engagement — without the celebration and feast —  but we do at the risk of becoming bored kitchen hands, doing what we're told, day in, day out, long hours on on poor pay, without credit for the final product … doing what we do for reasons that sooner or later fail us…

The spiritual equivalent is endless, unfulfilling obedience and learning to fear death. Deluded, we come to “know” that “something bad” is bound to happen.

If we are just "religious", we are unrubbed lamps; our genies are never freed. (I’m sure this is the origin — the “truth” — of the Aladdin’s lamp type of story: when we rub the lamp, all things become possible.)

When we pay attention to our life-blood — through science, our arts or our senses— we become more aware, not only of our personal condition, but also of life, or warm-blooded creatures and their nutritiion, of the World and of the Universe; we start seeing links and interdependencies.

When we pay attention to our spirituality we become more aware of our dispersed “selves” and of our inseparability from “god”/absolute “mystery”: we create a meeting place for the whole of our experience. Mystery is no “mystery” at all until we try to put it in words: it is simply a word for the horizons within which our human capacities are confined: other species inhabit the “mystery” all the time.

“Mystery” is the price we pay, as social creatures, for the illusionary freedom of rational thought and the pleasures of ego-rapture. It's a word that allows us to distance ourselves. In that way, it draws a false, problematic distinction between what we can consider "knowable" and deem  "unknowable".

We feed religion with money and labour… it’s like any resources-consuming human institution. We put “stuff” into religion.

Spirituality is the opposite: it resources us.

We draw sustenance from ALL that we experience. But, unlike memory (which is partial, selective and utilitarian), spirituality is the source of personal meaning and relationship with the “ALL else” — it draws into one, unbreakable awareness everything from our own excrement to the rolling of the oceans and the blaze of a billion stars.  It makes us, not smarter or more knowledgeable, but complete.

Spirituality doesn’t explain, it simply pours us into the waters of the infinite narrative we call “existence”. It doesn’t submit to words very well because it is always beyond words — it is ductile, it is full of paradox, it’s riddled with illogical alignments, it’s beyond rationality, philosophy, theology, science or religion. It calls for the dynamic fluidity of personal discernment. By contrast, religion is based more on the enduring absolutes of received “wisdom”.

A fully spiritualized person would KNOW nothing but embrace the whole of life. A healthy spirituality makes it impossible to escape love. Religion can give spirituality a form or structure for reflection and some helpful organising principles.

A fully religious person would know everything but embrace only what is consistent with his/her version of “truth”… a person to whom love is a desirable option.

Without spirituality, religiosity is just the pusuit of another empty doctrine.

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(APOLOGIES for the mixed metaphors… I've found the attempt to express these thoughts personally challenging but also helpful… and I'm finding these reflections helpful in pressuring myself to make the attempt.)

Ummmmm.  Not too judgmental an exercise.  I'll pass on slotting others according to my perception.

As far as slotting myself goes I don't differentiate between religious and spiritual and I am suspicious of those who do.

If religion is distinct from spirituality then it is most likely some gnostic inspired divide which assigns religion to the carnal and spirituality to the spirit.

So I am both.  I am religious in that Christianity is a religion and I am a Christian.  I am spiritual in that spiritual defines the affairs of the Church and I am involved in that as well.

Grace and peace to you.

John

I'm not sure which is most receptive.  I can say with confidence that in my experience taste is the least likely sense to detect anything sacred.  Sight, smell and hearing are probably my most utilized senses and because of that they may be slower to make a distinction between the mundane and the divine.  Touch rarely leaves much doubt.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Which one of your senses is most receptive to the sacred signs that surround you?

In the illustrative story recounted today, the young man clearly had some prior indoctrination: the meanings of those symbols are not inherently obvious. In my case (and I know I'm not alone in this), they stir other, less positive feelings… and they figure in the widespread alienation from organized religion. For me, the holy water, crossing myself, aisles, pews, kneeling, bells… these are not “symbols and signs of divine presence”. The language of Christian symbols, to me, has lost its relevance; it has been contaminated. And it is used in counter-intuitive ways.

The widespread use of a candle to represent the Christ presence, for example… why is it extinguished at the end of worship? Why are churches so often locked? (I know, it’s at the insistence of insurers…  those de facto bishops of faith.)

For me, “sacred signs” are everywhere.

On Monday night, we had new friends by for dinner. Yesterday morning… a pile of dishes. I began washing them and was found myself filled with a sense of divine presence and a welling up of gratitude: it wasn’t just the new friendship…  so many friends have eaten from those plates, used those utensils. “God” is in the embrace. In a week, our daughter and grandchildren will be here for most of the March break. We have other friends coming before then. My wife’s brother and his wife were here several days ago… each plate is “holy” because of the stories of relationship it embodies: they are stories that well up, not just from the plates as objects, but from  the great compassion that is the great mystery. While I was washing and rinsing, a nuthatch began performing acrobatics at the feeder a few inches from the window… again, a visitation of the sacred. United by miracles of food… and compassion.

And the sense that is most receptive  to the sacred signs (miracles)?

My heart.

Every moment teems with heart-stirring (and soul-stirring) events: smells, textures, temperatures, sounds, sights, flavours, forms, each a defining context for the others, and the creation of a unique, moment-defining experience that embeds itself in the flow of a greater narrative that’s, in turn, woven into the mystery I experience as “god”.

I think we sacrilise what we deeply experience: we excite our awareness of the mystery through these experiences, and each moment has its own integrity as an “episode”: a revelation of meaning.

My mother used to insist that I discern “the fairies”. She urged me to enter in to the way I “felt” a place. You know… if you step into a room with velvet curtains and textured wallpaper that smells of mothballs you feel different from the way you feel if you walk into a room that’s all polished wood and wide windows and smells of “cat”. Or if you step onto a beach in moonlight, or walk in the rain, or lie naked on grass. You are aware of the presence of an often strong “character” because YOU are changed. Something external to you is communicating with you. That something, in my mother’s constant language of enchantment, was the “fairy” there.

Some fairies are “good”, some are “bad”, some bear down on you threateningly, others console. Some make you wistful, some make you sad, many make you laugh. The difference between fairies and angels is, in my experience, very blurred.

Some fill you with gratitude and that, I think, is often an angel.

Then there was a biology teacher I had who taught us ecology by making us lie absolutely still on our backs — in total silence — on the leaf mould in the bush (New Zealand’s native forest). Afterwards, we’d have to sketch what we'd learned of the ecosystem: the calls of sun-loving nectar-feeders identified birds, the season, the trees, even the “look” of the canopy. And the sorts of insects to look for. The passage of chirruping, sub-canopy insectivores told us where sun was coming through that canopy and what flying insects were mating. Scratching sounds in the distance identified other birds… in the leaf mould under our heads, similar sounds often identified a foraging centipede or a large beetle (yes, they do sound different). This told us about their presence, and the presence of their prey… the vegetation, the weather… and so on. New Zealand's  native bush is often dense, and limited lines of sight mean that you often see very little of all that’s around you.

But, as well as this stuff, we learned how disruptive our walking through the bush could be. It would take ten minutes or more for the sensations to begin then settle down, and for the tempo to pick up into a flow of sensation that seemed “normal”. We had been seen and our presence had changed the behavior of all sorts of living creatures who seemed far more abundant that we’d previously imagined.

They examine us as we examine them. We are parts of each others’ universe.

No-one who’d gone into this would feel comfortable riding a snowmobile in the wild, or storming around a lake in a noisy speedboat.

While my mother’s attentiveness to fairies taught me about “atmospheres”, biology field trips taught me about “interconnected-ness” and analysis: head and heart.

Where these ways of experience merge, there is god… there is beauty and abundance… there is a delicious rising in my being of gratitude.

And THERE is what is sacred, THERE is trustworthy spiritual inspiration.

Every component forming the whole experience has its voice and its narrative to share. A chair, a tree, an old sock, a bird, a flower, an ant, a dirty plate, a loaf of bread: each will bear witness and together they carry us into tomorrow, together, they can build cathedrals in the wholeness of a human life.

The angels are everywhere. God speaks to all of us. Without listening to the angels and to “god”, I don't know how anything finds a foothold of meaning.

I believe our senses are a gift from God to make life not only way more enjoyable, but also to help us experience him and feel love and gratitude.

All my senses are in-tuned to God's beautiful creation that surrounds us.

Eyes to appreciate the sun rise and sun sets each day - each individual and different;

Taste to appreciate unique flavours of oranges, apples, potatoes ... And to share these foods with the gift of family and wonderful friends. Sharing a beautiful meal with loved ones is a great pleasure.

Smell to appreciate wild flowers, a fresh summer rain, new-born baby, fertile garden soil ...

Touch to to feel that fertile soil slip through my fingers when tending the garden, touch to hug a friend extending compassion and love.

Sound to appreciate beautiful classic music and faithful old hymns, the sound of a loved ones footsteps coming down the hall - the memory of falling asleep to the sound of a gentle summer storm, then waking up to the sounds of birds ...

All these things bring me closer to God. They remind me of how much he loves us. He made the world for us to live in - but not to just live in - it's a world to enjoy fully, with all our senses.

Hope everyone has a blessed day.

Well I'm back.  Got caught up in assisting my son with a few things.  I'm going to do this one today without the background except for what is posted.  

What senses?

My sense of curiosity.  

My sense of wonder.

My sense that things aren't just exactly as simple as they appear.  

My sense that even the simplest of things, water, for instance,  has wonderful complexity if you consider it carefully.

My sense of humour.

My sense of justice.

But wait ... the question was which ONE of my senses?

I guess it is that part of my brain that senses that the world is and everything in it is special and that I am privileged to be part of it and to be in it.

"Which one of your senses is most receptive to the sacred signs around you?"

My common sense. (when all the senses merge)

What might Jesus have been thinking as he travelled to Jerusalem? When have you set your face “like flint” (Isaiah 50:7) for God?

On the way to Jerusalem?

My “Jerusalem” is the noise, the clamor and the cruelty, the greed, the ignorance, the negligence and the dream-crushing self-interest, materialism and stupidity of the “the Empire”… but, because it is as it is, it is necessarily THE very place in which the vital innocence of “truth” can blossom into the way of “being” that fills life with all of its generative capacities, its goodness, its beauty, its joy, its liberating “salvation”… its only worth.

The impulse to vengeance never heals a wound. Forgiveness does. Rule by brute force — economic or military — never produces a sustainable state… we are called to live constantly and faithfully in the midst of apparent paradox where true strength is weakness, true greatness is humility and true wealth is inner peace. And it all is driven by love.

“The way” is for the whole of humanity and we followers of Jesus’ teachings are called to re-from the World as the ”kingdom” and re-constitute our selves and our ways of being as antitheses of “Empire”.

I see the Lenten journey as a collision of necessary wholenesses: the formation of a critical mass in which god is instantly recognisable in every atom.

What might Jesus have been thinking?

I am sure he knew he was facing the cataclysm. I am sure he also knew he’d sown seeds that would endure long after the Empire and Temple were dust. I am sure he chose to ridicule Rome’s military entry in Jerusalem with his own prophetically-inspired display of pomp’s rejection, riding on a donkey. He had no intention of hiding or backing down down. He had a lot to do in what would be a very short time. The context of the “like flint” image from Isaiah is instructive. It may very well have been in his mind:

The relevant Isaiah text is lengthy but begins: 

“This is what the Lord says:

“Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Or to which of my creditors did I sell you? Because of your sins you were sold; because of your transgressions your mother was sent away. When I came, why was there no one? When I called, why was there no one to answer?
“Was my arm too short to deliver you? Do I lack the strength to rescue you?
“By a mere rebuke I dry up the sea, I turn rivers into a desert; their fish rot for lack of water and die of thirst. I clothe the heavens with darkness and make sackcloth its covering.”

 The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed. The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears; I have not been rebellious, I have not turned away.  I offered my back to those who beat me, cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting. Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame. He who vindicates me is near. Who then will bring charges against me? Let us face each other!
Who is my accuser? Let him confront me! It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me. Who will condemn me? They will all wear out like a garment; the moths will eat them up.”

This passage, read in its entirety, is about God's justice and telling the people they shape their own catastrophes: god is faithful; you are not. The odds that matter are all on god's side… the potentates are moth-fodder — suck it up: your weak, flawed, fated self-interest is the cause of all your grief.

Here, god is willing to forgive but there's no crack through which forgiveness can flow: the worthless preoccupations are seamless… do we leave a crack open for forgiveness to leak in or are we obdurate in our own priorities? 

In this there's no withdrawal of love but a vivid expression of humanity’s limits when it comes to constructing comfort zones: they don't work. God is the source of comfort and strength, not collusion with power, and certainly not petty personal opportunism.

Have I ever set my face like flint?

Sure… a bit  — but not often enough, certainly not effectively enough, I confess. I have been fired for taking a stand on ethical grounds, I have turned down several potentially lucrative opportunities and resigned from a few jobs. I have spoken out — timidly — in various ways and places, for what is good and against greed, racism and war. I’ve been arrested for it only once (a long time ago in New Zealand) and was freed after several hours. I've hardly been confrontational.

But the consequences were not — are not — an over-riding a factor, and are not a deterrent. I'm more guilty of sloth.

Despite this, god IS undoubtedly my protector, as she is my daily sustainer.

I suspect he was thinking about a lot of things.  How the trip was going to end, why the trip was necessary, how people would react and the like.

When have I set my face "like flint" for God?

I'm not sure such a posture is necesary.  Can I not betray what I am feeling?  Sure, I have a great stone face.  Is it helpful?  Sure, when I'm kidding around the stoneface works great with deadpan.

I doubt Jesus used his stoneface for comedic effect though so probably not quite the same thing.

While I do not make a habit of scowling or frowning I find that both are tremendously useful in communicating, "John is not pleased."  I try not to raise the volume in such circumstances simply because I want to be heard and understood clearly and the obvious displeasure on my face is part of the whole communication package.

Fortunately I don't have to exercise this part of my repetoire on a regular basis.

Grace and peace to you.

John

"What might Jesus have been thinking as he travelled to Jerusalem? When have you set your face "like flint" (Isaiah 50:7) for God?"

I'm pretty sure that Jesus was thinking about all the bad movies that would be made and all the crosses that would be worshipped. Maybe praying," Please God let them focus on the Dove or the Olive Branch and not the cross so much."

I had to set my face "like flint" while watching Mel Gibson's  "the Passion" and thanking God it wasn't in 3D.

Have you tried to build a prayer or spiritual practice into your life? Are you eager to deepen your practice? Why or why not?

Meditation, I’m sure, helps a lot of people to find a focus, but there’s no local meditation group in our small, rural community to join … though I probably wouldn’t join one if there was.

I have “done” some structured meditation and found it great. But I keep going back to the way I’ve come to through the experience of most of my life.

In meditation one steps back from the stimuli of transience, we empty the mind…

I find I get more from stepping attentively but discerningly INto the transience. At present, I'm finding joy in the truth of flow, of awe as flow, of flow as spiritual vigor.

It's spring!

I celebrate it!

The discernment with which I approach my spiritual practice of engagement is a matter of focus. It helps if there are no loud, demanding, man-made noises or other distractions around; if there's “natural” (non-mechanical) movement, living things and some variety of sounds and activities… these days, I’m finding a river bank ideal; a park bench is fine; a beach is wonderful, fresh air is good, some inherently interesting sight or sound can help; somewhere I can be a little apart from distractions and demands on my time or attention.

I can do it on my study with the computer shut down: I’ve made a personally holy chapel of it.

For me, the necessity is then engagement. This involves listening, tasting, smelling, touching, seeing and drawing it all in… into a meeting place for the whole of my experience.

I take a meaningful thought from the Gospels or some other source as a starting point. Then I attend until I come to a sense of unity that includes my intellect and my emotions but lets go of the words, and I stay with this “unity” for a time.

In that meeting place, there’s not a word to capture any part, far less all of it. We all need to rest from words sometimes. But being fully there shifts the way I experience everything. It lets me loose into an ongoing sense of gratitude for the beauty and abundance of the entirety of life, not just the easy-to-like stuff.

This unity is, for me, a kind of awe… I think we live mostly in an attention-demanding environment, so we learn to focus here, then there, then somewhere else… we get locked into a St Vitus dance of attentive hyperactivity. Our “style” of consciousness becomes a magpie-like accumulation of bits and pieces, here and there, of what’s brightest, what’s loudest, what’s most exciting, what’s sweetest, what’s sexiest, what’s fastest, most colorful, most energetic…

It tears us apart.

How hard it becomes to love god “with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my mind.” …how hard it is to hear that “no-one can serve two masters” … that “you cannot serve both god and money,” when we know how damned expensive it is to sustain the anaesthesia of stimulation… the requisite levels of comfort and security.

I find engagement frees me.

Ah, yes: Why or why not?

“The fear of the Lord (awe in the mystery of the infinite) is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction,” says Proverbs (1:7)

I find engagement frees me… into the fullness of life… into loving, into joy.

Tried and succeeded.

Am I eager to deepen my practice?  Hmmmmm.

I find the practice to be rewarding and energizing.  Do I need more of that?  Somedays yes and other days no.  When I feel I need more I focus more on the practice and pushing forward with it.  On days when I do not feel that I need more I continue to practice with less obvious effort.

The depth happens apart from what I wish.

Grace and peace to you.

John

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Recall a time when life asked a lot from you, when you felt spent, with nothing more to give. Notice how you felt. What did you do to nurture and restore your energy?

My life has from time to time been very demanding, and it’s mostly been in relation to employment.

I am fortunate. I am optimistic, I am trusting, and I take stress fairly well. I’ve often found that seeking and developing partnerships not only smoothens the peaks and troughs of a complicated project, making it easier to meet objectives and deadlines… but that it also enhances the outcomes.

That said, I was also taught young that you can’t push sh*t up-hill.

My dad drummed it into me that setting aside your passions for the sake of money is NEVER worth it. So I have never undertaken work that’s made me feel personally frustrated or ethically uncomfortable. Work that feels worthwhile has always delivered a lot of its own satisfactions, making money less of an object.

My personal life, once I grew out of being a stupid, arrogant, self-interested and immature brat — I was dreadful — has always been in the lap of love. My wife is an amzing, loving, forgiving, deeply spiritual companion. And because of that love, my stresses and fatigue have been soothed in the bud.

Nurturing and restoring my energy? Personally: put more energy into loving. In my work: if it's possible, I reach out to others and offer them more creative options… or, when I'm writing in any extended way, which is a very solitary occupation, I take a choice between coffee and a walk. Sometimes I decide which by opting for "odds" or "evens" then count the number of letters in my first sentence of the day.

"Recall a time when life asked alot from you, when you felt spent, with nothing more to give. Notice how you felt. What did you do to nurture and restore your energy?"

Like the author of the Diving Deeply story today, I have had many similar moments. Nursing is a delight but also has the potential to drain if one doesn't take the time to nurture oneself. I have found in these moments it is very important to open up to others and talk things through with someone that understands and has the ability to be empathetic.

I recall other times earlier in my life, as a young mother, sometimes feeling overwhelmed with responsibilties and turning to peers for support. I would often think that after the children grew up the burden would lessen but of course as every mother knows, it doesn't. We worry even about our adult children.

Living as long as I have, there is always something. Births, deaths, joy, sorrows. I have learned to cope by sharing with others which I think frees the atmosphere to allow others to open up to me.

The reality is that someone cannot be there with anyone 24/7.  There are moments of being alone with the fear and some unspoken dreads. Eventually we are all left alone in a room even if it's just to attempt having a good nights rest. The lights turned off as our eyes adjust to the darkness and our mind becomes corrupted with unwanted forebodings. I would feel utterly alone in these moments if I didn't know that God is with me always and that His strength is there for the taking.

When someone says to me, "how can God be listening to everyone's prayers in the world?", I don't even question that at any given time, or moment, there is someone somewhere, reaching out for that hem on his garment and that there is infinite power for everyone.

I hadn't quite finished my first year at my settlement charge and was faced with six funerals in 10 days.  Two of which had some very tragic circumstances.  It seemed that every time the phone rang it was for another trip to the hospital to be with a grieving family.

On top of that there was the routine of six worship services in the same 10 day period (fortunately those six services were on two days out of the ten).  After the final evening worship I dragged myself the 25 metres from the Church to the Manse completely empty.  I had just walked into the house when the phone started to ring and I sat at my desk, started to cry and answered the phone expecting another funeral.

To my relief is was the Clerk of Session thanking me for pouring everything I had into the last 10 days.  He had talked with Session, they all assumed I must be "tired as hell" and they wanted me to not answer the phone for a couple of days.  They even offered to cover the next week worship services if I thought I would need it.

I told them that provided nobody else died I should be okay for next Sunday, thanked them and then dragged myself off to bed.  Said a quick prayer for the day, my family, my congregation and for all the hurting families then slept like a log.

For most of those ten days, since I had, of necessity postponed personal sabbath time, I needed to get caught up on that.  And I took two days to get caught up on all that resting in God and I slept much and well.

I have not had a similar week in ministry yet.  I am always mindful that the Sabbath was created for me because I need it and not me for the Sabbath as if it needs me.  When events start to pile up I begin to look to the Sabbath and protect its bounds so that I do not forget my human limits and that I do take advantage of all the mercy God affords.

Grace and peace to you.

John

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