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Spiritual readings        "Greetings from Whittier Presbyterian Church"

April 2006

Apr. 4, 2006

We had a memorial service last Saturday and the bulletin contained these verses from the poem “Idylls of the King” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, published in England in 1859.  This selection is called ‘Arthur’s Farewell.’

The old order changeth

Yielding place to new

And God fulfills himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

Comfort thyself:  what comfort is in me?

I have lived my life, and that which I have done

May He within himself make pure!  But thou,

If thou shouldst never see my face again

Pray for my soul.  More things are wrought by prayer

Than this world dreams of.  Wherefore, let thy voice

Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats

That nourish a blind life within the brain,

If knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer

Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole round earth is every way

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.

“More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of…”  That is courage and encouragement to pray no matter how we might feel.  A good reminder for Lent.

Grace & peace

Geoff

Apr. 7, 2006

I’ve mentioned earlier that we are using the booklet “Renewed for Life” for our Lenten Devotions at the church.  This booklet is compiled by Mark Neilsen for Creative Communications for the Parish, 2003.  The readings all come from Henri J. M. Nouwen.  He remains one of my favorite spiritual authors.  Here’s something about silence, from Nouwen’s “With Open Hands” Ave Maria Press, 1972.

“To be calm and quiet all by yourself is hardly the same as sleeping.  In fact, it means being fully awake and following with close attention every move going on inside you.  It involves a self-discipline where the urge to get up and go is recognized as a temptation to look elsewhere for what is really close at hand.  It is the freedom to stroll in your own yard, to rake up the leaves and clear the paths so you can easily find your way.  Perhaps there will be much fear and uncertainty when we first come upon this unfamiliar terrain, but slowly and surely we begin to see developing an order and a familiarity which summon our longing to stay home.”

Nouwen’s use of images is always very helpful for me.  Here his imaging of the process of silence can be helpful for those beginning to explore silence in their prayer life.  May you find God’s presence in your life through more silence, or by whatever means.

Grace & peace

Geoff

You can see more of the resources of Creative Communications for the Parish at www.creativecomunications.com

April 10, 2006

Each year during Holy Week is end out daily emails in recognition of the central role this week plays in our lives of faith.  This year for we will focus on prayer and specifically the Lord’s Prayer.  I will pass on to you an excerpt from the book “The Lord’s Prayer” by Nicholas Ayo, University of Notre Dame Press, 1992.  He includes reflections on various parts of the prayer by various writers and thinkers throughout Christian History.  Today’s is a reflection upon the opening phrase by Cyprian of Carthage.  Cyprian lived from around 200 until his martyrdom in 258.  I’ve left the language as printed.

“Before all things, the Teacher of peace and Master of unity did not wish prayer to be offered individually and privately as one would pray only for himself when he prays.  We do not say:  “My Father, who are in heaven,” nor “Give me this day my bread,” nor does each one ask that only his debt be forgiven him and that he be led not into temptation and that he be delivered from evil for himself alone.  Our prayer is public and common, and when we pray, we pray not for one but for the whole people, because we, the whole people, are one.  God, the Teacher of prayer and concord, who taught unity, thus wished one to pray for all, just as He himself taught unity, thus wished one to pray for all, just as He himself bore all in one…”

I sometimes find myself tempted to think that my relationship with God is all that counts.  I need the reminder of the plural form of the Lord’s Prayer.  When you pray this prayer, who do you include in your “our…”?

May you find some sense of community during this Holy Week.

Grace & peace

Geoff

Apr. 11, 2006

For the Tuesday of Holy Week, we continue to focus on prayer and specifically the Lord’s Prayer from the book “The Lord’s Prayer” by Nicholas Ayo, University of Notre Dame Press, 1992.  He includes reflections on various parts of the prayer by various writers and thinkers throughout Christian History.  Today’s is part of a reflection upon the phrase “Thy will be done…” by St. Thomas Aquinas.  Aquinas was THE giant of Medieval Christian theologians.  I’ve left the language as printed.

“It must be noted that the very words used in this petition teach us a lesson.  It does not say “Do” or “Let us do,” but it says, “(Let)Thy will be done,” because two things are necessary for eternal life:  the grace of God and the will of man.  Although God has made man with out man, He cannot save man without his cooperation.  Thus, says St. Augustine:  “Who created thee without thyself, cannot save thee without thyself,” because God wills that man cooperate with Him or at least put no obstacle in His way:  “Turn to Me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will turn to you.”  “By the grace of God, I am what I am.  And His grace in me hath not been void.”  Do not, therefore, presume on your own strength, but trust in God’s grace; and be not negligent, but use the zeal you have.  It does not say therefore, “Let us do,” lest it would seem that the grace of God were left out; nor does it say “Do,” lest it would appear that our will and our zeal do not matter.  He does say “Let it be done” through the grace of God at the same time using our desire and our own efforts.”

I hope you can keep all those quotation marks straight!  This is not an encouragement to be passive about our life of faith, only passive in regards to receiving God’s grace.  Our response to that grace is to be active indeed!  May you sense God’s grace in your life this week, and find some opportunity to be active about it.

Grace & peace

Geoff

Apr. 12, 2006 - Wed of Holy Week

For the Wednesday of Holy Week, we continue to focus on The Lord’s Prayer from the book “The Lord’s Prayer” by Nicholas Ayo, University of Notre Dame Press, 1992.  Today we hear from Origen (185-253), considered by some to have been the greatest theologian of the Greek Church.  His commentary on prayer was probably written after 230 in Caesaria in Palestine.  Here, in Ayo’s book, he is commenting upon the phrase “give us this day our daily bread” and he uses the word “supersubstantial” for “daily.”  I’ve left the language as printed.

“And just as material bread which is used for the body of him who is being nourished, enters into his substance, so the living bread and that which came down from heaven, offered to the mind and the soul, gives a share of its own proper power to him who presents himself to be nourished by it.  And so this will be the supersubstantial bread which we ask for.  And again, as according to the quality of the food it is strong and suitable for athletes, or, on the other hand, is of milk and vegetables, so he who takes food is of varying strength.  In the same way it follows that when the Word of God is given as milk to infants, as herbs adapted to the weak, and as meat proper for those engaged in combat, each of those who are nourished will, according as he gives himself up to the Word, be able to do this or that, or become a man of such or such character…The supersubstantial bread…is…bringing to the soul health and well-being and strength, and giving to him that eats of it a share of its own immortality.  For the Word of God is immortal.

I like the way spiritual writers will point out that God gives us what we need and/or can handle, tailoring grace to our ability to take it, and maybe just a bit more to stretch us.

May you be fed what you need, and just a bit more, this day.

Grace & peace

Geoff

Apr. 13, 2006, Maundy Thursday

Today’s reflections on The Lord’s Prayer from the book “The Lord’s Prayer” by Nicholas Ayo, University of Notre Dame Press, 1992, come from two women, separated by about 500 years.  Teresa of Avila was a mystical writer who lived from 1515 to 1582.  This excerpt comes from her “Way of Perfection”, published in 1579.  Simone Weil lived from 1909 to 1943 and died in England of malnutrition brought on in part because she maintained her food ration should not exceed that of her compatriots in Nazi occupied France.  They are both reflecting on “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors…”  Teresa’s reading makes a nice link to yesterday’s reflections on daily bread.  I’ve left the language as printed.

Teresa of Avila:

I’m not speaking of the trifles people call injuries, for these do not affect a soul that God raises to so high a prayer, nor does it care whether it is highly esteemed or no.  I am wrong in saying that it does not care, for honour troubles it far more than contempt, and it dislikes rest much more than toil.  The good Jesus, knowing that these results remain in the soul that has reached this state of prayer, assures His Father that we forgive our debtors, for when God has really given His kingdom to a person she no longer wishes for any kingdom in this world: she understands that this is the way to reign in a far higher manner, experience having taught her what benefit accrues from it and that the soul makes rapid progress through suffering for God.

Simone Weil:

The effort of suffering from some offense causes us to expect the punishment or apologies of the offender, the effort of doing good makes us expect the gratitude of the person we have helped, but these are only particular cases of a universal law of the soul.  Every time we give anything out we have an absolute need that at least the equivalents should come into us, and because we need this we think we have a right to it.  Our debtors comprise all beings and all things; they are the entire universe.  We think we have claims everywhere.  In every claim we think we posses there is always the idea of an imaginary claim of the past on the future.  That is the claim we have to renounce.”

These women blast the veneer off our respectability to show us the truth about ourselves.  Its not comfortable, but the truth brings us closer to God.  That is the task of Lent, even the play of Lent, if you will.  May you sense God’s presence ever deeper in your life as this Holy Week draws to a close.

Grace & peace

Geoff

For more on Teresa, try these:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14515b.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_of_Avila

For Simone Weil, try these

http://www.rivertext.com/weil.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_Weil

April 14, 2006 Good Friday

Today’s reflection on The Lord’s Prayer from the book “The Lord’s Prayer” by Nicholas Ayo, University of Notre Dame Press, 1992, comes from someone I’m ashamed to say I’d never heard of.  He is Alfred Delp, a Jesuit who died in a Nazi prison in February 1945 for his criticism of the war.  The parallels to Dietrich Bonhoeffer are quite stunning.  Delp reflects upon the phrase “lead us not into temptation.”  I've left the language as I found it.

“Temptation assails us from within and without.  Compulsion, force, pain, humiliation, one’s own cowardice, God’s silence, complete inability to cope with an external situation, all these call for painful decisions.  And added to all these there is fear, that creeping worm that eats its way into a man’s very substance.  The devil within may break loose—indignation, doubt, the overwhelming wish to live which cannot be suppressed.  All these can cause many hours of bitter struggle and when it dies down the world no longer seems the same place.  One’s skin in turned to leather, crisscrossed with scars and wounds.”

Isn’t it most often the truth that the temptations that come from within are the strongest?  As we see Jesus on the cross this day, may we gather some strength to name and withstand the temptations in our lives.

Grace & peace

Geoff

For more on Delp, go here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Delp

For more on Bonhoeffer, and to see they were both involved in the July 20, 1944 plot to kill Hitler, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonhoeffer

Apr. 15, 2006 Holy Saturday

Our last petition in The Lord’s Prayer is “deliver us from evil” or “…from the evil one.”  Our reflection on this phrase from the book “The Lord’s Prayer” by Nicholas Ayo, University of Notre Dame Press, 1992, is given by Leonardo Boff, a Liberation Theologian from Brazil.  Here is part of his comment on this phrase of our prayer.  I’m leaving off his Biblical references, assuming you are familiar with the sources, most of which can be found in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapters 5-7.

“(Jesus)…does not warn them to beware of uncontrollable and diabolical forces, but to beware of the yearnings of their own hearts, for these are what corrupt a persons life.  What keeps someone from entering the kingdom and experiencing the transcendent meaning of life is not so much the devil as wealth, excessive worries, a self-centered attitude, passing judgment on others, lusting for power, honor, and glory…The principle cause of the world’s ills is to be found in our insensitivity, our lack of solidarity, and the failure of love.  It is this that Jesus criticizes in the Pharisees.  These are the real demons that we much exorcise from our lives.”

It is so much easier, and sometimes more convenient, to find the devils “out there” somewhere, that we forget how often Jesus called us to cleanse our own hearts first, before we look elsewhere.  May this Lenten season have provided you the opportunity to cleanse your own heart, the better to make room for the transforming power of the resurrected Jesus.

Grace & peace

Geoff

For more on Boff:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_Boff

I hope you will find a church near you where you can celebrate Easter in community.

April 18, 2006

Last Wednesday, April 12, 2006, one of my favorite activist Presbyterian Ministers died, the Rev. William Sloan Coffin.  The L.A. Times gave him a full page obituary, something of a rarity.  Here are some excerpts.

"Coffin was one of the first white Northerners in 1961 to join the Freedom Riders, who traveled through the south on interstate buses, monitoring enforcement of civil rights laws.  “You’ve got to be rugged and determined and expect to take hard knocks if you’re going to do a Christian’s work in the world,” he told a reporter in an interview after his first several arrests.

In public lectures and sermons, however he was eloquent and provocative. “War is a coward’s escape from the problems of peace,” he told a Yale audience in 2003.

Increasingly, Coffin saw his role as a minister in terms of social and political causes.  Referring to peace as “never the absence of tension but the presence of justice,” he helped organize Clergy Concerned About Vietnam…

In his 2005 book “Letters to a Young doubter” he offered another view about money:  “There are two ways of getting rich.  One is to have lots of money, the other is to have few needs.”

When asked why he had banished himself to rural Vermont, he replied:  “Nature gets more interesting as you’re about to join it.”

I’m humbled and even sometimes ashamed, when I see such a courageous witness.  Rest in peace William Sloane Coffin.

May you find additional courage in your faith during this post-Easter season.

Grace & peace

Geoff

Apr. 21, 2006

One day early as I’ll be gone tomorrow.

Saturday is Earth Day.  Here is a reading in honor of mother Earth from “Seven Whispers” by Christina Baldwin, New World Library, 2002.

“In the past few centuries of industrialization and urbanization—leading to our current technostructure—we have strayed so far from home we have almost no idea what Nature is.  The closest we get to comprehension is to say we ought to realign our lives with Nature, as though this were an option.  As though we were separate.  As though we have dominion over the miraculous biosphere that designed us from the molecule up.

            Yet Nature is no longer real to millions and millions of people in the West.  We have stopped believing somehow that we live in Nature, and see it instead as an inconvenience represented by the day’s weather, while we hustle about in our temperature-controlled capsules, breathing recycled air. Many of us think of real Nature as a vacation destination, or a romantic oddity on the Discovery Channel—not occurring where we live.”

For many of us in the Christian family, the Bible is very clear about our responsibility to care for the earth.  May you find a way for YOU to care more for God’s gift of this planet.

Grace & peace

Geoff

Apr. 25, 2006

Today is my father’s 92^nd birthday.  The whole family agrees he has aged well.  Here is an excerpt on aging from “Anam Cara; Wisdom from the Celtic World” by John O’Donohue, Harper Perennial, 2004.

“Often old people have a touching mellowness about them.  Age is not dependent on chronological time.  Age is more related to a person’s temperament.  I know some young people who are about eighteen or twenty that are so serious, grave, and gloomy that they sound like ninety-year-olds.  Conversely, I know some very old people who have hearts full of roguery, devilment, and fun; there is a sparkle in their presence.  When you meet them, you have a sense of light, lightness, and gaiety.  Sometimes in very old bodies there are incredibly young, wild souls looking out at you.  It is so invigorating to meet a wild old person who has remained faithful to their wild life force.  Meister Eckhart said that, too, in a more formal way:  There is a place in the soul that is eternal.  He says time makes you old, but that there is a place in the soul that time cannot touch.  It is a lovely thing to know that about yourself.  Even though time will inscribe your face, weaken your limbs, make your movements slower, and finally, empty your life, nevertheless there is still a place in your spirit that time can never get near.  You are as young as you feel.  If you begin to feel the warmth of your soul, there will be a youthfulness in you that no one will ever be able to take away from you.  Put more formally, this is a way of inhabiting the eternal side of your life.  It would be sad on your one journey through life to miss out on this eternal presence around you and within you.”

It is so often true that we are as young as we feel.  As long as we don’t try to get our bodies to act 30 if that is how we feel!  Many are the pulled muscles etc. that result.  There is a sense that eternal life is present to us in every moment of aging gracefully.  May you sense that eternal life in your present graceful moments today.  Happy Birthday Dad!

Grace & peace,

Geoff

Apr. 28, 2006

As many music lovers do these days, I like to make compilations of my favorite music of the current time.  The latest one I made I’ve entitled “Blessed” for the following song of the same title by Mick Hanley.  My recording comes from 1994, taped of the radio.

I’m looking down the same road I looked down before,

I don’t’ know if I can make it, it’s a hard road any more,

I’m looking at the same sky, darkening overhead

Lord I could be tempted to crawl back into bed.

Chorus

But every time I ponder I realized I’m blessed

I don’t know the word for hunger, got no ache here in my breast,

I know the fights’ not over, the battle never won,

I walk out in the morning to meet another one, to meet another one.

I’m looking at the same stars I looked at long ago

I hung my dreams upon them, so how was I to know

I’m looking at the same moon, lost in reverie

Magnetized forever by the mystery

Chorus

I’m looking at the same ball, spinning like a top,

Listening to the same voice, where do I get off.

I’m chasing down the same dream I chased down yesterday

I’m just about to get it, then it slips away

Chorus

As much as I may struggle with life and its challenges, the fact that I’ve never been hungry for any reason but my own puts me in the privileged group of earth’s inhabitants.  Like Mick Hanley, it doesn’t take me long either to realized how I’m blessed.

May you find a sense of blessing in your life today.

Grace and peace

Geoff