email: whitpresby@mindspring.com
Spiritual readings "Greetings from Whittier Presbyterian Church"
April 2000 Emails
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Knowledge of one's self |
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Music is serious theology |
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Keeping our eyes on Jesus |
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A prayer of Kierkegaard |
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Spiritual reading |
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A poem by Dag Hammarskjold |
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Joy in sorrow |
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Another poem by Hammarskjold |
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Spiritual exercises |
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Farewell Lent |
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Our misuse of "love" |
Dorothy Bass and Craig Dykstra, in the opening chapter of the 1997 book “Practicing Our Faith,” ask this question: “…is there not a crisis of hospitality in our society? It is tragically evident in homelessness and widespread hostility to immigrants. But it affects almost everyone in less noticeable ways as well. A stranger smiles, and we cautiously turn away. In our retreat from hospitality, we find that even friends and relatives sit at our tables less often than they used to.”
Something to think about as we move through this season of lent.
Thomas a Kempis wrote in the 15th Century:
“The Humble knowledge of oneself is a surer way to God than profound learning.”
John Calvin opened his “Institutes of the Christian Religion” in the 16th Century with:
“The knowledge of God and that of ourselves are connected. How they are Interrelated.”
Knowledge of self and God are indeed interwoven and our Christian tradition is full of examples like these two. The love of God shown us in the cross is the sharpest mirror we will find to help us know both ourselves and God. May you see ever more clearly in that mirror this Lenten Season as you draw closer to Jesus.
Music is one of the great joys of my life and I often marvel at music’s ability to convey spiritual truth and depth. In her New York Times bestseller “Cloister Walk,” published in 1996, Kathleen Norris says this about music:
Music is serious theology. Hildegard of Bingen took it so seriously as a gift God made to humanity that in one of her plays, while the soul and all the virtues sing, the devil alone has a speaking part. The gift of song has been denied him.”
A little something to think about this Lenten season or perhaps the next time you are singing to yourself.
This Sunday is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy or Passion Week. Here is some help from the picture of Christ that emerges from this week. It comes from Guerric of Igny, a little-known abbot in 12th Century France. He compares the procession on Palm Sunday with Jesus’ Via Dolorosa on Good Friday. See Mark 11:1-11 and compare it with Mark 15. Here is Guerric’s suggestion:
“If, then, we want to follow our leader without stumbling through prosperity and through adversity, let us keep our eyes upon him, honored in the procession, undergoing ignominy and suffering in the passion, yet unshakably steadfast in all such changes of fortune.”
HOLY WEEK, 2000
On this Monday of Holy Week, here is a prayer from Soren Kierkegaard:
O Lord Jesus Christ, Thou didst not come to the world to be served, but also surely not to be admired or in that sense to be worshipped. Thou wast the way and the truth – and it was followers only Thou didst demand. Arouse us therefore if we have dozed away into this delusion, save us from the error of wishing to admire Thee instead of being willing to follow Thee and to resemble Thee.
Henri J. M. Nouwen, in his book “Here and Now,” talks about the way we might read scripture. He says “We can read (a bible story) with curiosity and ask ourselves, ‘Did this really happen? Who put this story together and how?’ But we can also read that same story with spiritual attentiveness and wonder: ‘How does God speak to me here and call me to a more generous love?’ Spiritual reading is reading with an inner attentiveness to the movement of God’s spirit in our outer and inner lives.”
May your reading for Holy Week find God speaking to you with generous love.
Dag Hammarskjold described the material that became his book MARKINGS as a “…Sort of white book concerning my negotiations with myself – and with God.”
Here is a poem from that book that I thought fit Holy Week
Body,
My playmate!
Neither the master
Nor the slave,
A buoyant heart
Shall bear you along,
While you cheer my way
With your lively flame
But body,
My playmate,
You must not flinch
Nor fail me when
The moment comes
To do the impossible
Another insight from Henri Nouwen’s “Here & Now:”
“….our contemporary society does everything possible to keep sadness and gladness separated. Sorrow and pain must be kept away at all cost because they are the opposites of the gladness and happiness we desire.
…The vision offered by Jesus stands in sharp contrast to this worldly vision. Jesus shows, both in his teachings and in his life, that true joy often is hidden in the midst of our sorrow, and that the dance of life finds its beginnings in grief.”
A Maundy Thursday reflection for you.
Another reading from Dag Hammarskjold’s gread spiritual autobiography, “Markings.”
The moon was caught in the branches:
Bound by its vow,
My heart was heavy.
Naked against the night
The trees slept. “Nevertheless,
Not as I will…”
The burden remained mine:
They could not hear my call,
And all was silence.
Soon, now, the torches, the kiss:
Soon the gray of dawn
In the Judgment Hall.
What will there love help me there?
There, the question is only
If I love them.
What are spiritual exercises?
With a bow to St. Ignatius, here is a definition of spiritual exercises. This is a method of examination of conscience, of meditation, of contemplation, of vocal and mental prayer, an of other spiritual activities. As walking, running, weightlifting, swimming etc. are all physical exercises, so there are things one can do to prepare and dispose the soul to rid oneself of all inordinate attachments, and to seek and find the will of God in the disposition of life for our soul’s salvation.
In her book “Cloister Walk,” Kathleen Norris talks about an Easter party she attended in a monastery. Here is her comment on it:
“Maybe these people can enjoy Easter because they also observe Lent well enough to be happy to see it go.”
May you continue to mine the joys and blessings of the Easter season.
My Lenten reading was “Beginning to Pray” by Russian Orthodox Archbishop Anthony Bloom. Here is his insight into human nature and the popular expression “I love you.” It is painfully true more often than we would like to admit.
“So often when we say ‘I love you’ we say it with a huge ‘I’ and a small ‘you.’ We use love as a conjunction instead of it being a verb implying action.”
As painfully true as this may be, let us recall Jesus’ words (in John 8:32) that we are made free in the truth. May God grant us the wisdom and courage to truly love, to use love as a verb, the way God intends it to be used.
