email: whitpresby@mindspring.com
Spiritual readings "Greetings from Whittier Presbyterian Church"
Oct. 2000 Emails
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Unconscious power. |
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The nature of God |
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Spirituality & the body |
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Maddy Prior’s The Laugh & the Kiss |
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Listening to Brother Lawrence |
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Life’s pace & stress |
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Schematic Lord's Prayer |
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Ideology & spirituality |
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Election prayer |
Matthew 16:19, about Jesus giving Peter the keys to the kingdom, has never been one of the easier verses for me to understand. William Law has some words that give at least ONE perspective on this verse. Law was an 18th Century Anglican priest, whose later life saw him more appreciative of mystical elements of our faith and more aware of the dimension of mystery. He says:
“All outward power that we exercise in the things about us is but as a shadow in comparison of that inward power that resides in our will, imagination and desires. These communicate with eternity and kindle a life which always reaches either heaven or hell….perpetually generating either life or death in us.
And here lies the ground of the great efficacy of prayer, which, when it is the prayer of the heart, the prayer of faith, has a kindling and creating power, and forms and transforms the soul into everything that its desires reach after. It has the key to the kingdom of heaven and unlocks all its treasures, it opens, extends and moves that in us which has its being and motion in and with the divine nature, and so brings us into real union and communion with God.
Those Eighteenth Century folks were a little more wordy than is fashionable now, but I find great insight into the power of humans, particularly that unconscious/conscious power that Law describes as “will, imagination and desires.” Those are the places where the real truth about us often lies. What is the real truth about YOUR life? Are you reaching for heaven and life or hell and death? Our life of prayer has the ability to not only focus us in the right direction, but to give us the power to continue in that direction. May you focus on the kingdom and thereby find the power to draw closer to God.
Grace & peace to you all.
Geoff
Matthew Fox edited a book published in 1981 that was aimed at reclaiming a part of our Western spiritual tradition. In the introduction to that book he lamented the influence of what he called “nonbiblical philosophies” in the history of Christian spirituality. (for you history or philosophy buffs, he was talking about Stoicism, gnosticism, Platonism and Neoplatonism). He also pointed out the political, sexual and economic dominance of Christianity and empire having something to do with forgetting our biblical roots.
Our roots are important to us. Fox quoted the noted Jewish thinker of the last century, Abraham Heschel, who said: “to know oneself, one must seek to understand one’s past, ones’ heritage, the religious tradition from which one emerges. The human soul is born with a past.”
Fox was the main leader of a movement that came to be known as “creation spirituality” as opposed to “redemption spirituality.” Redemption spirituality starts with our sin and develops itself around the redemption that has been achieved for us in Christ. Creation spirituality emphasizes that life is blessing from God and emphasized humanity’s divinization, rather than its sinfulness. Fox’s main influences at the time seemed to come from Thomas Merton and Abraham Heschel.
Here is a quote from Thomas Merton, referring to Heschel’s view of the God of the Bible:
“The God of the prophets of Israel is a being characterized by his transitive concern about the human condition. The God of the philosophers expresses a self-reflexive concern; he is involved only with himself. The God of the prophets is emphatically involved in human affairs. The ideal personality for the philosophers, Heschel claims, is to be like God—sterile, static thought. The ideal personality for the bible is to be like God—active, dynamic concern for the human condition.”
What are our roots of faith? What great streams of faith feed us in our daily lives, in the decisions we make and the attitudes we have toward the world? Fox & Creation Spirituality provide a needed corrective and balance to the redemption tradition. Personally I prefer to be somewhere in the middle of these two, knowing God’s great love for us, but also knowing the reality of human sin & depravity. A cursory look at the daily news confirms that for me regularly.
What are your roots? What are the deeper strains of learning and behavior that influence the way you live?
May you discover your own roots, and water them with the overwhelming love of God, that love which overcomes our self-centeredness and pushes us beyond our self-imposed limits of fear and doubt.
Grace & peace to you all
Geoff
One of the more helpful book on Christian spirituality I have run across lately is the book “Practicing Our Faith” edited by Dorothy C. Bass. It a collection of articles by various people, seeking to present or represent a variety of traditional practices of faithful living. In the chapter entitled “Honoring the Body” Stephanie Paulsell talks about fresh ways to view our bodies and our relationships to them. Here are some nuggets from that mine.
She refers to “our long struggle to be at home in the body, this difficult friendship.”
“The practice of honoring the body challenges us to remember the sacredness of the body every moment of our lives.”
She tells a little story about being a Lamaze partner for a woman in her church. After a long and difficult labor, which wound up being induced after all their best efforts, she thought to herself, half laughing and half weeping, “This must be the way God made the world, this must be the way God made the world….”
As my knee continues to recuperate quickly, I realize two things. One is how much we take our bodies for granted. The other is indeed the spiritual dimensions of our bodies. That issue grows as we age and our bodies begin to disappoint us more and more. How do we handle the bodily changes in our life? Where is God in the midst of it all? How do YOU relate to God through your body?
May you find the peace of Christ in your bodily existence this day.
Grace & peace to you all,
Geoff
One of my favorite singers is Maddy Prior, an English woman who became famous, in England anyway, for being part of the folk revival therein the ‘60s. She was part of a group called Steeleye Span which took old English folk songs and electrified them. She and her husband(bass player in the band) had either a conversion to Christianity or a rediscovering the power in their life-long faith(I never found out which) in the late 70s or early 80s. She has a solo career now, touring with two other musicians. She can be found on the World Wide Web at www.gaudela.net/prior/frames.html and her record label is Park Records, www.parkrecords.com.
On one of her recent CDs, “Flesh & Blood” there is this beautiful piece of poetry/song. Its called “The Laugh and the Kiss.” In her introductory remarks in the liner notes she says: “Someone once said to me that the split second when you laugh at a joke is a moment of enlightenment. Suddenly you understand.”
The laugh and the kiss they join heaven and earth
The laugh is a treasure, the kiss is a birth
The tricksters have twisted and now they will kiss
And all of creation shall join in their bliss.
It showers down blessings on all those below
And they give their blessings for this ebb and flow.
These points of meeting in eternity
Unite us in our humanity
The laugh and the kiss they join heaven and earth
The laugh is a treasure, the kiss is a birth
These points of meeting in eternity
Unite us in our humanity
May you be blessed with some moment of enlightenment today.
Grace & peace to you all
Geoff
My last email was the lyrics from a Maddy Prior song. I realize songs are meant to be sung and the lyrics printed are not quite what they would be heard in song. Here’s another one from Ms Prior, in honor of my granddaughter Maddy’s first birthday, Oct. 16.
Here’s a quote from the liner notes to her “Flesh & Blood” CD. It comes from her introduction to a song about Brother Lawrence, the monk who spent his time in the kitchen but wrote some very simple, basic and extremely insightful material on the everyday-ness of spirituality. She says of him:
“Brother Lawrence represents the antithesis of what most of us think of as communication. Unlike us he does not appear to have been on ‘all broadcast and no receive’. His method of communion was to listen.”
Our need to listen is a truism not only in our spiritual lives, but in every other part of our lives, in our families, workplaces and relationships. I once heard a spiritual director defined as one who listens with one ear turned to you and the other to God.
How do you listen to the world around you? To what or whom are your ears tuned?
May you train yourself to hear God’s voice and music in the world around you.
Grace & peace to you all,
Geoff
Bruce Bawer is an Episcopalian layman who published a book in 1997 entitled “Stealing Jesus.” The subtitle was “How fundamentalism Betrays Christianity” which more or less explains his premise. In that book he quotes the theologian Paul Tillich from an article in the Saturday Evening Post from the 1950’s. I was surprised at just how relevant Tillich’s insights are for our life today, perhaps even more relevant. By way of annotation, I have updated Tillich’s language and the phrase ‘ultimate concern’ is his term for God. Tillich said:
“Our daily life in office and home, in cars and airplanes, at parties and conferences, while reading magazines and watching television, while looking at advertisements and hearing radio, are in themselves continuous examples of a life which has lost the dimension of depth. It runs ahead, every moment is filled with something which must be done or seen or said or planned. But no one can experience depth without stopping and becoming aware of oneself. Only if one has moments in which one does not care about what comes next can one experience the meaning of this moment here and how and ask oneself about the meaning of one’s life. As long as the preliminary, transitory concerns are not silenced, no matter how interesting and valuable and important they may be the voice of the ultimate concern cannot be heard.”
We like to think that life was simpler in the past, but this quote from nearly 50 years ago might give us pause to reconsider. How busy and hectic is your life? How often do you pause to listen for the voice of God? God is there calling to each of us. Can we make a moment to listen?
May you hear that still small voice of God in your life this day.
Grace & peace
Geoff
The Oxford Book of Prayer, published in 1985, has adopted the Lord’s Prayer as the framework in which it plugs a variety of personal and occasional prayers. They have used subheadings for each phrase of the prayer that I found interesting, and want to share them with you.
OUR FATHER Dependence
WHO ART IN HEAVEN Affirmation
HALLOWED BY THY NAME Blessing and thanksgiving
THY KINGDOM COME Longing; Seeking; Doing; Serving; Peace
THY WILL BE DONE Dedication; Obedience
AS IT IS IN HEAVEN Guidance; Acceptance
GIVE US THIS DAY Daily; Graces
FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES Penitence
AS WE FORGIVE Relationships
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION Right living
DELIVER US FROM EVIL Protection; Suffering; Compassion
FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM Devotion; contemplation; Gifts of the Spirit; Sacraments
FOR EVER AND EVER Death and eternity; The Virgin, martyrs, and saints; Blessings
The formatting of this may get scrambled over the internet but I hope you find this a helpful analysis of this the most popular and often spoken Christian prayer.
Grace & Peace to you all
Geoff
Walter Brueggemann is an Old Testament scholar and something of a prophet in his own right. In the introduction to his book “Finally Comes the Poet” he talks about the way our modern society reduces the gospel. He says:
“…our technical way of thinking reduces mystery to problem, transforms assurance into certitude, revises quality into quantity, and so takes the categories of biblical faith and represents them in manageable shapes.”
He goes on to talk of the way social ideology distorts the gospel as well.
“When we embrace ideology uncritically, it is assumed that the bible squares easily with capitalist ideology, or narcissistic psychology, or revolutionary politics, or conformist morality, or romantic liberalism. There is no danger, no energy, no possibility, no opening for newness.”
One of the benefits of our faith in and relationship with God is the new things that God can do in our lives. Brueggemann points out some of the things that get in the way of our being able to experience God’s newness. We all have our personal doubts and fears but human life piles on layers of viewpoints, perspectives, prejudices and ideologies. These are among the things that Brueggemann is speaking about.
What are your favorite ideologies? What are your pet ideologies, viewpoints and prejudices? How do they compromise you ability to invite God’s newness into your life?
May you allow God to pierce through the layers of stuff all around you, and bring something new and good to you.
Grace & peace
Geoff
We used the following prayer for elections in the bulletin this last Sunday, encouraging the congregation to pray it throughout the week ahead and until the election on Nov. 7. I thought you might all want to see it and use it yourself. You might want to pass it on to friends and family too. It comes from the Episcopalian Book of Common Prayer.
Almighty God, to whom we must account for all our powers and privileges; guide the people of the United States in the election of officials and representatives; that, by faithful administration and wise laws, the rights of all may be protected and our nation be enabled to fulfill your purposes; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
May you not only pray, but study the election issues in your area of the country, then VOTE(those of you who are able to). It is a privilege we have to vote and a religious duty as well.
Grace & peace to you all.
Geoff
