Dance With the Devil

At one point or another or until we learn not to, we want to dance with the Devil as much as we think we can get away with.  At these times, we want what he's selling...until we see more clearly what it is (or isn't).

And it seems, we have to learn in very personal ways that he is the Father of Lies.

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

-- Matt 5:3

Makes you wonder about what it is that the 'poor in spirit' have which will qualify them to rule in God's kingdom.  In our kingdom, the poor in spirit are condescended to, even frowned upon.  They don't have 'what it takes'.  ...to lead, to be a visionary, to be a hard-charger, to be a mover-and-shaker, etc...to rule really, a kingdom.

But, as seems typical in God's order of things, these folks will end up being the 'rulers'...perhaps because of something they learned when they were 'poor'.  I wonder when that will be, what that will look like.

What do you think characterizes the 'poor in spirit'?  Why do you suppose that in God's economy 'theirs is the kingdom of heaven'?

Thoughts on Getting Dumped

Another entry from Bob Goff...from Donald Miller's blog:

"I was in college and thought I wanted to be a forest ranger and later, a surfer. Then I got my first “dear Bob” letter from someone I really cared for who didn’t want to date a forest ranger or a surfer any more.

I’ve learned that God sometimes allows us to find ourselves in a place where we want something so bad that we can’t see past it...read on."

One of the blessings of poverty (being poor, not being 'rich', etc.) is the built-in 'No' in life.

Too bad we don't often see it that way.  But, I still suspect it is true; there is 'no' built into the regular life of those without much means.  And while not always the case, those who "can't" seem blessed with something that those who "can" often don't have.  It is hard to describe, but you do know when you see it. For example, the thorough enjoyment of something out of the ordinary, genuine gratitude for gifts from others, a simpleness (peace) that pervades one's existence with the direct and experiential knowledge that all goodness comes from God.

...and I'm really impressed by those who don't have to, but still say 'No' to things in life.  It confirms that they believe in something more than their money.

Not Quickly

Most good things don't come quickly.

You've got to walk a ways before you can learn to really appreciate and enjoy the goodness in things.  ...along the beach, through the woods, into life.

Awwww!

Click pic for more 'Awwww!'

Christ Is Risen

Christ is risen!
We give thanks for the gift of Easter
       that runs beyond our explanations,
              beyond our categories of reason,
       even more, beyond the sinking sense of our own lives.
We know about the powers of death,
                     powers that persist among us,
                     powers that drive us from you, and
                            from our neighbor, and
                            from our best selves.
We know about the powers of fear and greed and anxiety,
                            and brutality and certitude.
                     powers before which we are helpless.

And then you...you at dawn, unquenched,
              you in the darkness,
              you on Saturday,
              you who breaks the world to joy.
Yours is the kingdom...not the kingdom of death,
Yours is the power... not the power of death.
Yours is the glory... not the glory of deathl
       Yours... You... and we give thanks
              for the newness of life beyond our achieving.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

-- Walter Brueggeman

Lent's Birth - Resurrection Sunday

Paula said if you did this all the way, it may prove to be the very antidote you've been seeking.

Conversion means being liberated by God's grace so that we can at last follow the intimate spiritual aspirations that have long been unheeded, neglected, or frustrated.  It is the beginning of the journey towards a fulfillment, a journey powered by the spiritual quest but one which profoundly influences and transforms every sphere of human activity and experience.

-- Michael Casey

I have loved the recalibration this year's Lent has born in me.  Not that I'm all better or have become someone else.  But, I have been recalibrated to what makes me alive to who I really am.  And, I am grateful for it.

A few final thoughts from the wonderful little book I've referenced throughout this season:

Just as Jesus humbly bore his cross through the winding streets of Jerulsalem, I must be willing to carry the burden of myself as I am. Instead of fantasizing about my special gifts or fine character, I must lay aside self-importance. I must stop catering to my own whims, putting my own needs before the needs of others, or taking my own righteousness as a given. I must learn to see myself as I am: neither too high or too low.
...

That renunciation of my former way of life causes suffering, both for me and for those who love me but who are incapable of understanding the journey I am on. No matter how I'd like to avoid that stark reality, what I sign up for when I accept the faith is the quiet bearing of pain. Some of the worst of it has to do with the total restructuring of the person I've come to identify as myself.
...

Genuine transformation requires obedience to a power greater than myself.
...

Despite my predilection toward a strictly private relationship with God, I see that we do not and cannot meet him totally on our own. I realize that I am accompanied on this difficult spiritual journey not only by my living brothers and sisters in Christ but also by countless generations of believers who have already made the transition from earthly existence to the "land of likeness" -- the heavenly home that Jesus went to prepare for us. No longer merely an individual, I have been engrafted into the Body of Christ.
...

Our only way of thanking him is to offer back what he has so generously given:   our consecrated selves. We are made to bring peace to the war-torn, sustenance to the starving, hope to the desperate, love to the despised and the alone, and the good news of salvation to the ignorant and the cynical.
...

This task sounds daunting...so he reminds us of who he made us to be:

You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain that cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father. (Mt 5:14-16)

Humility is what allows us to take on this magnificent mission without trembling.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

Amen.  We are re-born.

Another Slanted Morning

It is another slanted morning.  And, when I saw it, my heart rose a bit in anticipation.  I have come to love sunlight from the side, as it slants in on things, making both high-lights and shadow simultaneously..  Add in some heavenly breeze and the world seems to just tingle with dancing motion.  And, the secret of its beauty seems to be that it does so without calling attention to itself.  It just whispers faintly, "do you know what I know?"  I think it is a beauty that knows it source, so it has no need to advertise or flaunt itself.  It just is...reflecting its reflecting on the One who makes it all move and shine.

Whew...about all you can do is breathe it in; slowly, deeply, wonderfully.

As I do this, something settles in me.  I rediscover that I am a part of all of this, that I have a part in all of this.  And, when I assume this same position -- reflecting God like the rest of his creation -- a strange thing happens, I come alive.

I love it when truth sneaks up on you in ways like this.  It taps you gently on the shoulder and offers you something didn't expect, from the side, as it slants itself into your budding awareness.

The Outrageous

If you’ve lost the capacity to be outraged by what’s outrageous, you’re dead. Somebody ought to come and haul you off.

-- Wendell Berry

Are we outraged by anything any more? We are shocked by so little. We feed on things that should shock as if it were a normal diet. Not unlike the Hunger Games, we make nearly everything entertainment and become callous to what is deeply wrong. Like this day represents in the spiritual calendar, we view it largely as just one more day to get something done or with which to amuse ourselves.

We ought to be hauled off...I'd say, to the dessert until we can see things for the way they really are again...what is good and what isn't.

Learning from Silence

The great secret of monastic life, which on the surface looks like total withdrawal from human society, is that years of solitude, silence, and prayer, if they are undergone in the right spirit, lead to an expanded heart. Thomas Merton says, "Father, I beg you to keep me in this silence so that I may learn from it the word of your peace and the word of your mercy and the word of your gentleness to the world: and that through me perhaps your word of peace may make itself heard where it has not been possible for anyone to hear it for a long time."

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

2 of the Beauty in my Life

 

Few of Us Would

If it were up to us to judge who deserved forgiveness and who did not, few of us would forgive at all. Instead, we'd cherish our self-righteous rage, nurture our towering anger, and soon find ourselves on the road to self-destruction or mayhem. We cannot be trusted to pick and choose whom we will forgive. And, so, as folders of Christ, we are enjoined to forgive without measure.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

Come Healing

O gather up the brokenness
And bring it to me now
The fragrance of those promises
You never dared to vow

The splinters that you carry
The cross you left behind
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the mind

And let the heavens hear it
The penitential hymn
Come healing of the spirit
Come healing of the limb

Behold the gates of mercy
In arbitrary space
And none of us deserving
The cruelty or the grace

O solitude of longing
Where love has been confined
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the mind

O see the darkness yielding
That tore the light apart
Come healing of the reason
Come healing of the heart

O troubled dust concealing
An undivided love
The Heart beneath is teaching
To the broken Heart above

O let the heavens falter
And let the earth proclaim:
Come healing of the Altar
Come healing of the Name

O longing of the branches
To lift the little bud
O longing of the arteries
To purify the blood

O let the heavens hear it
The penitential hymn
Come healing of the spirit
Come healing of the limb

-- Leonard Cohen, Old Ideas

Dismals Canyon & Orange Beach

One of three places in the world with Dismalites!

It occurs to me now that going to the woods
Without knowing any of the many names
Of its inhabitants
Must be about as interesting as going
To a beautiful library
Without knowing how to read.

How hard have we worked to acquire
Our fresh ignorance?

-- Linford Detweiler

Anonymous

There is something deceptively awful about being anonymous.  

It looks awesome from a distance.  It feels great, in terms of what it makes you believe you can get away with.  It allows you to be someone different than who you really are.

The big city, a road-trip, Las Vegas all beg anonymity.

It's not that these things should never be experienced. But life without a community is not life and it feeds all the wrong things in us.  It does not hold us accountable to the better parts of who we are.  A town.  A family.  A frequented barbershop.  A church.  A circle of good friends.  All stain us in some way, but all can also root us to who we are...by giving us identity, sharedness, forgiveness, humanity.

We should be wary of the wiles of being anonymous.

Bluegrass Legend Earl Scruggs Has Died

Earl could play 11 notes in one second!

Like the music or not (I kinda do!), you have to admire the perfection of such skill and the story of a man's life that shapes it.

Through Giving

It is through giving that we receive, and it is through dying that we are born to eternal life.

-- St. Francis of Assisi


 Giving and dying...not necessarily natural instincts. Ones that we have to choose. Ones that we have to learn to choose.

And, ones that are probably easier to imagine in theory than in practice. In other words, where specifically do I need to give today? Where and how do I need to die to today?

How Far

You'd be surprised how far the smallest steps can take you.

I am.  ...in both directions, good and bad.

Undefended Self

Solitude brings us face to face with a person who fills us with dismay: our naked and unadorned self. Instead of the self-sufficient, goal-directed, accomplished human being we've learned to secretly admire, we are suddenly revealed as a weak, dependent, fearful creature who much of the time uses others to fulfill desperate needs. If we have prided ourselves on the maturity of our faith, solitude twitches back the curtain on self-deception. The experience can be devastating.

Today, spend an hour in solitude: no phone, no e-mail, no TV, and no interacting with another human being, live or electronic. If you are already accustomed to living by yourself, think about he ways in which you defend yourself against loneliness. Do you rely on the TV to keep you company? Do you spend a lot of time calling friends? Do you feel compelled to socialize often? Ask God to show you what you'd prefer not to see: your undefended self. Then ask God to strengthen and sustain you.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

We continue this week in the fifth week of Lent. I'm still reading this powerful set of practices and prayers...and continue to be provoked at how well defended I have made myself. And, I am missing a lot in my paltry efforts.

Compassion

The Rule of St. Benedict enshrines hospitality as a primary Christian duty because the world is full of stranded people who ache for the smallest sign that someone cares enough to be inconvenienced for their sakes. It might help if we realize that what people need has more to do with compassion than solutions to their problems. We might experience less guilty frustration at our inability to 'help' someone and more inclination to simply be there for them, however briefly, as they struggle on with this difficult life.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

I am finding myself increasingly separated by this book, in a good way. Challenged to move beyond the intriguing nature of the ideas to the actions they compel. I have not been able to do it yet, to the degree that I would like. And, I feel the both the Accuser and the Caller near me. May God grant me the capacity to follow his calling however I can presently do so.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

-- Wendell Berry

Me

I spoke sharply to my wife yesterday because of something she said that made me feel a certain way.  As we separated in silent anger, I discovered a sentence floating through my mind...something about her not having interest in me, in how I am feeling these days.  The fact was, however, that she had stopped by specifically to see me.

• "Do you know how hard I am working or what I give up to help you?"
• "Why am I the one who always has to be flexible and join in what you are doing?"

• "When is the last time you asked me how I was doing?"

• "Why doesn't anyone call me?"

• "...it seems like people don't really care, or even want to know about me.  Nobody really has time...for me.  Everyone is too busy thinking about themselves ...."

Each of us has personal versions of questions like this, don't we?  At times they lay low, staying submerged under our denial or even our effort to keep them tamped down.  At other times, they shoot out of the smallest cracks in our shells with surprising velocity and at unanticipated moments.  What is going on?  What is reflected in these sentences...especially when they are no more true than the one I was settling on above?

I woke up with questions like this today...but I realize I've been perfecting them for a while now...justifying the integrity of them by keeping track of certain things that support them (and leaving the ones that don't aside).  They are obviously self-centered.  They obviously reflect something I have discovered that I am holding on to, that requires something of others to take care of...me.  But, such sentences do point to something. ...and therefore they are useful to acknowledge.  I have learned (the hard way) to pay attention to them when I can.

As I tried to do this, I realized that (among other things) my sense of personal worth has become in need of validation.  So, I was accusing the world (and my wife) in order to gets its attention.  But, do I really need to be validated?  Well...yes.  I do.  But, by her?  Or, by you?  No.

So, the question remains, what is going on inside me?  What I really need is to stop and reconsider the forces at work in me right now that allow me to translate the validation I do need from requiring that others come through for me...to make me feel better about myself.  I have noticed, over time, that it is the inability (or, more likely, the unwillingness) to stop doing everything I have ended up doing to feel good about myself and ask the question, what validates me?  You?  What I do?  ...what or who does validate me, then?

This blog has well-traveled answers to these questions.  ...so, it isn't the answer that is elusive; it is the slow and subtle shift in where I seek the answer.  And, I need to stop...to be still in order to re-discover my true source of being.  Even while immersed in truth and good ideas, to not stop is harmful to my being...and hurtful to those around me.  I am, at times, surprised that this is still necessary, but I suspect I am not changed by ideas nearly as much as I am changed by the habits of stopping all the activity that can so undetectably infiltrate my life and relating with those ideas to God and those around me in very personal ways.  After all, they are not ideas or activities, they are people with whom I need to actually relate.

Busy

For many of us, there's actually a pretty strong correlation between how busy we are and how important we feel.

-- Laura Vanderkam

And every once in a while we run into the reality of this...usually through our anger.  How do we forget things like beginning-with-the-end-in-mind so easily?

There is something at work in our busy-ness that we often do not readily recognize, because it gives us a false sense of self, of who we are.  We transplant our identity from our being to our doing.  And, sometimes we polish our self-importance by fostering a deep sense that we are needed in so many ways (therefore, we have to stay really busy).

If you're not convinced, take away things that keep you busy and watch what happens to how you feel about yourself.

Begin Again with the End in Mind

Perhaps I can only regain my patience, especially in the face of loss (experience or created), when I re-acquaint myself with my destination.

In other words, I need to begin again...with the end in mind.

Here's a great little, related story example from Donald Miller's blog.

It is ironic how much our sense of our destination is a part of what we can endure (how may 'out there' affects by 'right here').  And, for the runner in all of us, note this admonition (the 5th one down).

We're not the first ones who've discovered how 'the end' can influence what we do next...especially when we need to do it again:

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

-- Philippians 3:14

Be Patient

In some ways, anger can be an absence of patience.

Why would we be impatient?  When am I impatient?  I think I am impatient when I feel like I can't afford to be...patient.  And, those times seems to be when I feel I have too much to lose...so I need to make something happen, now.

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

Anger's Acid

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.

-- Mark Twain


 ...I wonder how our tendencies towards anger are related to our lack of tranquility.

Tranquility

Tranquility in the face of danger speaks to purity of heart.  The God-centered soul is calm in a way the self-centered soul can never be.  Years of prayerful self-discipline truly manifest their efficacy when catastrophe strikes.  Like wildflower seeds that do not sprout until they have been razed in forest fires, the virtues instilled by the contemplative life come into their own when everyone else is fleeing for their lives.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

Along the Road

Doesn't Mean It Is So

Just because someone accuses you of something, doesn't mean it is so.

...but before we go with that too quickly, we likely also need to acknowledge it doesn't mean it isn't so either.

We do seem to live in an age where offending someone is taboo and when we are accused of something we might start from the default that it is true and that we shouldn't have done it.  But it takes some thought, some consideration, some evaluation, and some conversation to determine the truth of something.  I'm afraid the ease of our lives has softened the muscles of the analysis and consideration that is needed to engage meaningfully with ourselves and others.

Veils

We pity Muslim women for wearing veils, yet almost every face in this country is veiled by suspicion and fear.

-- Wendell Berry

Why is this? How have we ended up this way? Is the answer related to the artificial habits of engagement we have learned to accept as normal?

Entertainment Society

We often feel mentally tired and believe that distraction will give us a break. In the book referenced below, Paula Huston talks about the importance of the mind and what refreshment for it can look like.

The desert dwellers believed that our souls need proper nourishment -- spiritual food -- in order to achieve clear spiritual vision. Jesus often withdrew into the desert or the mountaintops at night in order to rejuvenate his soul through prayer.

25 years ago Neil Postman wrote an analysis of the way that television was reshaping our view of the world.  The problem was that TV had come to dominate the culture, which meant that almost all our experiences were now coming to us as entertainment rather than in the form of serious intellectual, moral, or spiritual questions.

When we watch TV, all we have to do is make a simple, childish choice:  is this interesting or boring?  If it fails to pass the test, we just flip the channel and move on.  It's not surprising that even newscasters have succumbed to the entertainment trend:  unless they over-stimulate us or lead us into the escapist fantasies we've come to expect, why would we watch them?

...what would we be free from?  Misperception, melodrama, falsehood, artificiality, superficiality, and self-indulgent egoism -- everything the entertainment industry depends upon to hold our attention.  

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

She calls this the artificial invigoration of the mind and something that we very easily become addicted to and shares some vivid examples of how far short our cultural forms of distraction fall from what we really need.

Creative

It’s very hard to be creative when you don’t need to be.

-- Penelope Trunk

For Sure

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

-- Mark Twain

Farther Along

Farther along we’ll know all about it
Farther along we’ll understand why
Cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine
We’ll understand this, all by and by

Tempted and tried, I wondered why
The good man died, the bad man thrives
And Jesus cries because he loves em’ both
We’re all cast-aways in need of ropes
Hangin’ on by the last threads of our hope
In a house of mirrors full of smoke
Confusing illusions I’ve seen

Where did I go wrong, I sang along
To every chorus of the song
That the devil wrote like a piper at the gates
Leading mice and men down to their fates
But some will courageously escape
The seductive voice with a heart of faith
While walkin’ that line back home

So much more to life than we’ve been told
It’s full of beauty that will unfold
And shine like you struck gold my wayward son
That deadweight burden weighs a ton
Go down into the river and let it run
And wash away all the things you’ve done
Forgiveness alright

Chorus

Still I get hard pressed on every side
Between the rock and a compromise
Like the truth and pack of lies fightin’ for my soul
And I’ve got no place left go
Cause I got changed by what I’ve been shown
More glory than the world has known
Keeps me ramblin’ on

Skipping like a calf loosed from its stall
I’m free to love once and for all
And even when I fall I’ll get back up
For the joy that overflows my cup
Heaven filled me with more than enough
Broke down my levee and my bluff
Let the flood wash me

And one day when the sky rolls back on us
Some rejoice and the others fuss
Cause every knee must bow and tongue confess
That the son of god is forever blessed
His is the kingdom, we’re the guests
So put your voice up to the test
Sing Lord, come soon

-- Josh Garrels

Feed on Goodness

Feed on goodness, and your soul will delight in its richness.

-- St. Bernard of Clarivaux

Do Nothing

Do Nothing for Lent and Be Grateful.

For many of us, doing nothing can be even harder than the everything we try to do.  Do we try so hard because we can reinforce the belief that for all of our failures at least we are wearing ourselves out by trying?

...doing nothing might reveal a few things to us.

Luxury

We tend to live in very luxurious times, especially relative to much of human history.  Things like running water, hot water on demand, private toilets...not to mention foods and clothing and entertainment; with variety more than we can even describe.

What do you think are some of the costs of such luxuries?  Are there ways that we 'pay' for this, that we don’t realize?

• Ever notice how you feel or act when we can’t have these things...and right when we want them?
• What is happening when we are bored even with these things and just ‘want something else’?
• What is going on when we feel a bother to thank God for them?

After going ‘without’ such things, how much more do we enjoy them when we can have them (...immensely more...than when they are just 'expected', right?)?

Does luxury promote ingratitude?

Does luxury reduce our fear (reverence) for God...by sedating our sense of need of him?

Intemperance

An intemperate lifestyle, which uses up resources we do not have, is not sustainable and ultimately leads to some form of interior disintegration.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

Intemperance:  lack of moderation or due restraint.  Restraint has become quite unfashionable.  The point seems strong and recognizable that lack of restraint is using something that we don't really have...or have a right to do.

 For our society, this is a hard habit to break.  ...and I am a part of it.

Habit

A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit.

-- Erasmus

It seems to me that acknowledging this is part of how we become free from things that strangle us.  And, it takes a while...to get things pounded out of us.  For new habits to be formed within us.

When I think about things in my life years ago, versus things in my life now, I notice that a process was underway the whole time.  As much as I pleaded with God to solve for certain things within me in the moment, he did so in a way and at a pace that provided for substantive change -- a truly new habit, one that I didn't even realize I was praying for.

Stranglehold of our Desires

In a beautifully ironic way, the power of ascetical disciplines, meant to loosen the stranglehold of our desires, is not limited to showing us where we are weak and prone to sin. It does not even end at teaching us self-control. By giving us the opportunity to genuinely value what we would otherwise take for granted, asceticism also has the power to enliven authentic gratitude and wonder.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

Authentic gratitude and wonder. Gratitude and wonder. Gratitude. Wonder.

What a partnership of words...and of ideas.  They are seemingly so inter-twined.  Ever find yourself in a conspicuous lack of these...gratitude and wonder?  I have.  The irony is that I so often think that it is the lack of struggle and suffering, of choosing hard habits, that will lead more directly to such things.  The experience of life, however, seems to reinforce that it is the chosenness of the harder things in life (me choosing them, they choosing me) that bring me close again to things like gratitude and wonder.

Makes me wonder whether this, among other disciplines, is what is involved in pilgrimage.

The Way

I watched a movie last night called, The Way.  It is a film about a journey a man ends up taking when he learns of the untimely death of his son.  A powerful depiction of what happens on a pilgrimage (a chosen one or not).  I would say that it embodies some of what Huston describes here. 

And, it gets me thinking about the idea of 'pilgrimage' -- the role it has played throughout history for man in search of something.  Where am I, on my pilgrimage?  Do I see my experience with life in this way?  I would say, yes.  At least at the moment.  Though there have many seasons where I actually had very little idea what was really going on...times when I have been submerged in the stranglehold of my desires.

And, partly to continue towards freedom from strangling things, partly because of what seems to be a timeless and inherently human desire...I am interested in taking on a pilgrimage of The Way of St. James type, before all is said and done.

Passive Receptacles

From an interview published by The Sun Magazine:

Fearnside: It seems that we’ve been separated from our local communities by radio, television, and now the Internet. Because these forces come from outside the communities, they often don’t reflect the communities’ values. How can we stay plugged in to information and yet preserve our local connections?

Berry: I don’t know. There’s not much you can do, unless you want to disconnect yourself from those electronic gadgets. I pretty much do. Tanya and I haven’t had a television for a long time; people used to give tv sets to our children, because they felt sorry for us. I think we were given three over the years. I listen to the radio some. I don’t have a computer, and I almost never see a movie. To me this isolation is necessary. It keeps my language available to me in a way that I don’t think it would be if I were full of that public information all the time.

Fearnside: My wife and I enjoy watching movies on dvd, but we find that most mass-media offerings aren’t worth our time.

Berry: To make yourself a passive receptacle for information, or whatever anybody wants to pour into you, is a bad idea. To be informed used to be a meaningful experience; it meant “to be formed from within.” But information now is just a bunch of disconnected data or entertainment and, as such, may be worthless, perhaps harmful. As T.S. Eliot wrote a long time ago, information is different from knowledge, and it has nothing at all to do with wisdom.

-- Wendell Berry

There are several things to consider here, including our formation.  I think our society says that you need this outside information to be informed, implying even 'to be formed well' (we might even call it something like 'being educated').  But, what if, like in many things, this is simply a lie that perpetuates our problems.  What if we need less of the outside and more of the 'formed from within'  to be who we really need to be?  ...so that we don't become passive receptacles.

What We Focus On

The desert dwellers' original impetus to flee civilization for the uninhabited wastelands rose out of the insight that it is far easier to focus on what is good, true, and beautiful when we are not being constantly distracted by temptations toward overeating, over-shopping, and escapist forms of recreation. Though the rampant consumerism of our time was still more than 1,500 years away when the Desert Father movement began, the great cities of the ancient Middle East were filled to overflowing with rich foods, and wines, exotics spices, and perfumes, gold and jewels, flamboyant silks, and a thousand other temptations toward gluttony, lust, avarice, and envy.

And that combination, the Desert Fathers knew, quickly leads towards chronic sadness arising from disappointed expectations, or to covetousness and the violent anger that can spring up when strong desires are thwarted. One monk put it, "I have this reason for putting aside pleasure--that I might cut off the pretext for growing angry. For I know that anger constantly fights for pleasure and clouds the mind with passion that drives away knowledge."

...we need to actively resist the pressure to mindlessly consume what we don't need, to covet what we can't afford, or to go into debt for the sake of fleeting and distracting pleasures.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

Sit down. Be quiet. Stay Away...

Simplify. How does one do it these days?

This week I am reading from two sources, one Paula Huston and another Wendell Berry.  I find a strange dance underway between what I assume to be two strangers to each other.  Each, however, calling us away from the economies that now so dominate our lives.  

i
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

ii
Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

iii
Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

-- Wendell Berry

I become increasingly convinced that we must choose to create space in our lives. It too rarely will choose for us. But we are feeding on something unhealthy by staying in the panic-ed pace of our lives. Doing more is not being more. In fact, it is probably 'being' less. Look for the things that compel us towards hyper-activity; even at the so-called spiritual things that do so. What is really driving that?

Take time...and create some space.  Simplify.

The Dance Toward God

I was raised to believe that the quality of a man’s life would greatly increase, not with the gain of status or success, not by his heart’s knowing romance or by prosperity in industry or academia, but by his nearness to God. It confuses me that Christian living is not more simple. The gospel, the very good news, is simple, but this is a gate; the trailhead. Ironing out faithless creases is toilsom labor. God bestows three blessings on man: to feed him like the birds, dress him like the flowers, and befriend him as a confidant. Too many take the first two and neglect the last. Most believers on the path have found that life is constructed specifically and brilliantly to squeeze a man into association with the owner heaven. It is a struggle, with labor pains and thorny landscape, bloody hands and sweaty brow, head in hands, moments of severe loneliness and questioning, moments of ache and desire. All this leads to God. God is not merely the reason behind existence, nor the curer of ills and confusion. Matter and thought are a canvas on which God paints; a painting with tragedy and delivery, with sin and redemption. Life is a dance toward God. And the dance is not so graceful as we might think. For a while we glide and swing our practiced sway, God crowds our feet, bumps our toes, and scuffs our shoes. He lowers His head, whispers soft and confident, “You will dance to the beat of ‘Amazing Grace’ or you will not dance at all.” So we learn to dance with the One who made us. And it is a taxing dance to learn.

But once learned, don’t we glide. And don’t we sway. And don’t we bury our head in His chest. And don’t we love to dance.

-- Donald Miller


 This passage was an excerpt from Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance, which was later reissued as Through Painted Deserts.

These Inward Trials

I asked the Lord, that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek more earnestly His face.

I hoped that in some favored hour
At once He’d answer my request,
and by His love’s constraining power
Subdue my sins, and give me rest.
Instead of this, He made me feel
the hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry powers of hell
Assault my soul in every part.

Yea more, with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe;
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

‘Lord, why is this?’ I trembling cried,
`Wilt thou pursue Thy worm to death?’
`This in this way,’ the Lord replied,
`I answer prayer for grace and faith.

These inward trials I employ
From self and pride to set thee free;
And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
That thou mayst seek thy all in Me.’

-- John Newton

Thank you Milt, for offering your faith to your son.
Thank you Joe, for recognizing this path in your faith.
Thank you Julie, for walking it with us together.

Thank you, Mr. Newton for putting it into words...for when we forget this is what is really going on.

Awakenings

There is nearly nothing as satisfying as a morning run through the woods.  On a crisp morning like today's, the sun just slants is shine through the briared-tangle of all things woody.  Every leaf and twig are glanced across the diamond-laced frosted-side that yawns itself into the advancing rays.  And the morning seems exuberant as it calmly calls everything awake one more time.

When I think that this happens each day whether I am there to admire it or not, something deep within me awakens as well.

Seductive Tyranny

OK, so I am reading this book for Lent called simplifying THE SOUL and I am almost afraid to continue.  It is a powerfully desirable series of blow after blow to the order of my life.  An order that, often, even I despise.  I was magnetized even by the title, in part, because of the range and depth of complexity I feel so often in my life.  'Simplify' has become an unspoken search of mine for some time now (I must be getting older).

The other problem is that nearly every page I read offers me something that nearly jumps off it, leaving me feeling a bit like a robber by keeping it only to myself.  ....which means that there is risk in me re-typing very significant portions of the book, should I continue reading it.  Maybe I'll stop.

Maybe I won't...after all, it is Saturday Morning.  So, here goes another one....

Pray that you might taste the sweetness of being liberated from the seductive tyranny of beautiful possessions.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

What are the 'complexifying' things in my life so beautiful to me that I don't even recognize their seductive control over me?

Confession's Path to Humility

An Elder was once asked when the soul acquires humility. He answered, "When it thinks about its own vices."

For years, two patient priests have listened to long, funny stories, fielded earnest theoretical questions, and been subjected to cartloads of charm, but heard very few genuine confessions from me. Confession still makes me uneasy: it is all about exposing the most hidden, shameful aspects of myself to another human beaning. And the only time I am willing to go through it is when keeping those secrets is more painful than the embarrassment of revealing what I've so diligently pushed out of sight and out of mind.

But none of this is easy. Psalm 19 recognizes our difficulties in dealing with concealed sin, which we can easily ignore for so long we lose aware of its presence.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

26

Working at something together is better than working on each other.

It took more than a few years for us to discover this, but after 26 of them (as of yesterday), we are enjoying the benefits of this wisdom.

Happy Anniversary, Tami.

Marked by Ashes

Ruler of the Night, Guarantor of the Day…
  This day-a gift from you.
This day-like none other you have ever given,
  or we have ever received.

This Wednesday dazzles us with gift and newness and possibility.
This Wednesday burdens us with the task of the day,
for we are already halfway home
  halfway back to committees and memos,
  halfway back to calls and appointments,
  halfway on to next Sunday,
  halfway back, half frazzled, half expectant,
  half turned toward you, half rather not.

This Wednesday is a long way from Ash Wednesday,
  but all our Wednesdays are marked by ashes-

We begin this day with the taste of ash in our mouth:
  of failed hope and broken promises,
  of forgotten children and frightened women,
  of more war casualties, more violence, more cynicism.
We ourselves are ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
We can taste our mortality as we roll the ash around on our tongues.

We are able to ponder our ashness with some confidence,
only because our every Wednesday of ashes
anticipates your Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death.

On this Wednesday we submit our ashen way to you-
you Easter parade of newness.
  Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,
  Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom.
  Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth.

Come here and Easter our Wednesday with
mercy and justice and peace and generosity.

We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon.

-- Walter Brueggeman

Lent's Recalibration

I'm surprised each time anew by the knowledge that I'm once again undergoing a spiritual 'recalibration'.

I am released from the bondage of complexity...by practicing simplicity...I have no idea how far I have once again strayed off the path.  Instead of humbly following Jesus, I've let myself get sidetracked by a myriad of temptations; overly ambitious creative projects, delusions about my own importance, worrisome relationships, secret small addictions, stubborn resentments, and a hundred forms of self-indulgence.  Simplicity clears my vision enough to see how far I've wandered.  This is a humbling experience.

For centuries, humility was seen as a key component of a healthy spiritual life.  In more recent times, humility has lost a good deal of status.  Instead, we prefer to focus on the development of self-esteem, on achievement, and on self-fulfillment; our temptation is to dismiss humility as a relic of the unsophisticated past, a time when people supposedly knew next to nothing about psychology or good mental health.  We also tend to link the promotion of humility with authoritarian efforts to keep people passively disinclined to rock the boat. 

Growth in humility, however, doesn't come naturally.  As human beings, we are woefully tempted toward self-elevation (vainglory), and stony withdrawal from God and our fellow creatures (pride), along with a myriad of other sins no less destructive (gluttony, lust, greed, envy, self-pitying depression over what we want and can't have, simmering resentment, anger).  Not dealt with, such sins fill us with hopelessness and confusion, and drastically complicate our relationships.  They keep us focused on our selves, block our ability to love, and isolate us from God.

As a wise friend of mine says, "Sin is complicated." The obverse of this little rule is that humility, the ground of goodness, is simply and open.

The beauty of the Lenten season is that is encourages the development of a humble heart.  In Lent, we are invited to look deeply inside, identify what is impeding our ability to follow Christ along the path of humility, and begin applying antidotes.  Early church tradition is rich in the wisdom of soul simplification and offers a multitude of spiritual disciplines to counteract the temptations that muddle our lives.  The season of Lent gives us the opportunity to devote significant time to this endeavor.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

...to spiritually recalibrate.

I wonder how humility, especially the lack of it, affects our sense of reality and our ability to keep ourselves free from the bondages of this life (so aptly described above).  At times, we are shoved into humility.  At times we are shoved out of it.  Is it my lack of humility that causes my soil to grow the weeds that so entangle me?  When I am reversed from this growth, am I not becoming un-proud again...that is, humble.

Perhaps this is part of the value of choosing things, like Lent, that reveal our need for humility.  And, perhaps it is only through humility that we can truly accept resurrection.

Slant

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant
Success in Circuit lies

-- Emily Dickinson

Knowledge & Wisdom

Amassing knowledge and gaining wisdom are two different things.

So, what hinges the difference between knowledge and wisdom?  Among other things that distinguish the two, knowledge isn't enough at times.  It has been said that knowledge is power.  And, that appears to be the case, especially when knowledge is commoditized.  But wisdom steps away from commoditization, from self-importance.  Wisdom is willing to wait for its power.  Because it knows that life's architecture is on its side...it is patient.  It rarely uses force because truth can be heavy enough, when it needs to be.  It is not proud.  It is content.

And, wisdom seems to be something you pray for.  ...especially when you know you need it.

But godliness with contentment is great gain.

-- 1 Timothy 6:6

I Have Learned...the Secret

...for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.
...I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation....

-- Philippians 4:11-12

...so what is the 'secret'? And, does it have to be 'learned'?  Why?  How?

Does the secret involve the relationship between learning and contentment?  I wonder if we have to learn to be content because, naturally, we aren't.  We don't come into the world (more like kicking and screaming for disrupting our comfort zone).  And, from then on, it's a striving to get something...which is almost the opposite of being content with what we have, with what we are.  In our striving, we (desperately at times) seek to understand what is going on, why things are happening the way they are, what we need to do to overcome them...striving to understand (joy).

The language of the fall is discontentment.

-- Ann Voskamp

The reality is that it takes 'the peace of God' to transcend our desire to understand.  And, it is this peace that will guard and protect us...or, teach us to be content.

But, we have to learn this...this secret.  In other words, we have to learn by practice, to be accustomed to it, to even become intimately acquainted with, to develop a new habit in the way we think and operate.  And, in order to do this, it would stand to reason, that this is not something we simply read about one evening in a book...it is something that we acquire (learn) over a lifetime.  And, in case we are wondering, apparently even Paul had do learn it.


The fear of the LORD leads to life; then one rests content, untouched by trouble.

-- Proverbs 19:23

Keep Your Lives Free

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have...because....

-- Hebrews 13:5

It is interesting if you stopped after the 4th word above...you would have to ask a question like, How?  How do we keep our lives free?  This seems to indicate that freedom is related to the need for more, and recognizing something that we don't need after all because of something else that we know is true, that we live by (contentment).  With that in mind, we don't need the bondage of money to trade for things that we don't really need.  Several quotes below on money and riches....

Be free.

Riches Without Law

Our dangerous class is not at the bottom; it is near the top of society. Riches without law are more dangerous than is poverty without law.

-- Henry Ward Beecher

Being Rich

To suppose, as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and stay sober.

-- Logan Pearsall Smith

Am I Noticed?

As we think through growing up and becoming a woman with our daughter, the deeper questions about our existence as men and women lay right below the surface.  Beneath the way women are often encouraged to present themselves in our culture seems to be a question along the following lines:  "Will I be noticed?"  Or, put more threateningly, "What if I'm not noticed?"

To satisfy this, many women seem to do the obvious with what the culture says it takes to be noticed...using their physical appearance.  But, getting 'noticed' physically is not really the noticing that is more deeply desired.  What happens to the question when a woman is not able to be physically noticed, due to things like genetics, age, etc.?  ...it remains doesn't it?

It's no wonder why many women in our age seek this route to get their question answered...our culture is throbbing with the extremes of what it takes to get the attention of being noticed.  But, the very effort of this route, actually creates a deepening need for more and more of it because it creates dullness at the very same time...with the only solution being to being even more extreme about it.  A friend of mine put it this way, "Immodesty is a terrified attempt to be 'seen'...".

Men ask the same question, but the form of it seems to be more along the lines of 'do I have what it takes to make it in this world?'  And, their effort to satisfy this is just as endless.

The problem is that both men and women are using external sources to satisfy the answer they seek.  The more hidden truth is that outside sources, by definition, will actually perpetuate the question, not answer it.  The answer comes from who I am, not who people say I am...by the way they notice me.  In other words, it comes from something inside us, not outside us.  It comes from our deepest nature, not the one we have become used to (enculturated by).  I am somebody first, because of who I have been created to be, not because of what I get those around me to say about me.

In the short-term, this is a hard-sell, especially against the onslaught of our culture regarding such issues.  Fortunately, though often still painfully, we have a life-time to work through all of this.  And, the truth is still the truth, regardless of how much it gets kicked around.

The Same Goal...Joy

Without exception...all try their hardest to reach the same goal, that is, joy.

-- St. Augustine

I never really connected this thought before, it is joy that we seek above all else and it is joy that the angels announced to mankind.  Thus, the great hymn, Joy To The World.

Perhaps this helps explain why disappointment is so often present in our lives.

Prayer for Kids

I pray for my kids...for their well-being.  For their hearts...to be bent towards God.

I pray for wisdom on how to reflect the heart of God towards them.  ...to avoid adding unnecessarily to their resistance to Him; a resistance they share with all of us.

I pray for a patience...that will allow me wait on and trust in God to use life to drawn them personally and deeply to Himself...knowing that this will be painful both for them and for me.  But, it will work in the end...as it did for me.  ...there is no other way for God to become personal to them.

Grandeur and Splatters of Disappointment

Isn't it here? The wonder? Why do I spend so much of my living hours struggling to see it? Do we truly stumble so blind that we must be affronted with blinding magnificence for our blurry soul-sight to recognize grandeur? The very same surging magnificence that cascades over our every day here. Who has the time or eyes to notice?

All my eyes can seem to fixate on are the splatters of disappointment across here and me.

-- Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

From a wonderful read on finding the gratitudes that need to be found in the mundanes of daily living. Thanks, Veisa, for sharing this book with me.

Absolute Indifferent Magnificence

I’m dogging her discreetly, wondering:
What don’t they get? Everything, probably.
What it’s like to be lugging her particular load,
wanted or not, into the uncertain future

...

all of us putting one
semi-discouraged foot in front of the other
while above us the absolute indifferent magnificence
abounds, abides;
from a certain perspective even our ignorance is dazzling.

-- Alison Luterman

...for the rest of the poem, click here. It is good to know that we have a sense of the larger goings-on of things. However, we must acknowledge that we are most certainly card-holding members of the dazzlingly ignorant.

After Silence

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

-- Aldous Huxley

Inconsistencies

It seems to be appealing to hold people's inconsistencies against them.

Why do you suppose that is?

...could it be that we tend to defend our view of ourselves via our own consistency? And, when that is threatened, we look for 'more inconsistency' in others? ...either way, it doesn't seems like such things are really about 'consistency'. It seems more like we're desperately trying to justify, defend, or protect something about ourselves.

Opportunities

Opportunities are seldom labeled.

-- John A. Shedd


 ...shared by a friend, David Baker.

Without Forgiveness...Nothing Survives

In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it,
no human fellowship, least of all a marriage, can survive.

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Vulnerability vs Competence

It is our vulnerability, not our competence, that makes us accessible to the world.

...another unexpected gift from suffering or struggle in our lives.

Many people would disagree with this, mostly the competent.  I disagreed with this notion for the longest time myself.  But, the competent seem to largely only gather those like them around themselves.  They form a nearly undetectable alliance that keeps them together, the rest mostly just feel distanced by them...separated, if you will.  The myth is that people will like me or will want to be like me, IF I'm competent.  The reality seems to be that they just keep their distance.

I tend to be competent or, at least, viewed that way.  My wife and I were more than surprised by the people who reached out to us (who felt they could do so) when we went we've gone through periods when we don't appear to have it all together...job loss, etc.  I suspect it was, in part, because we seemed more like others during those times...vulnerable.

Mother Teresa didn't act primarily out of her 'competence', did she (even if she was good at it)?  Jesus didn't relate out of his 'competence'...or out of something else?

The Grey

Among other things that speak deeply to me about this movie, the main character's assessment of his dad was that he was very hard, looking for weakness everywhere. He went on, however, to also note his father's love for poetry, which he observed was 'perhaps his way of asking forgiveness'.

Do not fear, only believe.

-- Mark 5:36

Fear

We must learn to not fear our fear.

More often than not, fear is used to manipulate us from without...and from within.  But, while not all fear is illegitimate, some of it is.    So the question becomes what will we do with our fears.  What will we turn to in it?  I think this is something we must learn...over a lifetime.

For example, learning yesterday of my wife's melanoma, created fears within her (and within me).  What naturally arose within us as we were reminded of our mortality?  Within me, strong inclinations to anticipate what might happen leaped forward.  ...as did desires to find ways to avoid the possibly overwhelming nature of all of the unknowns.   But, we are leaning to look past these inclinations and temptations.  Rather than turn to things to help us manage, we learn through such things to turn to Someone.

Eyes

What news will tomorrow bring? Good? Bad? The future is full...of uncertainty.

We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties.

-- Oswald Chambers

Our circumstances bring us to a fork in the road, with one road leading only towards the circumstances themselves and the other towards what the circumstances can point us towards.

Idealist & Pragmatist

I am an idealist.  I am also a pragmatist.

I am usually an idealist as long as pragmatically possible.

Breathing into Prayer

I need to pray. And, often times, I need to breathe myself into it.

I have been breathing into prayer for several years now...as I exercise. I need to do it, to realign myself. ...from the things that gather my anger within me. Anger from the violation of my sin against others, from their violation against me, from the evil forces of this world that lie to me about what is true. I get out of alignment easily. I need to pray. But, I have trouble just starting right in.  I have learned that often I need time to breathe myself into it.

This breathe-praying helps me. It helps me see things more accurately. It knocks the edges off that grow so quickly; the ones that distort others, that beckon me to retaliate against them...directly or in less obvious ways. These lies tell me that I am empty, that I need something, that I need to fill something. Breathing and praying re-centers my being. It leads me back towards wholeness.

I need to pray.

Retaliation

When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness....

-- 1 Peter 2:23-24

I still tend to maintain a spirit of retaliation...towards the things that threaten me.  What kinds of things?  Where do I do it?    ...many of them are referenced here.  So the question becomes, why do I do it?  When I feel threatened in my relationships, what can I learn to turn to?  What keeps retaliation at bay?  The answer seems to have something to do with 'entrusting myself to God' (rather than continuing to rely on my own where-with-all).  ...only He can right the wrongs anyway and my efforts to maintain fairness often seem to be fraught with self-interest, self-preservation, self-promotion.

...and in case I'm wondering (or you are), read the last verse of Collosians 3.  Part of what can keep me from retaliation is more full view of the retaliation I deserve.

Within This Strange and Quickened Dust

O God, within this strange and quickened dust

The beating heart controls the coursing blood
In discipline that holds in check the flood
But cannot stem corrosion and dark rust.
In flesh's solitude I count it blest
That only you, my Lord, can see my heart
With passion's darkness tearing it apart
With storms of self, and tempests of unrest.
But your love breaks through blackness, bursts with light;
We separate ourselves, but you rebind
In Dayspring all our fragments; body, mind,
And spirit join, unite against the night.
Healed by your love, corruption and decay
Are turned, and whole, we greet the light of day.

-- Madeleine L'Engle

Emptiness

Every sin is an attempt to fly from emptiness.

-- Simone Weil

Like Me

As much as we hate to admit it (especially to ourselves):

We really would prefer that people be more like ourselves.

...I'm thankful that God doesn't require...or allow it.

Pain is Never Permanent

Pain is never permanent.

-- St. Teresa of Avila

More on pain here...

Unrivaled Beauty

OK, so there are many things beautiful. Regarding my post yesterday, what stands out to me is that what often makes things feel 'unrivaled' in the moment is the moment itself. For example, the next time I am overwhelmed by beauty...a waterfall, a mountain range, a joy, an act of love...I will likely feel the same sense I felt yesterday about the scene of our snow on pines in the woods -- what can match it? Something about beauty itself is that way, isn't it?

Where have you seen 'unrivaled' beauty?

Snow on Pine

Snow on pine is nearly an unrivaled beauty.