"Here is the Place of Rest"

Most of us grow up thinking that religion is a kind of passing on of history and/or tradition, a set of rules to follow, a way of life that, faithfully followed, will somehow open to us the gates of heaven.

Even in the Old Testament, though, Isaiah was railing against this kind of thinking. In Chapter 28, he is accusing the rulers of Israel--kings, prophets, and priests---of "staggering when seeing visions" and "stumbling when rendering decisions."

Who is it he [priest, prohet] is trying to teach?

To whom is he explaining his message?

To children weaned from their milk?

to those just taken from the breast?

For it is:

Do and do, do and do,

rule on rule, rule on rule;

a little here, a little there.

[The Hebrew here is difficult to translate; it seems a meaningless jumble of onomatopoeic sounds.  The Hebrew Bible renders the above passage this way:

That same mutter upon mutter,

murmur upon murmer,

now here, now there!]

[To continue with Is. 28:]

Very well, then, with foreign lips and strange tongues

God will speak to his people,

to whom He said,

"This is the resting place; let the weary rest;"

and "This is the place of repose"----

but they would not listen.

So then, the word of the Lord to them will become:

Do and do, do and do,

rule on rule, rule on rule;

a little here, a little there---

so that they will go and fall backward,

be injured and snared and captured.

Is this not a scary passage because it hits home?  How many people find "a resting place" in God, even while they are following all the rules of their religion?  Jesus wept over Jerusalem, the "holiest" of places on earth, because "How often I would have gathered you [into my arms] as a mother gathers her chicks, but you did not know the day of your visitation."

God wants to give us rest;

He wants to feed us---"Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it"-----;

He wants to be with us a friend "closer than a brother;"

He wants to guide us: "Be not like the horse or the mule that needs bit and bridle; let Me guide you with Mine eye."

Jesus promised us "The Gift of the Father, the living, breathing Spirit of God,

the Spirit of all Truth, the very same Spirit that hovered over the chaos at the dawn of creation, the very Spirit that animated Jesus during His ministry on earth, the very same Spirit that "turned the world upside down" after Jesus ascended into heaven, the Spirit who "prays in us when we ourselves do not know how/what to pray," the Comfortor, the Strengthener, the One who establishes us as a blessing on this earth.

The Book of Ephesians lays out the pattern of "religion," or of the Christian life:

First, while we were yet sinners and helpless, God poured out on us all His riches and blessings, raising us up to the level of His very own Son, and forgiving all our sins and ignorances.  Then, He sealed us into Christ Jesus with the Spirit, so that we would be preserved as His own possession.

Then, since we had been called to glory, Paul urges us to live a life worthy of our inheritance as the children of God.  Here is where the "rules," or guidelines, for that life can be found---not in order to merit eternal life, but that we might live out our vocation as blessings in a darkened world.

Finally, when there is nothing more we can "do," we are urged to "put on the armor of God" and to "stand" with faith, for our "battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities that rule the air."

Our problem is that we want to reverse God's pattern:  we want to follow the rules so that, as good children, we will deserve to be blessed by God.  unh unh: not the way it works.  I wonder how many men who have learned from Paul that their wives should be submissive to them have first read and obeyed the verses just above that one:  "Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery.  Instead, be filled with the Spirit.  Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.  Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ."

In that context, the "rules for living" begin to make more sense.



Be Prepared....

I want everyone I know to be prepared-----to expect the surprise of the Holy Spirit in mind, heart, and body!

GOD IS NEVER BORING!

He is always fresh and new, full of surprises every day!   Someone once said, "God, it seems to me, is a Verb."  Now, most of us can recall the definition of a verb as a word that expresses action or being.  One of the best books ever is one called God Who Acts (don't recall the author). 

Because God is always acting, never "not acting," walking with God is absolutely the best adventure we can ever know.  Abraham knew that; Enoch knew that; Gideon knew that; and even I know that.

God is always bringing us out of darkness into His marvelous light; He is always bringing us friends, health, goodness, joy, blessing, supply for our needs.  Another one of my favorite quotes is this one:  We easily forgive the child who is afraid of the dark; it is harder to understand those who are afraid of the light.

When I was very young, I told God He could have everything I have--except my mind.  I was afraid that if I surrendered my mind to Him, I'd lose it---go crazy.  How stupid!   How could I not know that God perfects everything concerning His children, that He does not destroy, but develops, enhances, perfects, makes whole...

God is always acting on our behalf.  What can we surrender today to His action?

Limping or Leaping?

The heavens declare the glory of God,

And the firmament proclaims His praise (Ps.19:1).

Can anything be more beautiful than a glorious sunrise seen through the bare branches of winter trees?  The fact that we are there to see it at all is a gift!  Who got us up to admire His handiwork this morning?  Who brought us to the window to glance up in surprise?  Who led us to this moment of wonder and awe?

Ps. 17 puts it this way:  You still the hunger of those you cherish;  their sons have plenty, and they store up wealth for their children.  And I--in rightousness I will see your face; when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness.

Reading the Psalms is emotionally rich; in them can be found every human emotion.  David, the author of most of the Psalms, lived through terror, persecution, sin, hatred----and throughout all of his life, He found God faithful and glorious.  He pondered the works of the Lord in nature and in His acts of deliverance.  David was able to draw parallels between the beauty of the sun rising in the heavens and the "law" (or instruction) of God, bringing the dawn of beauty and righteousness into the darkened human heart. 

In Psalm 84, David writes:

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,

who have set their heart on pilgrimage.

As they pass through the Valley of Baca, (weeping, lamentation, soreness)

they make it a place of springs...

They go from strength to strength

til each appears before God in Zion...

For the Lord God is a sun and a shield...

no good thing does He withhold

from those whose walk is blameless.

David pondered the works of the Lord in nature and in human history, and he saw incredible parallels between nature and the work of God in the human heart.  At first, it is hard to grasp some of his concepts, such as the ones above concerning "those whose walk is blameless," and beholding God's face in "righteousness."  After all, David himself was certainly not the model of Christian perfection:  he lusted after Bathsheba, murdered Uriah, and was not allowed to build the temple because of the "blood on his hands."  Next to him, most of us would feel more "righteous" than he was.  But here's what David knew:  not that he was perfect, but that God is a "sun and a shield" to those who seek Him:

It is God who arms me with strength

and makes my way perfect.

He makes my feet like the feet of a deer;

He enables me to stand on the heights.

He trains my hands for battle;

my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

You give me your shield of victory,

and Your right hand sustains me;

You stoop down to make me great.

You broaden the path beneath me,

so that my ankles do not turn (Ps. 18:32-36)

Whenever we are brought to the beauty of a sunrise, Psalm 18 might be a wonderful song of praise and a great way to begin the day!  After all, who wants to limp through the day on turning ankles?

The Two Wolves

Once upon a time, or so the Cherokee legend goes, a young Indian boy received a beautiful drum as a gift.  When his best friend saw it, he asked if he could play with it, but the boy felt torn.  He didn't want to share his new present, so he angrily told his friend, "No!"  His friend ran away, and the boy sat down on a rock by the stream to contemplate his dilemma.  He hated the fact that he had hurt his friend's feelings, but the drum was too precious to share.  In his quandary, he went to his grandfather for advice.

The elder listened quietly and then replied, " I often feel as though there are two wolves fighting inside me.  One is mean and greedy and full of arrogance and pride, but the other is peaceful and generous.  All the time they are struggling, and you, my boy, have those same two wolves inside of you."

"Which one will win?" asked the boy.
The elder smiled and said, "The one you feed."

          ---taken from How God Changes Your Brain, Newberg & Waldman, p. 32

The Book of Galatians puts it this way:  Live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh.  For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you may not do what you want....Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like.  ...  In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (5:16-23).

All of us have fed the "wolf of the flesh" for many years; maybe the time has come for us to begin feeding (and feasting on) the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

God Meets Our Deepest Needs

Charles Stanley once gave a talk called "How God meets our deepest needs;" his talk (in June of 2010) is still available on the website.  According to Stanley, our deepest emotional needs can be summed up this way:  every person has three basic needs that must be met before that person can grow and give---

• We all need a sense of acceptance
• We all need a sense of competence
• We all need a sense of confidence

Unless we feel accepted by the people who are most important to us, we constantly feel rejected---unloved, and therefore unlovable.  Unfortunately, because of the sins and failings of our parents, some of us have not felt accepted growing up, and we are still looking for acceptance from others.  The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to do for us what He did for Jesus at the River Jourdan---to witness to us from within that God has accepted us as His most beloved child.

If we feel unworthy, unacceptable, unloved and unloveable, our only hope to change those deeply-rooted patterns in our brains and cells is to turn to the Holy Spirit and ask for help---for we ourselves do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with unutterable groanings according to the will of God (Rom 8:15-16).

Jesus said, "If anyone love me, the Father and I will come to him and dwell with him....and I will send another Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, to be with you."  The Spirit of God indwells our spirit to witness to us the love of God, who has accepted us.  Jesus said, "If anyone come to me, I will never turn him away, or abandon him."  Jesus took those little esteemed by the world, fishermen and tax-collectors, those looked down on by the establishment, and He set them on "a lampstand" to give light to all in the house of God.  Will He do less with us?

When I started teaching at Delgado, the Spirit of the Lord spoke to me one day as I was in my office:  I will cause you to find favor in the eyes of your superiors, He said.  Somehow, I believed that was truly spoken to me by the Spirit of God.  Never again in 20+ years would I be concerned about the opinions of other people while I was at work----God Himself had given me a sense of acceptance, of competence, and of confidence---and with that, freedom to pursue the things I felt were important.

Jesus told us:  You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free. When the Spirit of the Lord reveals to us the truth about who we are in God, we are truly free to be that person without fear.

Out of Darkness----Light!

Genesis opens with the over-arching theme of God bringing light, and then, harmony, beauty, order, out of darkness and chaos.  The entire Bible follows this motif, as does our own lives.  Many of the saints and mystics describe their initial darkness as "the preparatory action of God for the graces which would follow" (Gertrud of Helfta, The Herald of Divine Love, 1281).

Gertrude speaks of God as "dispersing the darkness of my night."  Her account can be compared to that of Augustine hearing a voice saying "Take and Read," or of Saul's enounter with "a blinding light."

Even those of us raised in church and "faithful" to the rules and rituals of our faith must experience a "born-again" or encounter with a light -out- of- darkness event.  Ann Rice's latest book Called Out of Darkness is a wonderful example of her personal encounter with the Light of Christ.  Even though she has since repudiated her affliation with Christians, she still cannot deny the powerful experience recorded in that book---and once claimed by the Light, I suspect she will return to it at the end.

Our religious experience growing up is intended to hold us in place until the coming of the Light into our world.  Like the Old Testament regulations, the "law" is meant to regulate our behavior from the outside until the Truth illumines our minds and hearts from within. 

Those who have had a "divine encounter," as did Abraham, Moses, and the Prophets, experience the presence of God Himself as alive, real, and life-giving.  Following that encounter, there is a new mutuality and dialog, a new "freedom of speech" with the God who has now become a close friend.  Even today, people will report "God speaking to [them/me]" and a free response on their part. 

This transformation from "saying prayers" to dialoging with the Divine Presence is common and characteristic of all who have encountered the Living God.  The conversations of all these people with God are the means by which they receive spiritual truth, are reproved, consoled, encouraged, and guided on their spiritual journey.

George Washington Carver, the great scientist whose work further liberated his people from slavery, reports going into the forest each morning at 4:30 am to collect botanical specimens for his class that day.  "There," he reports, "I received my orders for the day."

When Teresa of Avila asked God why He was "treating her this way" when she was doing his work, He replied, "I treat all of my friends this way."  "No wonder you have so few of them," she shot back.  Only a friend (as opposed to a servant)  could have this kind of free exchange with God.

Once we encounter the Light of the World, we enter the Light and become light--and in that light, we experience the gift of free speech and honest exchange with the Friend Who is always present in our lives.

Is murder justified by circumstances?

The Lord called me from birth,

from my mother's womb he gave me my name....

For now the Lord has spoken

who formed me as his servant from the womb,

That Jacob may be brought back to him

and Israel gathered to him (Is. 49: 1 & 5).

Yesterday's news reported the case of an abortionist doctor who for years has been delivering live babies (one was six pounds, and the "doctor" joked that this baby could walk him to the bus stop) and then sticking scissors into the spinal cord at the neck to kill the child.

The world is outraged----but what has the doctor done "wrong"?   We are all okay with the same act performed on the child in the womb.  Is it that if we can see the baby, it is wrong to kill it, but if we cannot see it, it's okay to do the same thing?

According to that line of logic, we should excuse murder in general if the victim is behind a veil or screen; as long as the murderer doesn't see the victim, there is no crime.  The Nazi murderers didn't actually see their victims die in the gas chambers, nor hear their silent screams, so no harm was done, right?

We might all say that babies will be born into horrible circumstances, so we are justified in preventing their birth.  But I cannot see how that justifies taking the life of an innocent child.  I don't blame desperate mothers; I blame our mind-set of disposal-for-convenience as a society.  Surely as a nation, we can figure out better ways to care for unwanted infants, just as now some states are coming up with better alternatives to incarceration and prisons for non-violent offenders. 

In Old-Testament Israel, the nation as a whole suffered terribly for the crimes against their babies.  (They used to sacrifice the infants to Molech, by tossing the babies onto the super-heated lap of the brazen idol.)  According to the prophets, God was enraged with their blindness and stupidity and removed His protective covering from the land, allowing their enemies to over-run and destroy the nation.

I wonder if we will fare any better as a nation.  In the meantime, I fail to see how we can logically prosecute the "doctor" who took our national mind-set to its logical conclusion.  God told Cain that his brother's blood was crying to Him from the ground, and because of that pollution, the ground was forever cursed.  Will our soil ever recover from the spilled blood of our 6 million babies?  What if one of those babies had a mission from God to save us as a nation?

Communion with God---Head or Heart?

Great scholars, great theologians even, are not necessarily communing with God, but rather thinking thoughts about God.  In the garden of Eden, Adam exchanged "walking with God in the cool of the evening" with a desire "to be like God, knowing good and evil."  The thoughts of his mind (or Eve's) became the direction for his life.

All of us will ultimately be either mind-directed or spirit-directed, relying on "what we know," or on the Spirit of Truth. 

If we choose to live through reliance on reason, we will have the following mind-set:
1.  True reality is in the physical world
2.  Reality is perceived through the mind.
3.  My goal is to develop my mind.
4.  I live out of what my mind is telling me.
5.  My mind directs me through calculated, meditated, and premeditated thoughts.

Although it is good to use our minds---in fact, we were created to think and be thinking animals--- I Cor. tells us that "eye has not seen; ear has not heard, what God had prepared for those who love Him.  But it has been revealed to us by the Spirit of God, Who searches all things, even the depths of God" (I Cor. 2:9-10). 

So the point is that we cannot "think" our way into Communion with God.  In fact, we learn in Is. 55 that God says, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are my ways your ways."    So if we are to commune with God, we cannot be directed by our minds, but rather by the Spirit of Truth, Whose role it is to direct our thoughts and ways according to the thoughts and ways of God.  So we don't have to put our minds "on hold," but rather we have to allow our minds to be directed by the Spirit.  If we are controlled, or directed, by the Spirit of God, this will be our way of thinking:

1. True reality is in the spiritual world
2. Reality is perceived through the spirit
3. My goal is to develop my spirit
4. I live out of what my spirit is telling me
5. My spirit directs me through spontaneous, unmeditated thoughts that are placed in it by the Spirit of God.

God is not calling us to use the mind OR the Spirit, but the mind AND the spirit.  The people of the Bible experienced direct communication with God, through spiritual experiences (the burning bush, for example), through angels, dreams, visions, or the gifts of the Holy Spirit (wisdom, for example).  It is good to study about God (theology), but it is even better to walk with God in the cool of the evening and allow Him to teach us Spirit to spirit.

Communion with God--the Breath of God

The "breath/wind/spirit/ruah" of God hovered over the waters of chaos and began forming order and beauty as the wind pushed back the waters and held them in place, allowing the land to emerge and develop.

The "breath/wind/spirit/ruah" of God filled the first man with life, "and he became a living being."

After His Resurrection from the dead, one of the first thing Jesus did was to "breathe" on His disciples:  "Receive the Holy Spirit," He said to them, "whose sins you shall forgive, they shall be forgiven."  (Remember that the Pharisees had questioned Him previously---who can forgive sins, but only God?)

Then, on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended on Mary and the disciples "with a sound like the rush of a violent wind."

And Nicodemus, asking, "How can a man be born again.....?"  "Unless you are born again of water and the Holy Spirit, you cannot see the kingdom of heaven," Jesus said.  "The wind blows where it wills, and you do not know where it is coming from or where it is going" --- the breath of God, the Spirit of God, which renews, recreates, strengthens, makes all things new.

When we open ourselves to the "breath of God," we have no idea where it will take us.  There are no formulas to hold onto, no legalistic practices which will ensure our salvation, but only a living and changing relationship, much like any other in our experience.  Life and power flow only from the breath of God living dynamically within us; we draw that breath from Christ Himself.

In his book Power From On High, Charles Finney portrays three classes of people: (1) those who rest in their belief, or doctrine, or articles of faith, (2) those who read the Scriptures to determine for themselves and then rest in the formation of correct theological opinions, and (3) those who love the Scriptures because they testify of Jesus and what we may trust Him for.  They do not stop with doctrine or belief, but join their souls with Jesus in a union by which they receive from Him what He has promised---the breath of God within them. 

If we want communion with God, and not just belief about God, there is just one way---to enter into the relationship of Jesus with His Father in the Holy Spirit ---and begin to breathe.

Communion with God---reading the Bible

Reading the Bible has founded a communion, transcending time and place, of those who wonder at, praise, and are eager to share their vision of God's abiding, ingenious and undefeatable mercy [Daniel Rees in Lectio Divina].

People who write about spiritual experience all recognize that they have journeyed through the same spiritual territory where they recognize and describe the same features.  While critical scholarship is out to demonstrate pluralism, the eye of faith is confident of discovering one more instance of the communion of saints.  

St. Gregory the Great stated that every Christian is called to know the heart of God in the words of God, or to listen to God's word with "the ear of the heart."  Some people seem to believe that reading the bible is only for the experts, for those who have studied it and understand it, but God has intended His book to be for every person.  Rees says, "In the Bible, the simplest should feel, just because it is ... the Magna Carta of their worth, as much at home as the academically proficient."  St. Jerome wrote: "An ant can paddle in it, and an elephant can drown in it."

The Bible is universal because it is a mirror of self-knowledge (James 1:23), and it grows in stature with those who read it, according to Taius of Saragossa.  A man in prison who was given a Bible to read said, "It is not I who read this book; it reads me."

The prophet Habakkuk was an Old Testament prophet who heard God speaking to him, interpreting the days and time in which he lived.  This is what Habakkuk wrote: 

I will stand on my guard post

And station myself on the rampart;

And I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me,

And how I may reply when I am reproved.

Then the Lord answered me and said,

Record the vision

and inscribe it on tablets...(Hab. 2:1-1).

Habakkuk used three elements in hearing the voice of God:  becoming still, using vision, and journaling.  His journal has become for us a record of how God acted in the life of Israel.  Reading the Bible can help us "see" also how God is acting in our lives too, and recording our understanding can help us gather up "the heart of God in the words of God," as Gregory the Great put it.

note:  some of this blog comes directly from Rees' article on Lectio Divina, published in a Benedictine magazine whose name I do not know but will find out and acknowledge later this week.



Communion with God--welcoming His presence

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone will open to me, I will come in and sup with him, and he with me (Rev. 3:20).

Most of us act as if we believed the spiritual dimension is not as important as the physical and mental/psychological dimension of life.  We know that our physical lives are controlled by what's in our heads and hearts, so we pay psychologists big bucks to help us get our heads screwed on right.  All the time, we fail to recognize the importance of the spiritual world, the spiritual dimension, in its power to re-order the thoughts of our minds and hearts and the workings of our physical dimension.  We are embarrassed to give credence to the spiritual world, as though that makes us less "scientific," less intellectual, as if only very simple people really believe in God. 

If we are not open to the importance of the spiritual realm, to God's influence in our lives, all we have left is the physical and the psychological dimensions---and how sad is that?  As if we could somehow "think" our way into the fullness of life!

If we do not open the door and allow God to speak to us, direct our thoughts, then we are controlled by the thoughts of our own mind, our own up-bringing (the Scripture calls it "the empty way of life handed down by our fathers"), or the external world, or the suggestions from the world of sin and death. We are vulnerable to every form of spiritual death if we are not strengthened and taught by the Spirit of God.

Once we welcome Wisdom, the Spirit of God, as personified in Proverbs 8 and the Book of Wisdom, into our lives, we are no longer dependent upon what we know or what others "know," but instead we are open to be taught of God.  According to one writer,* "Secular thinking is devoid of ultimate meaning because it lacks faith and love, because it is ignorant of God and has edited out of its awareness the deeper dimensions of life and love...[but] it is awe-inspiring how quickly transfiguration begins as one embarks on a spiritual path.  The darkest mind can spaarkle like a freshly polished window.  The central components of human wisdom include insight, self-understanding, and self-confidence, all of which grow and develop from [allowing the Spirit to teach us wisdom and Jesus to do the inner work of transforming us]."

Our journey toward Truth and Wisdom begins with a single step----opening the door and welcoming Jesus--the Way, the Truth, and the Life--into our hearts, minds, and lives.  If we cannot bring ourselves to this point, we are condemned to roam the world searching for human truth and wisdom, and then the question becomes, "Whom do you trust to reveal to you the truth?"



Communion with God--Lectio Divina

The mind is our link to the spirit; our spirits reach for what we do not know, and we are hungry for what we cannot see.  Somehow, like the young Helen Keller, we must find the right word to unlock what we experience in the spiritual world.  Then, by dwelling on that word, by turning it over in our hearts to understand it, the world of the spirit gradually begins to unfold and reveal itself to us.

All of the ancient spiritual traditions, not only Christian ones, are based on "Wisdom," either the wisdom of the elders, the wisdom of the spiritual healer of the tribe, the wisdom of the monks, of the wisdom of the Spirit of God as revealed in the Scriptures.  Once, those who sought wisdom had to sit under a wise teacher and become a disciple, a listener, a follower---- of Plato, of Buddha, of Christ.

Today, with unlimited access to libraries of the past, we have the ability to read and receive almost any philosophy or wisdom we desire.  But lectio divina is "reading with a difference," according to Daniel Rees, in an article on the subject:

Normally, today, we read either for diversion or for information.  A well-read man is one who has read very widely...If we are to keep abreast of the copious flow of publications in whatever might be our specialty, we must learn to read very rapidly.  We read in a spirit of conquest, with a masculine aggressiveness, out to master and organize the subject matter for our own purposes....

But the requirements of lectio divina run counter to all these modern reading habits; perhaps what comes nearest to them is the way we would read poetry or a personal letter.  It is a manner of reading at a slow tempo, which is reverently receptive and appreciative, aerated by frequent pauses in which the reader gives himself up in a joyful and thankful response to God for what he has read.  It is very akin to prayer....

Lectio Divina can therefore be defined as slow, meditative reading in search of personal contact with God, rather than the mastery of an area of knowledge   ...we moderns tend to approach Scripture wanting to know what we can do with it; the Fathers were more concerned with what the Scriptures could do with them.  They believed that Bible reading was transformative....the attitude that is required is that this act of reading is in itself a direct encounter with God who addresses us in the Scriptures, rather than just reading about him.  The prayerful approach arises from a consciousness of God's presence.

Rees' article gives us a way into Communion with God---listening to Him speak to us through the Scriptures, personally teaching us and revealing to us the exact word for which our spirits are hungry---He feeds us with the finest of wheat, and gives us the best wine.  But we must approach Lectio Divina not with a spirit of "mastering" the truth, but with the kind of humility that allows The Master to teach us the truth.

Communion with God

Does God speak to us today?  Christianity is supposed to be a heart-to-heart, or spirit-to-spirit relationship with God, wherein God reveals Himself in friendship to those who love Him.  Jesus said, "If anyone love Me, ....the Father and I will come and make our home with him."  And He also said, "I have much more to say to you, but you cannot bear it now.  When the Spirit of Truth comes, He will reveal to You all that I have said...and lead you into all Truth."

Jesus also said:  "I no longer call you 'servants' but 'friends," for a servant does not know what his master is doing."

So why do we not think that God would speak to us today, leading us into all truth and guiding our paths as surely as He guided Abraham to the land of Canaan and established him there?  I think maybe it is because for most of us, religion means "following the rules," "being good," "getting to heaven," etc. instead of cultivating a relationship with God. 

God is more interested in communing with us than we are in communing with Him.  We do not really believe that God, the Creator of heaven and earth, could really be interested in speaking with us.  "Do you think God thinks we ask too much?" one of my students once asked me.  "I think He might think we don't ask enough," was my answer.  But it's not just about asking----it's about communion of spirit to Spirit. 

If we could really believe that God is waiting for us, that He wants to commune with us on a daily basis, that He wants to open the door to all truth to us, that He wants us to know His inner mind and heart and is willing to reveal that to us, we might put aside for a moment other concerns to begin to listen.

In the next few posts, I will begin to outline practical ways to listen to God, based on both ancient and modern wisdom from those who practice communion with God, spirit-to-Spirit.  My prayer is that this ancient wisdom may penetrate our hearts and minds and release our spirits to accept that which God wants to pour into us.

Sacraments of Everyday Life

from Living Simply in an Anxious World by Robert Wicks:

Kenneth Leech, in his book True Prayer noted: A facial expression or a warm hug is more than a symbol; it is a sacrament, for it expresses and conveys the personality behind it.

Mother Teresa also seems to recognize this in terms of relationships in general---especially in the fast-paced, efficient modern world in which we live.  She tells the following story:  "Some time ago a group of professors from the United States came to our house in Calcutta.  Before leaving, they said to me, 'Tell us something that will help us, that will help us become holy.'  And I said to them, 'Smile at each other' (because we have no time to even look at each other).

....The more we are able to catch the rays of interpersonal kindness that come our way, the more we can have our own human inner warmth fanned; the more we can reach out to everyone we meet with a sense of heart and hope (even if people don't seem to appreciate it in the way we would want them to), the more the cold emotions will be offset and overcome by warmth and caring.

Robert Wicks goes on to point out that clowns in the circus are not the main event---they come in between the "important stuff" with smiles and silly flowers to remind us that what really counts is not the spectacular and sensational, but, as Will Farrell said in Elf, that "Someone needs a hug!"  In the midst of "busyness," we are all called to slow down and be sacraments of smiles and hugs to other people.

The MIracle of One Leaf

Leaves--we crunch them underfoot, little realizing the amazingly complex chemical plants they are.  In any leaf, some of the cells are lined up straight, like small soldiers, storing light from the sun and the water from the rain, so that they can be chemically changed by carbon dioxide entering the leaf from the flat cells underneath.  The result of water + light = chemical energy.  Chemical energy+ carbon dioxide = sugar/ nutrient for the tree or plant.  The changing process releases oxygen for us; we breathe in the oxygen and release carbon dioxide for the leaf to use.

In one leaf, life on earth is balanced and continues for the health of both plants and people----If we could only see the same kind of processes repeated on multiple levels throughout the entire universe, it would probably overwhelm us:  The beauty, the balance, the order, the systematic design of everyday things!

Where is God?  There He is!

Entering the Conversation

Every conversation resides in its own "world," so to speak, comprised of whatever has gone before it.  The conversation in every home, between every friend, or between husband and wife, is conditioned by all that has gone before it; every word we speak creates the space for the next conversation and colors what follows with certain meanings and feelings.

The world we enter in conversation is never "neutral," except at the very beginning.  The worlds we create with our words are worlds of fear, of hostility, or worlds of peace and joy, depending on what we say to one another.  We little recognize that when we speak, we are creating the worlds in which we will live forever.

When we enter someone's house, we enter the world they have made, the world they have created by what they have said to one another and how they have said it.  We immediately feel the "atmosphere" of that world.  Either their world is large enough for us to enter, or hatred and discord excludes us from finding a place therein.

When Jesus said, "I go to prepare a place for you, He meant the world He inhabits with His Father, their exchange of love, of joy, of peace, of goodness, of truth, of overcoming the world of darkness and evil.  That world is the one He invites us to enter with Him---but we can enter His world only if we can enter into the conversation, the universe, created by the exchange of Father and Son.  If our hearts are full of "excluding," of selfishness, our words will never fit into their world.  Jesus has entered into our narrow worlds to change our hearts and our conversations, in order to bring us into the eternal conversation of God Himself.