Driveway Theology

My next door neighbor and I see one another only occasionally.  He works full time, and many weekends are busy -- or one of us is away from home.  So, other than a casual wave or 'hello,' there are not many conversations.  But from time to time, when both of us happen to be out doing yard work at the same time, a conversation often begins on one of our driveways.  And inevitably, the conversation, which almost always begins with plants or yard topics, ends up with theology. 

God's ways are not our ways, as Isaiah points out.  But His ways are always so surprising and delightful that we could not have guessed them had we tried!  In the days of our Charismatic prayer meetings in the little church in Kenner, I used to marvel at how God had drawn together the most unlikely people and had given us fellowship--true love and a common language to express that love -- with one another.  I used to think that if we had all met one another at a cocktail party, we would have had nothing in common with one another and nothing to say to one another.  In fact, that is the very reason I don't like cocktail parties; I can rarely find common ground with the others there. 

But there we were -- the well-educated and the high-school dropouts; the plumbers and carpet-layers and beauty-school graduates alongside the college professors; the stay at home mothers alongside the career professionals, etc.  And we all had one common love and language, given to us by the Spirit of God Who had drawn us all together and Who had fashioned us into the Body of Christ, a true community of love wherein there were no divisions and no dissent.  Our common goal was to express the love that had been given to us.  I have never seen or experienced anything like it before or since.

That is, until I moved to my current location and had the time in retirement for casual conversation with my next-door neighbor.  He works as an electrician at a local plant; he grew up with very low self-esteem, not doing well in school, knowing that he was a huge disappointment to his father.  His mother was 'out of it,' in his words, but he never explained what that meant, and I didn't ask.  He always thought he was just dumb, but I think he may have had some kind of learning disability.  He still thinks he's not as good as other people.  He does his work and he comes home.  Occasionally, he works in the yard, and he loves plants; he loves beauty.  He observes that most people don't want to talk about the things that he loves, including God.  He does not go to church because it doesn't speak to his soul -- a soul that soars with love of God and of nature. 

But he and I speak the same language, the language of the Holy Spirit.  And we have fellowship with one another.  We can spend hours rejoicing together at the beauties we see in nature and in God.  And we both come away 'fed' on the food of heaven.  He tells me that when he was a small child, though we did not understand much in school, whenever he visited his grandfather, he would read his grandfather's bible -- and he always understood it!  Not so much with the mind as with the heart.  And I think to myself about the Scriptures that say, "Though my mother and my father forsake me, the Lord will receive me" (Ps. 27:10), and "All your sons will be taught by the Lord, and great will be your children's peace" (Is. 54:13), and "The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame" (Is. 58:11). 

This man has clearly been taught by the Lord all his life, though he has not realized it.  He told me that when he was in high school, he kept hearing about the 'God is Dead" theology/ fad.  The words appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in huge letters.  He did not understand what was going on in theology, but he knew in his heart that God was not dead:  "I know You are  not dead," he said to God; "I know You are alive."  And my heart soars to hear him speak about a living, loving relationship with a living, loving God. 

This weekend, he told me, "Not many people want to talk about God, but isn't it amazing to know that He is listening to our conversation and taking note of it?"  And he referred to the Book of Malachi: 

"You have said harsh things against me," says the Lord.

"Yet you ask, 'What have we said against you?'

"You have said, 'It is futile to serve God.  What did we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty?  But now we call the arrogant blessed.  Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape'."

 

Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard.  A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored His name (Mal. 3:13-16).

 

This man does not go to church, yet he knows and loves the Lord.  I do go to church without fail because I also know and love the Lord and want to draw closer to Him any way that I can. Church is great and brings joy to my life, but there is not usually time there for 'fellowship' -- or sharing with one another our heart's knowledge of God.  So I am grateful that the Lord has drawn together side by side two of us who "fear" Him, that we might have fellowship with one another and share with one another our 'driveway theology."  His ways are never our ways -- but they are wonderful and delightful ways to those who know how to see them.



The Peaceable Kingdom

We all want 'Peace on Earth," no matter who we are.  I would think that even the criminals, the low-life, those who "live by the sword," would say they want peace on the earth.  I'm sure that the struggle against continual violence exhausts all of us.  Surely, both the abuser and the abused want cessation from the constant anger, conflict, and oppression, even though the abuser cannot seem to stop himself from anger, hatred, and the continued imposition of harm on another.  I have heard of serial killers who begged to be caught and stopped because they were unable to stop themselves from committing the next crime.

So how on earth will we ever achieve Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men?  (Another translation:  Peace on earth to men of good will.)  How does the peaceable kingdom arrive?  Is it even possible?  All the U.S. Presidents who have called summit meetings at Camp David for discussions of peaceful co-exitence between the Jewish State and the Arabs will probably tell us that"peace" is impossible.  Anger, hostility, vengeance, and 'pay-back' will always rule in the Middle East.  In fact, the Jews reject Jesus even today as the promised Messiah just because He did not bring about "peace on earth," and establish Israel in peace in their own land.  The Messiah is supposed to be The Prince of Peace, so how then can Jesus be the Promised One?

When Joshua led the tribes of Israel into the Promised Land, he appointed by God's direction certain allotments of land to each tribe.  The boundaries were clearly described and marked out.  Each tribe was given territory, clan by clan, as a perpetual inheritance from the Lord.  And "the land had rest from war," (Joshua 14:15) because each tribe preserved its inheritance from anything that was not holy.  No tribe or clan even desired what belong to another, for they all recognized the gift of God given to each one of them.  When one tribe was attacked by foreigners, all the rest went to the aid of the one attacked.

Today, peace on earth will arrive the same way it did in the Promised Land.  Jesus 'assigns' to each one of us, to each family under His Lordship and Command, our inheritance.  The boundaries are clearly marked, and we are not to 'covet' anything belonging to our neighbor.  Furthermore, we are to preserve what has been given to us by the Lord, driving out anything unclean or unholy from our territory.  This property, from here to there, from front to back, belongs to the Lord.  On this territory, God's kingdom is the rule.  I have submitted it all to Him; here, Jesus is Lord of heaven and (this part of the) earth.  He gave it to me; I submit it to His rule.  Nothing unholy has any part of this (my) kingdom.  I cannot rule my neighbor's kingdom; only he can do that -- but from this boundary marker to the that, the kingdom belongs to God.  I do not desire my neighbor's inheritance, for God Himself has given that to him.  I desire only what God has given to me.

Then, and only then, will we all experience 'peace on earth.'  For those who will not submit themselves and their kingdom to the rule of God, violence will continue within and without.  Proverbs 19: 23 says this:    

The fear of the Lord leads to life;

Then one rests content, untouched by trouble.

 

We will never see Peace on Earth until each man, woman, and child acknowledges the Lordship of Jesus Christ, who came to estalish the Kingdom of God on earth.  It is only by each one of us submitting all that we 'own' to His rule that we will know freedom from anger, hatred, jealously, bitterness, greed, and lust. 

 

Thy kingdom come!

Be Perfect....

We are not sinners because we sin;

We sin because we are sinners.  (Source unknown).

 

We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God..(Romans 3:23)....there is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.  All have turned away, they have become altogether worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one....(Ps. 14:3)

 

The Lord looks down from heaven on the sons of men

to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God (Psalm 14:2).

 

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I am God almighty; walk before me and be blameless (Gen. 17:1).

 

Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect (Matt. 5:48).

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"Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin" (Rom.3:20).   I have to believe that most people think that we are -- or will be-- declared righteous because we do "observe the law," in some way.  I remember thinking many years ago, before I began reading Scripture, that it was hard for me to admit that I was a sinner, because I "was trying" to do the right thing.  I did not at all understand the Biblical concept of "sinner" as someone who was not "seeking God."  I, in the common culture of understanding, thought that a sinner was someone who was committing sin. 

 

Now I know that we all "commit sin" or fail at some point because by nature, we are essentially flawed -- flawed in our understanding, flawed in our decision-making, flawed in our knowledge of what is good and holy.  It is the nature of man himself not to be "perfect."  Everyone knows this; how many times have we said, "Hey, I'm only human!"?

 

Now I understand that mankind, by nature, does not 'seek God,' does not 'walk before Him.'  We all tend to go our own way and to eat daily from the Tree of Knowledge rather than from the Tree of Life, which is Wisdom, a spiritual -- not a natural -- gift.  We tend to choose our path by appearance, as did Eve, rather than by consultation with Wisdom, the Holy Spirit.  Brother Andrew of the Resurrection, a simple man who lived in the 12th century, wrote a wonderful book called Practice of the Presence of God.  I loved this book when I first read it many years ago, and I love it now.  Brother Andrew in his simplicity assumed that he would always make the wrong choice unless he was upheld every moment by the goodness and mercy and guidance of God.  That is what it means to acknowledge that we are 'sinners' -- that we will inevitably choose the wrong thing if we go by our natural instincts and limited understanding.  Is. 59: 7 says, "the way of peace they do not know,"  and I would say that is true of every man, woman, and child born into this world -- unless and until they are instructed, guided, and led by the Holy Spirit. 

 

When Jesus said, "Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect," it was in the midst of his teaching about loving our enemies and doing good to those who persecute us.  I remember once asking a 'holy man,' a Hari Krishna guru, where that power comes from -- to love our enemies -- because I knew for sure that that power to love could not originate within me.  I guess at that point, I was 'confessing' that I was a sinner, and not 'perfect' as my Father in heaven was perfect.  But he had absolutely no answer for me.  He did not know any more than I did --- so even though this man was 'holy' in the eyes of the world, he too, like me, was a 'sinner.' 

 

Our natural man is not like our Father in heaven; we do not know the way of peace.  We must be transformed from the man of sin to the "second Adam," the spiritual man, by the Spirit of Jesus dwelling in us.  If it were possible for us to be 'declared righteous' by obeying the law, then it was not necessary for us to have a Savior.  We could, if we 'tried hard,' save ourselves.  But Abraham was 'declared righteous' 1000 years before the law was given -- because he 'walked before God' and believed that he would be led in right paths "for His Name's sake."  Abraham still 'committed sin,' or made wrong choices even as he was learning to walk with God -- as indeed do we also.  But God still 'declared him righteous."  And David, who murdered Uriah and committed adultery, was declared by God as 'a man after My own heart." 

 

So it does no good at all to say we are not 'sinners."  Rather, if we begin by admitting that we have made and will continue to make wrong choices by our very nature, and then open our souls to the saving presence of Jesus Christ, who always did the things the pleased the Father, we will, like David and Abraham, be 'declared righteous' because we will be learning to 'walk before [God] and be perfect."

 



The Journey of Faith

Faith is always a journey.  We are always moving from somewhere spiritually to somewhere else.  And our journey is directed by Someone Else outside of ourselves.  We may not be aware of where we are -- the desert, after all, is trackless.  On our own, we might easily wander for 40 years and keep going around Mt. Sinai again and again, as did the Israelites.  That is why the spiritual life, without a Guide that we can trust, is no guarantee of safety and protection. 

Many people today seek the spiritual life without a Guide.  Or they will claim that one guide is as good as another.  My students tell me that in the high schools today, Wicca is one of the "religions" that students claim to follow.  Many people say that they are "spiritual" but not "religious."  I guess what that means is that they do not claim any one guide as better than any other.  Having rejected all 'religions as false guides, they stike out on their own to find their own path to peace, joy, and love.

I think what we see from the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures is a pattern:  God gets one person to listen to Him, and then He uses that one person to lead his people forward on the journey of faith.  When men attempt to lead others without first listening to God, we get cults such as those of Jim Jones, Hitler, and Osama Ben Ladin.  God's pattern of leadership is so clear:  in all cases, the men He chooses are not 'natural' leaders, but just the opposite.

Moses was not a good speaker; in fact, he stuttered and he was afraid that people would laugh at him.  Moses knew for sure that God was the Guide and not himself; most of the time, he was afraid of failing because he knew there was nothing he could do for these people enslaved by the Egyptians.  He is always asking God how he is supposed to carry out his mission.  And God never gives him directions or a timetable.  He says only, "I'll be with you."  That's it.  Moses' power is the Presence of God.  Directions comes as he walks the journey.

Our faith is the same; it is a journey, a relationship with our Guide.  Sometimes we do not know we are being led until years later.  As we look back over our lives, we can see the hand of the Guide that we had not seen at the moment we turned to the left or to the right.  But looking back, we are thankful we took the road we did; we can now see how we were being led. 

When Moses asked God for a direct vision of His Glory, the Lord replied that He would place Moses in a cleft of the rock, cause His Goodness to pass in front of the rock, and proclaim His name-Yahweh- in Moses' presence:  ...[I will] cover you with my hand until I have passed by.  Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen (Ex. 33:21-23).

People imagine that faith is the same as "religion."  But it is not; the ten commandments were given to a people who were learning to listen to the God who had brought them forth out of Egypt, out of slavery.  The journey had already begun for them before they began to obey the laws.  We come to obey because we have first come to know the Guide Who is directing our lives, our journey of faith.

As Catholic children of the 50's, we learned the Baltimore Catechism, but it was in prayer, in the quiet moments during the Mass, that we came to know our Guide, the One who had already directed our paths to prayer.  Obedience to 'religion' followed our hearts' knowledge of our Guide.  That is the path that will lead us home.

Seeking Faith

Where does faith come from?  What is faith?  How do we 'acquire' faith? 

In the New Testament, in several places, Abraham is called the Father of Faith, the father of them that believe God.  So it would seem logical that we would ask how Abraham himself came unto faith, into belief, into trust in Yahweh, Who spoke unto him and Who led him from "his father's house unto a land I will show you."

Looking at the story of Abraham, it is clear that faith is not something we ourselves conjure up or manufacture within our own hearts.  Rather, faith is a response to the action of God, to something God Himself has done for us or said to us.  Here is a simple example from a purely human experience: 

During the week following Katrina's arrival on the Gulf Coast, I found myself in a shelter, cut off from my family and not knowing whether my husband was alive or dead.  Gradually, from those who had satellite radios, we began to hear about the horror of Lake Pontchartrain seeping into the city of New Orleans.  At one point, the rumor spread throughout the shelter:  The French Quarter was covered by 28 feet of water.  Now that rumor was false, but I had no way of knowing that, and my husband was trapped, for all I knew, in the Old Ursuline Convent on Chartres Street in the Quarter.  Soon my imagination took over, and I began to picture him as dead.  One of the policemen manning our shelter noticed the look of distress on my face and asked me what was troubling me.  I told him that I thought my husband was dead.  "He's okay," Captain Bishop told me; "Trust me; I have a sixth sense about these things."  For some reason, I believed him, although there was no way he could have known for sure whether my husband was alive or not.  A peaceful calm settled over my spirit when he said, "Trust me."  And I believed him.  From that time on, I had no doubt whatsoever that Chuck was alive and okay. 

Supernatural faith is just like human faith.  It is not something we "hope" is true, something we are struggling to convince ourselves is true -- it is a peaceful and calm response to God's words or actions on our behalf.  The Bible is not a series of ethical teachings, nor is it a social feeling nor a sympathy for all of life; it is first and foremost a book of stories of how God has acted in history and in individuals.  It is a recital of the gracious and redemptive acts of God.

To say that we have 'faith' is to tell a story of what God has done for us.  To share our faith is to share our stories with one another.  Yesterday, I met someone for lunch who graciously shared with me a couple of times when God Himself bent down to her distress and bestowed that "peace that passes all understanding," and "drew her clear from the waters that threatened to drown her," in biblical language.  Hearing her stories, her real-life experiences of the graciousness and redemptivness of God's sweet love toward us strengthened my own faith and sent me on my way dancing for joy at the God who is so good to His people. 

When we share our faith, it is not our ideas, our theology, our philosophy that we share, but our concrete stories of what God has done for us.  These are the stories that bring us home, that settle us in the land of promise, that convince us that God has not abandoned us to our own devices.  Faith brings confidence to us -- what God has done once, He will do again.  David had the faith to meet Goliath without shield or armor because he had been a shepherd:  When a lion or bear came and carried off a sheep from its flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth...the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine (I Sam. 34-37).

The New Testament tells us that faith comes from hearing -- and hearing comes from the word of the Lord.  Once the Lord has spoken to us, as He spoke to Abraham, as Captain Bishop spoke to me in my distress, we believe and we go forth in calm assurance that He will not deceive or mislead us.  Once we hear what He has done for others, we can dare to believe that He will do the same for us.  It is no good telling people to 'believe' if they have not first heard our stories of what God has done for us. 

If I could design a retreat, I would simply ask the participants, "What has God done for you?"  Tell us your story and its effects on your life.  Hearing one after another the real-life experiences of others would surely send us all on our way with increased faith in the One Who bends low to rescue His people and to draw them clear from the Katrina-like waters of life.

The Law of the Kingdom of God

Moses was known as the lawgiver.  He spent 40 days and 40 nights communing with God on Mt. Sinai and received from God the Ten Commandments, the Universal Law for all mankind, regardless of race, culture, or conditioning. 

Jesus, as the New Moses, spent 40 days and 40 nights in the desert, in preparation for His earthly ministry, establishing the kingdom of God on earth.  His Sermon on the Mount has often been described as the corollary of the Ten Commandments, but as Oswald Chambers pointed out,

The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of rules and regulations.  It is a statement of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is getting His way with us.

 

I think Chambers has it exactly right.  There is nothing we ourselves can "do" to make ourselves "poor in spirit," for example.  There is no discipline or practice that can affect our inner man in such a way so as to be truly poor in spirit.  This has to be the work of the Holy Spirit transforming our strong and proud flesh -- the natural man -- into the image of Jesus Christ, the only One who is truly "poor in spirit:"  I can do nothing on my own; it is the Father in me who is doing the work....   I do only what I see the Father doing....  The Father is greater than I....

 

Take a look at the Beatitudes.  If we can imagine the disciples and the multitude who came to listen to the Teacher on the mountainside, we will see all manner of hopes and dreams represented there -- the same ones that gather together at any assembly on a Sunday morning, or at any religious conference.  They are there for every reason we can imagine.  Now see Jesus looking around at the crowd and seeing the poor and lowly, the sad and afflicted, the "lesser ones," those who are hungry and thirsty for God instead of for the recognition of other men.  Imagine His glance picking out those who have been condemned by others as 'sinners' and outcasts -- the unworthy.

 

Instead of giving a new "law," a new practice of religion, He begins to look at each one of the unworthy ones:  Blessed are you, He says to them....You are the salt of the earth; You are the light of the world.  These are the ones who have come to the end of their own strength, just as he came to the end of his in the wilderness, as He depended solely on His Father for sustenance.  These are the ones who have recognized their own helplessness in a world of power, strength, manipulation, and greed.  These are the merciful ones, because they themselves have experienced their own weakness.  These are the ones who mourn, who need the comfort that can be given only by God.

 

What is Jesus giving?  Not a new practice of religion, but comfort to the sorrowing, hope to the hopeless, recognition to those who suffer at the hands of others. 

 

What if Jesus came into one of our high schools today?  The student body is assembled in the gym.  There are the popular kids, the football players, the cheerleaders, the student body president and officers, the bullies, and the honor students.  But He doesn't speak to any of them; He looks around until He finds the 'little ones,' --- the one who is failing all his subjects because his mom is sick and he is worried; the one who is ashamed of his small, weak frame and his ineptitude at sports; the girl who has befriended someone unpopular with the 'in' crowd....

 

You are blessed, He says to the outcasts.  You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world.  "What is He talking about?" murmur the others.  "He doesn't know what we know about those people."  He sees something they cannot see; he sees that the strong and the sleek, the smart and the able, will have to come to the end of their own strength before they can receive the strength that He came to give them.  Once they are 'empty of themselves,' they can receive the Spirit of the Lord.

 

It is a journey that none of us can take on our own; we must be led into the wilderness by the Spirit, and there, stripped of all natural resources, we can be filled with the mercy, the purity, the emptiness of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  As long as we think we are 'following the law' and living up the God's demands, we are not yet there.  The Spirit Himself must fashion us after the image of the Only Son so that it is His Light that shines from us, and not our own.

Two Ways of Seeing

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever--the Spirit of truth.  The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him.  If you really have known me, you will know him, for he lives with you and will be in you (Jn. 14:16-17).

 

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...the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth.  The one who comes from heaven is above all.  He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony.  The man who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful (Jn. 3:31-33).

 

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You do not know me or my Father....if you knew me, you would know my Father also (Jn.8:19)

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Who do men say that I am?....Blessed are you, Simon BarJonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven (Matt.16:13-17).

 

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In all of the Scriptures quoted above, there are implied two ways of seeing Jesus Christ -- the way of the 'flesh,' or the natural man, the 'world,' ---and the way revealed through the Spirit.  And the two ways are very different. 

 

If we look at the history of the church (any church, for that matter), we will clearly see both ways of seeing Jesus Christ -- through the eyes of flesh and through the revelation from God, given through the Holy Spirit.  In every age, there are individuals who constantly call the formal church back to the vision given through the Spirit.  In every individual, it also seems that we move from one way of seeing Jesus to the other, if we are, like Simon Peter, "blessed."

 

When I was growing up, even though we always made the sign of the cross and included the Holy Spirit in our doxology, the third Person of the Trinity always seemed somewhat of an accessory, something or Someone "added on" to the key players: the Father and the Son.  If you were clothed in the Father (baptism) and with the Son (Eucharist), you were well-dressed and could appear in public decently dressed, even though you had left your hat or jewelry at home.  Of course, we were confirmed, but who knew that sacrament had anything to do with the "Baptism of the Holy Spirit"?  He was barely mentioned, if at all.

 

The formal church seemed to say, "Oh yes, we do have the Holy Spirit; He's over there in the corner."  That is why again and again since Pentecost, God has had to renew His church by a new outpouring of the Spirit.  If it were not necessary for us to have, know, live in, be guided and taught by the Holy Spirit, Jesus would not have made such a point of speaking about the Spirit the night before He died.  It seemed to be the uppermost thing on His mind to say to the Apostles.

 

Why do we absolutely need the Holy Spirit, as a church and as individuals?  Because, without Him, we still see Jesus with the eyes of the world, with the eyes of the flesh:  Who do men say that I am?  If we don't see Jesus as revealed to us by the Spirit, we don't know who He is.  And if we don't know who He is, neither do we know the Father. 

 

So here's our choice -- both as church and as individuals:  We can study, teach, and learn Jesus from the outside, through natural means  --  or we can be taught from within, by the Spirit.  If we would be taught by the Spirit, we must "...wait daily at His door, and be filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind.  Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway" (Prov. 8:30&34).

 

Or, we can go on seeing Jesus as the world sees Him.  The choice is ours.

Where Does It Come From?

June 15, 1977 -- A wondrous happening that changed the path of my entire life.  I was hospitalized for surgery, with many, many accompanying worries and fears.  But early that morning, a young girl laid hands on me and prayed for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, and suddenly I experienced liquid love being poured on me from on high, beginning at the top of my head and slowly spreading down my shoulders and throughout my entire body -- a love and peace that I had yearned for but could not manufacture for myself:  If you knew the gift of God, Jesus had said, you would ask, and it would be given to you -- a spring of living water, springing up to eternal life. 
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And the peace, the calm, the love continued throughout the surgery, during which I was awake and consulting with my doctor.  It continued all during the day, as the nurses attempted to give me pain medicine, which I didn't need and continued to refuse.  It continued during the night and the next day, when I got out of bed and walked into other rooms, looking for people in pain, with whom I could share the gift I had been given.  It continued when I went home to recuperate.

In the meantime, I had reached over to the bedside table and found a Gideon Bible.  Without any knowledge or plan on my part, the Bible fell open to the Acts of the Apostles, and I began reading.  It was the story of Pentecost.  As I read, I was amazed at what the words were describing:  "This is what just happened to me!" my spirit cried out!  "This is what I'm experiencing right now!"  --- not something I could have imagined, manufactured, or even thought to ask for!  Not something I would have even believed could have happened!  But there it was: suddenly my mourning had been changed into dancing; my constant fear had evaporated into joy and euphoria; my oppression had fled away, and faith had come instead.  I was the woman at the well, though I was not familiar with the story at the time, and would not have understood had someone told me at that moment.

Six weeks later I went back to my doctor, the one who first had prayed for me to receive the Holy Spirit.  At that time, I had received the "first touch of the Spirit," but could not continue the experience on my own. Now I was worried that I would allow the Spirit to depart from me through careless, indifference, or sin.  I did not know how to make it continue.  I needed teaching and the support of a community, but I was still very much on my own.  My doctor laughed:  "You don't 'have the Holy Spirit'," he reassured me; "He 'has' you -- and He's not letting you go.  Wherever you go, He's going with you."  Amazingly, with the 'second touch,' I discovered a community ready and waiting to receive me, encourage me, support me, teach me.  Amazing!  Wondrous!  Everything had been provided ahead of time, without my knowledge or understanding. 

Jesus told Nicodemus:  You do not understand the path of the wind -- where it comes from or where it is going; it is the same with the Holy Spirit; [He blows wherever He pleases] -- (my addition).  The "Spirit" -- or "breath of God" blows wherever he wills; we cannot control it, direct it, or even understand it.  It does not come from us; it comes down from above.  We can receive it; we can ask for it; we cannot manufacture or direct it.  We can be open to it; we can desire it.  We cannot blow the breath of God into our own nostrils.  We cannot 'become a living soul' by being 'a good person,' by 'good works' or by being upright citizens.  In fact, according to Julian of Norwich and others, the weaker, the more pitiful, the more hopeless we are, the greater we draw the mercy of God to us, just as the compassion of a mother is more drawn to the child that is sickly or weak.

Where does the Spirit of God come from?  From the heart of God, the Mercy of God, the Love and Compassion of God on the poor, the suffering, the 'little ones,' those who cannot help themselves.  Henry David Thoreau wrote a little poem in the 1800's: 

The work we do for God,

God blesses;

The work we call our own,

God leaves alone.

 

In my own case, I always thought I was a fairly competent person, able to handle almost anything.  It took three children and six years of no sleep at night to convince me that I was helpless, incompetent, and incoherent to manage life on my own.  Then, when I knew that no strength, no wisdom, no understanding, no peace, no love, no competency would ever come from within myself, the Sprit of the Lord rushed in to fill me with His own Peace, His own Love and Goodness, His own understanding, His own Revelation/ Word, His own Truth. 

 

Christ was formed in my emptiness by the Spirit of God, just as He was formed in the empty womb of the Virgin by the spoken Word and the Rushing Spirit/Breath of God hovering over her emptiness/ littleness/ humility. A new Creation was shaped in me by the same Word and Breath of the Most High, and now "My spirit magnifies the Lord, and my soul rejoices in God my Savior!"  Once we have experienced the new birth, we can never again be drawn by the empty philosophies and theories of man.  It is as though Hans Solo's spaceship has leaped into hyper-space, and we have left behind the planet of evil on which we were raised, the only one we knew existed up to that moment. 

 

We do want to return to our planet of origin, but now with "Good News" -- that Jesus, the Christ, has come to our planet, has taken up all the causes of our lives (Lamentations 3:58), and has given us cause to celebrate, has removed from us the pain described by Jeremiah:

 

My eyes fail from weeping,

I am in torment within,

my heart is poured out on the ground

because my people are destroyed,

because children and infants faint

in the streets of the city (Lamentions 2:11).

 

Now as the compassion of God is formed in our hearts on a daily basis, as our new life grows and develops and deepens daily, we too pray that the Word of God and the Breath of God will enter the lives of those around us, delivering them from evil just as He has delivered us!

 

 





Speaking in Parables

For much of His earthly ministry, Jesus spoke in parables, but privately, to His disciples, He unfolded the mysteries of heaven and explained the parables.  At the Last Supper, the night before His death, however, Jesus said these words: Though I have been speaking figuratively [i.e. in parables], a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language, but will tell you plainly about my Father (Jn. 16:25). 

If we look at what Jesus is saying through our natural eyes and minds, we would have to wonder what "time is coming" He could possibly be referring to.  Clearly, He knew that this was the last night of His earthly life, so what did He mean when He said, "I will tell you plainly about my Father"? 

After His resurrection, He spent 40 days with the disciples, and as far as we know now, He spoke no parables to them during that time.  The only recorded words we have are very straightforward and plain -- those spoken to Mary Magdalen at the tomb, to the Apostles in the upper room, to the disciples on the road to Emmaeus, and at the Ascension.  He is no longer speaking in parables during this time, to His intimate friends, just as He does not appear to everyone during that time, but only to His friends and disciples. 

Actually, the same pattern continues today.  For most of our lives, it seems that the Scriptures and the words of Jesus are a kind of "parable" which we cannot exactly penetrate.  Oswald Chambers said it pretty well:  The danger with us is that we want to water down the things that Jesus says and make them mean something in accordance with common sense.  If it were ony common sense, it was not worthwhile for Him to say it.  The whole mystery of redemption is not common sense; we cannot penetrate Scripture with human understanding, for it is veiled to the eyes of flesh.  It takes the Son of God to open our eyes and our minds to see and grasp the things of God. 

When we are born again, for the first time, we can say with the disciples, "Now You are speaking clearly and without figures of speech.....This makes us believe that You came from God" (Jn. 16:29).  Jesus had said to Nicodemus early on, "if you don't understand when I speak to you about earthly things, how will you understand when I speak about the things of heaven?"

If we want to understand the things of God, there is only one way -- we must abandon our own understanding and seek the plain words of Jesus Christ.  He will reveal to us everything that is His own, no longer in parables but clearly.  One of my students many years ago asked me, "When did God stop speaking to man?"  I wish now that I had given him a better answer than I did -- "maybe it was when man stopped believing that God speaks to us."  Now I would like to tell him that 'the time has come," the time of which Jesus spoke when He said, "I will tell you plainly about the Father."

He still speaks both in parables and in plain words -- in parables to those far away and in plain words to those who are near.

The Unstructured Wilderness:

Therefore I am now going to allure her;

I will lead her into the desert

and speak tenderly to her.

 

There I will give her back her vineyards,

and will make the Valley of Achor (trouble) a door of hope.

There she will sing as in the days of her youth,

as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

 

"In that day," declares the Lord,

"you will call me 'my husband';

you will no longer call me 'my master' (Hosea 2:14-16).

 

I asked "Where/When/How/Why does the Holy Spirit speak to us?"  And the answers are as varied as the persons answering them, of course.   

 

One of the answers to these questions is surely given to us in the Book of Hosea.  Hosea was one of the prophets of Israel; he was married to a woman who could not keep herself from wandering off with various lovers and deserting both Hosea and their children.  Gomer, the adulteress, is a type of Israel, who, espoused and covenanted to Yahweh, nevertheless continually wandered off in seach of other gods and who sacrificed her children to all the Baals of the pagans:

 

Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites,

because the Lord has a charge to bring

against you who live in the land:

"There is no faithfulness, no love,

no acknowledgment of God in the land.

 

There is only cursing, lying, and murder,

stealing and adultery;

they break all bounds,

and bloodshed follows bloodshed.

 

Because of this, the land mourns,

and all who live in it waste away;

the beasts of the field and the birds of the air

and the fish of the sea are dying ---....

 

my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:1-5).

 

The Israelites are stubborn,

like a stubborn heifer.

How then can the Lord pasture them

like lambs in a meadow? (4:16)....

 

a spirit of prostitution leads them astray;

they are unfaithful to their God (4:12).

 

Like us, Israel had the Law, the Temple, and the priests.  When these guidelines failed to keep them faithful to their God, He also sent prophets to call them back to Himself.  But, as the Book of Romans would tell us many centuries afterwards (quoting several Old Testament Scriptures), "there is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understand, no one who seeks God" (3:10).

 

There comes a time in every life where the 'guidelines' -- the priests, the prophets, the church, the law ---all fall on deaf ears, for one reason or another.  There seems to be nothing that speaks to us, either because of our sin or the sins of those who are leading us.  Or perhaps it is our wounds, our griefs, our desolation and depression that lead us into the desert, the unstructured wilderness, where we can find no path, no roadmap, no way out of the place where life has taken us.

 

There, where the guidelines no longer have any meaning for us; there, in the desert, will the God of heaven and earth, speak tenderly to our hearts.  There he will whisper to us His words of love and compassion, of Truth and of guidance.  And we will know His Voice in the desert, in the wilderness where there is nothing else to go by:  in grief, in trouble ("the Valley of Achor"), when we are bowed down and have no direction, the Spirit of the Lord will speak to us, and we "will sing as in the days of our youth."

 

Jeremiah puts it this way:

 

"...after that time" [of grief, of trouble, of the unstructured wilderness where there are no guidelines],

"I will put my law in their minds

and write it on their hearts.

I will be their God,

and they will be my people.

No longer will a man teach his neighbor,

or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,'

because they will all know me,

from the least of them to the greatest," declares the Lord (31:33-34).

 

The Spirit of the Lord wants to enscripture our hearts; he wants to write on our hearts and our minds His own words to us.  Then "we will sing as in the days of our youth."  Then we will call Him "husband" and no longer "Master," just as Jesus told His disciples: "I no longer call you 'servants,' but 'friends'."  The Holy Spirit comes to us when we are in the desert, the wilderness, when we are hungry, thirsty, and without resources.  There he speaks tenderly to us.  There He whispers words of love.  There He sends His own light and truth, writing on our hearts words that we can never forget.

 

Then we will no longer wander off after other lovers and foreign gods, for we will be fully satisfied.

 

 



 



 



 

 

The Voice of the Spirit-- Part 3

I have asked (1) "How / when/ where does the Holy Spirit speak to you?"
                     (2) "How do you know it is the Spirit and not yourself speaking?"

These two questions, I believe, could be the start of a period of sharing for a group of people reflecting on their own experience of God.  I believe the Spirit does speak to us at various times in our lives, perhaps not always audibly, but with some kind of gentle guidance.  God is nothing if not subtle, so that we can always attribute His guidance to some other cause if we wish.  Still, knowing that He does guide, lead, and teach us, and thus bringing the relationship into a conscious level on our part, helps us to be more attentive and receptive to His leading.

So the third question I want to pose is this:  Why do you suppose the Spirit does speak to us?

As with the other two questions, the answers are varied and individual.  This is not an exercise in looking for information or for a 'correct answer,' but rather a question posed to lead us into reflection and thus awareness of our own answers.

The Voice of the Spirit Within

I usually only KNOW it is The Sacred (Holy) Spirit when, after doing all I can to avoid moving on a certain path, the path simply opens in front of me, with someone taking my hand and insisting they need ME to help them find the way. The "little child" that leads me is often of advanced age, but with a child's trust in my ability to assist him/her on his/her journey.

 

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The question asked was:  "How do you know it's the Voice of the Holy Spirit and not your own voice speaking to you?"  The answer above was one of many that could be given, I think.  Jesus said, "My sheep know My voice, and they will not follow another."  I think that sweet assurance that we will  not be misled, either by our own voice or the voice of another is one of the best promises given to us by the Lord.  Of course, the basic premise is (1) that we  are open to and want to be led by the Lord, and (2) that we are willing to follow the path He shows us, once we are convinced that it is the Lord's and not another's voice leading us on.

 

I think that answer given by Y, above, indicates one sign of the Spirit's leading -- that is, His gentle insistence despite our resistance to a certain direction.  Whether we listen to the inner voice and ponder it in our hearts, as Mary did, or whether we dismiss the gentle nudge as something coming from us, He continues to return again and again with the same message.  This gentle nudging is far from the obsessive-compulsive re-runs that sometimes occur with us as a result of mental illness, or of just being stuck somewhere as a result of fear, childhood trauma, or inability to let go of a wound. 

 

In fact, one of the most certain signs of the Spirit speaking to us is that the Voice is so opposite of the voice of our own personality re-hashing the fears and wounds of the past or of the present.  Here is an example of what I am talking about:

 

When my youngest child was born, she had a birth defect that occurs only in every 1000 births.  My pediatrician did not notice it at first, but the nurses in the new-born nursery pointed it out to him.  He knew what it was, but did not know much else about it-- Turner's syndrome.  In order to confirm his suspicions, he took a blood sample and sent it to Tulane Medical Center for analysis.  In the meantime, he could not --or would not-- give me any information at all about Turner's.  That was before the internet, where I could have found the information I was looking for, so I was worried:  Did this mean mental retardation? Chronic illness?  or something I coud not even guess at? 

 

The test was supposed to take six weeks for results, but as a result of summer vacations among the staff, it took 3 months.  All that time, I wondered and worried until the tapes of fear and anxiety and uncertainty took over their re-runs in my heart and mind on a daily basis.  One morning, as I sat on the sofa nursing the baby, the tapes started running over and over in my mind.  Suddenly, with a great deal of amazing peace, a thought settled into my spirit like a warm blanket -- a "comfy:"  She will be a blessing to many.  I had not had many "messages from the Spirit" up until that time; in fact, this was one of the first -- but I knew this voice was not mine, and it was not coming from within me.  It was a voice to be believed and trusted in, and it immediately drove out every fear, worry, and concern that had occupied my heart for so long. 

 

What I believed then more than anything else was those words:  She will be a blessing to many.  Now, 38 years later, those words are more true than anything I could have imagined on my own.  They have over-ridden any problems associated with her initial diagnosis of Turner's Syndrome, or of anything the doctors wanted to tell me about the syndrome.  God is greater than any problem we have, and His 'diagnosis,' HIs word on a situation is beyond anything we can ask or imagaine (I Cor. 3:10).  I did not know at the time to pray about or to listen for God's pronouncement in my difficulty, but He was gracious enough to send His word into my heart anyway. I will be eternally grateful, for what I believed about her birth defect would probably shape what she believed about it too.

 

How did I "know" it was the Voice of the Holy Spirit and not my own?  (1) I could not have made that up; (2) I could not have manufactured for myself the peace it brought to me, permanently; (3) it dramatically cut across my own worrying thoughts on the matter; and (4) it proved absolutely true in the long run. 

 

More tomorrow on the same subject, if God wills. 

 

 

Learning to Hear the Voice of God Within

A few weeks ago, I asked, "How does the Holy Spirit speak to you?"  "When/how do you hear Him?"  The answers that came back were remarkably similiar to one another and to my own:  Sometimes I am pulled from my own thoughts into reflection; sometimes, it sounds like the voice of my mother/ my father; sometimes it is the halyards from the boats in the harbor; sometimes it is the voice of others.

Today, I am asking a further question:  How do you know when it is the Spirit and not your own voice speaking to you?  And I am torn between wanting to reflect on the answer myself and wanting to allow each person who reads this the space for his/her own reflections.

So I will wait until tomorrow to post my own answers to this question.

Grounded!

In a reflection written for Give Us This Day, Nancy Dallavalle writes about an incident when her teen-aged daughter was grounded for two weeks as a result of an incident when "she had clearly lost her footing."  Dallavalle's purpose was to firmly re-introduce her daughter to the family and its values.  Amazingly, as the 16-year-old turned away from 'the noisy intrusions of friends and busyness and glamour," she found that she was actually relieved.  In the two weeks of her 'punishment,' she discovered "the fullness of a newborn freedom in her own heart."

Just after reading Dallavalle's observation, I turned to Psalm 119, the longest psalm in the Bible.  This psalm is an anacrostic based on the Hebrew alphabet.  Each stanza is based on one of the letters of the alphabet, and each line of that stanza begins with that letter.  It's too bad we cannot read this psalm in the original language; even in translation, it is a marvelous work.  The entire 176 verses are devoted to the praise of God's Law -- and each line finds a synonym for "law:" decrees, commands, word, statutes, instruction, etc. 

The theme of Psalm 119 is the delight, the joy, the freedom the writer finds in following the decrees and commands of God:  Turn my eyes away from worthless things; renew my life according to your word (v. 37).  We might say that is exactly what happened when Dallavalle's daughter was 'grounded' for two weeks---she re-discovered her soul, the freedom of her own life, instead of the distractions that pulled her away from her own values into the values of those around her.  Her family's "word" became her guiding star once again, and she was truly "grounded" in good soil.

I have always been a lover of trees; all my life, I have felt at home under the trees, watching the movement of the trees, their freedom to move with the wind.  One of the most beautiful sights to me is the graceful movement of trees bending and swaying in the wind.  Paradoxically, they are free to 'move' because they are so rooted and grounded.  Unlike litter and debris that fly around with every breeze, trees remain where they are, arms uplifted to receive the wind. 

This is what reading Scripture has done for me; it has rooted and grounded me in Truth, so that I can receive the movements of the Spirit without fear of being blown around and uprooted.  Novelty and fashion and flattery and criticism and fear no longer have the power to unsettle and distract me as they once did, for my heart is rooted firmly in solid ground.  Still, the gentle sway of the Spirit can make me feel alive and directed to its movement within.  I love being 'grounded' by the Word of the Lord, and I love these verses from Psalm 119:

Lord, teach me the way of your statutes,

and I will keep them to the end.

Grant me insight that I may keep your law,

and observe it wholeheartedly.

 

Guide me in the path of your commands,

for in them is my delight.

Bend my heart to your decrees,

and not to wrongful gain.

 

Turn my eyes from gazing on vanities;

in your way, give me life (vv. 33-39).

 

A worthy prayer might be to meditatively read/pray Psalm 119, not all at once, but over a period of a week or two.



Truth Becomes Incarnate

People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, "If you keep a lot of rules, I'll reward you, and if you don't I'll do the other thing."  I do not think that is the best way of look at it.  I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before.  And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God and with other creatures and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God and with its fellow-creatures and with itself.  To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power.  To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness.  Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.

---C.S.Lewis:  from Mere Christianity

 

I so love this passage from Mere Christianity that I read it over and over again.  I think every high school student should have to memorize this passage beforehe/she is allowed to graduate from high school, despite our so-called 'separation of church and state.'  This has less to do with Christianity than with basic morality and integrity, with who we are and will become as people.

 

Each time we choose to read and to think about and reflect on Truth, we are turning ourselves into truth, until it permeates our bones, our hearts, our minds, and even our flesh.  Here is great advice from the Epistle to the Philippians:

 

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

 

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable -- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -- think about such things....and the God of peace will be with you (4:6-9).

 

The beauty of this advice is that when we follow it, we turn ourselves into positive energy.  When we dwell on the negative, the impure, the things and situations that displease us, our minds become darkened, and we cannot find peace and joy until the situation is 'fixed,' or we just get tired of carrying it around.  Praise and thanksgiving do not change the situation, but it changes us.  The Light of the Presence of God flows into us, transforming us from the inside out. 

 

Praise and thanksgiving is a discipline at first, until it enters our bones and our flesh, our minds and our hearts.  Then it becomes a habit; we are transformed by it into joyful, 'heavenly' creatures.  It took me years and years to 'get' the concept of Purgatory, until the Lord gave me an image of understanding.  We cannot enter the joy of heaven while unhappiness, griping, complaint, unrest, anger, hatred, resentment, and untruth fill our core spaces -- our bones, our flesh, our minds, and hearts.  We must wait in the 'outer rooms' until the central part of us is changed into Truth, Joy, Peace, Forgiveness, Dancing....

 

Then we are ready to meet other heavenly creatures who have become Truth incarnate.  Nothing lying or unclean or impure can enter heaven; it has no place there.  The first letter of John tells us that God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.  Love is made complete in us so that we may have confidence on the day of judgment...perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.  The man who fears is not made perfect in love (chapter 4).

 

What does it mean that 'love is made complete in us' but that we have 'become love,' as St. Therese put it -- we have become love incarnate, in the flesh.  That is, because Jesus Christ has taken over our flesh, our minds, our hearts, our emotions-- because everything in us has been surrendered to His rule and dominion, He has made us into a 'new creation.'  The old has gone and been buried in the earth; the new man is made after the "Second Adam, the spiritual man."  We have become Truth; we have become Peace; we have become Joy; we have become Love Incarnate.  Now we are ready to enter into the Life that has been prepared for us from the beginning.

Consumer Rights

Man always thinks he can release a few demons into the world and then control them.

--Wendell Barry

 

I knew it would come to this:  in today's paper, George Will reports that in Florida recently, Alisa LaPolt Snow, representing Planned Parenthood, testified against a bill that would require abortionists to provide medical care to babies who survive attempted abotions.

 

When asked what Planned Parenthood would want to happen to a baby struggling for life as a result of a botched abortion, Snow answered that that decision should be between the patient and the health care provider.  ["Health care"?  What a euphemism!]  A Florida legislator responded to Snow: "I think that at that point the patient would be the child struggling for life, wouldn't you agree?"  [Good for him; I would have attempted murder myself at that point.]

 

It seems that Planned Parenthood is now into Consumer Protection.  As George Will says so eloquently, " If you pay for an abortion, you are owed a dead baby."

 

Meanwhile, my heart aches for all the young women I know whose arms ache to hold a baby of their own, those who cannot bear children, and those who have had miscarriages.  Shouldn't there be some way to bring these women together with those whose only option in life is abortion?

The Light Flows Through You!

Practically the first words of the Bible are Let there be light!  or, more accurately:  Light! Be! -- words spoken into the abyss of chaos and darkness, over which hovers the Spirit of God, the "Ruah," a word which means spirit, breath, wind, breeze, zephyr.

The first words of Scripture portray the Creator, the Word, and the Ruah, the Spirit, hovering over and speaking into the darkness.

And the rest of Scripture unfolds the same truth over and over again.  The Creator breathes forth His Word into the darkness as a soft breeze or a mighty wind throughout history.  Sometimes, He breaks open the darkness and chains of men's souls; sometimes, He leads His people out of the dark evil of slavery and oppression.  At some points of history, He establishes truth in the midst of the choas of confusion, and leads His people ever more surely into the Light.

It is not just history -- the history of the world and of mankind; it is now, at this moment.  God is He Who Acts, now and forever.  He is not "sitting on His throne, waiting to see what we will do."  He is hovering, breathing, acting, speaking even now into the darkness that envelopes us within and without.  He is speaking even now into our hearts and minds, into our history, into the evil that threatens us on every side. In Him, we live and move and have our very being.

And if we are ready and willing, His Word and His Light and His breath (Ruah) flow all around us, in us, and through us -- and he makes us Light and Word and Truth to a world chained in darkness.

If we have not experienced His love, or His truth, or His word, or His Spirit dwelling in us, how then are we to believe the words of Scripture:  God is love, and he who loves is born of God and dwells in God and knows God (1 Jn.4:7)?  Jesus said:  "He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and will show myself to him (Jn.14: 23)....if anyone loves Me, he will obey my teaching.  My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him...These words are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me."

"All that belongs to the Father is mine.  That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you" (Jn. 16:15).  And if we know these things and abide in God, and if God abides in us, then why would His Light, His Truth, His Word, and His Breath not fill the world around us and inside us?  It is a glorious truth and revelation that we could not dare to imagine or to believe if it had not been revealed to us by the Son of God Himself. 

But if it has been revealed to us, who are we to deny its truth?  Are we to say to the Son of God, "I will not accept your words!  You do not know what I know!  You are deluded!  It is right that we crucified You, for You are a liar and a thief, and the truth does not dwell in You!"

It has been said before and will be said again until the end of the ages.  But still, the Son of God says again and again in our darkness:  LIGHT! BE!  And again and again until the end of time, the Light, the Word, and the Spirit of God will pierce the darkness, and we will live!  His truth will dwell in us, and the darkness will never again overcome us.

A Great Mystery

It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make a helper suitable -- i.e. "perfectly matched"--for him (Gen.2:18).

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Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

 

So God created man in his own image

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them (Gen.1:26-27).

 

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This is now bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called 'woman'

for she was taken out of man.

For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh [literally, "a new creation."]

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The feminist movement of the 60's and 70's lied to all of us.  It was not based on any solid understanding of women or of philosophy or theology -- it was a rebellion against a male-dominated society which itself was not based on any understanding of men and women and their roles as reflecting the image of God. 

 

From the very beginning, God was portrayed in Scripture as neither male nor female, but a unity of Persons:  "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness...."  This is a great mystery which few people have any interest in exploring.  And to be "man" is to be 'male and female in one flesh" -- diversity in union, a "new creation" in the image of the Godhead.  In that union is 'fruitfulness,' blessing, increase on the earth.  Without union, man is not fruitful. 

 

The Jews have always maintained (through revelation) that the first commandment is to "Be fruitful and multiply"  -- God's command to the entire earth.  What if the land stopped being "fruitful," or the animals, or the fish of the sea and the birds of the air?  And none of these are fruitful alone, but all of them with perfectly matched 'helpers." 

 

In union with one another, we are 'in the image of God."  We are complete, and we are fruitful.  This is a great mystery, to be contemplated before being understood.  Man is not to "rule over woman," any more than any Member of the Trinity "rules over" the other Persons, but together, giving and receiving, they are to rule over the earth, and to produce children wise enough to rule the earth in companionship with others. 

 

From the beginning also, there were two races (or 'generations'):  one that walked with God and listened to God, and one that went their own way, refusing to be in submission to the Creator.  And these two generations continue even today.  One generation "calls on the Name of the Lord" and is fruitful, blessing the earth; the other does not call on the Name of the Lord, and continually destroys the earth and all that is in it. 

 

Much to think about.....



The Blessings of Wisdom 2

My son, if you accept my words,

and store up my commands within you,

turning your ear to wisdom

and applying your heart to understanding,

and if you call out for insight

and cry aloud for understanding,

and if you look for it as for silver

 and search for it as for hidden treasure,

then you will understand the fear of the Lord

and find the knowledge [experience] of God.

 

For the Lord gives wisdom,

and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

He holds victory in store for the upright,

he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,

for he guards the course of the just

and protects the way of his faithful ones.

 

Then you will understand what is right and just

and fair--every good path.

For wisdom will enter your heart,

and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

Discretion will protect you,

and understanding will guard you (Prov. 2:1-11).

 

I love all the words of Sirach and of Proverbs that teach of wisdom, for they all say exactly what Jesus taught: "Ask and it will be given to you; Seek and you shall find; Knock and the door will be opened...for everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened" (Luke 11).  I remember many years ago asking the Lord to teach me the meaning of the phrase 'fear of the Lord,' for I knew there was something there that I could not grasp.  I have never been afraid of God in any way, so I thought maybe I was lacking something when I read, "the beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord."  And I did not want to lack wisdom!

 

I cannot tell exactly how I learned the meaning of this phrase, or when, or where -- but somehow, the 'fear of the Lord' entered my soul in spirit and in truth.  And I know that it has nothing to do with being afraid -- it has more in common with the greatest love, the pearl of great price, for which we would give all that we possess: the one thing in life that we cannot let go of and would hold until death.  If anyone does not understand the fear of the Lord, I would refer him/her to the words of James:  If any of you lacks wisdom [alternately, "do not know what to do"], he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

 

Some of my neighbors have been searching for years for a church to attend; she was the daughter of a Baptist minister, and I think maybe she is missing the church of her childhood.  He is turned off sooner or later by something said or done in every church they have tried; he usually comes home mad, so they eventually stopped going to church.  But they are still hungry for spiritual food and community of some sort -- so what to do? 

 

I know that there is no such thing as a perfect church, any more than exists a perfect family.  So anyone who is searching for the perfect church will always be disappointed; it is like looking one's whole life for a unicorn.  I think what we all need is knowledge and discretion -- wisdom.  We need to be guided by the Holy Spirit into the "paths of righteousness."  God wants us to be in a place where we can not only be blessed by others, but be a blessing to them through the gifts He gives us.  But He is the only one who knows where that place is.  Just as He led Abraham to the land of Canaan -- not a very promising place at first, to be sure -- so He leads us to a place of blessing.  And it may not look at first like much, but if we are searching for wisdom, and crying aloud for understanding, it will be given to us.  That is what it means to see with the eyes of faith, not with the eyes of our physical body.  If we wait for our minds to comprehend the ways of God, we will wait forever.  But trusting in Him with all our hearts will eventually lead us home.

The Blessings of Wisdom

Happy the man who meditates on wisdom,

and reflects on knowledge,

Who ponders her ways in his heart,

and understands her paths;

Who pursues her like a scout,

and lies in wait at her entry way;

Who peeps through her windows,

and listens at her doors;

Who encamps near her house,

and fastens his tent pegs next to her walls;

Who pitches his tent beside her,

and lives as her welcome neighbor;

Who builds his nest in her leafage,

and lodges in her branches;

Who takes shelter with her from the heat,

and dwells in her home.

 

He who fears the Lord will do this;

He who is practiced in the law will come to wisdom.

 

Motherlike she will meet him,

like a young bride, she will embrace him,

Nourish him with the bread of understanding,

and give him the water of wisdom to drink.

 

He will lean upon her and not fall,

he will trust in her and not be put to shame.

She will exalt him above his fellows;

in the assembly, she will make him eloquent.

 

Joy and gladness he will find,

an everlasting name inherit. (Sirach 14:20-27 & 15:1-6)

 



What beauty in the images of this passage!  I cannot add anything at all to the word of God, but only recommend that they be read over and over again until they sink into our souls.



School of the Holy Spirit

All things are new: the buds, the leaves

That gild the elm-tree's nodding crest,

And even the nest beneath the eaves;

There are no birds in last year's nest!

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

The unexamined life is not worth living -- Socrates

 

Like the birds, we cannot live in 'last year's nest.'  We have outgrown it, and it has grown tired and stale, infected with vermin.  It was a good nest at the time; it sheltered us and gave us rest, and allowed us to grow beyond it.  But today, we are different; we carry the memories of yesterday, but we cannot live there.

 

One of the spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola is the "examen," which is not the same thing as the "examination of conscience" that we were taught as children -- although there is a relationship between the two.  Igantius' examen is reflection at the end of the day, not so much on our sins, but on the day itself -- that is, on where we have gone during the day, and whether the path was desirable or not.  What are the effects of our choices for the day?  Are we pleased?  Do we rest easy, or are we still in turmoil over some of the events of the day?

 

Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."  I wonder how many of us go to bed each night not having learned a thing from the day.  The truth is that we are all, every day, in "the School of the Holy Spirit."  He is present to teach, to lead, to guide, to cast the light of Truth on every part of our lives.  The only requirement on our part is that we 'show up' for His lessons.  If we do not enter into His 'school' each day, both morning and evening, we run the risk of the unexamined life.  We run the risk of having to live in last year's "nest," a nest which we should have outgrown in 365 days.

 

How many times have I said to myself, "I'll never do that again!"  -- whether referring to a particular route never to drive again, or to a practice I tried out somewhere along the way.  A nurse in the doctor's office once confessed to me that she is diabetic and that she still smokes.  "I'm at the age where my body is beginning to punish me for the choices I've made along the way," she said.  I thought that was interesting.  Sometime, somewhere, somehow, either our bodies or our minds will begin to "punish" us for the choices we are making today.  That is why we need reflection time to process our choices, no matter how small they seem right now.

 

Whenever I fail to check in at the School of the Holy Spirit for a day, I spend the day feeling restless, ungrounded, undirected, not at peace -- a feeling I hate.  But I have learned something about myself and about God's action in my life, through noticing what's happening when I fail to pray.  And my 'examen' makes me turn again to my Source of Life, of Strength, of Truth, of Joy.  Psalm 78 says, "...he brought his people out like a flock; he led them like sheep through the desert" (v. 52).  And Psalm 32:

 

I will instruct you, and teach you in the way you should go;

I will counsel you and watch over you.

(alternate translation:  "Let me guide you with mine eye.")

 

Do not be like the horse or the mule,

which have no understanding

but must be controlled by bit and bridle

or they will not come to you (vv 8-9).

 

I cannot tell of the joy it is to know we are being taught, guided, and led each day by the Spirit of the Most High Wisdom of God!  To know we are not dependent on our own knowledge, strength, wisdom, insight, etc -- but that just as Jesus entered into the Upper Room through locked doors to bring peace to His Apostles, He also enters each day into my heart and mind when I am in attendance at the School of the Holy Spirit!