Available to God

Love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole mind, and your whole strength.

In other words, "Love God body, soul, and spirit -- with all that you are and all that you have."

Who among us is equal to such a task?  "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."  What we want to do is the very thing we end up not doing, according to St. Paul (Romans 7), and what we determine not to do is the very thing we end up doing after all.  How then are we to love God with our whole being?

Mother Teresa called herself "a pencil in the hand of God."  When I put myself into that wonderful image, I can only picture a poor, dull, stub of a pencil, hardly worth saving -- something that lands in a junk drawer and is eventually thrown out.  However, I imagine God reaching into the junk drawer and finding the stub and deciding that it still has some usefulness.  In His hands, that poor little pencil can write a symphony, a gospel, a healing letter.  The only requirement is that the pencil be available for the Divine Purpose.

During the earliest days of my conversion or "born again" experience, when I had just begun to read the Bible, a good friend asked me to co-lead a prayer group with her.  Immediately, I backed away, saying that I had just begun to read the Bible and that I didn't know where things were yet.  If I read something, I couldn't remember where I had read it and could hardly find it again.  I had no ability at all to quote Scripture: what on earth would qualify me to lead a prayer group?

"Listen to me," said this very wise woman, "God does not need your ability; He only needs your availability."  "Oh," I said, "I guess I could be available."  And very soon I began to discover what God could do -- and would do -- when we make ourselves available to Him, body, soul, and spirit.

Mary's Magnificat says it all:  My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He has done great things for me.  If we break this down into its components, we see that Mary's "soul," -- that is, her mind, her will, and her emotions --- were focused not on herself and her abilities, but on the greatness of the Lord.  Her life was a magnifying glass for the secret and hidden action of God in the world, seeing not what man does in the world, but rather what God is about.  She regarded only her smallness, her inability, her poverty -- and the power of God to use what is freely and willingly given over to Him for His purpose, His plan, His providence.  In her surrender to Divine Power and greatness, her spirit rejoiced.  She found joy in her littleness and in her inability because she belonged to the One Who created all things and Who uses all things for His design.  She belonged to Him body, mind, soul, and spirit -- nothing was withheld from Divine Love.

We too can go on our way with joyfulness, not focused on our weakness in the flesh and our inability to do great things.  If we are surrendered to the plan, the purpose, and the power of God, He will do great things for us also.

The Pearl of Great Price

During a 9-hour flight back from London to the US, I listened to my seat-mate conversing with a couple across the aisle about their world travels.  For an hour and a half, they discussed all the places they had been, how often they traveled each year, and all the places they were planning to visit soon.  A lot of what they said sounded to me like one-upmanship, but perhaps that was cynicism on my part.  Both parties obviously loved traveling -- spending a week in an Icelandic yurt, going on an African safari, etc. -- and they obviously loved the opportunity to share their adventures with like-minded travelers.  But listening to them began to feel tiring after awhile. 

Although I love traveling and love seeing the beauty of other countries, customs, and cultures -- meeting people who look and think differently -- nothing will ever be as satisfying and delicious to me as entering and resting in what St. Catherine of Siena called "the Sea of Peace."  In The Dialogue, she records her mystical conversations with the Father, who tells her:

It is as if this gentle loving Word, my Son, were saying to you: "Look.  I have made the road and opened the gate for you with my blood.  Do not fail, then to follow it.  Do not sit down to rest out of selfish concern for yourself, foolishly saying you do not know the way.  Do not presume to choose your own way of serving instead of the one I have made for you in my own person, eternal Truth, incarnate Word, the straight way hammered out with my own blood."

Get up, then, and follow Him, for no one can come to me the Father except through Him.  He is the way and the gate through whom you must enter into me, the Sea of Peace.

When I read these words, so many Scriptures came to mind with the realization of what Jesus referred to as "the Pearl of Great Price."  To the woman at the well, He said, "If you knew who it was who asked you for water, you would ask Him, and He would give you living water."  His parable of the man who found a treasure in a field and who then sold everything to buy the field and the one of the merchant who gave everything for the Pearl of Great Price mean little to one who has traveled the world but who has never found what he was looking for.

Once someone has experienced the Sea of Peace given to us so freely in Jesus Christ, he cannot continue looking for new adventures, new "truth," new experiences.  He has found what he was looking for and nothing else will ever surpass that one thing, nor anything else replace it.  Unfortunately, much as we want to, we can never tell anyone else what that great pearl looks like, feels like, tastes like.  There is only one way to enter the Sea of Peace, and that is through The Way, The Truth, and the Life.  There are many doctrines, but only one Truth.  Filling our heads with multiple "ways" or explanations is like traveling the world and still seeking yet one more adventure because the last one has not satisfied the quest. 

To enter communion with the Father through the Son and the Son's own relationship with His Father is the pearl of great price, for which a man would give all that he has and count the loss as dung.  Once we have entered the Sea of Peace, nothing else will satisfy us, and we need not continue to look for anything else -- not even a yurt in Iceland!

Rublev's Icon of the Trinity

Andrei Rublev:    Icon of the Holy Trinity

An icon is not just a painting; it is the fruit of many years of contemplation distilled into an image that is rich in Scripture and theology.  Rublev's icon of the Holy Trinity is the most famous image of Trinitarian life ever painted.  All three Persons of the Trinity are portrayed with wings to indicate that this is more than just an earthly gathering.  They are seated together at a table, with the 4th side open to the viewer.  And though seated, all three are holding staffs, or walking sticks, indicating pilgrimage on earth.  The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are walking with us on our journey through life. 

The Father, on the left, is robed in blue (for the heavens) and a shimmering, translucent garment.  The Son, in the center, wears the blue of heaven and the rich brown of earth--he has taken on the flesh of man, but still, over his shoulder he wears the gold band of authority and rule:  the government is upon his shoulder (Isaiah).

The Holy Spirit, on the right, wears blue for heaven and green for the freshness of creation.  Proverbs 8 and other Scriptures tell us that He is the agent of creation and renewal.  Behind the Son is the Tree of Life (Wisdom: Proverbs 4:23) -- Christ is the Wisdom of God.  But the tree also represents the wood of the cross, by which and through which we enter the Father's house, represented behind the Father with an open door and an upper-story window, through which he eagerly watches for the return of the Prodigal Son.

The Father gestures toward the Son, Whom He sends.  The Son looks to the Father, and gestures toward the Spirit, Whom He sends. The Spirit is looking both at the Father and out toward the viewer, inviting us to come to the table and to enter into the fellowship they share -- to eat at the divine table.  The food on the table is the Lamb of God, given to transform us into children of God. 

It has been said that the Father is the Table, the Son is the Food, and the Holy Spirit the Maitre D' who leads us to the table and the Waiter Who brings us the Sacred Meal. 

Beneath the table is a mysterious rectangle.  It is thought that at one time (15th C), there may have been a piece of polished metal attached to the icon to act as a mirror of the viewer, so that we could see ourselves at the Table of the Lord.

During His earthly life, Our Lord sat at table with sinners-- tax collectors, a woman cleansed of demons, and the apostles.  He is reflecting God's Presence in our lives, "sitting down" with us to share our fare in life in order to welcome us to His Table of Love, Peace, Acceptance, and Communion.  Revelation 3:20 says "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone will open to me, I will come in and dine with him and he with me."  Here we have another image -- one of host and guest.  At times, we dine with the Lord, sitting at His table of unimaginable grace and plenty.  At other times, He graciously sits at our table, sharing with us whatever we ourselves have to eat, no matter how sparse and weak our fare. 

Rublev's icon is the starting point for meditation and contemplation on the role the Most Holy Trinity wants to play in our lives.  If we have the courage to accept the outstretched hand of the Holy Spirit, we are invited to share the finest of wheat and drink all the days of our lives.

The Mind of Christ

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God...no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God....we have received the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us....The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned...but we have the mind of Christ (I Cor. 2: 11-16).

The mind of Christ?  How can this be true, that we have the mind of Christ?  I don't mind confessing that the first time I read this, I chalked it up to hyperbole.  My own mind felt so far from the mind of Christ that I wondered whether we had much in common at all.  Jesus is the Wisdom of God, and I have often borrowed a phrase from the book of Jonah to describe my own mind -- God tells Jonah that the Ninevites "don't know their right hands from their left," and so Jonah should not protest God's mercy on them.  So often in prayer, I have said, "Lord, you know that I don't know my right hand from my left; I am totally dependent on and in need of your direction here."

And yet, when I look more closely at Jesus during His earthly sojourn, I see His total dependence upon the Father.  He withdrew often from the crowds that He might commune with the Father.  He said, "My words are not My own; they belong to the One Who sent Me," and "The Father works until now, and I also work."  Clearly, Jesus had no thought other than to seek the Father and the Father's work in His own life.  Here, we absolutely can have the mind of Christ-- even in our ignorance and waywardness, we can continually seek the Father's words and work in our lives. 

The first letter of St. John tells us that we have an anointing from the Holy One, and that we all "know the truth."  He contrasts this knowledge to the knowledge of those who love the world and everything in it:  For everything in the world -- the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, and the boasting of what he has and does -- comes not from the Father but from the world (v.16).  The man without the Spirit, according to the letter to the Corinthians, cannot accept the things of God, for they are foolishness to him.  But "whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also...and his anointing teaches you about all things, and that anointing is real, not counterfeit" (1Jn. 2:23 and 27).

John goes on to tell us that in the "lavishness" of His love, God has made us His "children" and that is what we are.  Now, it seems that children, even though they may stray for a time, have the mind of their parents, to the 3rd and 4th generation.  The reason we do not have the mind of God is sin -- but the "reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work...."because God's seed remains in [the one born of God], he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God," and "in this world we are like Him" (1Jn. 3:9 and 4:17).

The very end of John's letter reiterates his central thought:  We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one does not touch him...We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true.  And we are in him who is true -- even in his Son Jesus Christ.

So when we read that we "have the mind of Christ," we know that the Son of God is at work in us, destroying the work of the devil (sin) and purifying us from all unrighteousness, so that we can understand the things of God.  We know that He has come to give us understanding of the things of God through an anointing that remains with us.  And we know that we are "in Him who is true." 

To know these things is to allow ourselves to be taught by the Holy Spirit -- and to encourage us to withdraw from the things of the world in order to receive the mind of Christ.  Prayer, then, takes on a whole new dimension for the children of God -- no longer beseeching Him for favor, but running to the Father to be taught wisdom, knowledge, and understanding of ourselves and the world by His Spirit.  Like Jesus, we seek solitude in order to receive the words and thoughts of the Father.

If we read the first letter of John, it becomes very clear that we no longer think at all like those who ...are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and who knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us.  This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood (1Jn. 4:5-6).  The deep divisions in our society highlighted by the recent Presidential election make it even more easy to recognize those who 'have the mind of Christ' and those who do not.