Survivor

If we watch Survivor, we have a living drama of what Paul is describing in Galatians 5: 16-26:

For the flesh wars against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh; these two are opposed to one another....now the works of the flesh are obvious:...hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissentions, factions, occasions of envy....

In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.  If we live by the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit.  Let us not be conceited, provoking one another, envious of one another.

As in the beginning of time, Cain is constantly warring against Abel---the flesh against the spirit.  Those who live according to the flesh reap destruction; those who live by the spirit are filled with life.  When we isolate small groups of people on an island, it is not long before they reveal themselves for who they are---those who live by the flesh and those who live by the spirit.  What is interesting is how much those who live by the flesh hate the others and cannot wait to rid their society of the peace-makers.  And then, what is left but a group who begin to tear themselves apart--a micro-cosm of the world at large.

Proverbs 4:23

Guard well your heart, for out of it flow all the issues of life.

Everything, all the issues of life, begin in the heart.  Yet, we give precious little time to "guarding," or nurturing the heart.  We give time and care to the physical; we give time and care to the psyche--the mind and the emotions---but to the "heart," we pay little attention.  We are impatient to get on with the affairs of the day, our "things to do," even if what we have to do is to watch tv or to play computer games. 

Like Martha, it is so much easier for us to "busy about many things," and then to complain that no one is helping us than it is to "stand still before God in order to walk better with men," in the words of Catherine de Hueck Doherty.  We barely feed our spirits but wonder why we are spiritually starving.  Sometimes, our bodies have to run down in order for our inner man to emerge.  Then we can "be still and know" (experience/ taste/ understand/ wrap our minds and hearts around) God.

Security

A life secured by God is...

mercy for the past,

peace for the present,

and promise for the future."

Deanna Hansen Doying:  Meditations for Cat Lovers

Understanding the Truth

The more we glimpse of spiritual truth, the more that is revealed to us, the more painful it is that others do not see or understand what we see.  Jesus' pain at the lack of understanding on the part of the disciples, whom He loved, must have been extremely hard:  Do you still not understand?

When we love others, we want them to know and understand the deeper things of God---but it is impossible to "give" them this gift.  Only Jesus can bestow the Spirit of Truth.  Scripture says, "We scarcely comprehend the things on earth, but what is exceedingly deep, who shall find it out?"  Jesus said to Nicodemus: You are a teacher in Israel, and you do not know these things?

Study and imagination cannot penetrate the things of God; He communicates with His friends to reveal the secrets of His heart.  Study might prepare us to receive, but until the Spirit of God illumines the words, they fail to give life.  Prayer, like love, reveals more of the truth than many years of scholarship.

If we enter into the secret dwelling-place of God within us, we find truth.  Paul says, "The Spirit searches the deep things of God" to give them to us, but that the natural man cannot understand the things of God, for they are foolishness to him (I Cor. 2:14). 

Jer. 31:31 puts it this way:

This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord.  I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts.  I will be their God, and they will be my people.  No longer will they have to teach their friends and kinsmen how to know the Lord.  All, from the least to the greatest, shall know me, says the Lord.

Fortunately, we are now living in "those days," the days of the New Covenant, where all of us, from the least to the greatest, can know the Lord and hear the secrets of His heart.

Emmanuel/ God is with us

The well shall not run dry, for it is fed by a spring of inexhaustible water.

To experience the Presence of God in every circumstance of our lives is an inestimable gift.  Corrie Ten Boom said that she hoped she would never lose the sense she had in the concentration camp of the nearness of God.  The Psalmist writes:

God is close to the broken-hearted,

and those bowed down in spirit He saves.

To know Emmanuel (God-is-with-us) is the pearl of great price for which a man would give all that he has.  Open our eyes, Lord, that we may see you in every circumstance of our lives.

The Sun of God

When the Son of God gazed on sinners, they wept.  When He looked at the Pharisees and teachers of the law, they turned away, hiding in the demands of the law, as did Adam in the garden.

When the Son of God shines in our hearts, we see ourselves in our nakedness and we are ashamed.  But what we do next tells the whole story---do we weep or do we attempt to justify our sin?

The Commands of the Lord

The reason the Psalmist says that the commands of the Lord are "delightful" and "sweeter than honey" is that the Lord gives what He commands.  His commandment is a gift to those who love Him.  If He says, "Love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole mind, and your whole soul," then that's what He wants to do in us.    St. Paul says, "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit."  We could no more "achieve" this goal than we could fly unaided.  But God sends us spiritual wings and the Breath/ Ruah of His Spirit to lift us above our normal capabilities and enable us to love Him beyond our means. 

He is the beginning (the command) and the end (the carrying out of the command).  And yet He gives us the reward, as though we had carried out the command ourselves. 

Blessed is the man who walks in his ways; he shall be like a tree planted near running water.  His leaf shall not wither...whatever he does, prospers (Ps. 1)

Psalm 119 is the song of one who knows the joy of following the commands of the Lord:  The Word of God accomplishes what it commands.  Teresa of Avila speaks of the Lord as a Gardener Who causes virtues to grow in the soil of our hearts.  He prepares the soil, ridding it of weeds, breaking up the clods, nourishing and strengthening what is poor and weak.  Then He plants the seed, waters and feeds it, and watches over the young plant as it grows.  He is the One Who says, "I have called you that you bear fruit, and that your fruit remain."

Mary and Martha

We imagine Martha and Mary in the Gospel to be polar opposites, but according to Teresa of Avila, they can be combined as we advance in prayer.  We can learn to be absorbed in the Presence of God even as we are occupied in service.  It is not that Martha was occupied, but that her occupation was separating her from both Jesus and Mary.  In her thoughts, she was resentful that Mary was not helping her, a natural reaction for most of us.

Service with resentment is just servitude.  Service with joy is something else altogether---one might even call it prayer.

Knowing God

Prayer is coming face-to-face with the living God, knowing Him even as He knows us.  In friendship, each friend enters into the other's life, partaking therein of the other's realitites--their family, their relationships, their activities, and their interests.  So too in our friendship with God.  He shows us His life, His interests, His family, His relationships---and He wants to know ours. 

In prayer, it is not necessary that we "say" anything at all, but only that we enter into the heart and mind of God, walking with Him in companionship and openness.

No more posts until Sept. 22

Not perfect, but loved

We are not sinless, but we are loved.  Imperfect though we are, we still have access to the heart of God.  We are the beloved; He sees in us only the image of His only Son, and He must love what He sees in us. 

Last week, I started teaching a new class of 11th grade students.  In the exchange during class and in their journals, I got a glimpse into their hearts.  This week, I find their faces always before me as I pray and think about them, and I find that I already love them dearly---not because I think they are perfect, but because I see the beauty of their hearts.  And I would do anything to preserve the beauty I see in them.

With our faces and inner beauty always before Him, Jesus took on our sin, bearing in His own body the destruction and burden of sin in the world, taking the effects of our hard hearts to death on the cross, and rising as a new man, cleansed and perfect.  What parent does not bear in his/her own body and mind the effects of the sins of the children---the rebellion, the hardness of heart, the drugs and alcohol addiction, the turning toward evil friends and influence?  What parent does not continue to hope for a resurrection of a child who is dying from sin?

We cannot cleanse ourselves of sin and its effects-- it is permanent; even the cells of our bodies remember pain and carry the memory long after we have consciously buried it.  We can only turn to Jesus who has suffered the death our sins were leading to and who rose again as a "new man."  In Him, we bury our "old man," in Paul's words, who tended toward sin and death.  In place of the old man, we receive a "new birth," more responsive to the Spirit of life than to the influence of evil. 

In Romans 7 & 8, Paul describes the man of sin; he says he does not understand himself at all---the very things he has determined not to do, he ends up doing, and the good things he has decided to do, he does not do.  He says that he finds within himself a "law" stronger than he is---the law of sin and death. "Unhappy man that I am," he cries; "who will deliver me from this law of sin living within me?"

"Thanks be to God," he says, "for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed [us] from the law of sin and death."  God has placed within us a new law that overcomes the "second thermodynamic law "-- the universal principle of entropy, or decay in nature.  Thanks to the Spirit poured out in us, while our bodies continue to decay, our spirit continues to move "from glory to glory" as we allow the Spirit of God to cleanse us from sin and to make us more and more like God.

"You shall be as gods," tempted Satan; how little he knew that he was saying exactly what God had planned from the beginning.  We shall be as God, after all.

What Can We Claim as our Own?

"What we do for God is interesting, but what God does for us---

that's the whole story"

When I went to confession in Medjugore, that's what the priest said to me, and I have never forgotten it.  God is so good that He supports us in our great weaknesses.  Instead of saying, "Buck up, little cowboy, and be a man" (in the spiritual sense), He stoops down to our level and breathes into us His own strength and courage, of which we have none. 

When He sees how weak we are, He is moved with compassion and runs to help us, as does a mother when a toddler falls.  St. Paul says, "There is nothing we have not received, and that through no merits of our own, but through Jesus Christ."  So then how can we be "proud" of what we have achieved?  He is the beginning and the end of all our goodness, or all our strength.  There is nothing we can claim except our helplessness (Jer. 6:6-9).

Therese of Liseux said that she did not have the strength to climb the "rough stairway of sanctity," but that the good Jesus, seeing this child attempting to lift a foot toward the first step, graciously descended to carry her up.

Once, in prayer, I saw myself attempting to climb the last section of a mountain and reach the top.  Only the slope was extremely steep, and I kept slipping over and over on the loose rocks.  Suddenly, I was standing beside Jesus before the Father, who was saying to me, "Well done, good and faithful servant!"  "But I didn't..." I started to protest, when I glanced over at Jesus at my side. 

"Shhhh," He said, putting a finger to His smiling lips, with a twinkle in His eye. 

The Company of Saints

We walk in the company of saints.  With those who love God, who are taught by the Spirit, there is no distance of time or culture or language.  Our hearts resonate with eternal truth and friendship/understanding.  The strength of one is the strength of all, for we are of one family in one Spirit.  This is a mystery that cannot be grasped except by those who experience the communion of saints. 

St. Paul said that we all drink from the same rock, that is Christ, who unites us.  We share in the same Spirit, His Spirit, who has overcome in His own body all divisions and hostilities.  He has given us fellowship with God the Father and with one another.  If there are divisions among us, they belong to the flesh, not to the spirit (see Gal. 5).

St. Therese of Liseaux said that after her death, she would let fall from heaven a shower of roses.  Look for them.

Spiritual Maturity

Paul said, "We speak words of wisdom to those who are [spiritually] mature," and "the foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom of men."

God works from within to make us spiritually mature and wise according to His own nature, and not according to the wisdom of the world.  We cannot force wisdom but must allow it to gradually unfold within us --the Spirit teaches us all things as we are able to grasp them.  And we ourselves can neither program nor plan how the Spirit will work in ourselves or in others.  We must only allow Him free access and free reign to do whatever He wills in us.  To that end, we remain in prayer in order to know the mind of Christ and the direction of the Spirit within us.

"Let me teach you," says the Lord; "let me guide you with Mine eye....be not senseless like the horse or the mule; with bit and bridle their temper is curbed, else they will not come to you."

A child guided by the parent's eye does not need "bit and bridle" to be controlled; one look is sufficient because the child loves and wants to please the parent.  It is only the headstrong and self-willed child who wants to do what he wants to do, without regard for the parent's wisdom. 

So, too, if we walk with God and let Him guide us with His eye, we have wisdom and spiritual maturity.  Isaiah 30:20 says this:

No longer will your Teacher hide himself,

but with your own eyes you shall see your Teacher,

While from behind, a voice shall sound in your ears:

"This is the way; walk in it,"

when you would turn to the right or to the left.

In Jer. 31:33, God describes a new covenant that He will make with the house of Israel, where "no longer every man will teach his neighbor how to know the Lord," but "they will all know me, from the greatest to the least," because He Himself will write His law (instruction, in the Hebrew) in their hearts.

So spiritual maturity means moving along the continuum from external observance of the law from fear to listening to the deep, still voice of the Lord teaching us from within our hearts, being guided by His "eye."

Wisdom 2

Wisdom, the Gift from God, is knowing what to do with what we know.  We may all hear and see the same information, but use it in hundreds of different ways.  Some do nothing with what they know; artists combine new knowledge or experience with what has gone before and come up with a "new creation."

The truth of God is at first beyond experience, but Jesus says, "If anyone wants to know if my words are true, let him do what I say, and he will find out if the word is true."  We think we "see," and understand, but we do not actually experience the truth until we decide to walk in it.  We trust Jesus enough to "try it out," and then we begin to "know" what is true and what is not.

This is why "we submit every thought to Christ Jesus," in the words of St. Paul, so that we may be brought to the truth that is deeper and more sure than our eyes can perceive.  If we trust that the Spirit of God will lead us into all truth, then we trust less in the information acquired by our eyes and our experience.  Rather, we listen and await the truth brought to us by the One living inside us.  We see the world around us, but our reality lies within us. 

What happened in reality was that Lazarus died and was buried for three days.  But Jesus brought to the scene a much greater reality---that those who believed in/ trusted Him would not die but live.

The Curse of Cain

After murdering his brother, Cain cried out, "My punishment is more than I can bear:  Today, you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from Your Presence.  I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and everyone who finds me will want to kill me."

Cain's curse, which he himself recognized, was a complete reverse of the original harmony, or balance, created by God--a deep connection between God and mankind, between man and the earth, and between man and woman/other men.

When Adam walked with God in friendship, the earth produced abundance in accord with the blessing of God, and when Adam saw Eve, he exclaimed, "This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh..."  There was a deep-down everlasting freshness between man and the earth, and between man and woman.

With Adam's alienation from God came also alienation from the abundance of the earth (now, thorns and thistles will grow along with the fruit of the land) and alienation from Eve---the woman you gave me enticed me to sin. (Now it's God's fault.) 

By the time of the second generation, the alienation has been passed on and increased: man against God, the land against man, and man against his brother.  That is the problem with sin; what is "tolerable" in one generation increases to the point of intolerable in succeeding generations.  How does one stop the process?

In Christ Jesus, the curse is nailed forever to the cross and destroyed:  alienation against God is patently forever forgiven; alienation of man against his brother is destroyed---Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do; and the thorns on the head of the Savior are taken with Him to the grave.  The curse of Cain is reversed forever.

The prophecy of Isaiah 55 says this:

Yes, in joy you shall depart,

in peace you shall be brought back;

Mountains and hills shall break out in song before you,

and all the trees of the countryside shall clap their hands.

In place of the thornbush, the cypress shall grow,

instead of nettles, the myrtle.

This shall be to the Lord's renown,

an everlasting imperishable sign.

When the "second Adam" was taken from the ground, a "new race" of people began again.  Mankind's inherited alienation from God is replaced with the continual indwelling Presence of His Spirit.  Alienation from the land is replaced with overflowing abundance, and, according to Paul, the Christ has destroyed in His own body "the dividing wall of hostility....  No longer Jew and Gentile; no longer male and female, no longer servant and master---but all are one in Christ Jesus."

He has reversed the inherited curse of alienation.  This is indeed "Good News!"

On formulas and windmills

One thing I've learned along the way is that there are no "formulas" in the spiritual life---there are only uniform results or effects of the Spirit Who moves where He wills and does what He chooses"

You do not know where the wind comes from nor where it goes; so it is with the Spirit of God (Jesus to Nicodemus--John 3).

None of us "understand" (to control or manipulate) the movement of the Holy Spirit--He enters by wisdom into dark corners with His great illumination.  We can only ask and seek and await His sudden appearance.  Once we experience a flash, or movement, of the Spirit, like Peter at the Transfiguration of Jesus, we immediately want to build a "tent" where we can capture and continue to live in the indwelling Presence of God.  The "tent" is our "formula" for "making it happen" again, or to keep the Presence with us forever. 

But the Spirit of God does not dwell in tents constructed by human hands.  He goes where He wills.  As a community, we can continue coming together in prayer, seeking God's direction for all of us, being open to the move of the Spirit among us---but it is more like a windmill harnessing the movement of the wind for energy than a "tent" or formula that tries to contain and control the Spirit.

But God is faithful to those who await Him; He completes the work He begins and does not leave or abandon those who trust Him.  Once we begin to trust and submit to the work of the Holy Spirit in us, once we begin to welcome His action in our lives, we do see uniform results---purifying, cleansing, illuminating, teaching, and revealing truth.  We cannot predict exactly how the Spirit will accomplish His work in us, but we can learn to recognize the infallible signs of His presence in any group or individual ---see Galations 5:22.

If there is any "formula" at all, it is just openness, trust, and prayer, knowing that we ourselves do not know "how to make it happen," but knowing that God cannot fail to do the work He has always done in those who hope in Him---Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. 

Our best "formula" is the beatitudes --- the new Torah, one that cannot be codified or canonized.

An explosive force

"Not by power nor by might, but by my Spirit," says the Lord Almighty (Zech.4:6).

Everything in the spiritual life comes to us by and through the Holy Spirit, not by and through our own efforts or goodness.  If we truly knew and believed this, we would stop "trying" and simply ask the Holy Spirit to enter and to do the will of God in us and for us.

There is a simple prayer that anyone can say to discover the power (dunamis, in the Greek) of the Holy Spirit:

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful,

and kindle in them the fire of your love;

Send forth your Spirit, and we shall be created,

and You shall renew the face of the earth.

Jesus told the Apostles when He was ready to ascend to heaven, "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised....for in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit....You will receive power/ dunamis when the Holy Spirit comes on you..."

In the Greek, the word for "power" is dunamis, the same root of our English "dynamite."  Strong's Concordance gives the following meanings for dunamis:

force--specifically, miraculous power-- ability, abundance, meaning, might, mighty deed, mightly, worker of miracle(s), power, strength, violence, mighty (wonderful) work.

Knowing the meaning of this word in the Greek gives a deeper understanding to Jesus' words, "The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away."  On the one hand, He could have meant that evil is stealing the kingdom of heaven away from mankind; on the other, He might have meant that those who have the dunamis/power/strength of the Holy Spirit are taking the kingdom by "force."

In any case, the image of dynamite is a good one---the power of the Holy Spirit can blow away mountains, as in Zechariah.  It can soften hard hearts, strengthen weak hearts and hands, and empower people to tear down and to build up kingdoms.

If all of us would take seriously in our own lives the last words of Jesus to the Apostles:

Do not [begin your work] until you have received the power of the Holy Spirit,

we would discover the truth behind the words of Zechariah:  "not by power, not by strength, but by My Spirit," says the Lord of hosts.  Maybe the only way we can have the courage to ask for the "dynamite" Jesus referred to is to come to the end of our own strength and to experience the frustration of trying to do things in our own power.

The Journey of Faith

Come to a land I will show you...

The spiritual life is often described as a journey.  Each day, each new circumstance is the source of new and deeper revelation.  In the spiritual life, we "progress" from a place of "already knowing" to a sense of childlike wonder and awe, a willingness to be taught anew each day and an expectation of continual discovery. 

At the end of his life, Thomas Aquinas, the great intellect and author of the Summa Theologica, said, "Everything I have written is as straw," compared to the revelation he received before his death. 

Like Thomas, we must be willing to lay down what we knew before in the light of new realities.  Jesus told Mary Magdalene, "Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet gone to the Father."  We cannot "cling to" the revelation of yesterday, because today He is once again about to take us further on our journey---to a place we could not have reached yesterday, until we had come to the place where we stand today.

Faith is never set in stone; it is a living, loving relationship that is ever new.

Fire and Ice

I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and what would I but that it be kindled?

We must ultimately realize that doctrine and theology does not save---the words are only an attempt to analyze and explain our experience of God's love, shown to us, incarnated, in the life of His Son.

It is fire from the passionate heart of Jesus that sweeps across the world.  The tongues of fire at Pentecost distributed to his followers a part of his burning love for the world.  Wounded by man's lack of trust, crowned with the thorns of the field, scourged with whips of fear and hatred, nailed helplessly to a cross, He still loved the sons of mankind.  That is the love He shares with those who love Him.

He sets us on fire with His passionate love.  He wants to be with us; He wants to know and partake in each thought and feeling of our lives.  He is hurt by our neglect and indifference; He still groans under the weight of our hatred for one another:  "What you do to the least of mine, that you do unto me."

We must catch the fire from the heart of Christ toward the wounded, the broken, the lonely, the scared, the forgotten, the downtrodden and oppressed.  We must allow it to burn in us until we can no longer contain it.