The Missing Middle

You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more 'drive,' or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or 'creativity.' In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful. (C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, "Men Without Chests")

A certain ruler asked him,

“Good teacher, 

what must I do 

to inherit eternal life?”

 

 “Why do you call me good?” 

Jesus answered. 

“No one is good—

except God alone." (Luke 18:18-19)

 

I have my reasons

I have my drives

But I have no purpose

Just a will to survive

 

I thought happiness

would be enough, you see

but my world collapsed

to a ruined heap

 

Then happiness fled

like a shadow

the fleeting shadow

it had always been

 

Then I knew my purpose

with its reasonable reasons

could not stand on its own

No shadow can

 

I found the hole

 in my middle

where a heart

should be

 

I found an absence

where such shadows are born

illusions of happy

from unliveable dreams

Then, like turning 

over a rock

I saw something

underneath

The darkness

was not the bottomless

pit it promised

but a door

A door promises

something more

a way through

the darkness

but not around

and happiness

would not let

me enter

Only surrender could

make me give it up

for a time

so I could hear

gentle knocking

at the back of my mind

another reason

another will to find

I knew I'd rather

be miserable

in your arms

than chasing dreams

that I own

I thought that

being held close

kept me tied down

but it was living

with such fear of pain

that held me

transfixed and immobile.

In your hand

I am broken open

not apart

I am broken in

not crushed flat

 

In your hand

pain has its place

in this heart you hold

so the head sees rightly

the feet stand firmly

where joy and peace abide

and where both pain and happiness

are welcome guests

 

The Greatest Gift

Even so, while [Jesus] saw the possibilities of seed-sowing, sometimes He refused to  do it: "Great multitudes came to hear and to be healed of their infirmities. But He withdrew Himself in the desert and prayed. He refused to do good. He refused to do good in order to do a higher good - to Himself. His greatest gift was Himself, so He must keep that self at its highest. Hence the prayer hour was kept intact in order to keep a higher contact. In this He was realistic. (Is the Kingdom of God Realism? E. Stanley Jones, 24)

 Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? (Jesus, Mark 8:37)

Such a simple switch,

A mere moving of words,

But when the ideas are planted

Their roots run deep,

Not easily pulled out.

Here it is:

"I must feel better

before I can get better.

The sickness of our world

Stands on this idea,

On these simple words.

And so, all the frantic

Activity and all the pills

And foods and diets and

exercises and bodily contortions 

and all the life-sucking

relationships and habits

Done in secret,

Done because I must feel better

First.

We are all sick

With it all,

So hard to see health

When the pain is so great.

It screams, "Just make it stop!

I just want to feel better!"

We are all sick

Which is why the first

step is not feeling better

but getting better.

Yes, I must get better

before I can feel better.

Recovery and repentance

First.

This is not about being sorry

and certainly not about

being ashamed.

Such feelings only exacerbate

the pain and throw us

back into the world's

sickness and corruption.

No, this is about

getting better.

Resting, reading,

Eating, smiling,

Seeking the comfort and help

from those who love,

God most of all.

This is about

Taking his medicines

And staying away from

sickness and sin and secrets

Until our immunity

Recovers and grows.

Goodness must do its work

In us

Before goodness can do its work

Out of us.

The pain must be killed 

And will be killed

Not by numbing addictions

or consuming relationships,

But by recovering strength,

Grace from God

Taken every day

In every way

Is the only way

To make it through today.

You will not find many

Friends in this way,

But they will show up

When you step out of the crowd

And really touch His cloak

Or raise your voice

Above the din:

"Son of David, have mercy

on me!"

 The world is a sick place,

but not really a place for the sick.

It is only a place for the dying,

not the recovering.

Step away, step out,

Do not be squeezed into its mold

Of feeling better

Before you can get better.

Join the sick

who seek true health.

That is why Jesus

came: recovery.

His message is clear:

"You must get better

Before you can feel better.

The kingdom of God

Is near to you.

Reach out

And live."

Thoughts on Sabbath: Contentment

One of the greatest achievements in life is being content to be God's. This is the unburdened story everyone longs for. It cannot be grabbed or bought, but simply hoped and trusted.

Bringing Together Theology and Spiritual Formation

A goal of [the early Church’s method for interpretation of the Bible]—and one can debate about how successful these efforts were—was to read a passage of Scripture not merely in isolation, but against the backdrop of the entire biblical drama, from Genesis to Revelation. . . . Furthermore, there was a strong belief that not only did the entire story of Scripture hang together, but each part also had abiding relevance for the contemporary Church, bringing edification, challenge, and direction. . . .Christian practices were always seen as growing out of these readings, since the biblical horizon, rather than their own, was meant to shape their lives and expectations. (Chan, A Spiritual Theology)

These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! (1 Cor. 10:11-12)

The connection between theology and formation is tied to how we read the Bible. The ancient method of having several readings of the same passage shows historically the Christian approach to the Bible needs to be holistic as well as focused, and livable as well as understandable. The de-emphasis and even loss of the holistic and livable way of interpreting the Bible has, in turn, threatened to make Christian spiritual formation focused to the point of being compartmentalized and easily understood without being part of normal human life.
In an effort to keep the Bible out of the hands of critics and scientists, Christians adopt the idea that human life is divided into pieces. The “spiritual life” is higher and greater and beyond normal mortal existence. While there may be some truth to this, what has happened is that the “spiritual life” is now somehow unrelated to normal life. We have “protected” the spiritual life, but made it less accessible and even irrelevant to normal human existence. Our faith is no longer intimately tied to our theology and our knowledge, but is just something we sincerely believe and treasure. We have held it above the rabble and noise and danger of politics, biblical criticism, and scientific analysis, but have succeeded in taking it away from the people and the areas that need to wrestle and question it to gain greater understanding. Spiritual formation has to fight from being held above and beyond the normal human life of politics, scientism, and biblical criticism by entering into theological discussion that will inform people living normal human lives among these entities.
  Since theology and spiritual formation are inescapably linked, theology must be brought into normal human existence and not held above and beyond it. One way to bring theology “down” is to read the Bible holistically. We must embrace the “storied” nature of the Bible, looking for narrative and its key feature as we seek to read it. In the midst of the story, we must learn how to drink deeply in elements of story like poetry, metaphor, plot, characterization, protagonists/antagonists, and context. These are more than a packaging to a “spiritual” truth. We must realize that within the telling of the story there is as much truth as in the principles that support and drive the story. In the gospels, for instance, it is not only the content and accomplishments of Jesus’s ministry that need our attention, but the manner and way that he went about ministering to people.

     Another way to bring theology into human life is to read the Bible as if the people in it were people like you or me. They must not be isolated by the historical understanding or their context, but must be translated by that historical understanding. Moses, Paul, Mary, and even Jesus to some degree must become the kind of people that we can relate to and grow into. What they thought and felt must become possible for us to think and feel. What they did must become something we can do. How they related to each other must become how we can relate. This involves careful analysis and increased understanding of their life and times, but also involves a great deal of imagination and pondering to really see them as people like us and not just mythical characters locked up in a book. Lectio divina and Ignatian meditation on the Bible can be effective methods to open up the imagination and make the Bible livable as well as understandable. We learn to really see the people we read about and really think and feel what they thought and felt through a Spirit-guided openness to the text that brings together analysis of the text and synthesis into normal human life.

From Sabbath to Hope

In such places [as the woodlands], on the best of these sabbath days, I experience a lovely freedom from expectations - other people's and also my own. I go free from the tasks and intentions of my workdays, and so my mind becomes hospitable to unintended thoughts: to what I am very willing to call inspiration. The poems come incidentally or they do not come at all. If the Muse leaves me alone, I leave her alone. To be quiet, even wordless, in a good place is a better gift than poetry (Wendell Berry, This Day, Introduction).

 A good relationship has unfilled, unplanned time, when expectations are allowed to rest. In a good relationship with our Sabbath-giver, expectation draws us forward into life. When it is life-giving, it is hope. When it is death-dealing, it is dread. Some time must be spent out of the sun and rain of different expectations in this shelter-rest of sabbath.

Only in this do we find freedom. We find we are not tethered to our expectations, but we can ride them for a while, letting them bear us into new and better places. Expectation can only become hope when we can rest. Otherwise we find that we are pushed instead of invited, tied down instead of free. Dread is the result.

In the midst of rest, we find we have unintended thoughts. We will find out whether we have been tending to our thoughts or letting them grow into distorted and grotesque weeds of the mind. Rest allows us time to tend our thoughts and dig up the weeds that are intruders in the ecology of our life with God. Then rest can become a garden of delight, where the unintended thoughts are beautiful and surprising, helpful and holy. What grows in the mind rested on God is hope, the wordless silence allowing the relationship we have with God to speak and create anew.

Great Grace and Little Gifts

From a reading of the chapter on John Bunyan, "Exercising the Gift," in Devotional Classics, I thought I might put a couple of quotations and thoughts. First, I just wanted to put a Dallas definitions:

• Manifestations of Divine Power: you will see accomplished by your words and actions what cannot possibly be explained by your efforts and talents.

Also here are some ways which Bunyan discovered and learned his spiritual gift:

• He found out how he had been helpful to others. "Some of the saints had good judgment and holiness of life seemed to feel that God had counted me worthy to understand the blessed Word and that he had given me some measure of ability to express helpfully to others what I saw in it. So they asked me to speak a word of exhortation to them in one of the meetings."
• He tested his gift, exercising it to see if others received spiritual benefit. "I began to see that the Holy Spirit never intended that people who had gifts and abilities should bury them in the earth, he commanded and stirred up such people to exercise of their gift and sent out to work those who were able and ready."
• He was aware of how the Tempter would discourage him.  "In this work, I had different temptations. Sometimes I would suffer from discouragement, fearing that I would not be of anv help to anyone and that I would not even be able to speak to the people. At such times I have had a strange faintness seize me. At other times I have been assaulted by thoughts of blasphemy before the congregation."
• He noticed and rejoiced in his gift. "When I saw that they were beginning to live differently, and that their hearts were eagerly pressing after the knowledge of Christ and rejoicing that God sent me to them, then I began to conclude that God had blessed his work through me. And so I rejoiced. Yes, the tears of those whom God had awakened by my preaching were my solace and my encouragement."

Remember to pray for other peoples's gifts and try to encourage each other by noticing their gifts at work. "Gifts are desirable, but great grace and small gifts are better than great gifts and no grace. . . . Blessed is everyone to whom the Lord gives true grace, for that is a certain forerunner of glory."

Be Present to God

All we need to know is how to recognize his will in the present moment. . . .  The divine will is the wholeness, the good and the true in all things.  -Jean-Pierre de Caussade

"Mindfulness" or "being present" has no value in itself.  What matters is what I am mindful of or what I am present to.  The object of my mind's occupation will shape my mind - its content and it contentment.

Being present to God includes a number of aspects.

• It is letting go.  It is surrender.  I find that when I am before God, I am am freed of  my resistance to him and his will.  Resistance to God is distance from God.
• It is embracing his presence.  It is intimacy.  I find when I am freed from resistance to God, love for God flows into my heart and mind.  Distance from God is distance from his will.
• It is following Jesus.  Obedience to Jesus is abundant life.  I find when I am seeking to obey him, I become most aware of what is right in front of me that needs to be done.  His will is first and foremost in the present moment.
• It is in this moment in the details of life.  I can only find his presence, his will, and my surrender in the moments that I live, not outside them.  Whatever is removed from the present moment only has value in its service to the present moment with God.
• All these aspects and others address the same thing in the same moment.  In this way, surrender is God's will which is intimacy with God which is obedience to Jesus which is being present to God.  They do not occur separately, although I may be more conscious of one that another at any given moment.

In this way, I am discovering a unity of many different aspects in being with God in the present moment.  This unity helps me to avoid pretending to be present to him.

Be.  Here.  Now.  With God.