Reflecting on the protests in the United States after the murder of George Floyd, writer Danté Stewart shares how, when watching video footage of protest marchers, he witnessed joy and hope amid suffering:
I saw scores of young folk, fists held high in the sky, their lungs exhausted from all the screaming they did. I saw scores of old folk, some with canes, some in wheelchairs pushed by another, their lungs exhausted from all the screaming they did. I saw scores of gay folk and straight folk, Muslim folk and Christian folk, American folk and global folk, rich folk and poor folk, all lungs exhausted from all the screaming they did….
I looked again at … the videos of millions marching in solidarity, and I saw so much more. I saw joy. I saw intimacy. I saw bodies let loose. I saw tears of strength in the face of danger. I saw heaven smiling as love was cast on Earth’s threshing floor. I saw so much joy. It was not simply resistance; it was power. I saw the good news. I saw a better story than the story we were offered. The beauty of this moment showed that suffering is not the total image. This is a moment of faith, flying one would say. I see an unexpected glimpse into public bravery, the willingness to rise again. There is something about these images that calls out to me to sit still; to ponder, to anticipate life beyond brutality.
This joy is love dancing with reality, humanity. I saw the complex and complicated relationship with hope, a tragic but necessary one if it is to become what it can become— beautiful. [1]
Essayist Ross Gay connects sorrow, joy, and solidarity:
What happens if joy is not separate from pain?What if joy and pain are fundamentally tangled up with one another? Or even more to the point, what if joy is not only entangled with pain, or suffering, or sorrow, but is also what emerges from how we care for each other through those things? What if joy, instead of a refuge or relief from heartbreak, is what effloresces from us as we help each other carry our heartbreaks?…
My hunch is that joy is an ember for or precursor to wild and unpredictable and transgressive and unboundaried solidarity. And that that solidarity might incite further joy. Which might incite further solidarity. And on and on. My hunch is that joy, emerging from our common sorrow—which does not necessarily mean we have the same sorrows, but that we, in common, sorrow—might draw us together. It might depolarize us and de-atomize us enough that we can consider what, in common, we love. And though attending to what we hate in common is too often all the rage (and it happens also to be very big business), noticing what we love in common, and studying that, might help us survive. It’s why I think of joy, which gets us to love, as being a practice of survival. [2]
I speak to you continually. My nature is to communicate, though not always in words. I fling glorious sunsets across the sky, day after day after day. I speak in the faces and voices of loved ones. I caress you with a gentle breeze that refreshes and delights you. I speak softly in the depths of your spirit, where I have taken up residence. You can find Me in each moment, when you have eyes that see and ears that hear. Ask My Spirit to sharpen your spiritual eyesight and hearing. I rejoice each time you discover My Presence. Practice looking and listening for Me during quiet intervals. Gradually you will find Me in more and more of your moments. You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me above all else.
RELATED SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 8:1-4 (NLT) 1 O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth! Your glory is higher than the heavens. 2 You have taught children and infants to tell of your strength, silencing your enemies and all who oppose you. 3 When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers— the moon and the stars you set in place— 4 what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?
Psalm 19:1-2 (NLT) 1 The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. 2 Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known.
1 Corinthians 6:19 (NLT) 19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself…
Jeremiah 29:13 (NLT) 13 If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.
Additional insight regarding Jeremiah 29:13: According to God’s wise plan, his people were to have a future and a hope; consequently, they could call upon him with confidence. Although the exiles were in a difficult place and time, they need not despair because they had God’s presence, the privilege of prayer, and God’s grace. If we seek him wholeheartedly, he will be found. Neither a strange land, sorrow, persecution, nor physical problems can break our fellowship with God.
Mystic and theologian Howard Thurman (1899–1981) writes of faith as the most secure foundation for joy:
There are some who are dependent upon the mood of others for their happiness…. There are some whose joy is dependent upon circumstances…. There are some who must win their joy against high odds, squeeze it out of the arid ground of their living or wrest it from the stubborn sadness of circumstance…. There are still others who find their joy deep in the heart of their religious experience. It is not related to, dependent upon, or derived from, any circumstances or conditions in the midst of which they must live. It is a joy independent of all vicissitudes. There is a strange quality of awe in their joy, that is but a reflection of the deep calm water of the spirit out of which it comes. It is primarily a discovery of the soul, when God makes known [God’s] presence, where there are no words, no outward song, only the Divine Movement. This is the joy that the world cannot give. This is the joy that keeps watch against all the emissaries of sadness of mind and weariness of soul. This is the joy that comforts and is the companion, as we walk even through the valley of the shadow of death. [1]
Catholic priest Henri Nouwen (1932–1996) writes of the joy we experience through the love of God:
Joy is a gift that is there even when we are sorrowful, even when we are in pain, even when things are difficult in our lives. The joy that Jesus offers is a joy that exists in very, very difficult situations….
What we have to start sensing is that in the spiritual life, joy is embracing sorrow and happiness, pain and pleasure. It is deeper, fuller. It is more. It is something that remains with us. It is something of God that is very profound. It is something we can experience even when we are in touch with very painful things in our lives. If there is anything the church wants to teach us it is that the joy of God can be with us always—in moments of sickness, in moments of health, in moments of success, in moments of failure, in moments of birth, in moments of death. The joy of God is never going to leave us….
When we can face our own painful situation, we will discover that hidden in the pain is the treasure—a joy that is there for us to experience here and now. It is very important that we get in touch with this. That is what the spiritual life—the life with God—is about. It is being in touch with that love that becomes joy in us…. Underneath all our fluctuations is a deep solid divine stream that is called joy.
Cognitive Dissonance (Part 2) June 18, 2025
Yesterday, we looked at how the religious leaders tried to reconcile their strongly held beliefs with compelling evidence that contradicted those beliefs. The Pharisees believed that blindness was a punishment from God for sin and that anyone who violated the Sabbath by working was both a lawbreaker and a sinner and therefore not from God. And yet, in John 9, they are confronted by two troubling facts. First, a man born blind had his sight miraculously restored by Jesus, and Jesus performed this healing on a Sabbath by mixing his saliva with dirt and wiping the mud on the man’s eyes—a clear and flagrant violation of their interpretation of the law forbidding any work on the Sabbath. The conflict between these facts and their beliefs is what psychologists call “cognitive dissonance.”
To resolve this cognitive dissonance, the religious leaders had two options. They could either rethink their strongly held beliefs or they could reject the evidence that challenged them. Valuing their certainty more than the truth, the Pharisees chose the latter option. Consistent with what research has found about how most people respond to cognitive dissonance, first, the religious leaders denied the evidence as fake. They said the man wasn’t actually born blind. The whole thing was “fake news.” When that didn’t work, they tried to discredit the messenger. Rather than dealing with the evidence, they simply called the blind man an uneducated sinner who couldn’t be trusted.
Researchers have found that when denying the evidence and discrediting the messenger isn’t enough, we will try one last desperate measure to avoid cognitive dissonance—distance. In John 9, the Pharisees do this by banishing the blind man. Verse 34 says, “They threw him out.” The language here is more technical. It means the man was excommunicated from the synagogue community. Not only was he barred from joining others for worship, but the other Jews were forbidden from engaging with him. He was to be considered an outcast, a heretic, and no better than an unbeliever.
The religious leaders did not take this drastic action because the man had done anything illegal or sinful, but simply because he represented a threat to the certainty of their theology and authority. As long as he was part of the synagogue and shared his story of behind healed by Jesus on the Sabbath, he would cause others to question the correctness of the leaders’ teaching and interpretation of Scripture. The blind man was what psychologists call a “carrier of dissonance.” And if his story could not be denied, and if his credibility could not be destroyed, then the only option left for the religious leaders was to put as much distance between themselves and the source of the dissonance. Sociologist Peter Berger describes it this way:
“People try to avoid cognitive dissonance. The only way to avoid it, however, is to avoid the ‘carriers’ of dissonance, both non-human and human. Thus individuals who hold political position X will avoid reading newspaper articles that tend to support position Y. By the same token, these individuals will avoid conversations with Y-ists but seek out X-ists as conversation partners. When people have a strong personal investment in a particular definition of reality—such as strongly held religious or political positions, or convictions that relate directly to their way of life…, they will go to great lengths to set up both behavioral and cognitive defenses.”
Today, we see this happening on both the individual and national levels. Increasingly, people will switch what groups they belong to, what church they attend, and even where they live, in order to be surrounded by like-minded people and avoid anyone who might challenge their beliefs. It’s why over the last 20 years red states have become redder and blue states have become bluer. Sociologists call it the “Big Sort.” Today, it’s increasingly rare to live near, work with, or worship beside someone who votes or thinks differently than you do. This polarization is driven by the same insecurity that motivated the Pharisees—our deep desire to avoid the discomfort of cognitive dissonance. We don’t want to have the certainty of our beliefs challenged in any way, and if we can’t banish those we disagree with we will banish ourselves into a safe enclave of news and neighbors that will affirm what we want to hear even if it’s not what we need to hear.
[Note: I’ve decided to keep all of John 9 as the Scripture reading as we examine this chapter. I encourage you to read or listen to the full chapter every day and internalize the story. By meditating on its themes, my hope is that you will come to see yourself in some of the characters, and ultimately be drawn closer to Christ.]
Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind
John 9
1As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
8 His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some claimed that he was.
Others said, “No, he only looks like him.”
But he himself insisted, “I am the man.”
10 “How then were your eyes opened?” they asked.
11 He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.”
12 “Where is this man?” they asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said.
The Pharisees Investigate the Healing
13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. 14 Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. 15 Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.”
16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”
But others asked, “How can a sinner perform such signs?”So they were divided.
17 Then they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.”
The man replied, “He is a prophet.”
18 They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents.19 “Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?”
20 “We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. 21 But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.” 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. 23 That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
24 A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God by telling the truth,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.”
25 He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”
26 Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
27 He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?”
28 Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! 29 We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.”
30 The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. 32 Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
34 To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth;how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.
Spiritual Blindness
35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
36 “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”
37 Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”
38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.
39 Jesus said,[a] “For judgment I have come into this world,so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”
41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.
Mystic and theologian Howard Thurman (1899–1981) writes of faith as the most secure foundation for joy:
There are some who are dependent upon the mood of others for their happiness…. There are some whose joy is dependent upon circumstances…. There are some who must win their joy against high odds, squeeze it out of the arid ground of their living or wrest it from the stubborn sadness of circumstance…. There are still others who find their joy deep in the heart of their religious experience. It is not related to, dependent upon, or derived from, any circumstances or conditions in the midst of which they must live. It is a joy independent of all vicissitudes. There is a strange quality of awe in their joy, that is but a reflection of the deep calm water of the spirit out of which it comes. It is primarily a discovery of the soul, when God makes known [God’s] presence, where there are no words, no outward song, only the Divine Movement. This is the joy that the world cannot give. This is the joy that keeps watch against all the emissaries of sadness of mind and weariness of soul. This is the joy that comforts and is the companion, as we walk even through the valley of the shadow of death. [1]
Catholic priest Henri Nouwen (1932–1996) writes of the joy we experience through the love of God:
Joy is a gift that is there even when we are sorrowful, even when we are in pain, even when things are difficult in our lives. The joy that Jesus offers is a joy that exists in very, very difficult situations….
What we have to start sensing is that in the spiritual life, joy is embracing sorrow and happiness, pain and pleasure. It is deeper, fuller. It is more. It is something that remains with us. It is something of God that is very profound. It is something we can experience even when we are in touch with very painful things in our lives. If there is anything the church wants to teach us it is that the joy of God can be with us always—in moments of sickness, in moments of health, in moments of success, in moments of failure, in moments of birth, in moments of death. The joy of God is never going to leave us….
When we can face our own painful situation, we will discover that hidden in the pain is the treasure—a joy that is there for us to experience here and now. It is very important that we get in touch with this. That is what the spiritual life—the life with God—is about. It is being in touch with that love that becomes joy in us…. Underneath all our fluctuations is a deep solid divine stream that is called joy. [2]
Cognitive Dissonance (Part 2) Yesterday, we looked at how the religious leaders tried to reconcile their strongly held beliefs with compelling evidence that contradicted those beliefs. The Pharisees believed that blindness was a punishment from God for sin and that anyone who violated the Sabbath by working was both a lawbreaker and a sinner and therefore not from God. And yet, in John 9, they are confronted by two troubling facts. First, a man born blind had his sight miraculously restored by Jesus, and Jesus performed this healing on a Sabbath by mixing his saliva with dirt and wiping the mud on the man’s eyes—a clear and flagrant violation of their interpretation of the law forbidding any work on the Sabbath. The conflict between these facts and their beliefs is what psychologists call “cognitive dissonance.”To resolve this cognitive dissonance, the religious leaders had two options. They could either rethink their strongly held beliefs or they could reject the evidence that challenged them.Valuing their certainty more than the truth, the Pharisees chose the latter option. Consistent with what research has found about how most people respond to cognitive dissonance, first, the religious leaders denied the evidence as fake. They said the man wasn’t actually born blind. The whole thing was “fake news.” When that didn’t work, they tried to discredit the messenger. Rather than dealing with the evidence, they simply called the blind man an uneducated sinner who couldn’t be trusted.Researchers have found that when denying the evidence and discrediting the messenger isn’t enough, we will try one last desperate measure to avoid cognitive dissonance—distance. In John 9, the Pharisees do this by banishing the blind man. Verse 34 says, “They threw him out.” The language here is more technical. It means the man was excommunicated from the synagogue community. Not only was he barred from joining others for worship, but the other Jews were forbidden from engaging with him. He was to be considered an outcast, a heretic, and no better than an unbeliever.The religious leaders did not take this drastic action because the man had done anything illegal or sinful, but simply because he represented a threat to the certainty of their theology and authority. As long as he was part of the synagogue and shared his story of behind healed by Jesus on the Sabbath, he would cause others to question the correctness of the leaders’ teaching and interpretation of Scripture. The blind man was what psychologists call a “carrier of dissonance.” And if his story could not be denied, and if his credibility could not be destroyed, then the only option left for the religious leaders was to put as much distance between themselves and the source of the dissonance. Sociologist Peter Berger describes it this way:”People try to avoid cognitive dissonance. The only way to avoid it, however, is to avoid the ‘carriers’ of dissonance, both non-human and human. Thus individuals who hold political position X will avoid reading newspaper articles that tend to support position Y. By the same token, these individuals will avoid conversations with Y-ists but seek out X-ists as conversation partners. When people have a strong personal investment in a particular definition of reality—such as strongly held religious or political positions, or convictions that relate directly to their way of life…, they will go to great lengths to set up both behavioral and cognitive defenses.”Today, we see this happening on both the individual and national levels. Increasingly, people will switch what groups they belong to, what church they attend, and even where they live, in order to be surrounded by like-minded people and avoid anyone who might challenge their beliefs. It’s why over the last 20 years red states have become redder and blue states have become bluer. Sociologists call it the “Big Sort.” Today, it’s increasingly rare to live near, work with, or worship beside someone who votes or thinks differently than you do. This polarization is driven by the same insecurity that motivated the Pharisees—our deep desire to avoid the discomfort of cognitive dissonance. We don’t want to have the certainty of our beliefs challenged in any way, and if we can’t banish those we disagree with we will banish ourselves into a safe enclave of news and neighbors that will affirm what we want to hear even if it’s not what we need to hear.[Note: I’ve decided to keep all of John 9 as the Scripture reading as we examine this chapter. I encourage you to read or listen to the full chapter every day and internalize the story. By meditating on its themes, my hope is that you will come to see yourself in some of the characters, and ultimately be drawn closer to Christ.]
Weekly Prayer from St. Gertrude the Great (1256 – 1302)
Lord, in union with your love, unite my work with your great work, and perfect it. As a drop of water, poured into a river, is taken up into the activity of the river, so may my labor become part of your work. So, may those among whom I live and work be drawn into your love. Amen.
Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind
John 9
1As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. 2 “Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?”
3 “It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered. “This happened so the power of God could be seen in him. 4 We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us.[a] The night is coming, and then no one can work. 5 But while I am here in the world, I am the light of the world.”
6 Then he spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and spread the mud over the blind man’s eyes. 7 He told him, “Go wash yourself in the pool of Siloam” (Siloam means “sent”). So the man went and washed and came back seeing!
8 His neighbors and others who knew him as a blind beggar asked each other, “Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some said he was, and others said, “No, he just looks like him!”
But the beggar kept saying, “Yes, I am the same one!”
10 They asked, “Who healed you? What happened?”
11 He told them, “The man they call Jesus made mud and spread it over my eyes and told me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash yourself.’ So I went and washed, and now I can see!”
12 “Where is he now?” they asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
13 Then they took the man who had been blind to the Pharisees, 14 because it was on the Sabbath that Jesus had made the mud and healed him. 15 The Pharisees asked the man all about it. So he told them, “He put the mud over my eyes, and when I washed it away, I could see!”
16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man Jesus is not from God, for he is working on the Sabbath.” Others said, “But how could an ordinary sinner do such miraculous signs?” So there was a deep division of opinion among them.
17 Then the Pharisees again questioned the man who had been blind and demanded, “What’s your opinion about this man who healed you?”
The man replied, “I think he must be a prophet.”
18 The Jewish leaders still refused to believe the man had been blind and could now see, so they called in his parents.19 They asked them, “Is this your son? Was he born blind? If so, how can he now see?”
20 His parents replied, “We know this is our son and that he was born blind, 21 but we don’t know how he can see or who healed him. Ask him. He is old enough to speak for himself.” 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who had announced that anyone saying Jesus was the Messiah would be expelled from the synagogue. 23 That’s why they said, “He is old enough. Ask him.”
24 So for the second time they called in the man who had been blind and told him, “God should get the glory for this,[b] because we know this man Jesus is a sinner.”
25 “I don’t know whether he is a sinner,” the man replied. “But I know this: I was blind, and now I can see!”
26 “But what did he do?” they asked. “How did he heal you?”
27 “Look!” the man exclaimed. “I told you once. Didn’t you listen? Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?”
28 Then they cursed him and said, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses! 29 We know God spoke to Moses, but we don’t even know where this man comes from.”
30 “Why, that’s very strange!” the man replied. “He healed my eyes, and yet you don’t know where he comes from?31 We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but he is ready to hear those who worship him and do his will.32 Ever since the world began, no one has been able to open the eyes of someone born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he couldn’t have done it.”
34 “You were born a total sinner!” they answered. “Are you trying to teach us?” And they threw him out of the synagogue.
Spiritual Blindness
35 When Jesus heard what had happened, he found the man and asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?[c]”
36 The man answered, “Who is he, sir? I want to believe in him.”
37 “You have seen him,” Jesus said, “and he is speaking to you!”
38 “Yes, Lord, I believe!” the man said. And he worshiped Jesus.
39 Then Jesus told him,[d] “I entered this world to render judgment—to give sight to the blind and to show those who think they see[e] that they are blind.”
40 Some Pharisees who were standing nearby heard him and asked, “Are you saying we’re blind?”
41 “If you were blind, you wouldn’t be guilty,” Jesus replied. “But you remain guilty because you claim you can see.
In one of Dr. Barbara Holmes’ (1943–2024)final teachings for CAC’s Living School: Essentials of Engaged Contemplation, she focused on joy as a practice and presence:
Joy as embodied presence is an abiding awareness of the gift given to each and every one of us, no matter our circumstances in life. I want to begin talking about joy embodied from scriptural sources. In John 15:11, Jesus says, “These things I have spoken to you that my joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full.” In 1st Thessalonians 5:16–18, we read, “Let your joy be your continual feast. Make your life a prayer, and in the midst of everything, be always giving thanks, for this is God’s perfect plan for you in Jesus Christ.” In James 1:2–3, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”
Brothers and sisters, true joy is a limitless, life-defining, transformative reservoir waiting to be tapped. It requires only the utmost surrender and like love, it’s a choice to be made that ultimately transcends time. True joy is not circumstantial. It doesn’t require that things be going well. You can have joy during imprisonment as Nelson Mandela did, or while impoverished, as many do in Haiti. Joy is even available in war-torn parts of the globe today.
Make no mistake about it, there’s a real difference between happiness and joy. The sources of happiness are very fleeting. Buy something new and see how fleeting it is. That new car, that new house, they lose their luster in a mere few weeks. True joy is foundational. It’s a basis of God’s love for us, sealed with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Could there be any firmer foundation?
Holmes reveals how our egos keep us from experiencing true joy:
Finding your joy may also require that you dismantle the false construct that your life is about you. Now, it’s not our fault that we believe that the journey is all about us. From the moment we’re born, all eyes are on us. Attention is necessary to make certain that we’re breathing, that we have a safe passage through the womb, and adoring parents who continue that focus or not. Somehow, we begin to believe that everything is about our comfort, our future, our well-being, our pain. As I’m entering the latter phase of my life, I’m finally beginning to realize that the scaffolding of self that was erected from birth was a necessary but temporary support. It was a place I could hang my dreams and my visions, but it was never meant to be permanent. It’s only by faith and by our journey through a few dark nights of the soul do we relinquish the overwhelming chatter of ego, a feat that is all struggle and many setbacks.
Stavanger, Norway. (from Diana Butler Bass) June 14, 2025
Dear Cottage friends,
I’m writing to you from Norway. And this Sunday Musing has become a Sunday rumination. Because of everything.
Around the world, the news is bad. Very bad. Donald Trump has gone full authoritarian — and officials in his administration are talking about “liberating” California from their elected government and have sent military troops to occupy Los Angeles. From what I can gather, immigrant round-ups have escalated. As I write, Israel is attacking Iran. And we’re only hours away from Trump’s self-aggrandizing military birthday parade in Washington, DC. And “No Kings Day” rallies have barely begun in protest. We just heard of political assassinations in Minnesota. Everything is on a razor’s edge.
I’m not there. Instead, I’m staring out the window of my hotel and looking over the North Sea. My heart is heavy; my head hurts. I wonder what comes next, when I return home next week. Several people have texted notes like, “It is scary. Really scary.”
I wish I could tell you that everything will be alright. But I can’t. I don’t know that. I would, however, like to share a story with you.
Before arriving here, we spent two days in Amsterdam. And, of course, we visited the Rijksmuseum, one of the most beautiful museums in Europe.
It wasn’t my first time at the museum. I visited Amsterdam once before — in 1980. My first and only visit to the city and its glorious museum was forty-five years ago. Forty-five years! Then, I was a starry-eyed, optimistic 21 year-old wondering what the years ahead would bring and how my life might unfold.
During that long-ago trip, I loved exploring the Rijksmuseum — and was enthralled by Rembrandt’s paintings. No work, however, spoke more strongly to me than “Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem.”
I don’t know exactly what moved me so deeply then. Perhaps it was my latent fear that the world would end before my life really began — childhood fears of nuclear destruction, teen-age evangelical fears of the Rapture and Armageddon. I stared at it for a long time, transfixed by the face of the prophet. An old man, surrounded by the wreckage of the city he loved and tried to warn, full of grief. It was too late. All was lost.
And so, forty-five years later, I stood in front of the painting that I never forgot, an image that etched itself in my soul-memory. I looked at it again, remembering then. The ancient lamentation went through my mind:
A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land: The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. But what will you do in the end?
My husband interrupted, “Does it still speak to you?”
I replied, “Differently. I’m his age now. I’m probably as old as the model for the painting. And I feel like I’m looking out on a landscape of destruction.”
He glanced at me. “It feels too close to home,” I said flatly.
I turned to walk away, lamenting my own country and the years that have flown by, when I noticed that Jeremiah wasn’t alone. He was hanging next to another painting, one that hadn’t even registered with me forty-five years ago:
The second painting is Rembrandt’s “Old Woman Reading, Probably the Prophetess Anna.”
She pulled me over. She drew me. As I had stared at the Jeremiah painting decades ago, I became lost in this one. Her kindness, her curiosity, and her diligence at reading. Her aged hand tenderly following the words on the page, no doubt her eyes failing.
Anna. Luke’s gospel tells her story in a few words:
There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
Jeremiah and Anna. Two prophets. One lamenting destruction; the other awaiting a promise. Compared to her “of a great age,” Jeremiah was a youngster! She had seen much in her long life, and lost much, but she never gave up. She trusted and acted on hope — and she was, eventually, rewarded.
Jeremiah and Anna side-by-side, lament and hope. Grief and joy.
Once Jeremiah moved me to tears. And now? Anna does. The world is full of Jeremiahs these days — me included! But how I long to be that old woman who never stopped seeking after the promise. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Decade after decade. And then — finally — the Child.
Both prophets. One overseeing an end. The other glimpsing a beginning. Both are necessary. Both are spiritual callings. But we have too much of one right now and too little of the other.
As far as we know, Rembrandt painted Jeremiah once. And he produced at least eight versions of Anna — three painting and five etchings. Her story is so much shorter and simpler. Did he, too, as he grew older, tire of lament and long ever more for the promise of hope? Did he find more power in the old woman prophet? Is hope harder to craft?
It certainly appears to be more elusive.
I know which calls my heart now. It has taken forty-five years, but I finally understand.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. —Galatians 5:22–23
In the Christian Scriptures, we are reminded that joy is a fruit of the Spirit in all circumstances. Father Richard Rohr describes a personal experience of simultaneous deep sadness and profound joy.
In 1985 my Franciscan superiors gave me a year’s leave to spend in contemplation. It was a major turning point in my life and ultimately led to the formation of the Center for Action and Contemplation. The first thirty days of my “sabbatical” were spent in the hills of Kentucky, in Thomas Merton’s hermitage at Gethsemani Abbey. I was absolutely alone with myself, with the springtime woods, and with God, hoping to somehow absorb some of Merton’s wisdom. That first morning, it took me a while to slow down. I must have looked at my watch at least ten times before 7:00 AM! I had spent so many years standing in front of crowds as a priest and a teacher. I had to find out who I was alone before God without those trappings.
Walter Burghardt’s definition of contemplation as “a long loving look at the real” became transformative for me. The world, my own issues and hurts, all my goals and desires gradually dissolved and fell into proper perspective. God became obvious and ever present. I understood what Merton meant when he said, “The gate of heaven is everywhere.” [1]
I tried to keep a journal of what was happening to me. Back then, I found it particularly hard to cry. But one evening I laid my finger on my cheek and found to my surprise that it was wet. I wondered what those tears meant. What was I crying for? I wasn’t consciously sad or consciously happy. I noticed at that moment that behind it all there was a joy, deeper than any private joy. It was a joy in the face of the beauty of being, a joy at all the wonderful and lovable people I had already met in my life. Cosmic or spiritual joy is something we participate in; it comes from elsewhere and flows through us. It has little or nothing to do with things going well in our own life at that moment. I remember thinking that this must be why the saints could rejoice in the midst of suffering.
At the same moment, I experienced exactly the opposite emotion. The tears were at the same time tears of an immense sadness—a sadness at what we’re doing to the earth, sadness about the people whom I had hurt in my life, and sadness too at my own mixed motives and selfishness. I hadn’t known that two such contrary feelings could coexist. I was truly experiencing the nondual mind of contemplation.
Awe, Surrender, Joy
Father Richard describes the stunned silence that accompanies moments of awe and surrender:
The spiritual journey is a constant interplay between moments of awefollowed by a general process of surrender to that moment. We must first allow ourselves to be captured by the goodness, truth, or beauty of something beyond and outside ourselves. Then we universalize from that moment to the goodness, truth, and beauty of the rest of reality, until our realization eventually ricochets back to include ourselves! Yet we humans resist both the awe and, even more, the surrender. The ego resists the awe while the will resists the surrender. But both together are vital and necessary. [1]
As she often did, Dr. Barbara Holmes (1943–2024) expands and strengthens my thinking by her description of “joy unspeakable.” Awe is not always inspired by beauty and goodness. Truth sometimes comes in hard packages. It takes both great love and great suffering to stun us and bring us to our knees. God is there in all of it, using every circumstance of our life, to draw us ever more deeply into the heart of God. [2]
Dr. Barbara Holmes writes:
Ultimately, joy unspeakable is a mystery, and because each mystery begets another, it is a daunting task to describe the indescribable. Song, dance, and ritual help. This is how Grant Wacker describes the joy that emerges out of spiritual revival: “And then there was joy—not necessarily happiness, a passing emotion—but joy, the quiet, deep-seated conviction that one’s life made sense.” [3]
From the beginning, Africana people in the diaspora have defined the sensibility of their lives within the context of struggle and resistance. We have begun to realize that while overt systematic oppression may be removed, we all bear the scars and traces of racism’s collective demonic possession. And yet we must all go on, and we must all go on together as a community.
Accordingly, our obsession with blame and with the question of who is or is not worthy of God’s full embrace disrupts the journey. For we are not headed toward a single goal: we are on a pilgrimage toward the center of our hearts. It is in this place of prayerful repose that joy unspeakable erupts.
Joy Unspeakable erupts when you least expect it, when the burden is greatest, when the hope is gone after bullets fly. It rises on the crest of impossibility, it sways to the rhythm of steadfast hearts, and celebrates what we cannot see.
This joy beckons us not as individual monastics but as a community. It is a joy that lives as comfortably in the shout as it does in silence. It is expressed in the diversity of personal spiritual disciplines and liturgical rituals. This joy is our strength, and we need strength because we are well into the twenty-first century, and we are not healed. How shall we negotiate postmodernity without inner strength? [4]
JUN 16, 2025. from Skye Jethani Compassion > Explanation
It’s uncommon for a gospel writer to devote an entire chapter to a single miracle, but that is what we find in John chapter 9. It’s another account of Jesus healing a blind man. It’s worth noting that miracles of abundance and even raising the dead are also attributed to Old Testament prophets—but none of them restored sight to the blind, but it’s the most common miracle performed by Jesus in the gospels. It was seen as a significant sign of Jesus’ power and evidence that God’s kingdom had arrived, but in this chapter, the healing is used to communicate a more specific message about the character of those who enter the kingdom and those who do not. Jesus and his disciples encountered a man who was born blind. “Rabbi,” they asked him, “who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). The disciples were asking an age-old question. It’s a question we see throughout Scripture and especially in the Psalms. It’s a question we still ask all the time. Why?Why do bad things happen? Every person—both believers and non-believers—senses that things are not as they ought to be, and we want to know why. We experience a world marked by misery, injustice, scarcity, and ugliness, and we turn to our teachers, our “rabbis,” for an explanation. Notice, however, that the disciples’ question assumed the answer. They had already concluded that sin caused the man’s blindness; their only question was whose sin—the man’s or his parents? In this case, the disciples revealed their true teacher was not Jesus, but their culture, which had taught them to believe all suffering was a form of divine judgment upon sin. Therefore, if you were poor, sick, disabled, or victimized, the explanation was simple—you deserved it. In the case of a person born disabled, like the blind man, the belief was that it was likely God’s judgment upon the parents’ sin. However, based on Old Testament passages that speak of God’s knowledge of and communion with children still in the womb (see Psalm 139:16, Jeremiah 1:5), some rabbinical teaching at the time argued children could actually sin before birth. To be fair, the disciples’ assumed explanation is the one held by many people even today. For example, following the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed more than 200,000 people in 14 countries, The Los Angeles Times published an article titled, “Deadly Tsunami Resurrects the Old Question of Why.” The piece asked religious leaders from the impacted countries to explain the tragedy. A Buddhist from Sri Lanka said, “Buddhist doctrine makes people responsible for their own fate.” He said those who died were punished for their own decisions in this life or a past one, while those who survived were rewarded. A Hindu leader offered the same explanation. “People have not lived up to what they are supposed to do.”Both Hinduism and Buddhism are karmic religions that assume, like Jesus’ disciples, that each person’s pleasure or pain is the result of their sin or sanctity. It’s a view found in much of pop Christianity as well. On one level, karma offers a simple and rational explanation for suffering. Intuitively, it makes sense and removes the mystery of evil in the world. On another level, however, karma undermines the call to compassion because, according to its spiritual logic, people suffer because they deserve to suffer, and alleviating their pain would be interfering in God’s judgment and risking it for yourself. In the same LA Times article, the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim leaders interviewed refused to offer an explanation, instead saying the tsunami’s cause was beyond their knowledge. It was a mystery. “We have no right to say these people were destroyed because of their sins,” the Imam said. While the Christian leader turned the focus away from trying to explain the tragedy to a focus on Jesus’ compassion for those who were suffering. In this way, he was echoing Jesus’ response to his disciples in John 9.First, Jesus rejected the answer assumed by his disciples’ question. He simply said, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned” (John 9:3). Of course, Jesus wasn’t saying the man and his parents had never sinned—they were as human and sinful as the rest of us. Rather, Jesus was denying that their sin was the cause of the blindness. But then Jesus offered no further explanation. No theological argument for the origin of evil or pain. No rabbinical wisdom about the meaning of suffering. No spiritual law of cause and effect previously undisclosed by the prophets. Instead, he left it a mystery and shifted the focus from explanation to compassion.Rather than a sinner displaying God’s judgment, to Jesus, the man was God’s child made to display his glory. While the disciples wanted to understand the man’s condition, Jesus wanted to heal his condition—and he did. These opening verses set up the theme of the whole chapter which we will explore more deeply in the days ahead. As we will see, John 9 contrasts the blindness of those who value their own knowledge, answers, and explanations, with the humble compassion of those who see and enter God’s kingdom.
WEEKLY PRAYER. from St. Gertrude the Great (1256 – 1302) Lord, in union with your love, unite my work with your great work, and perfect it. As a drop of water, poured into a river, is taken up into the activity of the river, so may my labor become part of your work. So, may those among whom I live and work be drawn into your love. Amen.
In the way that lectio divina invites us to “chew” on a sacred text, allowing us to receive its flavor and wisdom, visio divina is a contemplative practice of receiving God’s presence through what we see. Spiritual teacher Christine Valters Painter writes:
In visio divina, we move our awareness into our hearts and let our vision arise from this place of integration rather than analysis, and receptivity rather than grasping after the things we desire. Our intention is to see things from a new perspective, but the paradox is that this longing requires us to relinquish our usual ways of relating to the world. [1]
Paintner suggests taking a few moments of silence to center in our bodies, becoming present to the Spirit.
Visio divina means sacred seeing and is essentially an application of the rhythms of lectio to a prayer of “gazing.” Gazing is looking upon something with the eyes of the heart. It is not a hard or penetrating stare but a soft receptive way of being with an image….
From this heart-centered place, slowly open your eyes and cast a gentle gaze upon your photo [or image] with the eyes of your heart. Take a few moments to allow your eyes to wander over the whole landscape of the image, exploring all of its shapes, colors, contours, details, and symbols. Allow yourself to simply be present to the details of this image.
Gradually notice if there is a place on the photo where your eye is being invited to rest…. What is the place on the image calling to you—is it a symbol, color, or expression? Take a few moments to simply be present to this in a gentle way….
Slowly begin to notice if an invitation begins to emerge from these memories, feelings, and images moving in you. In the concrete circumstances of your life right now, what awareness or action is God calling you to? What is my invitation in this moment of my life? How am I being called to respond?…
As you become more comfortable with praying in this way and allowing visual elements to be a “text” for prayer, you can begin to bring this spirit of visio divina with you even as you are out walking.… As you receive your images, pay attention to moments that seem to shimmer and make space within your heart to be with whatever feelings or memories these stir, trusting that God is at work in the process. Over time, you might discover that there is an invitation being offered to you in this time of slowing down and deepening your way of seeing in the world….
Our commitment to visio divina and seeing the world as a sacred text, and everything as worthy of our attention and presence, rather than divided between what is “ugly” and “beautiful,” or as a mere imitation of our own expectations, means that we might begin to see this as true within our own hearts as well. [2]
“A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us happy. There is a false and momentary happiness in self-satisfaction, but it always leads to sorrow because it narrows and deadens our spirit. True happiness is found in unselfish love, a love which increases in proportion as it is shared. There is no end to the sharing of love, and, therefore, the potential happiness of such love is without limit.”
This was one of the quotes that we read at our wedding. It is the opening paragraph in the first chapter of No Man is an Island, titled “Love Can Only Be Kept by Being Given Away.”
I don’t have much to comment on this. Merton was such a master with words, and I believe he was one of the great luminaries of the 20th century.
Still, I’ll give it a shot.
Love and happiness seem intertwined, and yet, love must be the primary ground out of which happiness grows. If happiness is the ground of love, then when things are not “happy,” love might diminish. However, if love is viewed as a virtue to be cultivated and nurtured, then happiness seems better able to flourish.
All of this flies in the face of the scarcity mindset or the fearful mindset that leads us to isolate our love or happiness. And, as Merton teaches us, any love or happiness that cannot be shared must not be true.
This is one of the most profound Christian ethical principles I have ever encountered.
I recognize that more conservative individuals might prefer a more black-and-white moral framework, and I acknowledge that more liberal individuals might want to focus on justice.
However, I like to think this line from Teresa of Ávila transcends and encompasses both conservative and liberal frameworks.
If God is love, and everything is about love, then it makes sense that we ought to only partake in the activities that help us to cultivate more love. What is interesting to me is that Teresa of Avila does not tell her sisters in the convent exactly what to do. Instead, she trusts them to their own consciences and invites them to take responsibility for their own activities.
3.
“The human heart is no small thing, for it can embrace so much.”
There is a spaciousness to what it means to be human. Consider how we can grow and expand throughout our lives as we experience more of life and learn lessons along the way.
The human heart is roughly the size of a fist and probably weighs only a few pounds. However, this line from Origen is more poetic than anything else. It speaks to the core of a human being, the center of what it means to be alive.
Yes, the human heart can embrace so much, but that does not mean that it always does.
No.
We can turn away from embracing others. We can close ourselves off and shelter ourselves behind 9-foot walls of cynicism, skepticism, and fear.
Yes, the human heart can embrace much. And for that reason, it is perhaps more resilient than we realize.
4.
“To behold God in all things is to live in complete joy.”
There is one stage of spiritual formation that earnestly wishes to see God. A person in this first stage can be filled with fervor and a desire to see the Divine. Ultimately, this is a good and noble thing.
However,
There is another stage of spiritual formation where one has learned to see God in all things and all things in God. This is only possible if someone has first passed through the first stage of even wanting to see God at all. The good news is that this second stage is possible for the rest of us, and not just for the spiritually elite (like Julian of Norwich).
5.
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
The older I get, the more I have come to realize that the classical virtues and habits of mature Christianity are universally appreciated and desired. Yes, some might mock and make fun of the things in this passage from Colossians, considering them quaint or for a bygone era.
The only thing is that the world is not broken and fractured by people practicing these virtuous habits. The world is instead broken and fractured by people NOT doing them.
Ultimately, the things said above by St. Paul are the very things that make the world worth living in.
Authors Jim Wilhoit and Evan Howard highlight how our experiences and contexts shape how we read and interpret the Bible:
When we open the Bible, we read it in light of the way we look at things…. Christians living in less developed regions notice different things in Scripture than Christians from more developed regions do. A Christian from a richer country might read the parable of the good Samaritan and notice the value of a random act of kindness shown to someone in need (seeing “neighbor” as the one helped). A Christian from a poorer country might read the same story and notice Jesus’ affirmation of a style of life that intentionally acts compassionately toward the needy (seeing “neighbor” as the one helping). We come to Scripture with a heart and mind shaped by our global culture and local history. [1]
In the Solentiname Islands of Nicaragua, Father Ernesto Cardenal reflected on the Gospels each week with communities of campesinos[2] living in poverty. Commenting on the Beatitude “Blessed are the poor in spirit, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Luke 6:20), Cardenal shares their conversation:
ÓSCAR’S MOTHER: “It seems to me that the kingdom is love. Love in this life. And heaven is for those who love here, because God is love.”
FELIPE: “Jesus said that because he knows the poor are able to put love into practice better, right?—which is the kingdom that God brings us. Then he blesses the poor because they’re the ones who are going to make this new society of love.”…
ÓSCAR: “Ernesto, I also think that the poor person can practice love more sincerely, without being afraid, and fight for it, without being afraid of the word of God. But the rich person can’t because it doesn’t suit him. Even though he may know what’s good, he doesn’t practice it, because he is always ready to [exploit] people…. God sees the poor person’s sincerity and promises him the kingdom of God.”…
ALEJANDRO: “What we see here is that there are two things. One is the kingdom of God, which is the kingdom of love, of equality, where we must all be like brothers and sisters; and the other thing is the system we have, which isn’t brand new, it’s centuries old, the system of rich and poor, where business is business. And so we see that they’re very different things. Then we have to change society so that the kingdom of God can exist. And we’re sure that the kingdom will have to be established with the poor, right?”
PANCHO: “With everybody that shares the love, because if there are rich people that share the love, they too can enter the kingdom.”
MARIÍTA: “But a rich person that shares love has to share his goods too. That’s how he shows that he shares love. Because if he says he has love and doesn’t share his goods, how are we going to believe him?” [3]
Let Me Help you get through this day. There are many possible paths to travel between your getting up in the morning and your lying down at night. Stay alert to the many choice-points along the way, beingcontinually aware of My Presence. You will get through this day one way or the other. One way is to moan and groan, stumbling along with shuffling feet. This will get you to the end of the day eventually, but there is a better way. You can choose to walk with Me along the path of Peace, leaning on Me as much as you need. There will still be difficulties along the way, but you can face them confidently in My strength. Thank Me for each problem you encounter, and watch to see how I transform trials into blessings.
RELATED BIBLE VERSES:
1st Corinthians 10:10 NLT 10 And don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death.
Additional insight regarding 1st Corinthians 10:10: Paul warned the Corinthian believers not to grumble. We start to grumble when our attention shifts from what we have to what we don’t have. The people of Israel didn’t seem to notice what God was doing for them – setting them free, making them a nation, giving them a new land – because they were so wrapped up in what God wasn’t doing for them. They could think of nothing but the delicious Egyptian food they had left behind (Numbers 11:5). Before we judge the Israelites too harshly, it’s helpful to think about what occupies our attention most of the time. Are we grateful for what God has given us, or are we always thinking about what we would like to have? Don’t allow your unfulfilled desires to cause you to forget God’s gifts of life, family, friends, food, health, and work.
Luke 1:79 NLT 79 “…to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace.”
Father Richard explores midrash, the ancient Jewish practice of reading sacred texts that Jesus would have been familiar with:
More than telling us exactly what to see in the Scriptures, Jesus taught us how to see, what to emphasize, and also what could be de-emphasized or ignored. Beyond fundamentalism or literalism, Jesus practiced a form of Jewish commentary called midrash, consistently using questions to keep spiritual meanings open, often reflecting on a text or returning people’s questions with more questions. It’s a shame we didn’t imitate Jesus in this approach. It could have saved us from so many centuries of righteousness, religious violence, and even single-issue voting.
Rather than seeking always certain and unchanging answers, the Jewish practice of midrash allows many possibilities, many levels of faith-filled meaning—meaning that is relevant and applicable to you, the reader, and puts you in the subject’s shoes to build empathy, understanding, and relationship. It lets the passage first challenge you before it challenges anyone else. To use the text in a spiritual way—as Jesus did—is to allow it to convert you, to change you, to grow you up as you respond: What does this ask of me? How might this apply to my life, to my family, to my church, to my neighborhood, to my country, and even the world? [1]
Father Richard suggests several steps for a contemplative reading of Scripture:
Offer a prayer for guidance from the Holy Spirit before interpreting an important text. This begins to decenter our egoic need to make the text say what we want or need it to say. Pray as long as it takes to get to this inner intellectual freedom and detachment.
Once we have attained some honest degree of intellectual and emotional freedom, we must try to move to a position of detachmentfrom our own will and its goals, needs, and desires.
Then listen for a deeper voice that isn’t our own. We will know that it isn’t the ego because it will never shame or frighten us, but rather strengthen us, even when it is challenging us. If it is God’s voice, it will take away our illusions and our violence so completely and naturally that we can barely identify with such previous feelings! I call this God’s replacement therapy.
If the interpretation leads our true self to experience any or several of the fruits of the Spirit, as they are listed in Galatians 5:22–23—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness, and self-control—I think we can trust this interpretation is from the Spirit, from the deeper stream of wisdom.
If any negative or punitive emotions arise from our interpretation—such as feelings of superiority, self-satisfaction, arrogant dualistic certitude, desire for revenge, need for victory, or any spirit of dismissal or exclusion—this is not the Spirit at work, but our own ego still steering the ship. [2]
(I preached this at the women’s prison a couple weeks ago and have been so busy with the tour that I’m just now getting around to posting it)
Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Bethesda,which has five porticoes. In these lay many ill, blind, lame, and paralyzed people. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The ill man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am making my way someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. – John 5
There were a few months of my life when I came down with a “touch” of hypochondria. You know thing where people are mostly sick with thinking they are always sick? I had a baby and a toddler and I was trying to take a college class here and there. We were so broke and WIC only went so far. I was exhausted all the time and I got sick a lot that winter and one day I started to think that maybe something was seriously wrong with me. And it sounds weird but secretly, without being totally conscious of it, I kind of started to hope something was wrong with me. I mean, nothing fatal. Just something bad enough that I could kind of get a hall pass from my life.
In fact, when I was overwhelmed, I would find myself fantasizing about how amazing a hospital stay sounded. I know that sounds messed up and anyone who has stayed in a hospital can tell you it is not that restful – but at that point, a hospital stay was my escape fantasy. Because someone else would bring me food while I laid around all day watching tv and taking narcotics. Like, what’s not to love?
But, after ending up in my doctor’s office for the 3rd time in six weeks demanding that he run more tests on me since I was sure I was sick…he caught on to what was really happening – and God bless him, my doctor looked me in the eye and said Nadia, nothing’s wrong with you. You just have to deal with your life.
I mean, how dare he? I hated that doctor so much…. until…I realized he was right. I wanted an out of some kind and kept thinking the doctor could give that to me. And he did, in a way. Because when he dared to say what was true, I just sort of snapped out of it and dealt with my life.
For the record, I was so embarrassed that I for sure never went back to that doctor. But I do always think of him when I read our Gospel story for today.
We just heard the story from John chapter 5 where Jesus encounters a man who was ill and had been sitting at the healing pool of Bethesda for 38 years.
And honestly this has to be the most insensitive healing text in the Bible, because Jesus asks him a really harsh question. He looks at the man who has been stuck for 38 years and says “do you want to be made well?” and the guy doesn’t even answer the question, when asked if he wants to be made well he says no one will help me into the water and when I try to get in other people get in the way.
I don’t want to be a jerk, but seriously? For 38 years not one person was willing to help? For 38 whole years other people got in the way? Not to diminish his illness but it makes me wonder what the payoff might have been to staying stuck there since when asked if he wanted to be made well he didn’t seem very interested.
This is a sticky issue, but this week I started thinking about how hard it is to be honest about the payoffs we get from things we say we want to be free from.
You can ask any alcoholic in recovery about this. When I was still drinking I’d complain about my hangovers and the unreliability of the people in my life. But there was a payoff to being a drunk. I got to live without any real responsibility, no matter how it affected others. I got to feel tragic. And the best payoff was that I got to be inebriated whenever life, or basic human emotions, or the results of my bad decisions started feeling even a little bit unbearable. I got to just check out.
It all reminds me of Paul’s letter to the Romans when he said I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. Some things are so true they hurt a little. And being honest about what the payoff is to staying stuck in a situation I say I want out of is rough. But that’s the whole point, I think. Jesus said that we will know the truth and the truth will set us free.
Don’t get me wrong, we should understandably be sensitive to the dangers of what is called blaming the victim. For sure. There are things that happen to us that are truly beyond our control. Children have no blame in the abuse they suffer. My father is not in a wheelchair because he has given up in any way shape or form. I’m not to blame for being chronically ill as a child. And to imply so is cold hearted.
I’m just saying that what is also true, is that sometimes staying stuck feels safer than getting free.
That day when Jesus was walking along the healing pool of Bethesda, he saw someone who had given up on themselves and he called him out on it. Do you want to be healed?
And when the guy was like, well no one helps me and other people block me….Jesus doesn’t coddle him and say there there, and he doesn’t get someone to carry him to the water and make people get out of the way…
He says Stand up –….Stop waiting for someone to carry you. Stop waiting for other people not be in your way. Why? Because they are not the source of your healing.
In the face of Christ this man was confronted with the truth. And that truth may have stung, like truth so often does, but it also set him free. But what I want to highlight is this – the fact that he was able to take his mat and walk away had very little to do with his own desire for healing. It had to do with God’s desire for his healing.
That’s God’s thing; Seeing us. Offering the truth. Pursuing our healing long after we’ve given up. Loving us into wholeness. And wanting us to stop giving our power over to other people.
This afternoon, God is pursuing your healing as well. I believe that. God’s healing spirit is here among us saying Stand up.
To you who have been depressed for far too long he says stand up. To you who have not been honest with yourself, today he says stand up. To you who have never been told how worthy and how beautiful and how magnificent you are he says stand up. To you who have tried time and again to get clean and sober and think that you cannot live without drugs he says stand up. Stand and Take up your mats, Take up your mats of loss and sorrow and regret and walk, my sisters. Take up your ratty little mat of self-pity and worn out excuses you’ve made your home – It may have gotten you here but it will not take you into what is next. Whatever payoff there has been to staying unhealed, to staying in unforgiveness, to staying in stuck-ness that isn’t for you anymore. That is your past.
So pick that thing up and walk (or roll) into a new day that God has prepared for you, walk into a new purpose that God has laid out for you, walk into a new identity that God bestows upon you and walk .
And when you do, I beg you to walk tall. Tall. Shoulders back, chin up with the full dignity – the full dignity of a daughter of the king.
So stand and walk to this healing place in front of you – no one has to carry you to this table of grace. And here there is no one to get in your way. Come to this table tonight and bring the mats you think you are stuck laying on and leave them at the feet of your savior who bids you walk and be free. Amen.
Contemplative theologian Beverly Lanzetta offers instructions for the monastic practice of lectio divina which today can be practiced by all. The first stage is lectio or reading:
Reading at a slow pace, with a contemplative state of mind, nourishes the inner path and opens us to become aware of the movement of spirit. We do not rush through the text to gain details or knowledge but seek instead through words the Divine presence and action in our lives. A gentle, prayerful attitude opens the door and unlocks the text, so that we may pass over to our journey into the sacred….
Unlike reading for content, lectio divinaapproaches the text as a form of prayer, guiding us closer to union with the Holy One. At its simplest, lectio is not reading intellectually to gather information or instruction, but with the intention that the reader be formed in the divine likeness.In and through text, one comes face-to-face with Spirit. Through slowly reading, we allow words to penetrate our hearts and fill us with wisdom and love. Sometimes we are pulled clean out of our ordinary state of mind. We may awaken to new truths or insights, suffer compunction or shame, or be forgiven and bathed in light. By whatever means, when we read with meditative attention, communion occurs through surrender and rest. We do not hurry reading, trying to find the thesis, underlying cause, or doing critical analysis. We stop. We remain still in the presence of mystery….
Three additional stages are practiced. Meditation, meditatio, is reflective engagement with a text. For example, let’s say you read the passage from the Sermon on the Mount, “Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” [Matthew 5:39]. During the day, you carry the passage with you, ruminate on it as you are walking, at work, or running errands. It becomes your meditatio, as you listen for the Divine speaking through Scripture and learn how the passage relates to your life.
From conscious engagement with the text, we shift to a mode of receiving or simply being with God:
Prayer or oratio gives over to God the wisdom gained in meditation. Thus, one prays to be led to truth and virtue, to practice the principles discerned from the day’s reading, and to express praise and thanksgiving. Ultimately, oratio moves into contemplatio, or contemplation. Here you are not “doing” anything but opening yourself to receive and rest in God. You can move into a passive or receptive form of knowing, where you may experience the text coming directly from the divine mind and heart into your being.
Of course, from the slow reading of a text there is no need to curtail how the spirit moves you from one stage to the next. You can remain in any of these stages for the duration of the practice, and you can move spontaneously, and not linearly, from reading to meditation, prayer, or contemplation.
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Sarah Young, Jesus Calling
Let Me Help you get through this day. There are many possible paths to travel between your getting up in the morning and your lying down at night. Stay alert to the many choice-points along the way, being continually aware of My Presence. You will get through this day one way or the other. One way is to moan and groan, stumbling along with shuffling feet. This will get you to the end of the day eventually, but there is a better way. You can choose to walk with Me along the path of Peace, leaning on Me as much as you need. There will still be difficulties along the way, but you can face them confidently in My strength. Thank Me for each problem you encounter, and watch to see how I transform trials into blessings.
RELATED BIBLE VERSES:
1st Corinthians 10:10 NLT 10 And don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death.
Additional insight regarding 1st Corinthians 10:10: Paul warned the Corinthian believers not to grumble. We start to grumble when our attention shifts from what we have to what we don’t have. The people of Israel didn’t seem to notice what God was doing for them – setting them free, making them a nation, giving them a new land – because they were so wrapped up in what God wasn’t doing for them. They could think of nothing but the delicious Egyptian food they had left behind (Numbers 11:5). Before we judge the Israelites too harshly, it’s helpful to think about what occupies our attention most of the time. Are we grateful for what God has given us, or are we always thinking about what we would like to have? Don’t allow your unfulfilled desires to cause you to forget God’s gifts of life, family, friends, food, health, and work.
Luke 1:79 NLT 79 “…to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace.”
Father Richard encourages us to read the Scriptures by following the model of Jesus and in the company of the Holy Spirit, whose presence the church celebrates today.
Jesus knows how to connect the dots and find out where the sacred text is truly heading, beyond the lower-level consciousness of a particular moment, individual, or circumstance. He knows there’s a bigger arc to the story—one that reveals God as compassionate and inclusive. Jesus doesn’t quote lines that are punitive, imperialistic (“My country is the best!”), wrathful, or exclusionary. He doesn’t mention the twenty-eight “thou shall nots” listed in Leviticus 18 and 20 but chooses to echo the one positive command of Leviticus 19:18: “You must love your neighbor as yourself.” The longest single passage he quotes (in Luke 4:18–19) is from Isaiah 61:1–2. Jesus closes with the words “proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,” deliberately omitting the next line—“and the day of vengeance of our God”—because he didn’t come to announce vengeance.
This is what the Holy Spirit teaches any faithful person to do—read Scripture (and the very experiences of life) with a gaze of love. Contemplative practice helps us develop a third eye that reads between the lines and finds the thread always moving toward inclusivity, mercy, and justice. [1]
The biblical revelation is about awakening. It’s about realization, not performance principles. We cannot get there, we can only be there, but that foundational Being-in-God, for some reason, is too hard to believe, and too good to be true. Only the humble can receive it, because it affirms more about God than it does about us. To achieve that realization, I invite us to read the Old Testament and the New Testament as one complete book: an anthology of inspired stories, with a beginning, middle, and end. Read it as one Spirit-led text.
Read it as inspiration, by which I primarily mean that God is slowly evolving the reader’s consciousness, so that it can receive an ever-clearer understanding of itself as the beloved of God. Biblical texts, when read with “poverty of spirit” (Matthew 5:3), explain both ourselves and history to us. When read with a sense of entitlement, as if we are owed something, they unfortunately lead us to an imagined ability to explain God to others.
God does not change in the text, but we do. The written words are inspired precisely insofar as they inspire and change us! Here, I’m using the literal meaning of the word inspire—to “breathe into us” a larger life. If the written words don’t accomplish that, then they’re not at all “inspired”—at least for us.
I’ve met too many people who believe in all kinds of inspired texts but are lifeless—without the breath of life that was blown into the nostrils of Adam (Genesis 2:7). “They approach me, but only in words” (Isaiah 29:13), with what both Isaiah and Jesus called “lip service” (Isaiah 29:13; Matthew 15:8). [2]
Chewing on Sacred Texts
One day when I was busy working with my hands I began to think about our spiritual work, and all at once four stages in spiritual exercise came into my mind: reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation. These make a ladder for monks by which they are lifted up from earth to heaven. — Guigo II, The Ladder of Monks
CAC faculty member James Finley describes the wisdom that comes from contemplative reading, as taught by the Carthusian monk Guigo II (c. 1114–1188):
The first rung of the ladder to heaven is reading. By reading, Guigo means a “careful reading of Scripture, concentrating all one’s powers on it.” He likens reading to the act of eating, saying that when we read God’s word we take in spiritual nourishment…. Guigo writes:
I hear the words read: “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” [Matthew 5:8]. This is a short text of Scripture, but it is of great sweetness, like a grape that is put in the mouth filled with many senses to feed the soul…. Wishing to have a fuller understanding of this, the soul begins to bite and chew upon this grape as though putting it in a wine press to ask what this precious purity may be and how it might be had. [1]
Finley continues:
The transformative power of reading, as described by Guigo, holds true in a unique sense in the reading of Scripture. For to read the Scriptures as an act of faith means that the words of the living God are on your lips. The power of God’s words works as leaven in the heart, awakening us to a personal experience of the presence of God that Scripture reveals. Read in this way, the Scriptures are one long love letter from God. Each verse tells the story of the love that perpetually calls us to itself….
Spiritual reading is not limited to the reading of Scripture…. Reading Guigo and other works of spiritual wisdom can embody our search for God. As we search for God in the writings of the mystics, we can experience in their words something of the experience of God the mystics are writing about…. As you continue on in your own spiritual journey you will no doubt come across those spiritual books, written by authors both ancient and contemporary, that you will learn to cherish. These are the books we never really finish. For each time we open them and read a few passages, we once again recognize something of ourselves and the path along which we are being led….
To commit ourselves to seeking God in the practice of meditation … assumes that we are learning to read the Scriptures … in the manner Guigo describes. That is, it assumes that we are committed to the ongoing process of quietly and unhurriedly reading, as a way of seeking and coming upon intimations of God’s presence manifested to us in the midst of our reading.
Quote of the Week: (Learning from the Mystics by John Chaffee). (Jim Finley)
“Imagine a caterpillar who is about to undergo a metamorphosis. Imagine, too, that this caterpillar has been eagerly looking forward to this great event. It has studied and researched metamorphosis. It has a camera and a journal at hand to take pictures and carefully record everything that happens, so as to publish what it senses will be a best-seller – My Metamorphosis. But when its metamorphosis actually begins to occur, something the caterpillar had never anticipated happens. Its brain begins to change first. That is, the state of caterpillar consciousness from which it assumed it was going to observe its metamorphosis is the first thing that begins to change! For a butterfly is not a caterpillar with wings. If it were, it could never fly. Resurrection is not the resuscitation of a corpse. Enlightenment is not insight.” – from The Contemplative Heart, p.66.
Reflection A transformation that only happens on the surface level is not transformation at all. Jesus even seemed to identify this issue in Matthew’s Gospel when he said,“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First, clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside, you appear to people as righteous but on the inside, you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”- Matthew 23:25-27
The spiritual life has the same temptations as any other field, the temptation to be further along the path than one truly is. Theologian and writer Chris Hall maintains, “Spiritual growth is the slowest kind of growth possible.” We can easily become impatient and so dress ourselves up. And this is where Jim Finley’s insight comes into play. The first thing that transforms when a caterpillar enters the chrysalis is its mind, its interior life. The old must be done away with to make room for the new. It is not enough to simply cling to the new while still holding on to the old. It is no wonder that spiritual figures and titans from across the world’s religious traditions have held butterflies as their main symbol of transformation. Perhaps we need to recognize that transformation happens first in silence, stillness, and solitude. It is barely perceptible and cannot exactly be witnessed at the moment by ourselves. If any of us are seeking to be transformed, it will likely demand that we give up any desire to be a detached observer of our metamorphosis and give ourselves fully over to the process. Spirituality is not a spectator sport, if anything, it more likely looks like a butterfly’s metamorphosis, a seed dying in the ground, a death and rebirth.
Prayer Heavenly Father. We admit that we do not dare to change ourselves. We cannot help ourselves as we attempt to cling to the old rather than embrace the new. We desire to be detached from the process of our transformation rather than to dive into it with our whole selves. Be gracious with us, and remind us that we can trust the process because it is you leading us at all times and in all things. We pray this in the matchless name of Jesus of Nazareth. Amen and amen.
Life Overview: Who is He: James Finley When: Born in Akron, Ohio in 1943. Why He is Important: As a Clinical Psychologist and Spiritual Director, James speaks from the depth of his own experience and training about the life of a Christian mystic. Most Known For: James was a direct mentee of Thomas Merton while living in the cloistered monastery of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Trappist, Kentucky. Notable Works to Check Out:Merton’s Palace of NowhereThe Contemplative HeartChristian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of GodTurning to the Mystics Podcast
This CO2- (Church Of 2) is where two guys meet each day to tighten up our Connections with Jesus. We start by placing the daily “My Utmost For His Highest” in this WordPress blog. Then we prayerfully select some matching worship music and usually pick out a few lyrics that fit especially well. Then we just start praying and editing and Bolding and adding comments and see where the Spirit takes us.
It’s been a blessing for both of us.
If you’d like to start a CO2, we’d be glad to help you and your partner get started. Also click the link below to see how others are doing CO2.Odds Monkey
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It’s uncommon for a gospel writer to devote an entire chapter to a single miracle, but that is what we find in John chapter 9. It’s another account of Jesus healing a blind man. It’s worth noting that miracles of abundance and even raising the dead are also attributed to Old Testament prophets—but none of them restored sight to the blind, but it’s the most common miracle performed by Jesus in the gospels. It was seen as a significant sign of Jesus’ power and evidence that God’s kingdom had arrived, but in this chapter, the healing is used to communicate a more specific message about the character of those who enter the kingdom and those who do not.