Centering Prayer

Her greatest gift was her willingness to consent to God’s presence and action in her life.
—Thomas Keating, Mary, the Mother of God 

CAC Faculty Emerita Cynthia Bourgeault has spent decades teaching the practice of Centering Prayer. She shares:  

For over forty years now, the following four guidelines have successfully introduced tens of thousands of people worldwide to Centering Prayer: 

1. Choose a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to God’s presence and action within. 
2. Sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, settle briefly and silently introduce the sacred word as the symbol of your consent to God’s presence and action within. 
3. When engaged with your thoughts [including body sensations, feelings, images, and reflections], return ever-so-gently to the sacred word. 
4. At the end of the prayer period, remain in silence with eyes closed for a couple of minutes. [1] 

Father Thomas Keating suggests praying for twenty minutes twice a day. 

So are we really saying that in Centering Prayer you meditate by simply letting go of one thought after another? That can certainly be our subjective experience of the practice, and this is exactly the frustration expressed by an early practitioner. In one of the very earliest training workshops led by Keating himself, a nun tried out her first twenty-minute taste of Centering Prayer and then lamented, “Oh, Father Thomas, I’m such a failure at this prayer. In twenty minutes I’ve had ten thousand thoughts!” 

“How lovely,” responded Keating, without missing a beat. “Ten thousand opportunities to return to God.” 

This simple story captures the essence of Centering Prayer. It is quintessentially a pathway of return in which every time the mind is released from engagement with a specific idea or impression, we move from a smaller and more constricted consciousness into that open, diffuse awareness in which our presence to divine reality makes itself known along a whole different pathway of perception. 

That’s what the anonymous author of the fourteenth-century spiritual classic The Cloud of Unknowing may have had in mind when he wrote, “God may be reached and held close by means of love, but by means of thought never.” [2] “Love” is this author’s pet word for that open, diffuse awareness which gradually allows another and deeper way of knowing to pervade one’s entire being. 

Out of my own four decades of experience in Centering Prayer, I believe that this “love” indeed has nothing to do with emotions or feelings in the usual sense. It is rather the author’s nearest equivalent term to describe what we would nowadays call nondual perception anchored in the heart. 

And he is indeed correct in calling it “love” because the energetic bandwidth in which the heart works is intimacy, the capacity to perceive things from the inside by coming into sympathetic resonance with them. Imagine! Centuries ahead of his time, the author is groping for metaphors to describe an entirely different mode of perceptivity.  

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Don’t Spit Out the Wine

On not being lukewarm

MARK LONGHURSTMAR 23

I’m good-weird, my family tells me. I’ve explained to our boys that weird can be a positive trait, rather than an adjective of uncertainty used to reject something or someone. They turned my description back on me, and I ham it up and act the part. I sing at random moments. I make up incomprehensible raps in the car, which always ends in family giggling. I’m obsessed with books, and my wife and the boys understand that they are super nerdy books, like commentaries on the book of Revelation. I’m convinced that the more we live into God’s True Self in us, the more “good-weird” we become. The more we seek God, the more we become who we are.

I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to vomit you out of my mouth. —Revelation 3:15–16

In this section of the book of Revelation, John of Patmos has been writing letters to churches across Asia Minor (or ancient Turkey). Here he writes to a well-off Roman administrative center called Laodicea. To be more accurate, John of Patmos has been writing in the voice of the Cosmic Christ speaking to angels of seven churches, who are intended to receive the message on behalf of the congregations. (Check out the section “Make Sense of Angels Like a Scientist” in my book The Holy Ordinary to dive more deeply into the good-weirdness of angels). The message Christ has for the Laodiceans is graphic and challenging, needed in their time and ours, and it boils down to this: Be different! Be “good-weird” from the surrounding culture! Stand up for something!

The hot or cold liquid imagery is taken from banqueting practices of the time. I grew up listening to an evangelical praise song that asked God to “Light the Fire Again,” presuming that becoming hot for God was the goal. Christ here seems to think either hot or cold is advantageous; what matters is, at all costs, not to be lukewarm. Apparently, this magisterial commentary tells me, a well-off banquet host in Roman imperial cities would have hot and cold water available to mix with wine. You wanted to keep guests happy, and giving them options to fix their drinks was one way. Surely there would be guests who went overboard and vomited due to excessive food and drink; the image here, though, is Christ as a disgusted banquet-attendee throwing up after drinking lukewarm wine. Neither hot nor cold.

“I know your works” is one of the phrases that the Cosmic Christ repeats to multiple congregations. To the Jesus-followers in another ancient city named Thyatira, Christ says, “I know your works—your love, faith, service, and patient endurance” (Romans 2:19; “patient endurance” is best translated as nonviolent resistance). This gives us a sense of what Christ is looking for: love and devotion to God and other people, faith that this reality and the power of empire are not ultimate, service to those most in need, and firm nonviolent resistance that knows larger power and love still guide us, even when appearances are to the contrary. 

The problem seems to be the Laodiceans privileged complacency: “For you say, “I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing” (Revelation 3:17). Wealth, fullness, and distance from those most suffering breed lukewarm hearts. If someone is white, wealthy, and seemingly self-sufficient, it becomes easy to ignore the struggles of immigrants, transgender individuals, and those advocating for Palestinian rights in an increasingly repressive United States.

But the entry fee to God’s banquet is powerlessness. It’s the first step of the twelve: “We admitted that we were powerless over ____ (fill in the blank), that our lives had become unmanageable.” It’s humiliating to admit it, but addictive patterns are universal to the human condition. Call it sin or woundedness, but we are all looking for gratification, comfort, control, and esteem, and many of us will go to great lengths to secure them. Or we will live in terror that it will all be taken away. Some identify as people in recovery, but those in recovery are simply harbingers of our authentic state. We need help. We can’t do it alone. Our accomplishments, bank accounts, and friends are not enough. The spiritual journey is recovery.

Once we are empty, we can begin to feast. Christ knocks on the door, John writes, “if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me” (3:20). Our pregnant emptiness will result in “good-weird” works that set us apart from dominant systems. We may grow our own food in simplicity, hug trees in our love for nature, befriend immigrants, help feed people who are hungry, protest harmful federal funding cuts, refuse to see Palestinians as less than human, or simply read authors such as James Baldwin or Louise Erdrich for the first time. We may publish our thoughts, like me, on a Substack, or share them through a sermon, poem, or a song. We may shut off devices and turn off our social media accounts, for a day, a week, or a year. We may sing, pray, shout, or weep to God because our hearts are anything but lukewarm.

The wine is good. We dare not spit it out!

Father Richard Rohr describes the importance of a practice of contemplation: 

Contemplation is about seeing, but a kind of seeing that is much more than mere looking because it also includes recognizing and thus appreciating. The contemplative mind does not tell us what to see but teaches us how to see what we behold.  

Contemplation allows us to see the truth of things in their wholeness. It is a mental discipline and gift that detaches us, even neurologically, from our addiction to our habitual way of thinking and from our minds which like to think they are in control. We stop believing our little binary mind (which strips things down to two choices and then usually identifies with one of them) and begin to recognize the inadequacy of that limited way of knowing reality. In fact, a binary mind is a recipe for superficiality, if not silliness. Only the contemplative, or the deeply intuitive, can start venturing out into much broader and more open-ended horizons. This is probably why Einstein said that “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination  encircles the world.” [1] 

But how do we learn this contemplative mind, this deep, mysterious, and life-giving way of seeing, of being with, reality? Why does it not come naturally to us? Actually, it does come momentarily, in states of great love and great suffering, but such wide-eyed seeing normally does not last. We return quickly to dualistic analysis and use our judgments to retake control. A prayer practice—contemplation—is simply a way of maintaining the fruits of great love and great suffering over the long haul and in different situations. And that takes a lot of practice—in fact, our whole life becomes one continual practice.  

To begin to see with new eyes, we must observe—and usually be humiliated by—the habitual way we encounter each and every moment. It is humiliating because we will see that we are well-practiced in just a few predictable responses. Few of our responses are original, fresh, or naturally respectful of what is right in front of us. The most common human responses to a new moment are mistrust, cynicism, fear, knee-jerk reactions, a spirit of dismissal, and overriding judgmentalism. It is so dis-couraging when we have the courage to finally see that these are the common ways that the ego tries to be in control of the data instead of allowing the moment to get some control over us—and teach us something new!  

To let the moment teach us, we must allow ourselves to be at least slightly stunned by it until it draws us inward and upward, toward a subtle experience of wonder. We normally need a single moment of gratuitous awe to get us started—and such moments are the only solid foundation for the entire religious instinct and journey.  

A Simple Practice

Richard Rohr encourages regular contemplative practice.  

To live in the present moment requires a change in our inner posture. Instead of expanding or shoring up our fortress of the small self—the ego—contemplation waits to discover who we truly are. Most people think they are their thinking; they don’t have a clue who they are apart from their thoughts. In contemplation, we move beneath thoughts and sensations to the level of pure being and naked awareness.  

In contemplative prayer, we calmly observe our own stream of consciousness and see its compulsive patterns. We wait in silence with an open heart and attuned body. It doesn’t take long for our usual patterns to assault us. Our habits of control, addiction, negativity, tension, anger, and fear assert themselves. When Jesus is “driven” by the Spirit into the wilderness, the first things that show up are “wild beasts” (Mark 1:13). Contemplative prayer is not consoling, at least not at first, which is why so many give up. Yes, truth will set us free, but generally, it first makes us miserable. [1]  

Inspired by Father Thomas Keating (1923–2018), the founder of Contemplative Outreach, Richard developed this exercise:  

Imagine you are sitting on a riverbank. Boats and ships—thoughts, feelings, and sensations—are sailing past. While the stream flows by your inner eye, name each of these vessels. For example, one of the boats could be called “my anxiety about tomorrow.” Or along comes the ship “objections to my husband” or the boat “I don’t do that well.” Every judgment that you let pass is one of those boats; take time to name each one and then allow them move down the river.  

This can be a difficult exercise because you’re used to jumping aboard the boats—your thoughts—immediately. As soon as you own a boat and identify with it, it picks up energy. This is a practice in un-possessing, detaching, letting go. With every idea, with every image that comes into your head, say, “No, I’m not that; I don’t need that; that’s not me.”  

Sometimes, a boat turns around and heads back upstream to demand your attention again. It’s hard not to get hooked by habitual thoughts. Sometimes you’ll be tempted to torpedo your boats. But don’t attack them. Don’t hate them or condemn them. Contemplation is also an exercise in nonviolence. The point is to recognize your thoughts, which are not you, and to say, “That’s not something I need.” But do it very amiably. As you learn to handle your own soul tenderly and lovingly, you’ll be able to carry this same loving wisdom out into the world. [2] 

Many teachers insist on at least twenty minutes for a full contemplative “sit,” because we have found that the first half (or more) of any contemplative prayer time is just letting go of those thoughts, judgments, fears, negations, and emotions that want to impose themselves. We become watchers and witnesses, stepping back and observing without judgment. Gradually we come to realize those thoughts and feelings are not actually “me.”

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Thomas Keating and Centering Prayer

Today’s post is by Mary van Balen

I’m not sure when I began reading books by Thomas Merton. Probably late high school or early college. I’m also not sure how I discovered them. Though I was naturally drawn to contemplative prayer, the word was unfamiliar to me until Merton’s writings provided it. “Contemplative” was not something you heard about sitting in the pews on Sundays or even in religion classes. Not usually. Reflecting on that later, I never understood why. Christianity has a long, rich contemplative tradition.

Some of my friends from those early days, searching as college students do and longing for an alternative to rote prayers and rituals that, for them, had become mindless habit, explored meditation found in Eastern traditions. They hungered for a deeper relationship with God.

A way to sink deeply into that relationship is contemplative prayer. Not reserved for “special” people or for a few “advanced” souls as sometimes thought, it is simply resting in silence with the loving God who dwells within each of us.

I was lucky to find not only Thomas Merton, but also a small community that introduced me to classics in Christian literature like Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross and provided a vocabulary to talk about contemplative prayer. What a gift it was to finally have others with whom to pray and share the journey.

Later, I found the Desert Fathers and Mothers, The Cloud of Unknowing (written by an anonymous 14^thcentury English monk), John Cassian, Julian of Norwich, and other mystical writers. I had begun to practice Lectio Divina and realized that my longtime journaling was part of my contemplative prayer journey (something I love to share at retreats and workshops). Time spent with Benedictine monks and sisters broadened and deepened my prayer experience.

The hunger for contemplative prayer among many Christians remains as deep as ever. Even if it’s not talked about much in parishes, there are many resources available today.

What prompted me to reflect on this was the passing on October 25 of Fr. Thomas Keating, at age 95. He is likely the most well-known Trappist monk since Merton. Keating is recognized for his development and promotion (along with others including M. Basil Pennington and William Meninger) of the centering prayer method of Christian meditation.]

This prayer practice began in the 1970s at Saint Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer Massachusetts where Keating was abbot for twenty years. It was a prompted by conversations with young Christians, who, like my college friends, were seeking a prayer path that was meditative and transformative. They stopped by the Abbey to ask directions to a Buddhist meditation center that had been opened nearby in what once had been a Catholic retreat house. When Keating asked the young searchers why they didn’t look for a path in the Christian tradition, their answer was the same as my friends’ might have been: There’s a Christian path?

Keating talked to the monks at the Abbey about developing a method of meditation—based on Scripture and Christian tradition—that would be accessible to anyone, those beyond the monastery walls as well as inside them. The result is what is now known as Centering Prayer.

There are many resources available if you are interested in learning more about it; here are a few: Open Mind, Open Heartby Keating; Finding Grace at the Centerby Thomas Keating, M. Basil Pennington, OCSO and Thomas E. Clark, SJ.; Centering Prayer and Inner Awakeningby Episcopalian priest Cynthia Bourgeault. The Contemplative Outreach, an organization Keating founded in 1984, has a website full of information and resources. Some parishes have Centering Prayer groups that meet weekly.

Centering Prayer is not the only way to practice and nurture one’s contemplative life. Shalem introduces program participants to a variety of approaches. And, of course, a person is not restricted to practicing only one. As Fr. Keating wrote in a selection found on the Contemplative Outreach website addressing different approaches to meditative prayer: “In Buddhism there are a wide variety of methods (perhaps techniques would be a better designation). Why shouldn’t Christians have a few?”

There are many! If you find yourself drawn to contemplation, Centering Prayer is one method to consider. It is popular, accessible, and practiced by hundreds of thousands around the globe.

Thank you, Fr. Keating.

God Beyond Geography

Father Richard challenges the ways we allow personal possessions and national boundaries to define us: 

Jesus primarily talked about the kingdom of God as his defining worldview. Yet, the vast majority of Christians in history have identified with their own much smaller kingdoms for which they were willing to fight, kill, surrender, and grant pledges of total allegiance. “Caesar is Lord” has been the rallying cry of most Christians more than the intentionally subversive creed: “Jesus is Lord!” (Romans 10:9; 1 Corinthians 12:3). Christian history up to now has been overwhelmingly and adamantly provincial, ethnic, and cultural, much more than “catholic” or universal. We have defined ourselves largely by exclusion more than inclusion. Ironically, World Wars I and II were fought among various “Christian” peoples of Europe and the United States. Any reluctance to admit our embarrassing Christian history reveals our immense capacity for avoidance and denial of our own shadow.  

National boundaries are simply arbitrary lines and mean little in the eyes of God: “The nations of the earth are like a drop on the rim of a pail, they count as a grain of dust on the scales…. All the nations mean nothing in God’s eyes. They count as nothing and emptiness” (Isaiah 40:15, 17). The New Testament puts it in a more positive way, “Our true citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20) and “we are mere pilgrims and nomads on this earth” (Hebrews 11:13). My father Francis of Assisi loved to quote this passage from Hebrews to his friars, and how I wish we could hear it spoken with passion in our time. 

We, on the other hand, identify with our land, homes, and possessions as if ownership and real estate are, in fact, real! In time, we will all hear Jesus’ message: “You fool!… This hoard that you have collected, who does it belong to now?” (Luke 12:20). I see little difference in the attitudes of those who consider themselves Christian and those who are secular and agnostic. Most Christian citizenship appears to be clearly right here—on this little bit of very unreal estate. Let’s get real about where our estate is and what is our real estate. Are our security, identity, and treasure in our small kingdoms or in the great kingdom of God? As Jesus said, we cannot finally serve both of these demanding masters (Matthew 6:24). [1] 

No institution or nation can encompass the kingdom of God. When people say piously, “Thy kingdom come” out of one side of their mouth, they need also to say, “My kingdom go!” out of the other side. The kingdom of God supersedes and far surpasses all kingdoms of self, personal reward, society, or nation. The big picture of God’s kingdom is apparent when God’s work and will is central, and we are happy to take our place in the corner of the frame. This is “doing the will of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21) and allows the larger theater of life and love to unfold. [2] 

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5 on Friday John Chaffee

1.

“The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?“

– Dorothy Day, Founder of The Catholic Worker

“A revolution of the heart.”

Man, that’s good.

It is not a revolution of the institution.

It is not a revolution of society.

It is not a revolution of a small band of people

It is a revolution of individual hearts.

2.

“Dear dust, my soul clings to a lot of idols you construct, and I wish that I could just let my God be God, and his gifts be gifts.”

– College Ruled Lines by Levi the Poet

I’ve loved Levi the Poet’s poetry rants for years now. I’ve probably only seen him live twice, but we can blame that on the COVID years, which knocked out gatherings and touring for a while.

There is something about the spoken word that gets to me.  The fact that it is so stripped down, with barely any music (if any), gives even more weight to every individual word.

College Ruled Lines is the first poem that dug deep into me.  Something about its passion and its directness resonated within me.  I came across this poem at a point in my life when I was working at a church that was imploding.  It was beyond clear that the congregation had idolized the senior pastor to the point at which he was eventually ousted for years of inappropriate relationships and abuse of church funds.

That event kickstarted my own Dark Night of the Soul and “deconstruction.”  It forced me to reevaluate my understanding of the faith, the church, the institution, and whether or not the Christ needs the institution at all.  (Note: In my mind, the institution is not the same thing as the Church.)

Looking back, poetry, music, and very good friends helped me get through those years.

Thank you, Levi, for the part you played during those years.

3.

“If love is not the answer, then we are asking the wrong question.”

– Loose Your Mind by Wookiefoot

When I am riding in my Jeep, I often listen to the same 40 bands, to podcasts, or, every once in a while, random things that Spotify brings up.

Recently, Wookiefoot popped up.

What a fantastic name for a band.

They are folky, reggae, melodic rap… I think?

It is interesting how, as my understanding of the faith has grown, I have become more and more able to notice similarities with other world perspectives. I have long since been threatened by someone outside of my faith saying something similar or even insightful.

Wookiefoot seems to take lyrical inspiration from the hippie movement of the 1970s, but the emphasis on Love sounds very much like the wit and wisdom of the Christian mystics.

4.

“You tell me that it’s a cruel world and we’re all just running around in circles. I know that. I’ve been on this earth just as many days as you. When I choose to see the good side of things, I’m not being naive. It is strategic and necessary. It’s how I’ve learned to survive everything. I know you see yourself as a fighter. Well, I see myself as one too. This is how I fight.”

– Everything, Everywhere All at Once

Anger and violence do not help or change the world.

5.

“If empathy is a sin, sin boldly.”

– Unknown

Martin Luther, the Augustinian monk turned Church Reformer, said to “sin boldly.”

Most people misunderstand the context within which he said it and take it as a license to do anything they want with their lives.  The reality is that in his lifetime and milieu, Catholic dogma was so shame and guilt-inducing that people were afraid of living.

In response to all this and Luther’s growing conviction about the unconditional nature of Grace, he told his frightened congregation to “sin boldly.”

Luther was always pretty good at stirring the pot.

So let’s stir the pot a little bit right now…

Modernity in the West struggles with what it means to be compassionate, merciful, and empathic.  The reason might be that social media and the news have trained our baseline thinking to be threat-casting, fearful, and reactively outraged at all times.  Compassion is a relatively high emotional state, and if we are stuck down in the lower brain stem doing fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, then empathy is barely given a second thought.

Some might even demonize empathy.

But I disagree with that.

In fact, my Lutheran upbringing encourages me to say:

“If empathy is a sin, sin boldly.”

Faithful to Compassion

Thursday, March 20, 2025

If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him…. The people who give you their food give you their heart.  
—César Chávez  

Theologian Karen González recalls meeting a woman who acted with compassion, regardless of her outspoken beliefs about specific policies.  

I saw Mrs. Fisher standing in the lobby [with her friend] before I had even exited the elevator. It was her second visit to our immigration clinic, and … [I] prepared myself to receive an earful. True to form, she let me know that she did not approve of the work my organization does to advocate for immigration policy reform. “Why do you all have to be so political?” she asked….  

Mrs. Fisher was an enigma to me—she expressed clear xenophobic tendencies, a fear of the “other,” the foreigner, often based in ethnocentrism. But in action she was generous and even hospitable—not the hosting-a-dinner-party kind but the one described in the Bible as philoxenia, the love of foreigners. This love is not sentimental or a one-time act but a way of living, a code of values that involves caring for foreign people.  

On her first visit, she had brought a different immigrant friend, a woman who was her housekeeper, to renew her work permit. Her friend had been putting off the renewal because she did not want to lose half a day’s income by coming to see a legal adviser, so Mrs. Fisher had offered to pay her not to clean her house. Instead, she drove her to our immigration clinic herself, parked downtown in an expensive garage, and waited with her through the consultation. Later, she returned with her to file the actual petition. For someone who was so rabidly against welcoming immigration policies, she had given of her time, money, and other resources to assist two different people who needed immigration legal support. I know people who verbally support refugees and other immigrants who have not done half as much to assist a single immigrant person!  

González refers to a parable in Matthew’s Gospel (21:28–30), highlighting the role of compassionate action in our spiritual growth:  

According to Jesus’s explanation … it is the good deed that counts, not the yes with good intentions…. [Mrs. Fisher] was doing God’s will, but did she believe God’s words about welcoming and doing justice for the immigrant?  

It is impossible for me to know, because I never saw her again. Yet, I would not be surprised if she had, because it has been my experience that we often practice ourselves into new ways of being and believing. I always thought that belief precedes action, and sometimes it does. But all too often, it is practices that shape us, that change our beliefs and help us internalize them in ways that are transformative. We learn by doing. I wonder if Mrs. Fisher now proclaims hospitality in addition to practicing hospitality. I hope so. 

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Jesus Calling: March 20

    Thank Me for the glorious gift of My Spirit. This is like priming the pump of a well. As you bring Me the sacrifice of thanksgiving, regardless of your feelings, My Spirit is able to work more freely within you. This produces more thankfulness and more freedom, until you are overflowing with gratitude.
    I shower blessings on you daily, but sometimes you don’t perceive them. When your mind is stuck on a negative focus, you see neither Me nor My gifts. In faith, thank Me for whatever is preoccupying your mind. This will clear the blockage so that you can find Me.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:

2nd Corinthians 5:5 (NLT)
5 God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.
2nd Corinthians 3:17 (NLT)
17 For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
Psalm 50:14 (NLT)
14 Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God,
    and keep the vows you made to the Most High.

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A beautiful and well-known poem that expresses the love and joy of God is “Love” by George Herbert (1593–1633). This English poem, written in the 17th century, captures God’s unconditional love and the joy of being welcomed into His presence.

Love (lll) 1625. 

By George Herbert

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,

Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning

If I lacked anything.

“A guest,” I answered, “worthy to be here:”

Love said, “You shall be he.”

“I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,

I cannot look on Thee.”

Love took my hand and smiling did reply,

“Who made the eyes but I?”

“Truth, Lord, but I have marred them; let my shame

Go where it doth deserve.”

“And know you not,” says Love, “Who bore the blame?”

“My dear, then I will serve.”

“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.”

So I did sit and eat.

This poem is a moving reflection on God’s boundless love and the joy of being received by Him despite our unworthiness. Herbert personifies “Love” as God, gently inviting the hesitant soul to embrace divine grace. The final lines convey the joy and peace that come from accepting God’s love.

Faithful to Compassion

Thursday, March 20, 2025

If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him…. The people who give you their food give you their heart.  
—César Chávez  

Theologian Karen González recalls meeting a woman who acted with compassion, regardless of her outspoken beliefs about specific policies.  

I saw Mrs. Fisher standing in the lobby [with her friend] before I had even exited the elevator. It was her second visit to our immigration clinic, and … [I] prepared myself to receive an earful. True to form, she let me know that she did not approve of the work my organization does to advocate for immigration policy reform. “Why do you all have to be so political?” she asked….  

Mrs. Fisher was an enigma to me—she expressed clear xenophobic tendencies, a fear of the “other,” the foreigner, often based in ethnocentrism. But in action she was generous and even hospitable—not the hosting-a-dinner-party kind but the one described in the Bible as philoxenia, the love of foreigners. This love is not sentimental or a one-time act but a way of living, a code of values that involves caring for foreign people.  

On her first visit, she had brought a different immigrant friend, a woman who was her housekeeper, to renew her work permit. Her friend had been putting off the renewal because she did not want to lose half a day’s income by coming to see a legal adviser, so Mrs. Fisher had offered to pay her not to clean her house. Instead, she drove her to our immigration clinic herself, parked downtown in an expensive garage, and waited with her through the consultation. Later, she returned with her to file the actual petition. For someone who was so rabidly against welcoming immigration policies, she had given of her time, money, and other resources to assist two different people who needed immigration legal support. I know people who verbally support refugees and other immigrants who have not done half as much to assist a single immigrant person!  

González refers to a parable in Matthew’s Gospel (21:28–30), highlighting the role of compassionate action in our spiritual growth:  

According to Jesus’s explanation … it is the good deed that counts, not the yes with good intentions…. [Mrs. Fisher] was doing God’s will, but did she believe God’s words about welcoming and doing justice for the immigrant?  

It is impossible for me to know, because I never saw her again. Yet, I would not be surprised if she had, because it has been my experience that we often practice ourselves into new ways of being and believing. I always thought that belief precedes action, and sometimes it does. But all too often, it is practices that shape us, that change our beliefs and help us internalize them in ways that are transformative. We learn by doing. I wonder if Mrs. Fisher now proclaims hospitality in addition to practicing hospitality. I hope so. 

____________________________________________

Jesus Calling: March 20

    Thank Me for the glorious gift of My Spirit. This is like priming the pump of a well. As you bring Me the sacrifice of thanksgiving, regardless of your feelings, My Spirit is able to work more freely within you. This produces more thankfulness and more freedom, until you are overflowing with gratitude.
    I shower blessings on you daily, but sometimes you don’t perceive them. When your mind is stuck on a negative focus, you see neither Me nor My gifts. In faith, thank Me for whatever is preoccupying your mind. This will clear the blockage so that you can find Me.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:

2nd Corinthians 5:5 (NLT)
5 God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.
2nd Corinthians 3:17 (NLT)
17 For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
Psalm 50:14 (NLT)
14 Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God,
    and keep the vows you made to the Most High.

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A beautiful and well-known poem that expresses the love and joy of God is “Love” by George Herbert (1593–1633). This English poem, written in the 17th century, captures God’s unconditional love and the joy of being welcomed into His presence.

Love (lll) 1625. 

By George Herbert

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,

Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning

If I lacked anything.

“A guest,” I answered, “worthy to be here:”

Love said, “You shall be he.”

“I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,

I cannot look on Thee.”

Love took my hand and smiling did reply,

“Who made the eyes but I?”

“Truth, Lord, but I have marred them; let my shame

Go where it doth deserve.”

“And know you not,” says Love, “Who bore the blame?”

“My dear, then I will serve.”

“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.”

So I did sit and eat.

This poem is a moving reflection on God’s boundless love and the joy of being received by Him despite our unworthiness. Herbert personifies “Love” as God, gently inviting the hesitant soul to embrace divine grace. The final lines convey the joy and peace that come from accepting God’s love.

Theologian Christine Pohl reflects on the biblical call to hospitality: 

Communities in which hospitality is a vibrant practice tap into deep human longings to belong, find a place to share one’s gifts, and be valued. The practice of hospitality reflects a willingness on the part of a community of people to be open to others and to their insights, needs, and contributions. Hospitable communities recognize that they are incomplete without other folks but also that they have a “treasure” to share with them. 

Hospitality is at the heart of Christian life, drawing from God’s grace and reflecting God’s graciousness. In hospitality, we respond to the welcome that God has offered and replicate that welcome in the world. While many current understandings of hospitality are limited to the hospitality industry of restaurants and hotels, coffee and donuts at church, or well-planned dinner parties, the practice itself is biblically, historically, and theologically much more substantive and significant.  

The practice of hospitality is important for communities as they reach out to others and as they work to strengthen their internal relationships. A community is also important for the practice of hospitality. Those who welcome strangers from within a community can find friends with whom to share the work and the blessing, help in maintaining perspective, and opportunities for rest and renewal. [1] 

Preacher-activist Sandra Maria Van Opstal encourages the church to expand hospitality from something we do to an expression of who we are:  

What is this shift, this journey from doing to being? It involves a deepening relationship with both the Holy Spirit and people who may not look like us or share our experiences. Shifting our focus from doing to being allows us to become more fully the community that Scripture calls us to be. Though we may begin with hospitality, where we are saying “we welcome you,” Scripture calls us to journey from that place, through a place of solidarity (“we stand with you”), and ultimately to mutuality (“we need you”), where we comprehend just how deeply the global community of Jesus followers need each other in order to be the people of God we are called by Scripture to be…. 

While we tend to think of this journey from hospitality to mutuality as a one-way process, our life in Christ is far from linear. Jesus exemplified mutuality in every way: in the stories he told, in the way he related to others, and even in the way he died. When the church works to embody mutuality in their daily life, and especially in their approach to immigrants and refugees, we learn to lament, celebrate, and learn together. Ultimately, this leads to the healing and wholeness that God wants for [God’s] creation! And this means not just doing but being the reflection of Christ’s love, which the church is called to be; to witness to Christ not just in our words but in our mutual identity as members of [Christ’s] body. 

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Howard Thurman and What Makes You Come Alive with Lerita Coleman Brown

The Holy Ordinary “pop-up” podcast 

MARK LONGHURST AND LERITA COLEMAN BROWNMAR 16

The Holy Ordinary Podcast is a “pop-up” podcast that explores the contemplative dimensions of everyday life. Every so often, host Mark Longhurst interviews authors, thinkers, activists who illuminate the sacred, the just, and the beautiful in the midst of the ordinary. This episode’s guest is Lerita Coleman Brown. Brown is a retreat leader, a spiritual director, and the author of the book “What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk With Howard Thurman.” Brown has spent years studying the life and wisdom of Howard Thurman, and she shares her learning in a way that impacts our everyday quest for God. Topics covered include: Thurman’s nonviolence, his influence on Martin Luther King Jr., and how he understood mysticism as a creative response of life. Here is a lightly-edited excerpt of Brown’s reflections: 

Howard Thurman is such an extraordinary human spirit. I did not learn about him until later in my own life. I was actually very shocked and dismayed because we were both in Northern California in the early 70s and I could have met him. But I knew nothing about him. And I came to understand as I began to read more about him, as well as to give presentations about him, that there were a lot of people that also didn’t know. So there was something in me that really was very curious, but also found that he was a very affirming figure, particularly with respect to contemplative spirituality.

Howard Thurman was born on November 18th, 1899 in Daytona Beach, Florida. He was a person who felt very connected to the outdoors, and spent a lot of time outdoors. He lost his father when he was about seven. I think that was one of the things that perhaps maybe drove him out near the ocean, to walk along the ocean, or to be among some of the many trees there. He was raised primarily by his mother and grandmother, his grandmother being Nancy Ambrose, a former slave, who taught him that he was a child of God. And she wanted that to be his primary source of identity because she knew as a young Black child he was going to certainly encounter a very hostile Jim Crow South eventually, and she wanted him and his life and his thinking to be rooted in God.

He spent much of his young years in Daytona Beach having these kind of mystical experiences outside. But he was also very bright and read a lot. He read to his grandmother out of the Bible. And at that time, Black children could only go to school until the seventh grade, which de facto prevented them from going to high school. So the community got together. He was privately tutored and went off to the Florida Baptist Academy, which is now Florida Memorial College, was an extraordinary student and graduated valedictorian of his class. As a result, he won a full scholarship to Morehouse College in Atlanta. He graduated valedictorian of his class. There’s a myth that he read every book in the library at the time. And then decided that he really wanted to go into the ministry.

So he was accepted at one of the few seminaries that were taking Black students at the time, Rochester Theological Seminary, and again, he had an extraordinary career there and graduated valedictorian of his class. Soon after, he got married to Katie Kelly, and they moved to Oberlin, Ohio, where his first assignment was at the Mount Zion Baptist church. He was attending a meeting one night, became a bit restless, came out of the meeting, and picked up a book called Finding the Trail of Life, which had been written by the eminent Quaker mystic Rufus Jones.

He felt like Rufus had just written his own life on paper and in this book because Rufus Jones also had mystical experiences as a child. So he tracked him down and sent a message through someone. And Rufus Jones contacted him and allowed him to come to Haverford College as a special student for a semester to study mysticism.

Thurman didn’t know, coming from a Baptist seminary, that there was actually even a field of mysticism to study. So he enjoyed that. Also, he was introduced to a kind of affirmative mysticism, which is based on the Quaker idea that we all carry God within us. And when you go down into God, you come up in community or unity or oneness. So he’s very moved by this and later began to write about it, and was highly criticized for that because people didn’t really understand mysticism. 

He decided to start talking about mysticism and social change because his basic idea was that God had created one creation, and that we’re all connected. He sort of felt like that when you have these creative encounters, which is what he renamed mysticism or mystical experience, or religious experiences, or these moments with God, that it should shake something loose inside of you that’s keeping you separate from other people.

As a result, you sort of come out of that experience wanting to continue to help to restore God’s beloved creation. He spent much of his lifetime sort of making those connections. He wrote a very famous book, Jesus and the Disinherited, because he basically had his own interpretation of the Gospels. The book really inspired a number of theologians and activists, including Bayard Rustin, James Lawson, Pauli Murray, and Martin Luther King Jr. It was sort of like a blueprint for the civil rights movement.

He just had an extraordinary life. He started the first intentional interracial church in San Francisco. He spent six months in India in the 30s and met Gandhi at that time. He became the first Black faculty member and dean of the Marsh Chapel at Boston University, where he also once again crossed over with King.

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Biblical scholar Ched Myers writes of the prominence of immigrants in the Scriptures. 

Torah and the Prophets warned Israel not to discriminate against economic or political refugees, since in YHWH’s eyes even the chosen people were “but aliens and tenants” (Leviticus 25:23). Instead, they were to treat the “sojourners in your midst” with dignity and justice (Deuteronomy 24:14). This fundamental regard for the resident alien, and call to solidarity with the “outsider,” came to full realization in the teaching and practice of Jesus of Nazareth. An oft-cited verse that captures this is Matthew’s last-judgment parable, in which Jesus commends those who welcome him in the guise of a stranger—and condemns those who do not (Matthew 25:35–46). [1] 

Three archetypally vulnerable groups are commonly named in almost formulaic fashion: widows, orphans, and strangers. Because YHWH “watches over” them (Psalm 146:9), they have intrinsic rights to sustenance (Deuteronomy 14:29, 24:19–21, 26:12–13) and to human rights (Deuteronomy 27:19; Psalm 94:6). And the prophets measure the health of the nation by how widows, orphans, and strangers are treated (Jeremiah 7:6, 22:3; Zechariah 7:10; Malachi 3:5)….  

But there is another, theologically startling characteristic of scripture: from beginning to end, God too is portrayed entering our world in the guise of a stranger in need of hospitality. One of the first divine epiphanies is YHWH’s mysterious appearance in the form of “three guests” (Genesis 18:1–8). Abraham and Sarah offer them food, drink, and shelter, and their hospitality occasions the great promise of progeny that launches the salvation story of an entire people (Genesis 18:9–10)…. 

We can go further: the God of the Bible is consistently portrayed as “stateless,” and we can reasonably add undocumented. This is in stark contrast to the patron-gods of the empires that surrounded Israel, who lived comfortably in the temples of the king. In the Exodus tradition, the wilderness God doesn’t even have a name, much less “papers”: the moniker YHWH means “I will be whoever I will be” (Exodus 3:14). God’s voice summons Moses into a conspiracy for freedom from a burning bush outside the borders of, and in opposition to, Pharaoh’s political and economic system. Inspired and led by this God, the Hebrews flee Egypt “in haste” (Exodus 12:33), and wander in the desert as a people with no legal status—as political refugees still must do.  

The Gospel writers portray Jesus as a refugee in need of hospitality:  

The Second Testament continues in this tradition. The gospel story begins with Jesus’ family fleeing violence as political refugees, pushed around Palestine by the imperial forces of Caesar and Herod (Matthew 2; Luke 2). The adult Jesus not only characterizes himself as homeless (“the Human One has nowhere to lay his head,” Luke 9:58), but stateless. “My kingdom is not of this world,” he says before the Roman procurator (John 18:36). The evangelists also portray Jesus as a constant recipient of hospitality who sometimes even “invites himself in” (see, for example, Luke 19:5).

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a mirrored fun house of confirmation bias

a sermon on Psalm 27

NADIA BOLZ-WEBER MAR 17

Spite

This might be weird for a pastor to admit, but I did not always love the Psalms – I mean the 23^rd psalm is cool… he maketh me to lie down in green pastures sounds relaxing and all…but most of the Psalms have a poetic structure that is different to Western verse, and the imagery can feel archaic and aggressive even. I mean, have you heard psalm 109, it is for sure the most spiteful thing I’ve ever read.

In case you haven’t memorized 109, here are the requests made of God by the Psalmist:

May his enemy’s children be wandering beggars;
and be driven from their ruined homes.

May a creditor seize all his enemy has

May no one extend kindness to him
or take pity on his fatherless children.

And for a long time I thought, dude…that’s a bit harsh don’t you think. Like maybe the Psalmist hadn’t done his personal work.

That is the discomforting thing about the Psalms. They do not hold back. The intimacy the writer felt with God is the kind where you don’t have to soften anything you’re saying or feeling. The words are unfiltered and real in a way that makes me shift in my chair. Clearly the Psalms weren’t run through a PR department before being published.

Now I love that about the Psalms – how relatable they are – maybe not materially, I’m still not clear what bulwarks and ramparts are, but for sure I relate emotionally. Because eventually I realized the reason the Psalms made me uncomfortable wasn’t because I couldn’t relate, but because I could.

My kind of spirituality

Like in our Psalm for today when the Psalmist is like, the Lord is my light and my salvation who’s a guy to fear. I sort of wonder if maybe the Psalmist wrote that in a good moment like maybe right after savasana, then maybe as they come back from yoga class it all just sort of falls apart like it does for me. Gets angry at the driver who cut them off, then gets a collection notice for a bill he knows he paid, and is pretty sure his neighbor is not cleaning up after his dog, and someone has gone after a promotion at work that they thought was for sure theirs. And then he sees a picture of his best friend and his ex-wife on Facebook and his best friend just sent a text that says, “we need to talk”

And then maybe he writes the rest of the verses of Psalm 27 because then it’s a whole lot of evildoers, and foes and enemies and everyone has it out for the guy.

This, by the way, is my sort of spirituality. Very lumpy and inconsistent, filled with praise of God but with little sprinkles of doubt and wanting my enemies destroyed on top.

I have no way of knowing if the Psalmist was a tiny bit paranoid, or prone to drama or if people really did hate the guy that much.

False witness

But I do know what it is like to have had untrue things said about me. To feel that powerless and alone. In fact 6 years ago I was the subject of a fake news story and for a moment I was like, yeah, may a creditor seize all that guy’s assets.

I also know what it’s like to have said things about other people that I later found out were not true. Which is its own kind of awful.

Anyhow, I’ve been obsessed all week by verses 12 and 13 in our Psalm for today and how oddly paired they are.

Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries,
for false witnesses have risen against me,
and they are breathing out violence.

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.

I love this little encapsulation of what it’s really like to be us down here.

You seem like nice people so I’m not sure how many of you would say that you have enemies and adversaries, but if you do not, and if no one has spread falsities about you, and so you are struggling to find a way to relate to the Psalmist, I am here today to argue that in this moment in time specifically, Psalm 27 is still very relatable, and here’s why.

A mirrored fun house of confirmation bias

Yesterday when a friend sent me a link to a YouTube video and when it was over I was shown that grid of all the videos that YouTube was suggesting and for just a second I thought “Wow, I didn’t realize so many other people are interested in shape note singing, the coast to coast walk in UK, Genx Feminists, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds,”…but they aren’t – the algorithm was just showing me what I already think and what I already like and it makes it seem like everyone else does too… when really everyone else is just shown their own weird preferences and beliefs back at them too.

And all the news sources I prefer kind of do the exact same thing. Feed me everything through the filter of my opinions till it seems like it’s the real thing.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but it feels like the machinery of late stage capitalism coughed up the internet for us with its empty promises of connecting us all through social media – only to leave us in a mirrored fun house of confirmation bias.

I feel so surrounded by it that it’s suffocating and I’m left wondering what is real….and what is true when there are such starkly different narratives out there about the world that are then custom delivered to our devices to assure us that we are right about everything.

“content”

All that is to say, maybe the thing we have all been surrounded by these last 20 years is false witness. I just don’t know what else to call the misinformation, and disinformation, and spin and slant and fabrications and propaganda we benignly call “content”.

False witness might seem like an archaic term, but false witness is just the way we call everything anything but what it is.

And it’s just so … effective.

I mean, convincing us of the very worst things about the world and other people and our own bodies is very very profitable, just not to us. It does not profit us.

So when the Psalmist writes,

Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries,
for false witnesses have risen against me,
and they are breathing out violence.

Maybe it IS relatable because false witness has risen against us all and I ask, has it not breathed out violence into this already fragile world?

Which is why – which is why – in the very next verse, when the Psalmist says.

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.

It feels so defiantly hopeful.

As if their head rose above the grimy threats and lies and slander to see that this is not the land of the forlorn, this is not the land of the competing world views, this is not the dystopian land of enemies.

It is the land of the living. And to speak of the goodness of God in land of the living is to speak Good News to we who are in bondage to fake news.

The most real

And you know where we see the Goodness of God? We only see it in what is most real. The algorithms will not show it to us. We see the Goodness of God in what is most real. Not in a virtual reality headset, not on cable news, not in mediated content, not in an imagined utopian future, but here and now in the land of the living.

Here we are friends. Even so, even still, even though. Here we are in the land of the living.

Where we see the goodness of God in what is most real. To be clear, the Psalmist doesn’t claim that a life with God is trouble free, only that God is a source of strength in times of trouble (and trouble does and will come for us all). That too is real.

By the way, we also see the Goodness of God in what is most real, most honest, and most -makes-us-shift-in-our chair about ourselves.

And the Psalms are our help in this –expressing the unmediated truth of our innermost thoughts; all the spite and praise and hope and paranoia and gladness, showing us that all of it is fair game for God. Which means we need not fear the real truth about ourselves when that is where God resides. When that is where God offers us mercy and lovingkindness and as many fresh starts as we need.

So may our eyes be unclouded by what is false so that we can behold what is good. Maybe this is what the season of Lent can bring to us. Divine lens cleaner. That we might better see the world, better see ourselves, better see our fellows and better see the goodness of the Lord right here in the lumpy, beautiful, heartbreaking hilarious land of the living.

Amen.

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Father Richard Rohr invites us to consider how well we love others, especially the stranger, as Jesus teaches:  

If our love of God doesn’t directly influence, and even change, how we engage in the issues of our time, I wonder what good religion is. “God talk” becomes an opaque screen in which we see only reflections of ourselves, rather than any kind of true light. “Anyone who says they love God, and hates their brother or sister, is a liar” (1 John 4:20). None of us wants to be a liar, yet religion’s high goals make failure almost inevitable for all of us (read Paul’s attempts to describe this paradoxical phenomenon in Romans 7:7–25). Our daily question is this: “Have I even begun to love?” 

Most Christians tend to echo the cultural prejudices and worldviews of the dominant group in their country, with only a minority revealing any real transformation of attitudes or consciousness. It has been true of slavery and racism, classism and consumerism, and issues of immigration and health care for the poor. From a religion based on a man who was always healing poor people and praising foreigners, it defies any logical analysis! 

One would think that people who insist they believe in one God would understand that everyone on Earth is equally a child of that one God. Christians ought to be first in line to cross artificial boundaries created by nation states, class systems, cultures, and even religions. Often, we’re the last! It makes one wonder if we believe what we say we believe. Religion too often becomes the way to defend the self instead of the way to “let go of the self” as Jesus forthrightly taught (see Luke 9:23). [1]  (Surrender) djr note

Pope Francis reminds Christians of their duty to welcome the stranger:  

Let us concentrate on these words of Jesus: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me” (Matthew 25:35–36). In our time, charitable action regarding foreigners is more relevant than ever. The economic crisis, armed conflicts, and climate change have forced many people to emigrate. However, migration is not a new phenomenon; it is part of the history of humanity. It is a lack of historical memory to think that this phenomenon has arisen only in recent years…. 

At times it seems that the silent work of so many men and women who, in various ways, do all they can to help and assist the refugees and migrants is obscured by the clamor of others who give voice to an instinctive selfishness. However, closure is not a solution, but instead ends up fostering criminal trafficking. The only path to a solution is through solidarity. Solidarity with the migrant, solidarity with the foreigner….  

We all … are called to welcome our brothers and sisters who are fleeing from war, from hunger, from violence and from inhuman living conditions. All together we are a great supportive force for those who have lost their homelands, families, work, and dignity. 

Choosing to Remain Together

Theologian Julia Lambert Fogg presents a biblical story of intergenerational immigration: 

Ruth is the story of a mother and a daughter-in-law who cross borders, lose their husbands, immigrate and emigrate, and ultimately help each other survive even though they are not blood relatives.  

Ruth is the daughter-in-law. She is a Moabite woman who leaves her father’s house to marry a recently arrived immigrant to her town. Her betrothed is a Jewish man, the son of Naomi. Although they are of different ethnic backgrounds, Ruth joins the immigrant Jewish man’s household. She moves in with a Moabite sister-in-law, a Jewish brother-in-law, and a Jewish mother-in-law and father-in-law. The six adults live as what we today might call a mixed family: four immigrants and two locals who are bound together by marriage.  

But before the young couples have children, tragedy strikes. The male breadwinners fall ill and die, one after the other. This is quite a blow to the family—Ruth’s husband, brother-in-law, and father-in-law are all gone. Left without a head of household, the three women must decide what they will do. Will they stay together in Moab? Will they split up so the two young women can start new families? Who will care for the mother-in-law, Naomi, an immigrant with no relatives in Moab and no social network to speak of, and who is too old to marry or to bear children?  

Each woman makes her own choice. Ruth’s sister-in-law returns to her father’s house, to “her people and her gods” in Moab (Ruth 1:15). She will likely marry again and start a new family. Ruth’s mother-in-law, Naomi, decides to return to her Jewish kin in Judah, where she at least has a social network, if not financial resources. These two women make similar choices to simply return home to their own people to start over. They will be reabsorbed into their respective families and cultures of birth. Ruth, however, makes a different choice. She opts to migrate—to leave her home in Moab and travel to Judah with Naomi. For this journey, Ruth binds herself to her mother-in-law, saying,  

Do not press me to leave you 
or to turn back from following you! 
Where you go, I will go; 
where you lodge, I will lodge; 
your people shall be my people, 
and your God my God.  
Where you die, I will die— 
there will I be buried.
(Ruth 1:16–17) 

Through her love for Naomi, Ruth becomes a revered part of Jesus’ lineage: 

Ruth’s words capture the resolute determination of so many migrants across history. She leaves her parents, her sister-in-law, and her people behind. Ruth will help Naomi reestablish Naomi’s family line in Judah among the Jews. We remember Ruth for her covenant commitment to her mother-in-law and for her courage to migrate, to trust Naomi’s God, and to start a new life among a new people. We also remember this courageous migrant for her descendants, including King David and Jesus of Nazareth.  

Learning from the Mystics: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Quote of the Week:  “There is neither spirit nor matter in the world; the stuff of the universe is spirit-matter.“ Reflection  It is such a small quote, above, but it truly challenges some of the deepest assumptions and perspectives of the universe.  A true mystic is not happy with dualisms that split reality into “this and that,” and instead look for a third option that affirms and transcends that which we separate with language.  Many people, without knowing it, are still rather pagan in their thinking.  They don’t realize it, but are thinking more Greek than they are Christian. The Greek Philosopher Plato taught that there was the realm of the world, and the realm of the ideal.  This means that somewhere “up above” is a perfect way of being, a perfect blueprint to live by, etc.  Meanwhile, “down here” there is nothing but corruption and derivation from the perfect and unattainable ideal.  But that is all rather abstract… Here is another way of thinking about it: material things are evil and spiritual things are good. There are many for whom their spiritual worldview can be summed up as such… and this can lead them to deny their own body’s needs, to shame others for enjoying the world of matter, it can lead them to an unspoken anxiety that nothing they ever do will affirm them with true graciousness about their existence here and now.  For them, spirit only happens if something intangible and emotional happens within them.  For Teilhard, this is an abstraction and a distancing from the actual Christian worldview. The Incarnation is the unique affirmation of the material world, par excellance.  In Christ, God found matter worthy of being worn by God.  In fact, God did not only “wear” matter, God became matter in the flesh and blood of Jesus of Nazareth. This a mystery beyond comprehension… but not beyond apprehension.  We can hold it openhandedly (or rather, it can hold us). The reality is that matter and spirit are not in competition with one another. Neither are matter and spirit trying to establish a hierarchy of who is more important, and neither are matter and spirit truly trying to deny existence to the other. Instead, spirit is only experienced within and as matter.  Again, this is absolutely paradigm shifting. Here is why:  That hug you received, it was spiritual.  That meal made for you, it was spiritual.  That car you enjoy driving, is spiritual.  That great workout session, that was spiritual.  That pillow beneath your head or socks on your feet, those are spiritual, too. There is not matter and spirit, for Teilhard, there is only spirit-matter.  The Incarnation testifies to it, and our very lives confirm it. Prayer  God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus, help us to live within the mystery of the Incarnation.  Help us to see past the dualisms, to see through the false fight between matter and spirit, and help us to have the paradigm shift to see that the Incarnation is true.  Help us to see the world around us as spirit-matter and help us to relate to it in conscious love and wonder.  Amen and amen.

Life Overview:  Who is He: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin  When: Born on May 1st, 1881 in Orcines, France. Died April 10th (Easter), 1955 in New York City, USA.  Why He is Important: Teilhard is a figure who “saw things deeply” while also navigating being a modern scientist.  He was an archaeologist as well as a Jesuit priest and sought to bring together evolution and Christianity by writing about how Christ is the goal of all cosmic history.  He was exiled and censured by the Vatican during his life, but his writings were allowed to be published after his death.  He was recently quoted by Pope Francis, which many see as an endorsement.  Most Known For: Synthesizing his scientific worldview along with his religious worldview, to then offer a modern approach to Christian spirituality Notable Works to Check Out: The Divine Milieu | The Phenomenon of Man | The Future of Man | Selected Writings

The Simplicity of Divine Love

Father Richard emphasizes the clarity and simplicity of trusting in divine grace: 

The early English Franciscan brother William of Ockham (c. 1285–c. 1349) had an overriding principle that’s called “Occam’s razor” (using the Latin spelling of his name). As he put it, “The answer that demands the fewest assumptions is likely the correct one.” If his students wanted to discover the truth of something, he encouraged them to “shave” away as many assumptions, beliefs, or complicating explanations as possible. Great truth might well be mysterious, Ockham believed, but it is never complex. The better answer is almost always the simpler one was his conclusion.  

I’ve found that mature prophets are those who simplify all questions of justice, reward, and punishment by a simple appeal to divine love. God’s infinite, self-giving care is the only needed assumption, cause, factor, or possible variable in the drama of creation. All else must be “shaved” away as creating needless and useless complexity—which only confuses the soul and the mind.  

This is the nature of mature, mystical religion—simple and clear. We shave away as many religious assumptions and judgments as possible and reground religion on one lone conviction—a divine love that can only be experienced and not proved by rational logic. The prophets claim such divine experience and tell us that we can and must, too. This is their one absolute foundation and their radical center on which the entire rest of their message is built, and it makes them unlike any other kind of teacher. Anything that gets in the way of this divine and absolute love must be shaved away. This is the purpose of the sacred criticism practiced by prophets like Amos, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah.  

The prophets—and Jesus—are the ones who have the courage to make God’s way of loving action the source, the goal, the criterion, and the standard for all human morality and behavior. The questions for all of us should eventually be What is God doing? and How does God act? 

We cannot dismantle the violence we find in the world if we allow threats and promises to be the overarching frame of Christianity, or any religious or secular creed. This dualism—the idea of an infinite God being caught up in a naive reward/punishment worldview—must be undone by the deeper gospel of radical grace, unconditional love, and true respect, or nothing will ever change. The loving people I’ve met across the world seem to know that if it’s love at all, it has to be love for everybody. As soon as we begin to parcel it out, we’re not in the great field of love.  

The prophets want us to love God above all else,  
And be loved by God above all other partners.  
Which will, and must, lead to a universal love.  
The kind that sets out to rescue those we’d much  
rather condemn.  
That is the prophets’ hard-won conclusion,  
Their tear-filled victory.  
Is there any other kind of winning?  

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5 on Friday; John Chaffee

1.

“God is the name of the blanket we throw over the mystery to give it a shape.”

– Barry Taylor, Former Road Manager for AC/DC

Most theology, or God-talk in the West and since the Enlightenment fell into “kataphatic theology.”  In some ways, it was almost inevitable.  As the world became more rationalistic and quantifiable, the church might take the bait and do the same thing.

However, long before “kataphatic theology” there was “apophatic theology.”

What are these two things?

“Kataphatic theology” discusses God through affirmative statements that we can rationally argue and “prove.”  It emphasizes certainty and logic.

“Apophatic theology” involves discussing God through negative statements or avoiding what can be said.  It emphasizes mystery and paradox.

This quote from Barry Taylor is in the “apophatic” stream of thought.  How did you experience this quote from him?  Did you disagree with it?  Or did it feel like it scratched an itch on your back that has been there for a long time but nothing quite got at it?

Yeah.

Again, that is because we are probably overdoing it with that certainty and logic in the West.

2.

“There’s some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.”

– J.R.R. Tolkien, British Fantasy Author

A few months ago, I read that Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings resonates with people so much because it finds a way of re-enchanting the world.  That epic fantasy tale of Frodo taking the Ring of Power to be destroyed reminds us of our responsibility to fight for whatever good is left in the world…

And to fight for that good, even if there is no certainty that we will return from the task.

3.

“We should measure the prosperity of a nation not by the number of millionaires, but by the absence of poverty, the prevalence of health, the efficiency of the public schools, and the number of people who can and do read worthwhile books.”

– W.E.B. Du Bois, American Sociologist

This past week, Tesla stock plummeted.

In response, the President of the United States did product placement for Tesla cars while on the front lawn of the White House.

This is something which has never been done before.

Just imagine that, a sitting President used his media influence to give a product bump to his most significant political donor (Elon Musk donated $288 million to Trump’s Presidential campaign).

I do not consider myself a liberal, neither do I consider myself a conservative.  My faith demands that I think critically of any form of political power and follow the way of the Lamb, who shows a preferential option for the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger among us.

The only way forward is for better education, an increase of compassion, and the decision to show solidarity with those at the Bottom rather than those at the Top of a society.

This all reminds me of the words of Yahweh in Amos 5:21-25,

“I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies are a stench to me.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

4.

“Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.”

– Simone Weil, French Philosopher and Mystic

So, anything we give sustained attention to is prayer?

This leads me to think about how we give sustained attention to social media, to politics, to the endless outrage feedback loop we call the news, to binge watching shows.

Imagine if we gave one another unmixed attention, .

5.

“If you know that the reconciliation of all things is the grand design of the Creator of the universe, then your own individual and communal acts of faithfulness to one another become signs in this world of the world to come.”

– Fleming Rutledge, American Episcopal Priest

In other words, our small acts of kindness and love are apocalyptic.

But when I say this, I mean apocalyptic in a different sense than Hollywood.

Apocalyptic does not necessarily refer to calamity or destruction, because in its original use, it means that something is being revealed.

Once again, our small acts of kindness and love reveal what the Kingdom of God will be like.

Already Forgiven

Thursday, March 13, 2025

Author and Lutheran minister Nadia Bolz-Weber describes an experience of lapsing into guilt and self-incrimination during a silent retreat:   

What am I doing with this openness? Resting? Sending love and light out into the world? No. In the space left from leaving the city, everyone else and all creature comforts behind, my regrets float in and stay like toy boats in a tide pool….    

I always [mess] things up eventually. Why didn’t I pay more attention to that one person? I could have been more patient, spent more time with my kids, spent less time at work, asked for help when I needed it, been a better friend, been a better mom, been a better pastor. I should have done better. Never-ending accusations…. This is a toy-boat regatta of self-incrimination.   

I’m nervous to say what happened next, because I know how it sounds. Eleven words came to me from … dare I say God? Maybe it was my own mind finding the emergency brake, but it didn’t seem like the words were my own, since what my own mind usually comes up with sound much closer to “Stop being such a crybaby” than the ones I heard that day on the hill. Eleven words: What if you have already been forgiven for all of that?…  

The relief I felt was not a result of hearing that the things I accuse myself of are not true, but that they are not the most true thing. Grace is the most true thing.  

Bolz-Weber recalls how the prophet Jonah had difficulty accepting God’s grace and forgiveness for all, especially his enemies:  

The image that comes to my mind as I am cry-laughing during this “silent retreat” is that of Jonah sitting alone on his own hill, questioning God’s forgiveness…. When Jonah’s enemies repent and are shown mercy by God, Jonah … says: “That’s why I didn’t want this stupid job in the first place—because I knew, God, that you are gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” [see Jonah 4:2]. And it’s hard to manipulate a God like that….   

God’s grace and mercy throws the whole reward and punishment system out the window. So sometimes I want to yell “noooooo” and reach as fast as I can to get it back. Forgiveness can sting when we don’t feel “worthy” of it, when it seems like we are getting away with something…. As if feeling bad for what I have done is the same as being good, when in fact it is not.   

What if we’ve already been forgiven for the ways we’ve hurt the people we love? What if we’ve already been forgiven for not being perfect parents? What if we’ve already been forgiven for the [stuff] we haven’t even done yet?… Maybe forgiving myself isn’t something that happens once on a silent retreat but is a daily option. Give us this day our daily forgiveness, even for ourselves.   

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Jesus Calling; Sara Young

Waiting, trusting, and hoping are intricately connected, like golden strands interwoven to form a strong chain. Trusting is the central strand, because it is the response from My children that I desire the most. Waiting and hoping embellish the central strand and strengthen the chain that connects you to Me. Waiting for Me to work, with your eyes on Me, to evidence that you really do trust Me. If you mouth the words, “I trust You” while anxiously trying to make things go your way, your words ring hollow. Hoping is future-directed, connecting you to your inheritance in heaven. However, the benefits of hope fall fully on you in the present.
     Because you are Mine, you don’t just pass time in your waiting. You can wait expectantly, in hopeful trust. Keep your “antennae” out to pick up even the faintest glimmer of My Presence.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:
John 14:1 (NLT)
Jesus, the Way to the Father
14 “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.

Additional insight regarding John 14:1-3: The disciples were obviously worried about death and what happens afterward. Jesus’ words still comfort us today. We know from what Jesus said that the way to eternal life, though unseen, is secure for us if we trust him with the future. He has already prepared the way to eternal life. The only issue that may still be unsettled is our willingness to believe him. 

Psalm 27:14 (NLT)
14 Wait patiently for the Lord.
    Be brave and courageous.
    Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.

Additional insight regarding Psalm 27:14: David knew from experience what it meant to wait for the Lord. He had been anointed king at 16, but he didn’t become king until he was 30. During the interim years, he had been changed through the wilderness by jealous King Saul. David had to wait on God for the fulfillment of his promise that David would reign. Later, after becoming king, he was chased by his rebellious son Absalom. 

    Waiting for God is not easy. Often he doesn’t seem to be answering our prayers or understanding the urgency of our situations. That kind of thinking implies that God is not in control or is not fair. But God is worth waiting for. Lamentations 3:24-26 calls us to hope in and wait for the Lord; God often uses times of waiting to refresh, renew, and teach us. Make good use of your waiting times by discovering what God may be trying to do in you while you are in them. 

Hebrews 6:18-20 (NLT)
18 So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. 19 This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary. 20 Jesus has already gone in there for us. He has become our eternal High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.

Additional insight regarding Hebrews 6:18-19: These two unchangeable things are God’s promise and his oath. God embodies all truth; therefore, he cannot lie, and we can be secure in his promises. We don’t need to wonder if he will change his purpose and plans. Our hope of heaven stands secure and immovable, anchored in God, just as a ship/s anchor holds firmly to the seabed. To someone truly seeing who comes to God in belief, God gives an unconditional promise of acceptance. When you ask God with openness, honesty, and sincerity to save you from your sins, he will do it. If this truth gives you encouragement, assurance, and confidence, grasp it. Don’t let go no matter what happens around you. 

Additional insight regarding Hebrews 6:19-20: A curtain hung between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place, God’s inner sanctuary. This curtain prevented anyone from entering, gazing into, or even getting a fleeting glimpse of the interior of the Most Holy Place (also see Hebrews 9:1-8). The high priest could enter these once a year to stand in God’s presence and stone for the sins of the entire nation. But Christ dwells in God’s presence at all times – not just once a year – as the High priest who continually intercedes for us.