Cultivating a Contemplative Culture Within

James Finley shares how in the midst of a challenging time in his life as a father, husband, and teacher, he felt drawn to renew the relationship with God he had experienced in the monastery:  

I began to realize that what I wanted more than anything else was to be grounded once again in the experience of the communal presence with God that had so transformed my life since I was a small child, and which had deepened all the more in the monastery….  

I could not at first see how it was possible for me to fulfill these reawakened longings. For, whereas every aspect of monastic life was carefully crafted to nurture the contemplative way of life in which the communal presence of God is realized, every aspect of the fast-moving ways of the world seemed to be moving in the opposite direction. Then it dawned on me that the contemplative way of life is not dependent on the monastic life that nurtures and protects it. My capacity to live a contemplative way of life was inscribed in my very being as a person created in the image and likeness of God. And so I came to the graced realization that I could, in the midst of my life in the world, cultivate a contemplative culture in my heart by renewing my fidelity to a daily quiet time in which I could once again learn from God how to love and be loved by God.  

And so I began to get up early each morning as my wife and young daughter were still asleep. I would light a candle and sit out on the floor in the living room in an interior stance of silence and openness to God.  

Impacted by the spirituality of Thomas Merton, Finley discovered an openness to the rich contemplative traditions of world religions: 

I began to reflect on how graced I was in the monastery by the non-Christian spiritual masters who came to Gethsemani to visit Merton: the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh; the Jewish mystic and philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel; the Muslim Sufis; the Hindu yogi who had come from India to found an ashram; Bede Griffiths, the Benedictine monk who was living as a Christian yogi in his ashram in India; and John Wu, a Chinese Catholic…. 

With Merton’s help I came to realize that God’s presence is fanned out into these contemplative traditions of the world’s great religions as so many languages or paths to contemplative communion with the divine mystery that he and I were seeking in our own Christian tradition….  

When I got up each morning to meditate … I began to renew my prayerful study of the classical texts of these non-Christian sources of contemplative wisdom. I renewed my practice of yoga, which I had discovered through Thomas Merton, along with what I learned from him about the Buddhist traditions of meditation as a path to ultimate liberation

====================>

Psalm 126: Did God Break His Promise?

Click Here for Audio As I mentioned in the previous devotion, Psalms 125 and 126 appear to be in tension. Psalm 125 says that Mount Zion (which is another name for Jerusalem) “cannot be shaken” and “endures forever.” The Psalm is a statement of confidence in Israel’s covenant with YHWH. Because the Lord is on its side, Jerusalem has nothing to fear. But this assurance is quickly questioned in the very next Psalm.Psalm 126 speaks of a time when YHWH “restored the fortunes of Zion” (verse 1), and asks him to continue restoring his people (verse 4). If Mount Zion is unshakable, as Psalm 125 said, why must it be restored? And why does Psalm 126 speak about a time of tears and weeping for God’s people?Most scholars believe Psalm 126 is post-exilic; meaning it was written after 598 B.C.E. when Babylon invaded and destroyed Jerusalem and many Jews were carted away to live in exile. Without question, this event was the most devastating in the history of ancient Israel. Not only was Mount Zion shaken, but the temple built upon it was destroyed, and the line of Davidic kings was broken.The trauma of the exile led many to wonder if YHWH had abandoned his covenant with Israel. Were they still his chosen people? How could Israel’s faith in God and his goodness be reconciled with the evil they had just experienced? The working out of this dilemma reverberates through many parts of the Old Testament—including numerous Psalms. But where the question is most directly asked and answered is in the writings of the prophets. There we discover the “shaking of Zion” was not YHWH breaking his covenant with Israel, but fulfilling it.When the Lord outlined the contours of his covenant with Israel through Moses, he promised blessing to the people if they followed his way and calamity if they did not. The chief calamity he warned about was exile. “If you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you” (Leviticus 18:28). For generations before the Babylonian invasion, God warned his people that his judgment for their sin was coming. He called them to repent; to turn away from idolatry, to practice justice toward the poor and vulnerable, and to stop mistreating foreigners. But these warnings went unheeded. Finally, after showing incredible patience and giving his people every opportunity to change course, YHWH’s discipline came.The restoration of Zion that Psalm 126 celebrates alludes to the remnant of God’s people returning to the land after 70 years of exile. It’s evidence that the Lord had not abandoned Israel and that the covenant was still in effect. The exile was not an angry deity’s uncontrollable wrath, but a loving father’s reluctant discipline. As Proverbs says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son” (Proverbs 3:11-12; Hebrews 12:5-6). DAILY SCRIPTURE PSALM 125:1-5 PSALM 126:1-6 WEEKLY PRAYERMother Janet Stuart (1857 – 1914) Dear Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I hold up all my weakness to your strength, my failure to your faithfulness, my sinfulness to your perfection, my loneliness to your compassion, my little pains to your great agony on the Cross. I pray that you will cleanse me, strengthen me, and hide me, so that, in all ways, my life may be lived as you would have it lived, without cowardice and for you alone.

In this homily, Father Richard Rohr reflects on how contemplation is much more than a set of practices:  

When we emphasize specific practices too much, contemplation can become a matter of technique and performance. We fall back into self-analysis: Am I doing the practice correctly? The revelation of God, who always wants to enter the material world as our image, cannot possibly depend upon people sitting silently on a prayer cushion twice a day. That would mean that 99.9% of people who have ever lived on this earth have not known God. The definition of Christian contemplation up until recent times has come from the early monastic and desert traditions, but the field is far bigger than that.   

Parker Palmer writes, “The function of contemplation in all its forms is to penetrate illusion and help us to touch reality.” [1] I think he’s right and I would add that great love and great suffering are the normal paths of transformation. There’s an important place for practices of contemplation. I’m not throwing them out, but any practice of contemplation is for the sake of helping us sustain what we temporarily learn through great love or great suffering, whether it’s on a honeymoon or the day after a parent dies. When we’re in the middle of great grief or great love, we become a nondual thinker for a few days, weeks, or months, but we all know it doesn’t last. It doesn’t last—unless we put it into practice.  

Father Richard names why contemplative practices are essential to deepening our experience of God’s wisdom: 

When we insert religion inside of culture, culture wins every time. Most of us are Americans or our nationalities first, and then maybe, once in a while, we are Christians. That’s just obvious—it’s our cultures that form us. We want to believe, we keep pretending we believe, but we really don’t. Until our faith moves to the elemental, cellular level, until we digest it like we do great love and great suffering, it will not change our minds or our actions. Even after a beautiful Mass, ritual, or retreat, we go right back to either/or, dualistic thinking. We go right back to being angry Republicans or Democrats, Protestants or Catholics, Black people or white people. It just never stops. But as we practice, contemplation becomes a way to touch upon reality, a way of penetrating illusion.  

The ego loves to take sides; it gives us a false sense of solidity, importance, and intelligence. Contemplation is any way we can find to help us penetrate illusion and touch reality—and reality will always be bigger than us. It will always leave us a bit uncomfortable, a bit off center stage. If we’re still on center stage, it isn’t Reality. When we can take our place as the little side show we all are, and from that humble perspective allow Reality to do its work with us, I think we will know what we need to know. 

The New Monk

The monastic heart thrives wherever love is found.
—Beverly Lanzetta, A New Silence 

Spiritual teacher Beverly Lanzetta considers what constitutes a “new monk”:  

Recently, I had an interesting conversation with a hermit, who remarked, “Monasticism is ancient. It hasn’t changed. What’s new about it? It’s the same—you empty yourself; you sit in your cell [small monastic room].” This is the issue, isn’t it? Is there really such a thing as the “new” monk?  

Let me first say that the aspiration to monkhood is intrinsic to human life—a universal quality of being that continually draws us into silence. The concept of the “new monk” includes … monks in religious orders to participants without religious affiliation, … the person who chooses to live out a monastic vocation of one religion or a hybrid … or has no formal desire to be a monk, but lives by the universal call to contemplation. In each case, the deep self seeks something more radical and intense from life, and longs to be united with its Source. This is the monk within.  

Monasticism is not new. Through generations of life on Earth, humans have sought solitude and silence. The monk’s journey is the Spirit’s fire born with and into us that ignites the pulse of the untamed heart. It is the insistent call to go deeper, to reach higher, and to search more ardently for our original home. And so, while perhaps we have not been trained to name or recognize the monk within, it has been awake in the center of being all along. We, then, can speak of the new monk as a person who consciously cultivates the interior monkhood, and who lives out an experimental and daily-renewed vocation.   

Lanzetta describes how “new monks” practice their spirituality outside monastic enclosure:  

New expressions of monasticism are not only authentic, but also offer a vital and necessary counterpoint to secular society. This is especially true because the monk in the world is bound by his or her vocation to be a self-reflective person—one who seeks higher meaning and dedicates his or her life on Earth to its pursuit. It is arduous work to dig deep into one’s soul, bringing forth hidden or unconscious motives contrary to a spiritual life. I find that the younger generations are especially drawn to the movement of new monasticism, as many were born with awareness of a new religious sensibility and a global Earth community.  

For all of these reasons, this monastic orientation is “new” because it is taking place in the daily routine of a person’s life, and not in a monastic setting apart from the world.… He or she recognizes that monkhood is not the special preserve of the traditional vowed religious, but the universal heritage of humanity.… 

The challenge of being “new” monks consists in the attempt to expand monastic wisdom into the wider personal and social circle of our lives, while also fiercely protecting the centering point of silence and solitude in our souls. 

==================>

Psalm 125: The Problem with Distinguishing Prayers from Promises

Click Here for Audio Many Christians, and especially those from traditions that highly value the Bible, have been taught to read Scripture one-dimensionally. “The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it” is a very common sentiment in these communities. While meant to honor the Bible, this cliche actually does the opposite by cavalierly erasing the Bible’s great depth and diversity. It ignores the many different genres it contains, and the need to engage and interpret each genre by its own rules.“The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it” is especially unhelpful when reading the Psalms for a few reasons. First, the psalms are poems that employ metaphors, similes, hyperbole, and many other non-literal figures of speech. For example, the Psalms say God is a rock (see Psalms 18, 62, 89, and 95). Are we to believe the Almighty is literally made of stone? Of course not. It’s clearly a metaphor. Second, the Psalms pose interpretive challenges because they are also prayers through which God’s people express a wide spectrum of emotions, and not all of those feelings accurately reflect reality. For example, numerous psalms accuse God of being distant, deaf, or inattentive. Does the Bible intend for us to believe that the Lord doesn’t hear us see our suffering? Again, of course not. These are examples of writers truthfully expressing their feelings about God, even when they are not true of God. Turning to Psalms 125 and 126, we encounter another kind of interpretive challenge. Psalm 125 begins by speaking of God’s unwavering and everlasting protection of his people. The writer says those who trust in the Lord will be protected by him, just as the mountains surround and protect Jerusalem. Just as Mount Zion (another name for Jerusalem) cannot be shaken, neither will God’s people. The writer appears to be saying that Jerusalem enjoys YHWH’s permanent protection.That sounds wonderful, and such a comforting promise may lead someone to declare, “The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it!” But that becomes a bit more difficult if we read the very next chapter. Psalm 126 is a prayer asking YHWH to restore the fortunes of Zion. Wait, didn’t Psalm 125 just say Zion couldn’t be shaken? So, then why does it need to be restored? We’ll look at that more tomorrow, but for now it’s helpful to remember that first and foremost the Psalms are prayers offered by God’s people, not promises given to God’s people.Of course, the Psalms do contain true statements about God and even some promises, but identifying those promises requires us to read the Psalms alongside the rest of Scripture. DAILY SCRIPTURE PSALM 125:1-5 PSALM 126:1-6 WEEKLY PRAYERMother Janet Stuart (1857 – 1914) Dear Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I hold up all my weakness to your strength, my failure to your faithfulness, my sinfulness to your perfection, my loneliness to your compassion, my little pains to your great agony on the Cross. I pray that you will cleanse me, strengthen me, and hide me, so that, in all ways, my life may be lived as you would have it lived, without cowardice and for you alone. Amen.

Father Richard emphasizes the inner transformation necessary for the work of peace: 

The gospel is not about being nice; it’s about being honest and just, and the world doesn’t like those two things very much. Our job is to learn how to be honest, but with love and respect. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taught us that before we go out to witness for justice, we have to make sure that we can love and respect those with whom we disagree.  

Imagine the surrender necessary for those who have been oppressed for hundreds of years to continue to work peacefully for justice. Frankly, I don’t know how anyone can do it without contemplation. How do we get to that deep place where we do not want to publicly expose, humiliate, or defeat our opponents? When we are hurt, we want to hurt back. This is our ego’s natural defense mechanism. Through prayer and contemplation, we change from the inside—from a power position to the position of vulnerability and solidarity, which gradually changes everything.  

True contemplation is the most subversive of activities because it undercuts the one thing that normally refuses to give way—our natural individualism and narcissism. Once we are freed from our narcissism that thinks we are the center of the world, or that our rights and dignity must be defended before other people’s rights and dignity, we can finally live and act with justice and truth. 

John Dear describes the importance of connecting with our core identity as children of God:  

Peacemakers throughout history testify to the need for quiet meditation if we are to live the nonviolent life of peace. The [ministry] of the nonviolent Jesus, according to Luke’s account, begins with him sitting in silent prayer by the Jordan River. In that quiet time of contemplative listening and opening to the Spirit of peace, he heard that he was God’s beloved [Luke 3:21–22]. In this sacred space, he was able to take that message to heart, to claim that truth as the core of his identity.  

Like the nonviolent Jesus, we too need to sit still in silent meditation and open our hearts and minds to the Holy Spirit of peace and let the God of peace call us God’s beloved. We need to give God permission to love us, name us, and claim us if we want to be disarmed, healed and freed to practice loving nonviolence.  

That is why quiet meditation is so crucial to the life of nonviolence. In that silent meditation, we can hear God say to us, “You are my beloved.” We learn who we are, we remember who we are, and we are strengthened once again to be who we really are. In that strength and confidence, we feel liberated from our inner violence and freed to get up and walk outside into the world of violence to offer the hand of peace and nonviolence. [2] 

_________________________________________________

Jesus Calling Sarah Young

Try to see things more and more from My perspective. Let the Light of My Presence so fully fill your mind that you view the world through Me. When little things don’t go as you had hoped, look to Me lightheartedly and say, “Oh, well.” This simple discipline can protect you from being burdened with an accumulation of petty cares and frustrations. If you practice this diligently, you will make a life-changing discovery: You realize that most of the things that worry you are not important. If you shrug them off immediately and return your focus to Me, you will walk through your days with lighter steps and a joyful heart. When serious problems come your way, you will have more reserves for dealing with them. You will not have squandered your energy on petty problems. You may even reach the point where you can agree with the apostle Paul that all your troubles are light and momentary, compared with the eternal glory being achieved by them.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:

Proverbs 20:24 (NLT)
24 The Lord directs our steps,
    so why try to understand everything along the way?

2nd Corinthians 4:17-18 (NLT)
17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

Additional insight regarding 2nd Corinthians 4:17: Our troubles should not diminish our faith or disillusion us. We should realize that there is a purpose in our suffering. Problems and human limitations have several benefits: 1) they remind us of Christ’s suffering for us; 2) they keep us from pride; 3) they cause us to look beyond this brief life; 4) they give us opportunities to prove our faith to others; and 5) they give God the opportunity to demonstrate his power. See your troubles as opportunities!

Non-violence is the greatest and the most active force in the world…. One person who can express Ahimsa in life exercises a force superior to all the forces of brutality.  
—Mohandas Gandhi, Harijan, March 14, 1936  

Peace activist Father John Dear describes nonviolence as an expression of who we are more than something we do:  

Active nonviolence begins with the truth that all life is sacred, that we are all equal sisters and brothers, all children of the God of peace, already reconciled, all one, all already united, and so we could never hurt or kill another human being, much less remain silent while wars rage, people die in poverty, and nuclear weapons and environmental destruction threaten us all. As we deepen into this vision of our common unity, we come to understand that we are one with all humanity, all creatures, all creation, and God. So nonviolence is much more than a tactic or a strategy; it is a way of life that is based in the oneness of creation, the unity of life itself. It is not passive but active love and truth that seek justice and peace for the whole human race and all of creation, and so resists systemic evil and violence, persistently reconciles with everyone, works to create new cultures of justice and peace, yet insists there is no cause however noble for which we support the killing of any human being. Instead of killing others, we work to stop the killing and are even willing to be killed in the struggle for justice and peace.   

Dear names how the nonviolence exemplified by Jesus, Mohandas Gandhi, and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. can disarm our systems and world: 

Gandhi and Dr. King invite us to read the Gospels from the perspective of nonviolence so that the nonviolence of Jesus might disarm us, guide us, and direct our lives, and together, disarm the human family to live in peace as one with creation.…  

The visionary nonviolence taught by Gandhi and King flows from our disarmed hearts, from our inner depths, where we renounce our inner violence, let God disarm us and cultivate interior nonviolence, then moves us to practice meticulous interpersonal nonviolence with our families, neighbors, co-workers, communities, cities, nation, all creatures, and Mother Earth. As we face the structures of violence head on with the power of organized nonviolence, we build grassroots, bottom up, people-power movements to end tyranny and injustice and institutionalize nonviolent democracy and social, economic, racial, and environmental justice. When organized on large national and global levels, active nonviolence can peacefully transform entire societies, even the world, as Gandhi demonstrated in India’s revolution, as the civil rights movement showed, as the growing women’s, LGBTQ, and environmental movements demonstrate, as the People Power movement showed in the Philippines, and as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the churches of South Africa showed against apartheid. Gandhi said that nonviolence, when it is harnessed, becomes contagious and can disarm the world.  

_______________________________________________________________________

Sarah Young Jesus Calling

There is a mighty battle going on for control of your mind. Heaven and earth intersect in your mind; the tugs of both spheres influence your thinking. I created you with the capacity to experience foretastes of heaven. When you shut out the world and focus on My Presence, you can enjoy sitting with Me in heavenly realms. This is an incredible privilege reserved for precious ones who belong to Me and seek My Face. Your greatest strength is your desire to spend time in community with Me. As you concentrate on Me, My Spirit fills your mind with Life and Peace.   

The world exerts a downward pull on your thoughts. Media bombards you with greed, lust, and cynicism. When you face these things, pray for protection and discernment. Stay in continual communication with Me whenever you walk through the wastelands of this world. Refuse to worry, because this form of worldliness will weigh you down and block awareness of My Presence. Stay alert, recognizing the battle being waged against your mind. Look forward to an eternity of strife-free living, reserved for you in heaven.

RELATED BIBLE SCRIPTURE:

Ephesians 2:6 (NLT)
6 For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus.

Additional insight regarding Ephesians 2:6: Because of Christ’s resurrection, we know that our body will also be raised from the dead (1st Corinthians 12:2-23) and that we have been given the power to live as Christians now (Ephesians 1:19). These ideas are combined in Paul’s image of sitting with Christ in “the heavenly realms.” Our eternal life with Christ is certain because we are united in his powerful victory.
Psalm 27:8 (NLT)
8 My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.”
    And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.”

Additional insight regarding Psalm 27:7-8: We often run to God when we experience difficulties. But David sought God’s guiding presence every day. When troubles came his way, he was already in God’s presence and prepared to handle any test. Believers can call to God for help at any time, but how shortsighted to call on God only when troubles come. Many of our problems could be avoided or handled far more easily by seeking God’s help and direction beforehand.

Romans 8:6 (NLT)
6 So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.

Additional insight regarding Romans 8:6: Once we have said yes to Jesus, we will want to continue following him, because his way brings life and peace. Daily we must consciously choose to center our life on God. Use the Bible to discover God’s guidelines, and then follow them. In every perplexing situation, ask yourself – What would Jesus want me to do? When the Holy Spirit points out what is right, do it eagerly. For more on sinful nature versus our new life in Christ, see Romans 6:6-8, Ephesians 4:22-24, and Colossians 3:3-15.

1st John 2:15-17 (NLT)
Do Not Love This World
15 Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. 16 For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. 17 And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.

Additional insight regarding 1st John 2:15-17: Some people think that worldliness is limited to external behavior – the people we associate with, the places we go, the activities we enjoy. Worldliness is also internal because it begins in the heart and is characterized by three attitudes: (1) craving for physical pleasure – preoccupation with gratifying physical desires; (2) craving for everything we see – coveting and accumulating things, bowing to the god of materialism; and (3) pride in our achievements and possessions – obsession with one’s status or importance. When the serpent tempted Eve in Genesis 3:6, he tempted her in these areas. Also, when the devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness in Matthew 4:1-11, these were his three areas of attack.
    By contrast, God values self-control, a spirit of generosity, and a commitment to humble service. It is possible to give the impression of avoiding worldly pleasures while still harboring worldly attitudes in one’s heart. It is also possible, like Jesus, to love sinners and spend time with them while maintaining a commitment to the values of God’s Kingdom. What values are most important to you? Do your actions reflect the world’s values or God’s values?
    When the desire for possessions and sinful pleasures feel so intense, we probably doubt that these objects of desire will all one day pass away. It may be even more difficult to believe that the person who does the will of God will live forever. But this was John’s conviction based on the facts of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and promises. Knowing that this evil world will end can give you the courage to deny yourself temporary pleasures in this world in order to enjoy what God has promised for eternity.

Palestinian Quaker Jean Zaru reflects upon her lifelong commitment to peacemaking:  

I call myself a Quaker or a Friend. And Friends, throughout history, have maintained a testimony to nonviolence. War, we say, is contrary to the teachings of Christ. Therefore, we are challenged to live in the presence of that power which wins through love rather than through war. This is no easy testimony. It has three aspects:  

1. To refuse to take part in acts of war ourselves.  
2. To strive to remove the causes of war.  
3. To use the way of love open to us to promote peace and to heal wounds.  

As Quakers we believe that there is something of God in every person. Why, then, is it so hard for us to see what is of God in one another? Both sides in any conflict often have difficulty seeing the other at all, let alone seeing that of God in the other.…  

I believe that we are called to conversion: to be converted to the struggle of women and men everywhere who have no way to escape the unending fatigue of their labor and the daily denial of their human rights and human worth. We must be converted, so to speak, to a new vision of human dignity, what we call “that of God” in each person, even in those we oppose. We must let our hearts be moved by the anguish and suffering of the other.  

Zaru considers the inward and outward dimensions of her commitment to peace:  

Early on in my struggles with living nonviolently in a situation of violence, I found myself at a crossroads. I needed to know in my own deepest convictions whether I really did believe in the power of nonviolence to transform a situation of conflict.… How can I have peace within when I worry so much about life in general and the lives of my family members?… How can I have peace within when our movement is restricted in our own country, when walls are built to imprison us and separate us from one another?… 

As Palestinian women, we have a special burden and service. We are constantly being told to be peaceful. But the inner peace of which I speak is not simply being nice, or being passive, or permitting oneself to be trampled upon without protest. It is not passive nonviolence, but the nonviolence of courageous action.…  

What is that inner force that drives us, that provides regeneration and perseverance to speak the truth that desperately needs to be spoken in this moment of history?… If I deserve credit for courage, it is not for anything I do here, but for continuing in my daily struggle under occupation on so many fronts, for remaining samideh (steadfast) and, all the while, remaining open to love, to the beauty of the earth, and contributing to its healing when it is violated. 

Psalm 122: Praying for the Peace of Jerusalem

Click Here for Audio A few months ago, I walked west with my son down the Mount of Olives and entered the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem through the Lions’ Gate. On a normal day, we would have encountered a labyrinth of narrow, crowded streets bustling with merchants, cafes, tourists, and pilgrims. But this was not a normal day. The ancient streets were quiet, many stores and restaurants were boarded up, and we probably saw more soldiers than tourists.Israel’s war in Gaza, which began after the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, was fifty miles away from us, but it reverberated through Jerusalem. Tensions were high, security was tight, and we all knew a wider conflict could erupt at any time. The unease was new for us, but certainly not for Jerusalem. N.T. Wright, perhaps the most famous living New Testament scholar, describes the city this way:“Jerusalem has been a place of conflict as well as of celebration for three thousand years, and somehow its continuing sorrows still function as a kind of symbol of the out-of-jointness of the whole world. Misunderstandings, bad memories, unintended consequences, and plain old-fashioned sin, pride, guilt, and fear all jostle together and make the city one of the most painful, as well as one of the most beautiful and evocative, places on earth.” A few days after my son and I left, we received a troubling text. The Jewish woman who had been our guide through the Old City, had been attacked by a group of young Jewish nationalists. Why would they attack a fellow Jew? Because she dared to protect a Palestinian shopkeeper from their racist insults and harassment. It was a vivid reminder that Jerusalem is indeed a mix of beauty and brutality; of ancient history and ongoing hostility.Psalm 122 includes a call to “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (verse 6). The poetic beauty of the phrase is lost in English, but in Hebrew, it has a lyrical alliteration. The words for “pray” (sha’al), “peace” (shalom), and “Jerusalem” (Yerushalaim) flow together in Hebrew (Sha’alu shalom Yerushalaim), sounding almost like a mother comforting and shushing a crying infant to sleep in her arms. This maternal imagery for the troubled city was echoed centuries later by Jesus.As he traveled west from the Mount of Olives, on the same road I walked with my son, Jesus saw Jerusalem and wept over the city. “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes” (Luke 19:42). And Matthew’s gospel includes these tender words: “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gather her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37). Jesus’ ached for the peace of Jerusalem. He wanted to comfort and calm the strife that had always plagued its inhabitants. Sadly, even two millennia later, the peace of Jerusalem remains an unfulfilled prayer.As you reflect on Psalm 122, add your prayers to that of God’s ancient people. Add your prayers to Jesus’ own. Add your prayers to those of saints throughout the ages who have longed for the peace of Jerusalem, and to those who continue to pray for it today. DAILY SCRIPTURE PSALM 122:1-9 LUKE 19:41-44 WEEKLY PRAYERThomas à Kempis (1380 – 1471) Grant me, O Lord, to know what is worth knowing, to love what is worth loving, to praise what delights you most, to value what is precious to you, and to reject whatever is evil in your eyes. Give me true discernment, so that I may judge rightly between things that differ. Above all, may I search out and do what is pleasing to you; through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.

Rev. James Lawson (1928–2024), an influential teacher of nonviolence in the civil rights movement, insists on the effective power of nonviolence: 

There is impracticality to violence. It’s ineffective and has been ineffective throughout the world for too many years. We must not let people who romanticize or mythologize violence persuade us that it has proven to be efficacious…. It has proven to be the most ineffective weapon. It drains emotional, psychological, moral, and spiritual energy with no good consequences.  

I want to urge you today to the spiritual and moral task of creating a revolution that is utterly necessary in the twenty-first century. And when I use the term revolution, I do not mean violence. 

From the perspective of Gandhi, nonviolence is the use of power to try to resolve conflicts, injuries, and issues in order to heal and uplift, to solidify community, and to help people take power into their own hands and use their power creatively. Nonviolence makes the effort to use power responsibly.  

Lawson’s Christian faith is at the center of his philosophy of nonviolence. 

At the root of nonviolence is the notion that within each person there is not only a spark of God, as the Quakers say, but also the spark of love and compassion. I hear many people saying, “I’m not going to love my enemy.” As Martin [Luther] King points out so very well, when Jesus said to love thy enemy [Matthew 5:44], he was not talking about friendship love, nor was he talking about romantic love. [1] He was not talking about deep liking and appreciation. He was talking about what the Quakers and William Penn pledged to the Native Americans during colonial times: how even though we are very different, and we come from different countries and different cultures with many different languages, we have a common human experience that we can show each other and that we can come to respect.  

There is no other way. It cannot be done with hatred. It can only be done by people who have compassion and awareness of their own lives in the light of creation. It cannot be done by insulting other people, cannot be done with the gun or the fist, cannot be done with bombs. We three-hundred-plus million people of the United States can be healed of our fears and our animosities, our hurts and our pains, but that can only happen if we adopt a nonviolent perspective, daring to put the issues on the table in front of us no matter the pain, walking through them and putting together the ethos and principles that can create in the United States a new earth and a new heaven. And I think if religion is valid, as I understand it for myself and for my family, I think religion must get out of the pews and become a movement for the moral, intellectual spirituality that can help us become the people that God has created us to be. 

John Chaffee’s Friday Five

Grace and Peace, Friends! This week, I was out with a friend who told me he was listening to a discussion online between a Christian and a Satanist. Yep, you read that correctly. He said that throughout the conversation, the Satanist was making excellent points about how the god of the Christian was vindictive, punitive, retributive, and kept account of wrongs.  He said the Christian failed to respond well to that indictment and how the conversation left a mark on him. I couldn’t stay silent.  During our walk, I burst out and said, “This is what infuriates me.  The Christian God is barely taught about in a Christian way.   Most people have no idea that God is infinite, out-pouring love, who does not keep account of wrongs and has already reconciled everyone and everything back to God (Col. 1:15-20).  Most people’s understanding of God can’t even live up to 1 Corinthians 13.  The problem is that we platform very passionate people into pulpits who are still quite immature, and they preach their immaturity but not Christianity.   Then, they hear someone like me talking like this and I am experienced as polarizing for just quoting parts of the New Testament that people were never told about.  Everything changes when you realize Christ came to salvage all of humanity (John 12:32).  People walk away from Christianity because, often, they were not really taught Christianity anyways.” The moment was a little odd because I vented more than spoke calmly.  We then continued our walk, which was quite a nice time, and moved on to other topics.  But I thought about that moment for the rest of the day. One of the reasons I started this weekly newsletter was to try and offer some other voices and share quotes from people who helped me shift my understanding of the faith into something larger, more integrative, more mature, and more robust.  I sincerely hope that if you have been reading these emails for the past few weeks or months or from the start, it has helped you expand your view of the world and God and challenged you to grow yourself.

Before you speak of peace, you must first have it in your heart. 
—St. Francis of Assisi  

Father Richard Rohr writes of the essential Christian call to nonviolence: 

Generations of Christians seem to have forgotten Jesus’ teachings on nonviolence. We’ve relegated visions of a peaceful kingdom to a far distant heaven, hardly believing Jesus could have meant for us to turn the other cheek here and now. It took Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948), a Hindu, to help us apply Jesus’ peacemaking in very practical ways. As Gandhi said, “It is a first-class human tragedy that peoples of the earth who claim to believe in the message of Jesus whom they describe as the Prince of Peace show little of that belief in actual practice.” [1] Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968), drawing from Gandhi’s writings and example, brought nonviolence to the forefront of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.  

Training in nonviolence has understandably emphasized largely external methods or ways of acting and resisting. These are important and necessary, but we must go even deeper. Unless these methods reflect our inner attitudes, they will not make a lasting difference. We all must admit that our secret inner attitudes are often cruel, attacking, judgmental, and harsh. The ego seems to find its energy precisely by having something to oppose, fix, or change. When the mind can judge something to be inferior, we feel superior. We must recognize our constant tendency toward negating reality, resisting it, opposing it, and attacking it on the level of our mind. This is the universal addiction. [2] 

Nonviolence teacher Ken Butigan understands God’s love to be at the center of nonviolence. 

Our true calling is to love one another as God has loved us. When we take this seriously, we are transformed into lovers who care for all beings. In practical terms this means resisting the tendency of the violence system to divide the world into various enemy camps. A fundamental script of this system is to separate “us” from “them”: … those who are worthy of our love and those who are not…. Often, we project our own unacknowledged violence onto [them].  

Nonviolence takes another approach. Practitioners of nonviolence seek to become their truest selves by slowly learning to love all beings, confident that all are kin and that we are called to embody this kinship concretely, especially in the midst of our most difficult and challenging conflicts…. Nonviolence is committed to challenging and resisting every form of violence. Nevertheless, it does not conclude that the opponent is absolutely and irrevocably incapable of loving or of being loved. To love the perpetrator … is a creative and daring act that seeks to provoke all parties to make contact with their true self, the undefiled reality of God which dwells at the center of their being. In short, their sacredness.… The greatest work of nonviolence is to create situations which free the sacredness of ourselves and our opponent. [3] 

Jesus Calls Us to Make Peace

Blessed are the peacemakers: They shall be recognized as children of God.  
—Matthew 5:9  

Father Richard considers what it means to be a peacemaker:  

This verse in Matthew’s Gospel is the only time the word peacemakers is ever used in the whole Bible. Peacemakers literally are the “ones who reconcile quarrels.” We can clearly see Jesus is not on the side of the violent but on the side of the nonviolent. Jesus is saying there must be a connection, a clear consistency, a constant unity between means and ends. There is no way to peace other than peacemaking itself.  

Today, many think we can achieve peace through violence. We’ve all witnessed actions coming from the logic “We’ll stop killing by killing.” It’s the way we think, even though it’s in opposition to all great religious teachings. Our need for immediate control leads us to disconnect the clear unity between means and ends. The U.S. even named a missile that was clearly meant for the destruction of humanity a “peacekeeper.” At least the word is more honest: peacekeeper, instead of Jesus’ peacemaker. But the peace we are keeping is a false peace. Jeremiah the prophet would say about our “peacekeeping” wars what he said to Israel’s leaders:  

“Peace! Peace!” they say, whereas there is no peace.  
They should be ashamed of their loathsome deeds.  
Not they! They feel no shame, they do not even know how to blush.  
—Jeremiah 8:11–12  

War is a means of seeking control, not a means of seeking peace. Pax Romana is the world’s way of seeking control and calling it peace. The Romans thought they had peace, but violence will always create more violence, especially on the edges, in the colonies. At the center, among folks who are “insiders,” it has what it calls peace, yet the violence has merely been exported to those on the edges of society. That is no real peace. Our rich gated communities with security entrances are evidence of the same today. As Pope Paul VI said, “If you want peace, work for justice.” [1]  

Do we have any idea of all the slavery and oppression, all the killing and torture, all the millions of people who have existed around the edges of every empire so those at the center of the empire could say they had peace? Every time we build a pyramid, certain people at the top will have their peace, yet there will be bloody bodies all around the bottom. Those at the top usually don’t recognize the price of their false peace.  

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus defines peace in a different way that we call Pax Christi, the peace of Christ. In the remaining Beatitudes, Jesus will connect his peace with justice and self-sacrifice (see Matthew 5:10). The Pax Romana creates a false peace by sacrificing others; the Pax Christi waits and works for true peace by sacrificing the false self of power, prestige, and possessions.  

John Chaffee’s Friday Five

Grace and Peace, Friends! This week, I was out with a friend who told me he was listening to a discussion online between a Christian and a Satanist. Yep, you read that correctly. He said that throughout the conversation, the Satanist was making excellent points about how the god of the Christian was vindictive, punitive, retributive, and kept account of wrongs.  He said the Christian failed to respond well to that indictment and how the conversation left a mark on him. I couldn’t stay silent.  During our walk, I burst out and said, “This is what infuriates me.  The Christian God is barely taught about in a Christian way.   Most people have no idea that God is infinite, out-pouring love, who does not keep account of wrongs and has already reconciled everyone and everything back to God (Col. 1:15-20).  Most people’s understanding of God can’t even live up to 1 Corinthians 13.  The problem is that we platform very passionate people into pulpits who are still quite immature, and they preach their immaturity but not Christianity.   Then, they hear someone like me talking like this and I am experienced as polarizing for just quoting parts of the New Testament that people were never told about.  Everything changes when you realize Christ came to salvage all of humanity (John 12:32).  People walk away from Christianity because, often, they were not really taught Christianity anyways.” The moment was a little odd because I vented more than spoke calmly.  We then continued our walk, which was quite a nice time, and moved on to other topics.  But I thought about that moment for the rest of the day. One of the reasons I started this weekly newsletter was to try and offer some other voices and share quotes from people who helped me shift my understanding of the faith into something larger, more integrative, more mature, and more robust.  I sincerely hope that if you have been reading these emails for the past few weeks or months or from the start, it has helped you expand your view of the world and God and challenged you to grow yourself. As always, thank you for reading. Onto this week’s five quotes!

1.”If you are too busy to read, then you are too busy.”-  Richard Foster, Founder of Renovare In the modern world, everything seems to be bidding for our attention.  There is always another movie or show to watch, some clip that went viral, some social media account begging for our reactivity… And so this metric of “being too busy to read” feels appropriate.  If we do not have the time to sit and read even a paragraph of something worthwhile, that likely means that our lives are too overrun with nonsensical things. As soon as I am done writing this week’s newsletter, I will absolutely sit down and read for a bit.  2.”Si comprehendus, non est Deus (If you can comprehend it, it is not God).”-  Augustine of Hippo, Early Church Father God is beyond our comprehension but not beyond our apprehension.  Besides, God is less of an idea or concept to grasp as much as a Loving Mystery to be held by.  3.”I am neither of the East nor of the West, no boundaries exist within my breast.”- Rumi, Sufi Poet Ken Wilber, the philosopher from Colorado, wrote a lovely book called No Boundary.  It takes to task how, in both the East and the West, we draw boundaries and lines between things.  While seemingly helpful at first, these boundaries and lines are simplistic and eventually cause their own problems. What I find enlightening is how Rumi refused the simplistic divide of East vs West, and wrote from a place of wholeness according to his own experience of faith and what it means to be human. It would probably be better for all of us to stop drawing lines in the sand and embrace wisdom no matter where it came from. 4.”All you have to do is write one true sentence.  Write the truest sentence that you know.”-  Ernest Hemingway, American Author I am still developing and growing as a writer and often think of Hemingway.  This idea of “writing a true sentence” is not easy.  I can see how we fluff up our words and fill our sentences with pomp and circumstance.  The world needs more of what must be said but has not yet been expressed.  5.”God weeps with us so that we may one day laugh with him.”-  Jurgen Moltmann, German Lutheran Theologian Moltmann is an impressive figure. He passed away earlier this year at the age of 98. As a systematic theologian, he was top-notch. However, beyond that, I have heard stories that he was enormously and tenderly pastoral. He was well acquainted with grief and loss after having lived through WWII and being a POW at the end of it. His book, The Crucified God, was a titanic shift for me.  The idea that God was passible (able to suffer) was a stark refusal of the static and impersonal god of the Aristotelian philosophers. I do not know about you, but it comforts me that God knows suffering, pain, grief, and loss.  God understands and has experienced disappointment, rejection, despair, hardship, etc. This only heightens the understanding that the Good News of Jesus is actually about the reconciliation, restoration, and renewal of all things in Christ.  A day is coming when evil will pass away, and all will know the Light that even welcomes our darkness.

Receiving God’s Mercy

Father Richard names forgiveness and mercy as two of God’s essential qualities:  

I once saw God’s mercy as patient, benevolent tolerance, a kind of grudging forgiveness, but now mercy has become for me God’s very self-understanding, a loving allowing, a willing breaking of the rules by the One who made the rules—a wink and a smile, a firm and joyful taking of our hand while we clutch at our sins and gaze at God in desire and disbelief. 

Mercy is a way to describe the mystery of forgiveness. More than a description of something God does now and then, it is who God is. According to Jesus, “Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13, 12:7). The word is hesed in Hebrew, and it means steadfast, enduring, unbreakable love. Sometimes the word is translated as “lovingkindness” or “covenant love.” God has made a covenant with all of creation (see Genesis 9:8–17) and will never break the divine side of the covenant. It’s only broken from our side. God’s love is steadfast. It is written in the divine image within us. It’s given; it sits there. We are the ones who clutch at our sins and beat ourselves instead of surrendering to divine mercy. That refusal to be forgiven is a form of pride. It says, “I’m better than mercy. I’m only going to accept it when I’m worthy and can preserve my so-called self-esteem.” Only the humble person, the little one, can live in and after mercy.  

The mystery of forgiveness is God’s ultimate entry into powerlessness. Look at the times when we have withheld forgiveness. It’s often our final attempt to hold a claim over the one we won’t forgive. It’s the way we finally hold onto power or seek the moral high ground over another person: “I will hold you in unforgiveness, and you’re going to know it just by my coldness, by my not looking over there, by my refusal to smile.” We do it subtly, to maintain our sense of superiority. Non-forgiveness is a form of power over another person, a way to manipulate, shame, control, and diminish them. God in Jesus refuses all such power.  

If Jesus is the revelation of what is going on inside the eternal God (see Colossians 1:15), which is the core of Christian faith, then we are forced to conclude that God is very humble. That is amazing, and difficult to imagine. This God seems never to hold rightful claims against us. Abdicating what we thought was the proper role of God, this God “has thrust all my sins behind God’s back” (see Isaiah 38:17).  

We do not attain anything by our own holiness but by ten thousand surrenders to mercy. A lifetime of received forgiveness allows us to become mercy. Mercy becomes our energy, our meaning. Perhaps we are finally enlightened and free when we can both receive mercy and give it away—without payment or punishment.  

1.

“If you are too busy to read, then you are too busy.”

– Richard Foster, Founder of Renovare

In the modern world, everything seems to be bidding for our attention.  There is always another movie or show to watch, some clip that went viral, some social media account begging for our reactivity…

And so this metric of “being too busy to read” feels appropriate.  If we do not have the time to sit and read even a paragraph of something worthwhile, that likely means that our lives are too overrun with nonsensical things.

As soon as I am done writing this week’s newsletter, I will absolutely sit down and read for a bit.

2.

“Si comprehendus, non est Deus (If you can comprehend it, it is not God).“

– Augustine of Hippo, Early Church Father

God is beyond our comprehension but not beyond our apprehension.  Besides, God is less of an idea or concept to grasp as much as a Loving Mystery to be held by.

3.

“I am neither of the East nor of the West, no boundaries exist within my breast.”

– Rumi, Sufi Poet

Ken Wilber, the philosopher from Colorado, wrote a lovely book called No Boundary.  It takes to task how, in both the East and the West, we draw boundaries and lines between things.  While seemingly helpful at first, these boundaries and lines are simplistic and eventually cause their own problems.

What I find enlightening is how Rumi refused the simplistic divide of East vs West, and wrote from a place of wholeness according to his own experience of faith and what it means to be human.

It would probably be better for all of us to stop drawing lines in the sand and embrace wisdom no matter where it came from.

4.

“All you have to do is write one true sentence.  Write the truest sentence that you know.“

– Ernest Hemingway, American Author

I am still developing and growing as a writer and often think of Hemingway.  This idea of “writing a true sentence” is not easy.  I can see how we fluff up our words and fill our sentences with pomp and circumstance.  The world needs more of what must be said but has not yet been expressed.

5.

“God weeps with us so that we may one day laugh with him.“

– Jurgen Moltmann, German Lutheran Theologian

Moltmann is an impressive figure. He passed away earlier this year at the age of 98. As a systematic theologian, he was top-notch. However, beyond that, I have heard stories that he was enormously and tenderly pastoral. He was well acquainted with grief and loss after having lived through WWII and being a POW at the end of it.

His book, The Crucified God, was a titanic shift for me.  The idea that God was passible (able to suffer) was a stark refusal of the static and impersonal god of the Aristotelian philosophers.

I do not know about you, but it comforts me that God knows suffering, pain, grief, and loss.  God understands and has experienced disappointment, rejection, despair, hardship, etc.

This only heightens the understanding that the Good News of Jesus is actually about the reconciliation, restoration, and renewal of all things in Christ.  A day is coming when evil will pass away, and all will know the Light that even welcomes our darkness.

“Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing.” —Luke 23:34 

Author Megan McKenna considers Jesus’ ability to forgive and how we are called to the same:  

We were created to be the friends of Jesus, the friends of God, friends with one another…. And so, we begin this journey of becoming, this way of being in the world guided by Jesus’s own words and actions that we will repeat over and over again in all our relationships and in so many moments of our lives.  

And the journey of becoming—of liberation—is the journey of forgiveness. As Jesus goes to the cross, tortured, in agony, he continues living with love, refusing to do evil, speaking the truth, doing justice, tending to all others with compassion, and relating to everyone with forgiveness and mercy….  

In his suffering, Jesus’s first words from the cross are among his last words to his friends (and the world): Father, forgive them. Our lives of soul, spirit, heart as human beings made in God’s image begin, speak, and fulfill these words over and over again. Father, forgive them. Father, forgive us.  

With Jesus, we pray always: Father, forgive them. It is Jesus’s foundational prayer with and for all of us, all ways…. We must forgive—we must begin with the words of forgiveness as a mantra that can transform our minds and souls. When we forgive, we do not consider all others as possible enemies but as possible neighbors, allies, and friends. And then we must forget—in the sense that we must make new memories, start relationships anew, open doors of possibility with different ways of relating to one another as equals, both and all intent on the fullness and wholeness of life shared and lived together as one. [1] 

McKenna reminds us of the difficulty of true forgiveness: 

Many of us pray the words of Jesus daily, with the Our Father. Midway through the prayer we say, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are in debt to us.”… 

We glibly pray this at every Eucharist and often in our personal prayers. Yet, it calls on us without any glibness. All of us know intimately how hard it is to forgive someone who has deeply offended and hurt us…. It is difficult to let go of the past and be present now to the other person and to all that it triggered in us…. 

It is hard for us to let go of bitterness that seems to rise up in our throats over time like bile—even after we have said the words of forgiveness to ourselves, and to others. We struggle to forgive the same person over and over again. Our broken hearts crack again and again…. But forgiveness is God’s greatest gift to all of us, setting us free to live as the beloved children of God. Forgiveness, more than any other act, perhaps, makes us like God. [2]

_______________________________________________

Sarah Young Jesus Calling

Receive My Peace. It is My continual gift to you. The best way to receive this gift is to sit quietly in My Presence, trusting Me in every area of your life. Quietness and trust accomplish far more than you can imagine not only in you, but also on earth and in heaven. When you trust Me in a given area, you release that problem or person into My care.
     Spending time alone with Me can be a difficult discipline, because it goes against the activity addiction of this age. You may appear to be doing nothing, but actually, you are participating in battles going on within spiritual realms. You are waging war – not with the weapons of this world, but with heavenly weapons, which have divine power to demolish strongholds. Living close to Me is a sure defense against evil.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:

John 14:27 (NLT)
27 “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.

Additional insight regarding John 14:27: The end result of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives is deep and lasting peace. Unlike worldly peace, which is usually defined as the absence of conflict, this peace is a confident assurance in any circumstance; with Christ’ peace, we have no need to fear the present or the future. Sin, fear, uncertainty, doubt and numerous other forces are at war within us. The peace of God moves into our hearts and lives to restrain these hostile forces and offer comfort in place of conflict. Jesus says he will give us that peace if we are willing to accept it from him. If your life is full of stress, allow the Holy Spirit to fill you with Christ’s peace (see Philippians 4:6-7 for more on how to experience God’s peace.)

Isaiah 30:15 (NLT)
15 This is what the Sovereign Lord,
    the Holy One of Israel, says:
“Only in returning to me
    and resting in me will you be saved.
In quietness and confidence is your strength.
    But you would have none of it.

Additional insight regarding Isaiah 30:15: God warned Judah that turning to Egypt and other nations for military might could not save them. Only God could do that. They must wait for him “in quietness and confidence.” No amount of fast talking or hasty activity could speed up God’s grand design. We have nothing to say to God but thank you. Salvation comes from God alone. Because he has saved us, we can trust him and be peacefully confident that he will give us the strength to face our difficulties. We should lay aside our well-laid plans and allow him to act.

2nd Corinthians 10:4 (NLT)
4 We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments.

Additional insight regarding 2nd Corinthians 10:4: We, like Paul, are merely weak humans, but we don’t need to use human plans and methods to win our battles. God’s mighty weapons are available to us as we fight against the devil’s “strongholds.” Paul assures us that God’s mighty weapons – prayer, faith, hope, love, God’s Word (the Bible), and Holy Spirit, are powerful and effective (see Ephesians 6:13-18)! These weapons can break down the proud human arguments against God and the walls that Satan builds to keep people from finding God. When dealing with people’s proud arguments that keep them from a relationship with Christ, we may be tempted to use our own methods. But nothing can break down these barriers like God’s weapons.

Click the link to get today’s song. You may be able to get thru it with dry eyes….

The answering machine messages left by those in the Twin Towers chanted as Psalms

Each year on 9-11 I commemorate the sorrow of that day by listening to this recording of Rabbi Irwin Kula chanting the messages left for loved ones by those who were in the Twin Towers.

I’ve rarely encountered anything as raw, devastating, and beautiful. I usually don’t make it through the whole thing.

The Grief Monster

The death of a loved one can cause us to sideline all the shit we usually focus on that doesn’t really matter in any spiritually meaningful way – things like petty resentments, snotty opinions, making sure our preferences are always met, vanity, grudges etc. 

I sometimes wonder if Mary the mother of our Lord and “the disciple whom Jesus loved” had any resentment between them. And I wonder if, in the moment of Jesus’ death, those resentments melted away in the heat of their shared grief and then disappeared forever when Jesus said, “here is your mother, here is your son”. 

Grief is a monster. But it is a monster that gives us to one another.

As always, be gentle with yourselves and hold your loved ones close. – Nadia

Restorative Justice

Activist and author Shane Claiborne examines the tension between justice and grace:  

Violence is contagious. Violence begets violence.… Pick up the sword and die by the sword. You kill us and we’ll kill you. There is a contagion of violence in the world; it’s spreading like a disease.  

But grace is also contagious. An act of kindness inspires another act of kindness…. A single act of forgiveness can feel like it heals the world. Grace begets grace. Love rubs off on those who are loved…. There’s nowhere you can see the battle of grace and disgrace waged more vehemently than in the criminal justice system. When it comes to words like “justice,” people can say the same thing and mean something completely different.  

Capital punishment offers us one version of justice. There is a sensibility to it: evil should not go without consequence. And there is a theology behind it: “An eye for an eye … a tooth for a tooth” [Leviticus 24:20].  

Yet grace offers us another version of justice. Grace makes room … for justice that is restorative, and dedicated to healing the wounds of injustice. But the grace thing is hard work. It takes faith—because it dares us to believe that not only can victims be healed, but so can the victimizers. It is not always easy to believe that love is more powerful than hatred, life more powerful than death, and that people can be better than the worst thing they’ve done.  

These two versions of justice compete for our allegiance. One leads to death. The other can lead to life, and to healing and redemption and other beautiful things. [1] 

Mennonite pastor Melissa Florer-Bixler connects forgiveness and restorative justice:  

We are told that we choose whose world we want to live in. We’ll choose wealth or God. We’ll choose violence or God. We’ll choose nationalism or God. We’ll choose racial hierarchy or God. Each case is an example of a different and incompatible operational system. One of those systems, if we live by it, binds us in endless struggle and violence that leads to our own destruction, as well as the destruction of others…. 

We are asked to choose which world we want to live in—a world of retributive justice or a world of forgiveness. [Theologian] Karl Barth, reflecting on forgiveness, writes, “Living by forgiveness is never by any means passivity, but Christian living in full activity.” Barth writes that, when we finally come before God, we will not be asked to give an account of our piety or morality. Instead, we will be asked, “Did you live by grace, or did you set up gods for yourself and perhaps want to become one yourself?” [2]  

We can’t operate in both orders. And when the world of revenge enters the renewed creation, the order built on good news, it poisons the possibility of mutuality, transformation, and reconciliation. The way out of the endless loop of retribution is to recognize that forgiveness of individuals is interwoven with the social order of God’s reign. [3]