In this video, CAC teacher James Finley reflects upon the theme of “tending the fire within” as a way to build capacity for radical resilience.  

I’m using the word “fire” as a metaphor for certain moments in our life where we’re graced with a heightened sense of communal presence. They have about them the feeling of that-which-never-ends.  

In our day-by-day life, most of the things we’re aware of, we’re aware of them while we’re passing by on our way to something else. But every so often, something catches our eye and gives us reason to pause. For example, we pause to see a tree. We’ve seen many trees before, we’re going to see many more, and it’s just a tree. But there’s a certain moment where we’re called to pause and ponder and be present to the tree. In that pausing, we experience ourselves undergoing a kind of a descent. It’s very subtle—a deeper, more interior dimension of the mystery of our own presence….  

We have the sense that in this deepening communal oneness with the tree, we’re dropping down together into an abyss-like depth that’s welling up and giving itself to us unexplainably as this moment of oneness with the tree. This depth of presence has no name, but we give it a name. In our tradition, it’s God. We experience the generosity of God, welling up and giving the infinity of God away as the mystery of this moment. We are being awakened to the divinity of the tree and ourselves and our communal, shared nothingness without God. There’s a sense of sacredness about this. This is the fire we want to attend to.  

We could make the same observation about every foundational dimension of our life: intimacy with another person, being in the presence of a child, a path of long-suffering patience, a moment of prayer, the quiet hour at day’s end, lying awake at night in the dark. From time to time the divine grants itself with this kind of fire, a quiet luminosity that has great depth and intimacy to it. 

These moments are quite intense sometimes, in the aftermath of which something is never quite the same. But usually it’s not that way at all. Such moments are so subtle that if we aren’t careful, we would miss them. They also tend to be very fleeting. We return to day-by-day life, go off to our next meeting, turn the TV up a little louder, or whatever it is we’re doing. 

But if we’re committed to a contemplative stance, little by little we start to see our day-by-day life from the standpoint of these moments of awakening. We notice that they have about them the feeling of effulgence or fullness or homecoming. In the light of those moments, we get this sense that in the momentum of the day’s demands, we’re skimming over the depths of our own life. We’re suffering from depth deprivation. What’s regrettable is that God’s unexplainable oneness with us is hidden in the depths over which we’re skimming. 

Choosing a Contemplative Path

James Finley continues to reflect on how, once we notice the “fire within,” we can commit to the life-changing practice of attending to it. 

Once we acknowledge this “depth deprivation,” we get an insight into life. The essential, that which is given to us in the metaphorical fire of this quiet oneness, never imposes itself on us, while the unessential is constantly imposing itself on us. We begin to wonder, “How can I learn not to get so caught up in the complexities of the day-to-day that I keep losing my sense of connectedness with this depth, this fire, which alone is ultimately real?” Thomas Merton says it beats in our very blood whether we want it to or not.  

It doesn’t lie in our power to make these insights happen, but here’s the key. We can freely choose to assume the stance that offers the least resistance to being overtaken by the fire that we cannot make happen. This is our daily rendezvous, and the key is that it’s personal. We have to find those acts, those persons, those modes of service, those moments of creative unfolding, those moments where we feel something is being asked of us….  

When I was in the monastery, the whole monastic life was carefully designed to protect us from distractions and enable us to experience what I’m talking about. But the world we live in isn’t like that, so we have to create a contemplative culture in our heart. We must vow to ourselves: I will not play the cynic. I will not break faith with my awakened heart. I know that in my most childlike hour, the cutting edge of the pain, the sweetness of the glance, the smell of the flower, I was graced by what transcends and permeates every moment of my life.  

Therefore, we want to set aside a quiet time of availability to this. We have to stay with it. We have to be patient and be calm. We have to be receptively open to this way of being. And at the end of each rendezvous with the deeper place, we ask for the grace not to break the thread of that sensitivity as we go through the rest of our day. Although the thread breaks many times from our end, it never breaks from God’s end….  

We don’t live in a monastery but out here in the world, and I think that’s what contemplative programs like the Living School are about. I think it’s what the Daily Meditations are about. It’s what centering prayer is about. We have to look for the thread of sensitivity to such insights and decide that we’re going to live this way. It’s a kind of obediential fidelity that nobody can see but it matters more than everything. We try to live out of it with integrity with people because it changes the way we see everybody. Everyone’s an infinitely loved, broken person in a fleeting, often not-so-fair, gorgeous, lovely, unexplainable world.  

The Lord had given the Israelites extensive instructions about the proper way to honor, worship, and obey him. In fact, the entire structure of Israelite culture and law was shaped by their covenant with YHWH, and foreigners from pagan lands were invited to join them in this way of life. But after giving his allegiance to YHWH alone, Naaman was not able to say in Israel. He was returning to Syria where he would be immersed in a pagan society where no one shared his devotion to Israel’s God.This is a dilemma worth exploring because it’s not unlike our situation as followers of Jesus in an increasingly post-Christian, post-religious culture. How do we navigate giving our total allegiance to Jesus Christ while living among, working with, and serving neighbors who do not share our faith, and very often celebrate values and behaviors directly opposed by Christian doctrine?First, we must recognize that Naaman’s devotion to Israel’s God was real. He even asked to take dirt from Israel back to Syria in order to build a proper altar to YHWH. But the Lord had given no instructions about how to properly worship and honor him in any context outside of Israel, and certainly not in a foreign land devoted to idols and pagan gods. Naaman feared the sincerity of his vow would be questioned, and his worship of the Lord rejected, because of his obligations to his non-Israelite neighbors and king. Therefore, Naaman explained his dilemma to Elisha and asked for understanding.Naaman said, “When my master [Syria’s king] enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down and he is leaning on my arm and I have to bow there also—when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord forgive your servant for this.”Biblical scholars don’t all agree on the exact meaning of the phrase “leaning on my arm.” Some argue the king of Syria was old and weak, and he would literally lean on Naaman’s arm in order to bow in worship. In this interpretation, Naaman would have no active role in the worship of a pagan god. He was just physically helping an old man kneel. Others say “leaning on my arm” is an idiom meaning Naaman was the king’s right-hand man. In this case, as a top-ranking government official, Naaman would have a role in official state functions—including the honoring of Syria’s gods alongside the king.In either case, Naaman was telling Elisha that when he returned to Syria his presence in the temple of a pagan god would be required, and in some way—either passively or actively—he would be assisting others in their worship of a god other than YHWH. Despite how this may appear, he wanted to assure Elisha that his actions should not be misunderstood as his own act of worship, because Naaman’s loyalty belonged to Israel’s God. In response, Elisha gave a simple, stunning reply: “Go in peace.”It’s difficult to imagine Elisha giving such a pardon to an Israelite, or even to a convert like Naaman who remained in Israel. God’s law was abundantly clear—idolatry and the worship of other gods was absolutely forbidden. According to God’s covenant, there was no reason for a pagan temple to ever exist anywhere in Israel, let alone for an Israelite to enter it and assist others in their worship. Therefore, for someone to request a pardon like Naaman does would have been absurd. And yet Elisha grants it anyway.Naaman represented an unprecedented case; a situation that the Torah never addressed or imagined—a foreigner, living in an unholy land, devoted to the worship of Israel’s God. Elisha’s blessing of Naaman’s request is a reminder that the Old Testament law, although God-given, good, and full of wisdom, is not comprehensive and does not anticipate every possible scenario. It speaks about how to organize an ancient, theocratic community where everyone is devoted to the Lord, and not to a modern, pluralistic community where very few are committed to God’s ways.In the coming days, we’ll look more closely at Naaman’s request, and what wisdom it may offer for how we may both give our full allegiance to Jesus Christ while loving and serving our neighbors who do not. DAILY SCRIPTURE JOHN 17:13-19  2 KINGS 5:1-27 WEEKLY PRAYER from Thomas Aquinas (1225 -1275) Give us, O Lord, a steadfast heart, which no selfish desires may drag downwards; give us an unconquered heart, which no troubles can wear out; give us an upright heart, which no unworthy ambitions may tempt aside. Give us also, O Lord our God, understanding to know you, perseverance to seek you, wisdom to find you, and a faithfulness that may finally embrace you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

• Previous Entry: Resurrection Through Connection
• Next Entry: Practicing Sabbath