The infinite love that is the architect of our hearts has made our hearts in such a way that nothing less than an infinite union with infinite love will do. It’s the setup in the beginning. . . . That infinite love creates you as a capacity for love, for love’s sake alone. That love is our destiny, love is the fabric of the true nature of everything that’s happening. This is the love nature of life. —James Finley, Intimacy: The Divine Ambush
Few people understand the love poetry and mysticism of John of the Cross (1542–1591) better than my friend James Finley. I never tire of hearing him teach on John, whether it’s at our Living School or on his recent podcast. I offer a few stanzas of John’s poetry with nothing more to guide you than Jim Finley’s conviction that God’s “infinite love” is in all in us. This first passage is from the “The Ascent of Mount Carmel”:
On a dark night, Inflamed by love-longing— O exquisite risk!— Undetected I slipped away. My house, at last, grown still.
Secure in the darkness, I climbed the secret ladder in disguise— O exquisite risk!— Concealed by the darkness. My house, at last, grown still.
That sweet night: a secret. Nobody saw me; I did not see a thing. No other light, no other guide Than the one burning in my heart.
This light led the way more clearly than the risen sun To where he was waiting for me —The one I knew so intimately— In a place where no one could find us.
O night, that guided me! O night, sweeter than sunrise! O night, that joined lover with Beloved! Lover transformed in Beloved!
Upon my blossoming breast, Which I cultivated just for him, He drifted into sleep, And while I caressed him, A cedar breeze touched the air. . . .
I lost myself. Forgot myself. I lay my face against the Beloved’s face. Everything fell away and I left myself behind, Abandoning my cares among the lilies, forgotten. [1]
This second passage is from “The Spiritual Canticle”:
O soul, most beautiful among all creatures, you who so long to know the place where your Beloved is, so as to seek him and become one with him, now it has been stated: you yourself are the home in which he dwells. Here is a reason to be happy; here is a cause for joy: the realization that every blessing and all you hope for is so close to you as to be within you. Be glad, find joy there, gathered together and present to him who dwells within, since he is so close to you; desire him there, adore him there, and do not go off looking for him elsewhere . . . There is just one thing: even though he is within you, he is hidden. [2]
The soul who deeply desires
to remain in Christ’s holy company, and is sincerely grateful for the intimacy
with him that is possible, and finds herself truly in love with this Lord who
does so much for us—is the soul whom I consider to be most evolved. —St.
Teresa of Ávila, The Book of
Her Life
Spiritual teacher and psychologist John Welwood has written extensively about intimate human relationships as a “path of conscious love.” To engage deeply with another, we must allow the spontaneous nature of passion to bloom within us. He writes, “Since our very being is open to begin with, it naturally resonates and wants to connect with what is greater than ourselves—the vastness of life itself. Passion is the feeling of life wanting to connect with life. . . . Unconditional passion has no agenda. It is like the freely radiating energy of the sun.” [1] Though we may need to be careful about where we direct our life-force in our everyday lives, we needn’t hold back any passion we experience for divine life itself! Passion is essential to our relationship with God.
Tessa Bielecki, a modern mystic, friend, and
author, writes about how this type of passionate love, which she calls “spousal
prayer,” is available to all—no matter what our relationship “status.”
Contemplation and mysticism are synonymous terms. They both mean loving experiential awareness of God: not ideas in the head or on the lips, but personal living experience. In the Teresian tradition, this experience takes a special form [sometimes called] . . . “spousal prayer.” . . . In spousal prayer we come to know God the way a human spouse knows the spouse, the way a friend knows a friend, the way a lover knows the beloved. Spousal prayer is for men and women, for married couples and celibates, for people raising children or living in monasteries. . . .
Spousal prayer does not make God the divine rival of a human spouse. Human love prefigures divine love. Spiritual matrimony with God may be the goal of our human longings. Is this our real desire when we marry another human person? In the deepest relationships, lovers do not turn each other into idols, but recognize one another as icons, leading them through their love into the very bosom of the Godhead. . . .
Spousal prayer lies at the very heart of the
Christian mystical tradition. . . .
We will never know God spousally if we think
this prayer is impossible, improper, or unimportant. Even if we accept the
reality of spousal prayer in general, we may preclude it by saying, “But it’s
not for me.” For many years I believed that this particular kind of prayer was
not meant for everyone. But St. Teresa has convinced me of the opposite. She
insists that everyone is called to this prayer to some degree or another, at
one time or another.
May nothing hinder us from begging God for this intimate friendship. We need ardent desire and what Teresa calls “holy daring.” She chides us for being content with so little. God wants to give us absolutely everything. Why do we settle for less?
THANK ME IN THE MIDST of the crucible. When things seem all wrong, look for growth opportunities. Especially look for areas where you need to let go, leaving your cares in My able hands. Do you trust Me to orchestrate your life events as I choose, or are you still trying to make things go according to your will? If you keep trying to carry out your intentions while I am leading you in another direction, you deify your desires. Be on the lookout for what I am doing in your life. Worship Me by living close to Me, thanking Me in all circumstances.
1 PETER 5:6–7; Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
PSALM 62:8; Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts before Him. God is our refuge. Selah Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. O my people, trust in him at all times.
1 THESSALONIANS 5:18; give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Let us go forth to behold ourselves in your beauty.
—John of the Cross, “The Spiritual Canticle,” stanzas 32, 36
When we read poetry as beautiful and profound as this verse, we can see why John of the Cross (1542–1591) was far ahead of his time in the spiritual and psychological understanding of how love works and how true love changes us at a deep level. He consistently speaks of divine love as the template and model for all human love, and human love as the necessary school and preparation for any transcendent encounter. Authentic friendship with another person is one way to experience this type of love and will be the focus of this week’s meditations. If you have never experienced such human love or friendship, it will be very hard for you to access God as Love. If you have never let God love you, you will not know how to love humanly in the deepest way. Of course, grace can overcome both of these limitations.
Here is my paraphrase of this beautiful passage from John of the Cross:
You give a piece of yourself to the other.
You see a piece of yourself in the other (usually unconsciously).
This allows the other to do the same in return.
You do not need or demand anything back from them,
Because you know that you are both participating
In a single, Bigger Gazing and Loving—
One that fully satisfies and creates an immense Inner Aliveness.
(Simply to love is its own reward.)
You accept being accepted—for no reason and by no criteria whatsoever!
This is the key that unlocks everything in me, for others,
and toward God.
So much so that we call it “salvation”!
To put it another way, what I let God see and accept in me also becomes what I can then see and accept in myself, in my friends, and in everything else. This is “radical grace.” This is why it is crucial to allow God, and at least one other trusted person to see us in our imperfection and even our nakedness, as we are—rather than as we would ideally wish to be. It is also why we must give others this same experience of being looked upon in their imperfection; otherwise, they will never know the essential and transformative mystery of grace.
Such utterly free and gratuitous love is the only love that validates, transforms, and changes us at the deepest levels of consciousness. It is what we all desire and what we were created for. Once we allow it for ourselves, we will almost naturally become a conduit of the same for others. In fact, nothing else will attract us anymore or even make much sense.
If we could glimpse the panoramic view of the
biblical revelation and the Big Picture of which we are a part, we’d see how
God is forever evolving human consciousness, making us ever more ready for God.
The Hebrew prophets and many Catholic and Sufi mystics used words like
espousal, marriage, or bride and groom to describe this phenomenon. That’s what
the prophet Isaiah (61:10, 62:5), many of the Psalms, the school of Paul
(Ephesians 5:25–32), and the Book of Revelation (19:7–8, 21:2) mean by
“preparing a bride to be ready for her husband.” It has nothing to do with
gender and everything to do with the human soul that is being gradually readied
so that espousal and full partnership with the Divine are the final result.
It’s all moving toward a marriage between God and creation. Note that such
salvation is a social and cosmic concept, and not just about isolated
individuals “going to heaven.” The church was meant to bring this corporate
salvation to conscious and visible possibility.
Could divine marriage and intimacy really be
God’s plan? Or is this just poetic exaggeration? If this is the divine agenda,
why were most of us presented with an angry deity who needed to be placated and
controlled? And why would such a God even want to “marry” God’s creation? I don’t
think I am stretching the point. Look for all the times Jesus uses a wedding
banquet as his image for eternity, and how he loves to call himself “the
bridegroom” (Mark 2:19–20). Why would Jesus choose such metaphors if they
weren’t deeply true? The very daring, seemingly impossible idea of union with
God is still something we’re so afraid of that most of us won’t allow ourselves
to even think in that direction. The Eastern Church developed this idea in
their theology of divinization (theosis)
much better than the Western Church, and we are all much poorer for our loss.
Only God in
you will allow you to imagine such a possibility, which is
precisely “the Holy Spirit planted in your heart” (Romans 8:11 and throughout
Paul’s letters).
Jesus came to give us the courage to trust and allow our inherent union with God, and he modeled it for us in this world. Union is not merely a place we go to later—as long as we are good. Union is the place we come from, the place we’re called to live from now. At the end, the fitting conclusion of the “Second Coming of Christ” is that humanity becomes “a beautiful bride all dressed for her husband” (Revelation 21:2), with Jesus Christ as the Eternal Divine Bridegroom (Matthew 9:15; John 3:29) waiting for all of us at the altar.
The clear goal
and direction of biblical revelation is toward a full, mutual indwelling. The
eternal mystery of incarnation will have finally met its mark, and “the
marriage feast of the Lamb will begin” (Revelation 19:7–9). History is no longer
meaningless but has a promised and positive direction. This creates very
healthy, happy, hopeful, and generative people, the ones we surely need right
now. All I know for certain is that a good God creates and continues to create
an ever-good world, by enticing it back into the place where it began.
Saint Bonaventure taught that we are each “loved by God in a particular and incomparable manner, as in the case of a bride and groom.” [1] Francis and Clare of Assisi knew that the love God has for each soul is unique and made to order, which is why any “saved” person feels beloved, chosen, and even “God’s favorite.” Many people in the Bible also knew and experienced this specialness. Divine intimacy is always and precisely particular and made to order—and thus “intimate.”
Christ, Our Beloved Bridegroom
The inner knowledge of God’s love is described as joy itself (see John 15:11). This inner knowing is the Indwelling Presence. Which comes first? Does feeling safe and held by God allow us to deal with others in the same way? Or does human tenderness allow us to imagine that God must be the same, but infinitely so? I do not suppose it really matters where we start; the important thing is that we get in on the big secret from one side or the other.
Yes, “secret,” or even “hidden secret,” is
what writers like the Psalmist (25:14), Paul, Rumi, Hafiz, Bonaventure, Dame
Julian, and many mystics called it. And for some sad reason, it seems to be a
well-kept secret. Jesus praises God for “hiding these things from the learned
and the clever and revealing them only to the little ones” (Matthew 11:25).
Well, what is it that the learned and the clever often cannot see?
The big and hidden secret is this: an infinite God seeks and desires intimacy with the human soul. Once we experience such intimacy, only the intimate language of lovers describes the experience for us: mystery, tenderness, singularity, specialness, changing the rules “for me,” nakedness, risk, ecstasy, incessant longing, and of course also, necessary suffering. This is the mystical vocabulary of the saints. Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) puts it beautifully:
Who could explain the benefit that lies in throwing ourselves into the arms of this Lord of ours and making an agreement with His Majesty that I look at my Beloved and my Beloved at me . . . . Let Him kiss me with the kiss of His mouth, for without You, what am I, Lord? If I am not close to You, what am I worth? If I stray a little from Your Majesty, where will I end up? Oh, my Lord, my Mercy, and my Good! And what greater good could I want in this life than to be so close to You, that there be no division between You and me? With this companionship, what can be difficult? What can one not undertake for You, being so closely joined? [2]
May 10 MORNING DO NOT RESIST OR RUN from the difficulties in your life. These problems are not random mistakes; they are hand-tailored blessings designed for your benefit and growth. Embrace all the circumstances that I allow in your life, trusting Me to bring good out of them. View problems as opportunities to rely more fully on Me. When you start to feel stressed, let those feelings alert you to your need for Me. Thus, your needs become doorways to deep dependence on Me and increasing intimacy between us. Although self-sufficiency is acclaimed in the world, reliance on Me produces abundant living in My kingdom. Thank Me for the difficulties in your life since they provide protection from the idolatry of self-reliance. JOHN 15:5; 2 I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
CORINTHIANS 1:8–9; He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our LORD Jesus Christ. 9God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our LORD.
EPHESIANS 5:20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling Morning and Evening Devotional (Jesus Calling®) (p. 270). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
Attorney and activist Sherri
Mitchell from the Penobscot Nation writes about the collective trauma and “soul
wound” [1] that Native Americans have suffered:
My group, Native Americans, have suffered an
unrecognized holocaust in this country. The brutal genocide of Native peoples
is hard to acknowledge for many, especially for those who have inherited some
value from the loss and destruction that occurred here. How do you acknowledge
the injustice of genocide, disruption of culture, and the destruction of a way
of life when you’re living on the lands of those who have been victimized? It
is hard for people to accept that horror and continue to live with the outcome,
so they choose to ignore it or minimize the story. The simple truth is that
this country was founded on genocide and slavery. . . .
When we don’t allow ourselves to acknowledge
the pain—the deep, agonizing soul pain that results from historical trauma—we
aren’t able to recognize that we are all carrying some measure of that pain
within us. Instead, we allow it to isolate us and keep us cut off from one
another. We also fail to recognize that the cause of that pain is not only a
violation against us, it is a violation against life itself, and its mournful
cries echo through our DNA, and become lodged in our genetic memory. [2]
The collective and intergenerational trauma
that Sherri Mitchell describes manifests in individual bodies and requires
healing on multiple levels. Kaitlin Curtice, a dear personal friend and
member of the Potawatomi Nation, shares:
I am someone who journeys with trauma.
The next step after naming my trauma—the
trauma of assimilation, the trauma of being an Indigenous woman who grew up in
the Baptist church, the trauma of a broken family, the trauma of struggling
with anxiety, and more—was to learn how to live with the reality of those
traumas, because once we name something out loud, it becomes true in a way it
wasn’t before. My journey with trauma includes learning to love myself in a
more embodied way, continuing therapy, and actually stepping out of toxic
church spaces and institutions into a fuller journey with the Christian faith
that accepts me as I am.
Learning to love myself—my child self, my adult self, my scared self, the courageous self that I keep tucked away a lot of the time—has been the hardest part of my journey with trauma. When we learn to stop blaming our child selves for their trauma, fear, and behaviors, we learn to understand who we are as adults, and we get the chance to become embodied again.
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COME TO ME for all that you need. Come into My Presence with thanksgiving, for thankfulness opens the door to My treasures. When you are thankful, you affirm the central truth that I am Good. I am Light, in whom there is no darkness at all. The assurance that I am entirely Good meets your basic need for security. Your life is not subject to the whims of a sin-stained deity. Relax in the knowledge that the One who controls your life is totally trustworthy. Come to Me with confident expectation. There is nothing you need that I cannot provide.
PSALM 95:2; Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.
1 JOHN 1:5; “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” 1 John 1:5, KJV: “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”
PSALM 19:7; “The law of the Lord is perfect;” by which he means not merely the law of Moses but the doctrine of God, the whole run and rule of sacred Writ.
HEBREWS 4:16 ESV 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need
Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling Morning and Evening Devotional (Jesus Calling®) (p. 260). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
Very few of us can actually imagine God suffering. I bet almost half the prayers of the Catholic Church begin with “Almighty God” and when you’re “all mighty,” you don’t suffer! And yet if we believe that Jesus reveals the hidden heart of God, we know that God suffers, too. Jesus is continually drawn to the suffering ones and suffers with them. Our English word “pity” doesn’t do justice to the Hebrew concept of the bowel-shaking empathy Jesus felt for the wounded people who came to him. Clinical psychologist and Episcopal priest Rev. Dr. Sally Howard writes about how God meets us in our trauma:
It is a time to discover new stories about our God, who could not bear to stand apart from our suffering and joined us to live as we might live. . . .
Our God, who poured Herself into the creation of all that exists, is subject to risk, to being fractured and torn, just as we are. . . . The knowledge and experience of God’s solidarity and union with us is profoundly healing and can alter the sequela of trauma so as not to become repetitive and recurrent. God desires closeness to all our experience, naked and raw, in its particularity and commonality. . . .
By providing the safe dwelling place, God defeats the horror in our lives. God catches up our trauma and weaves any horror-filled participation into an unending relationship of beatific intimacy. When we recognize God in our own narrative, there is no wound so deep that God cannot heal. [1]
Also in the latest edition of Oneing, CAC faculty member and dear friend James Finley recounts an experience from his doctoral training, during which he served as an intern on an inpatient alcohol treatment unit for veterans. Upon witnessing a new arrival at the unit accept the challenging truth of his addicted situation, Jim saw in the vulnerable alcoholic an insight about God’s presence, protection, and peace.
In the moment he stood there with tears in his eyes, he was vulnerable and, in his vulnerability, true invincibility was being manifested in the world.Thomas Merton (1915–1968) taught there is that in us that is not subject to the brutalities of our own will. No matter how badly we may have trashed ourselves in patterns of self-destructive behavior, this innermost hidden center of ourselves remains invincibly whole and undiminished because it is that in us that belongs entirely to God.
No matter what anyone has done to us in the past, or is doing to us now, or might do to us in the future, this innermost, hidden center of ourselves remains invincibly established in God as a mysterious Presence, as a life that is at once God’s and our own. It is in being awakened to this innermost center of ourselves with God that we find the courage to continue on in the challenging process of healing, grounded in a peace that is not dependent on the outcome of our efforts because it is the peace of God, which depends on nothing and on which everything depends. [2]
Claude AnShin Thomas
suffered for years from the trauma of war as a Vietnam combat veteran. A
retreat with Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh set him on the path of
mindfulness and healing. He is now a Zen Buddhist monk. He recounts his story:
I suffer from a disturbed sleep pattern that
has been a part of my life since a nighttime attack in Vietnam in 1967. Since
that time, I haven’t slept for more than two consecutive hours in any one
night. . . . My sleeplessness became the central symbol of my not-all-rightness,
of my deepest fears that I would never be all right. . . .
Part of the reason I had difficulty sleeping
was because of my night terrors: the sounds of artillery (that isn’t there)
firing in the distance, of helicopters on assault, that special look of
everything illuminated by artificial light, the sounds of small arms fire, of
the wounded screaming for a medic. For me, this is what rises up out of the
silence that is special to night. I hated the sun going down. I fought and
struggled with my inability to sleep, and the more I fought, the more difficult
the nights became. So I turned to alcohol and drugs (legal and illegal) for
relief, but my suffering just got worse. . . .
Some years after getting sober, I was standing
at the kitchen sink in my cottage in Concord, washing dishes. Above the sink
was a window through which I could see a row of fifty-foot-tall pine trees that
lined the driveway. That day as I did the dishes, I was watching a squirrel
busy doing whatever it is that squirrels do, when I had a powerful experience.
A voice inside me, the voice of awareness, said to me, “You can’t sleep, so now
what?” I began to laugh. It was a moment of complete acceptance. I finally
understood that I just was how I was. To resist, to fight, to attempt to alter
the essential nature of my life, was in fact making matters worse, and now I
understood that I simply needed to learn how to live with the reality of who I
was. In this moment I discovered that it was here, in the midst of suffering
and confusion, that healing and transformation can take place, if I can stop
trying to escape.
But I’m not
special, you know. You can do this, too. You can face your own sorrow, your own
wounds. You can stop wanting some other life, some other past, some other
reality. You can stop fighting against the truth of yourself and, breathing in
and breathing out, open to your own experience. You can just feel whatever is
there, exploring it, until you also discover the liberation that comes with
stopping the struggle and becoming fully present in your own life. This is the
real path to peace and freedom. You could do this for yourself; you could do
this for your family. Our whole world will benefit.
What Do We Do with This Pain?
We have heard the word trauma a lot in the last thirty years or more. I am not sure if it is happening more, or if we finally have a word to describe what has probably always been happening.
When we examine history, we know that there
has scarcely been a time period, community, or country which did not regularly
experience war, famine, torture, families separated by death or distance,
relentless injustice against which people felt powerless, domestic violence,
sexual abuse, imprisonment, natural disasters, disease, even wholesale enslavement,
persecution, and genocide. All of these are emotionally traumatic for the human
psyche; such memories are held in the body itself—so much so that, in many
cases, the mind cannot remember the trauma until years later.
Reflecting on trauma has made me think that
much of the human race must have suffered from what we now call Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder (PTSD). It is heartbreaking to imagine, but it gives me much
more sympathy for the human person caught in repeated cycles of historical
violence.
Could this be what mythology means by “the
sacred wound” and the church describes as “original sin,” which was not
something we did, but the effects of something that was done to us? I believe
it is.
If religion cannot find a meaning for human
suffering, humanity is in major trouble. All healthy religion shows us what to
do with our pain. Great religion shows us what to do with the absurd, the
tragic, the traumatic, the nonsensical, the unjust. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly
transmit it.
It’s no surprise that the Christian logo
became a naked, bleeding, suffering man. What do we do with this pain, this
sadness, this disappointment, this absurdity? At the end of life, and probably
at the beginning of life, too, that is the question. When I led men in rites of
passage, this was the biggest question for the largest percentage of those in
the middle of life: what do we do with what has already happened to us? How do
we keep from the need to blame, to punish, to accuse, to sit on Job’s eternal
dung heap and pick at our sores (Job 2:8)? It seems to me that too high a
percentage of humanity ends up there.
It is no wonder that Jesus teaches so much
about forgiveness, and shares so much healing touch and talk. He does not
resort to the usual moral categories, punishment practices, the frequent blame,
or the simplistic sin language of most early-stage religious people. That is
why he is such a huge spiritual master. Christians almost avoided seeing this
by too glibly calling him “God.” He offers everything to us for our own
transformation—everything! Not to change others but to change ourselves. Jesus
never “cancels” other people or groups.
As I wrote in the most recent edition of our biannual literary journal Oneing, this much is all I am equipped to say. This week, let my friends now take it further.
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May 3
MORNING YOU CANNOT SERVE TWO MASTERS . If I am truly your Master, you will desire to please Me above all others. If pleasing people is your goal, you will be enslaved to them. People can be harsh taskmasters when you give them this power over you. If I am the Master of your life, I will also be your First Love. Your serving Me is rooted and grounded in My vast, unconditional Love for you. The lower you bow down before Me, the higher I lift you up into intimate relationship with Me. The Joy of living in My Presence outshines all other pleasures. I want you to reflect My joyous Light by living in increasing intimacy with Me.
MATTHEW 6:24;
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
REVELATION 2:4;
Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.
EPHESIANS 3:16–17;
That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye,
PSALM 16:11
You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling Morning and Evening Devotional (Jesus Calling®) (p. 256). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
Apocalyptic literature is subversive literature. This is a key point in understanding John’s reasons for writing the book of Revelation in the style that he did. Author and speaker Rob Bell has helped many people understand the Bible, including the book of Revelation, in a more helpful and hopeful way:
This letter is written in an apocalyptic, heavily symbolic way that has given people much to discuss over the years, beginning with the question: How did the first readers of this letter understand it? Because it’s written by a real pastor in a real place to a real congregation going through very real suffering. They were living at the time the letter was written under the oppressive rule of a succession of Roman Emperors who demanded they be worshipped as the “Son of God.” Christians who refused to acknowledge these Caesars as Lord were being executed, simply for being followers of Jesus.
This kind of tribulation raised very pressing questions for these people in this church that John pastored about how God runs the world and how long God would let this injustice continue. [1]
Allan Boesak, a clergy leader in the anti-apartheid movement, understood the subversive nature of John’s book, and how it spoke to oppressed people in his own day. He describes his South African situation at the height of the struggle:
More and more the government is requiring Christians to obey it without question. . . . Preachers of the gospel were imprisoned in unprecedented numbers. Church services were banned, and police attacked worshippers with tear gas, dogs, and guns. . . . We go to jail by the thousands. It is clear that the government has declared war on our defenseless people as heavily armed police and army troops besiege the black townships and invade our communities, schools, and homes. . . .
For people who face situations like these, the Apocalypse is an exciting, inspiring, and marvelous book. It is a book which, in our sociopolitical situation, is a constant call for conversion and change. . . . But we shall have to learn to read it differently. . . .
The clue to understanding the Apocalypse as protest literature—and at the same time the answer to the question as to why so few scholars understand it in this way—lies, I think, in Revelation 1:9: “I John, your brother, who share with you in Jesus the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance [of suffering].” This is the key. Those who do not know this suffering through oppression, who do not struggle together with God’s people for the sake of the gospel, and who do not feel in their own bodies the meaning of oppression and the freedom and joy of fighting against it shall have grave difficulty understanding this letter from Patmos. . . . It is understanding the comfort and the protest, the prophetic, hopeful song of victory that the church already sings, even in the midst of suffering and fear, destruction, and death.
Let’s further distinguish the character of
apocalyptic literature from prophetic literature in the Bible. Since the
Western mind is literal and analytic, it usually misunderstood both types of
literature. We viewed apocalypse as threatening and prophecy as foretelling,
and our understanding of both missed the point. Prophecy came to mean
predicting things and apocalypse came to mean the final destruction of
things—both in the future. We projected everything forward, instead of
realizing that these writings were, first of all, present descriptions of
reality right now. We did the same thing with heaven and hell. In terms of the
actual biblical message of transformation and enlightenment, this approach is
largely useless, in my opinion, and often even harmful. They just reinforced
our reward/punishment story line which keeps us at an immature level of
development.
Through apocalyptic literature, the Scripture
writers were finding a language and set of metaphors that would stir the power
of the imagination and shake the unconscious. The Book of Apocalypse or
Revelation was written almost entirely in this apocalyptic style, with
archetypal symbols of good and evil such as the Heavenly Woman, the Lamb of
God, the Mighty Warrior, and the Red Dragon. The genre we are familiar with
that comes closest to what Revelation does is science fiction—but please don’t
think I’m dismissing the divinely inspired character of the book. The
well-known Bible translator Eugene Peterson (1932–2018) understood the symbolic
power of the Book of Revelation:
I read
[John’s] Revelation not to get more information but to revive my imagination.
“The imagination is our way into the divine Imagination, permitting us to see
wholly—as whole and holy—what we perceive as scattered, as order what we
perceive as random.” [1] St. John uses words the way poets do, recombining them
in fresh ways so that old truth is freshly perceived. He takes truth that has
been eroded to platitude by careless usage and sets it in motion before us in
an “animated and impassioned dance of ideas.” [2] . . . Familiarity dulls my
perceptions. Hurry scatters my attention. Ambition fogs my intelligence.
Selfishness restricts my range. Anxiety robs me of appetite. Envy distracts me
from what is good and blessed right before me. And then . . . St. John’s
apocalyptic vision brings me to my senses, body and soul. [3]
To change people’s consciousness, we have to find a way to reach their unconscious. That’s where our hearts and our real agendas lie, where our mother wounds, father wounds, and cultural wounds reside. The unconscious is where it all lies stored, and this determines a great deal of what we pay attention to and what we ignore. While it took modern therapy and psychology for us to recognize how true this was, through apocalyptic literature, the Scripture writers were already there. We can’t get to the unconscious logically, literally, or mechanically. We have to fall into it, I’m sorry to say, and usually by suffering, paradox and the effective use of symbols. Until our certitudes and our own little self-written success stories begin to fall apart, we usually won’t touch upon any form of deeper wisdom.
April 28 MORNING AS YOU LOOK into the day that stretches out before you, you see many choice-points along the way. The myriad possibilities these choices present can confuse you. Draw your mind back to the threshold of this day, where I stand beside you, lovingly preparing you for what is ahead. You must make your choices one at a time since each is contingent upon the decision that precedes it. Instead of trying to create a mental map of your path through this day, focus on My loving Presence with you. I will equip you as you go so that you can handle whatever comes your way. Trust Me to supply what you need when you need it.
LAMENTATIONS 3:22–26;
Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The LORD is good …
PROVERBS 16:9; 9In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.
PSALM 34:8 NKJV Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him! 9 Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints!
Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling Morning and Evening Devotional (Jesus Calling®) (p. 244). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
I believe my first real spiritual experience happened when I was probably five years old. I was alone in the living room of our home in Kansas and only the Christmas tree was lit. I had the sense that the world was good, I was good, and I was part of the good world—and I just wanted to stay there. It was like being taken to another world—the real world, the world as it’s meant to be, where the foundation is love and God is in everything.
I remember feeling very special, very chosen, very beloved, and it was my secret. The rest of my family didn’t know what I was knowing—see how my ego was already getting involved? Like the Apostle Paul, I now believe that chosenness is for the sake of letting everybody else know they are chosen, too.
My hope for our near future lies in those who are waking up to this Divine DNA that was there from the start—especially amid the painful experiences of life. We must all move through the universal pattern of Order, Disorder, and Reorder, and we must do it again and again and again.
By choosing a life of simplicity, service, generosity, and even powerlessness, we can move forward trusting both Love and Mystery. We don’t need to be perfectly certain before taking the next step.
Our job is to be who we say we are and who God says we are—carriers of the divine image. “My deepest me is God,” as St. Catherine of Genoa said. I can only imagine how differently our lives, families, and nations would look if we trusted the foundational promise of Christian incarnation. When you can see Christ in all things (including yourself!), you will see and live differently.
I’ve spent my life trying to remind people of their inherent belovedness, and I pray that our work at the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) has played a role in helping you to see, feel, and experience the hope of your own chosenness in God.
Your support is what enables this work of sharing the transformative wisdom of the Christian contemplative tradition with people all over the world. Thank you for being part of this community. I hope our work has been helpful in your life this year and we are so grateful for your partnership in making it possible.
Please take a moment to read our Executive Director Michael’s note below. Tomorrow the Daily Meditations will continue exploring the challenging theme of Apocalyptic Hope.
In the words of Teilhard… “Christ ever greater,”
Dear Friends,
All of us at the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) are honored and grateful to be a part of this incredible community—especially given this past year.
Like many of you, we had no idea how much the challenges of 2020 would force us to change or adapt. Thanks to your support, the CAC has been able to continue the work of reminding more and more people of their inherent belovedness. And, if the tremendous volume of emails and letters we’ve received is any indication, there continues to be a great appreciation and growing need for this to continue to expand. Here is one example from last month:
I want to let you know that the daily meditations and podcasts helped me tremendously to live through the pandemic, the political uncertainties and many other difficulties. Words cannot describe how important they are to me during these times. It calmed me down in my panics, fears and hopelessness. It kept me from sinking to the bottom. It has been ‘the’ one and only place that helps me to see God clearly and feel his love dearly.
Thank you, and God bless you.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to pass along this message of thanks, because it isn’t just for Father Richard or the CAC, but for each of you as well. Your generous contributions are what allow this work to reach people—all over the world!
The CAC’s programs and resources are designed to help deepen prayer practice and strengthen compassionate engagement. Whether you’re reading the Daily Meditations, listening to a podcast, or working through an online course—everything the CAC offers is in service to awakening Love in you and in the world.
Thank you for being part of this community and one of the partners that makes it possible. The CAC is not funded by any denomination, endowment, or even large foundation; we are supported by thousands of small donations from people like you. We deeply appreciate any support you are able to provide.
I am so thankful for your partnership with us on the journey, and I hope we all can continue to help those who need a reminder of their chosenness and beloved identity in God to find it.
Peace and Every Good,
Michael Poffenberger Executive Director, Center for Action and Contemplation
This Is an Apocalypse
In April of last year, I was invited by the Call to Unite [1] to share my thoughts about what we might learn from the COVID-19 pandemic. I knew it might be a risk, but I felt a strong urge to speak about the much-misunderstood meaning of biblical apocalypse. Here is a portion of that conversation:
What apocalyptic means is to pull back the veil, to reveal the underbelly of reality. It uses hyperbolic images, stars falling from the sky, the moon turning to blood. The closest thing would be contemporary science fiction, where suddenly you’re placed in an utterly different world, where what you used to call “normal” doesn’t apply anymore. That perfectly describes this COVID-19 event.
So hear this word rightly—it is meant to shock: this is an apocalypse, happening to us in our lifetime, that’s leaving us utterly out of control. We’re grasping to retake control, by things like refusing to wear masks and defying boundaries at potential superspreader events. But I think we now know in a new way that we can’t totally take control.
There is a giveaway in all of the apocalyptic sections of the three Synoptic Gospels. In Matthew 24:8, hidden there in the middle of the wars and earthquakes it says, “All this is only the beginning of the birth pangs.” Apocalypse is for the sake of birth not death. Yet most of us have heard this reading as a threat. Apparently, it’s not. Anything that upsets our normalcy is a threat to the ego but in the Big Picture, it really isn’t. In Luke 21, Jesus says right in the middle of the catastrophic description: “Your endurance will win you your souls.” Falling apart is for the sake of renewal, not punishment. Again, such a telling line. In Mark 13, Jesus says “Stay awake” four times in the last paragraph (Mark 13:32–37). In other words, “Learn the lesson that this has to teach you.” It points to everything that we take for granted and says, “Don’t take anything for granted.” An apocalyptic event reframes reality in a radical way by flipping our imagination.
We would have done history a great favor if we would have understood apocalyptic literature. It’s notmeant to strike fear in us as much as a radical rearrangement. It’s not the end of the world. It’s the end of worlds—our worlds that we have created. In the book of Revelation (also called the Apocalypse, or Revelation to John), John is trying to describe what it feels like when everything falls apart. It’s not a threat. It’s an invitation to depth. It’s what it takes to wake people up to the real, to the lasting, to what matters. It presents the serious reader with a great “What if?”
Our best response is to end our fight with reality-as-it-is. We will benefit from anything that approaches a welcoming prayer—diving into the change positively, preemptively, saying, “Come, what is; teach me your good lessons.” Saying yes to “What is” ironically sets us up for “What if?” Otherwise, we get trapped in the negative past.
A Time of Unveiling
I believe this past year has been an apocalyptic time, though not necessarily in the way we might think. When the CAC staff first started speaking with me in the fall of 2020 about potential themes for the 2021 Daily Meditations, we were about seven months into the COVID-19 pandemic. Social distancing and staying home were the norm. The presidential campaign, with all its ugly rhetoric, was in full swing. Only half-joking, I suggested “apocalypse” as a theme! But the Daily Meditations editorial team took my idea seriously and transformed it into something broader, deeper, and much more accessible. We called this year’s theme “A Time of Unveiling.” For many of us, the word “apocalypse” conjures thoughts of the rapture, fear, a vengeful God, and violent and exclusive religion. It is an overwhelming judgment on Western Christianity that it is drawn to such beliefs. But despite its misuse, I’m convinced the biblical meaning of apocalypse is a helpful and ultimately hopeful framework.
A quick etymology of the word will help: kaluptein is the Greek word for “to cover” and apo means “un,” so apokaluptein means to uncover or unveil. While we primarily use the word “apocalypse” to mean to destroy or threaten, in its original context, apocalypsesimplymeant to reveal something new. The key is that in order to reveal something new, we have to get the old out of the way.
I begin my book Eager to Love with these poetic words from Neale Donald Walsch that put this quite nicely.
Yearning for a new way will not produce it. Only ending the old way can do that. You cannot hold onto the old all the while declaring that you want something new. The old will defy the new; the old will deny the new; the old will decry the new. There is only one way to bring in the new. You must make room for it. [1]
That’s what apocalyptic literature does. It helps us make room for something new by clearing out the old—old ideas, old stories, old ways of thinking—especially if we’ve become overly attached to them. The goal of apocalyptic language, as used in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, is to shake people out of their reliance on conventional wisdom and undercut where we all operate on cruise control.
The most common mistake is to confuse apocalyptic literature with prophetic literature. They serve very different functions. Apocalyptic writing deconstructs the “taken-for-granted world” by presenting a completely different universe, similar to what a good novel or even a science fiction movie does for us. As the Buddhist heart sutra says it, “Gone, gone, utterly gone, all has passed over to the other side.” It makes room for the reconstruction of a new vision of peace and justice, which is the job of the prophets. Yes, prophets do plenty of deconstruction too, but it is always to make room inside the mind and soul for vision, expansion, hope, and a future inhabited by God and not by fear.
This CO2- (Church Of 2) is where two guys meet each day to tighten up our Connections with Jesus. We start by placing the daily “My Utmost For His Highest” in this WordPress blog. Then we prayerfully select some matching worship music and usually pick out a few lyrics that fit especially well. Then we just start praying and editing and Bolding and adding comments and see where the Spirit takes us.
It’s been a blessing for both of us.
If you’d like to start a CO2, we’d be glad to help you and your partner get started. Also click the link below to see how others are doing CO2.Odds Monkey
Steve Harvey Introduces Jesus To A Secular Audience
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