A divine foundation of relationship is what all religion,
spirituality, and perhaps even politics, is aiming for. The Trinity offers us
this precise gift—a grounded connection with God, self, others, and the world.
This ancient doctrine dared to affirm that God is relationship itself. The way of Jesus therefore
is an invitation to a way of living, loving, and relating—on earth as it is in
God. We are intrinsically like the Trinity, living in absolute relatedness.
While we may not always recognize it, we are all together in a web of mutual
interdependence. When we recognize it on a spiritual level, we call it love.
The
12th-century mystic Richard of St. Victor (1123–1173) wrote about the Trinity
as a mutual, loving companionship of friends—a community, if you will. In my
book The Divine Dance, I summarized some of his
thinking: For God to be good, God can be one. For God to be loving, God has to
be two, because love is always a relationship. But for God to share “excellent
joy” and “delight” God has to be three, because supreme happiness is when two
persons share their common delight in a third something—together. [1] All we
need to do is witness a couple after the birth of their new baby, and we know
this is true.
The
people I have loved with great abandon and freedom were not just the people who
loved me, but people who loved what I loved. People who cared about community,
the Gospel, the poor, justice, honesty—this is where the flow was easy,
natural, and life-giving. Two people excited about the same thing are the
beginning of almost everything new, creative, and risky in our world. Surely
this is what Jesus meant by his first and most basic definition of church as
“two or three gathered” (Matthew 18:20).
A
community inspired by the Trinity will be a community of people who treat each
other as subjects and not objects. Just as the persons of the Trinity know and
love one another, from God’s side we are always known and loved subject to subject. God and the human person must know one another center to
center, subject to subject, and never subject to object. This is why there is
no seeking of power over in the Trinity, but only power with—a giving away, a sharing, a letting go, and thus an
infinity of trust and mutuality. This has the power to change all relationships:
in marriage, in culture, and even in international relations.
If we believe in
a Trinitarian God, then we must hold fast to the truth that Godis community—a completely
loving, mutually self-giving, endlessly generative relationship between equal
partners. We are included in that community and so is everyone else! A
Trinitarian image of God should have changed our politics, our gender
relationships, all power differentials, and friendship itself. But most of
Christian history was never practically Trinitarian.
I truly believe that the Gospel calls the whole world to gather into small communities of basic shared values. But community is an art form, and there are obviously many possible ways of coming together, even as much of the world shelters in place. Who would have thought that creating physical distance from others would be an authentic way to care for our neighbors, especially the most vulnerable? Here at the Center, our staff members join together daily to share online contemplative prayer. Many of them are creating some form of contemplative space in their own homes—often in the midst of children and household jobs. Then there are the generous individuals building networks of support for people who need help by cooking and delivering meals for hospital staff and essential workers, offering free mental health and spiritual direction services, volunteering for food pantries, and more.
Over the years, I have met many people who live in monasteries but who don’t have actual capacity for community life; they’re too imprisoned in themselves. And, at the same time, I know religious sisters who live alone in apartments but are totally community-oriented, bound up and interconnected with the lives of many people. The secret to community lies in the way we let other people get through to us and the way we move out of ourselves. This is, of course, the mystery of spirituality, of vulnerability, and powerlessness. When a person on a serious inner journey to their own vulnerability is also in immediate contact with the vulnerable of the world, then some form of community will almost always result.
Without an interior life and a love of justice, most communities just serve themselves. We who live in the United States have to look out for this in particular. We’re rather narcissistic as individuals and as a society, always looking out for “Number One,” whether it’s our self, our child, our church, our race, or our political party. But that is clearly not the kind of community Jesus created! He was always moving beyond the boundaries of his own kinship circles.
When we named the “Center for Action and Contemplation,” we deliberately put action first. We learn and are healed by committing ourselves to others, especially those at the margins. At one time this type of service was mostly an act of faith, but now we have evidence to back it up: serving others is a healing balm to our own souls. [1] Faith and science support each other on this, as does Step 12 of Alcoholics Anonymous. [2] We do not fully have it until we hand it on to others.
A Community in Transition Sunday, May 3, 2020
Over the past few years, the Center for Action and Contemplation has been in a time of significant transition. For thirty-two years, CAC staff and volunteers have fostered the development of a global community while wonderfully supporting, amplifying, and communicating my preaching and teaching around the world. We’ve done this through conferences, retreats, work internships, the bookstore, our literary journal Oneing, the Mendicant newsletter, the Living School, podcasts, online courses, and of course, these daily meditations.
I must honestly say that few priests or ministers have such a team of partners and collaborators in their ministry and work. They make me look much better than I am in real life! I did nothing to deserve this. It still surprises me every day.
As I happily enter my final years, the CAC continues to grow. We realize it is our responsibility to offer something broader and beyond Richard Rohr—an organization that does not depend on me for its credibility. We have been moving in this direction for some years now, sincerely asking, “How can the CAC continue to be of service, building on what God has already done with us? How can we offer something of further value that has authority and believability on its own?”
Furthermore, we feel called to do this in what many have described as a time of major regression, denial of the past, and even collapse! This is no exaggeration; we need only look at the evidence provided by this global pandemic, the state of the planet, and our worldwide politics of despair. We can track the abandonment of many religious traditions, especially Western Christianity and the Catholic Church in particular due to the loss of moral authority through the pedophilia crisis, as well as the continued exclusion of women and the LGBTQ community as full partners in many denominations. Historians will probably remark on this era’s challenges to legitimate claims to truth.
The question we are asking now is, “How can a small but strong foundation of wisdom teachers—CAC core faculty and others—be of service to the world and to Love?” At the CAC, we do not want to drop into scarcity mode, a reactive position, or the politics of despair.
I’m convinced of and committed to the Christian contemplative tradition as the way through and beyond this era. We hope you consider yourself part of the CAC community and will join us in a reformation that is rising from the margins of our institutions and society. This reformation is nonviolent, beyond the usual binary arguments, and is transforming human consciousness and communities at both the conscious and unconscious levels. Moving forward, what else will change our politics and our religions?
Reconnecting
with the Unconscious
Thursday, April 30, 2020
My
friend John Philip Newell is a poet and scholar who believes in the
transformative power of Celtic Christian spirituality to support us in our era.
The ancient Celts made great use of liminal times and places to integrate the
“paired opposites” of which the world seems to be made. Newell writes:
Do
we know that within each one of us is the unspeakably beautiful beat of the
Sacred? Do we know that we can honor that Sacredness in one another and in
everything that has being? And do we know that this combination—growing in
awareness that we are bearers of Presence, along with a faithful commitment to
honor that Presence in one another and in the earth—holds the key to
transformation in our world? . . .
Eco-theologian
Thomas Berry says the universe is so amazing in its interrelatedness that it
must have been dreamt into being. He also says our situation today as an earth
community is so desperate—we are so far from knowing how to save ourselves from
the ecological degradations we are a part of—that we must dream the way
forward. We must summon, from the unconscious, ways of seeing that we know
nothing of yet, visions that emerge from deeper within us than our conscious
rational minds.
Similarly,
the rebirthing of our true depths will involve a reconnection with the
unconscious. It will demand a fresh releasing within us of the world of dreams,
myths, and the imagination. Whether as individuals or collectively as nations
and religious traditions, new beginnings will be born among us when we open to
the well of what we do not yet know or what we have forgotten deep within. . .
.
Into this
liminal realm, between the known and the unknown, we are invited to enter if we
are to learn more of the way forward in our lives as individuals and as
communities and nations. This is why, in so much Celtic storytelling and
legends, lovers meet and worlds conjoin in the twilight. It is the coming
together of masculine and the feminine. It is the convergence of the unseen
world of those who have gone before us and this present dimension of space and
time in which the seen and the physical dominate. It may be a time of
encountering messengers from the invisible realms of the universe that are
linked inextricably to our realm, but at the same time transcend us in our
struggle with unknown forces of darkness within and without. This is also why,
in so much Eastern spiritual practice [as well as many in monastic communities
in the Christian tradition], the early hours of dawn are viewed as the time of
meditation, when night and day are commingling in ways that more readily allow
us to move from the known to the unknown and from the nameable to the
ineffable.
Sheryl Fullerton, an editor and author with whom I have worked for many years, received a cancer diagnosis two years ago which required a difficult surgery. Like many individuals who are on earnest spiritual journeys, she allowed the painful and challenging experience to transform and guide her to greater wisdom.
When we find ourselves in liminal space, does it matter whether we are pushed or whether we jump? Either way, we are not where or what we were before, nor do we know how or where we will land in our new reality. We are, as the anthropologist Victor Turner (1920–1983) wrote, betwixt and between. In that space—which is mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual—we are destabilized, disoriented. The old touchstones, habits, and comforts are now past, the future unknown. We only wish such a time to be over. We may be impatient to pass through it quickly, with as little distress as possible, even though that is not likely. . . .
But what if we can choose to experience this liminal space and time, this uncomfortable now, as . . . a place and state of creativity, of construction and deconstruction, choice and transformation[?] I wonder whether it is, then, also the realm of the Holy Spirit, our comforter, who does not take away the vastness and possibility of this opened-up threshold time, but invites us to lay down our fears and discomfort to see what else is there, hard as that may be. . . .
One transformation in this liminal time of cancer treatment and recovery was my recognition that the staggering vulnerability I was experiencing was not weakness, not shameful, but the source of what would allow me to survive and, eventually, to thrive. I allowed others to see me—not just my broken, lopsided face, but also my pain, sorrow, disappointment, and discouragement, as well as my gratitude, resilience, joy, and recovery. . . .
Like Jonah in the belly of the sea monster, we are led where we do not want to go—not once, but many times in our lives. Dwelling in unsettling liminal space, whether we are pushed or we jump, we are led to draw on resources and possibilities we may not have tapped before. In the unknown space between here and there, younger and older, past and future, life happens. And, if we attend, we can feel the Holy Spirit moving with us in a way that we may not be aware of in more settled times. In liminal time and space, we can learn to let reality—even in its darkness—be our teacher, rather than living in the illusion that we are creating it on our own. We can enter into the liminal paradox: a disturbing time and space that not only breaks us down, but also offers us the choice to live in it with fierce aliveness, freedom, sacredness, companionship, and awareness of Presence.
Journal. DJR
I was recently encouraged by a Podcaster to Journal during this Liminal Time of Coronavirus. She suggested getting it written down, even if I don’t or can’t analyze what I write. It is a different, unique time, she said, and I can always analyze it later. My thoughts and your thoughts, God are a unique Coronavirus Blend right now in a way that can’t be duplicated in more “normal” times. So here’s a thought:
Last night I called Christian friend…..to stay in touch and fellowship a bit. A super conservative Trump supporter, he exulted how great it was that our president had withdrawn us from the World Health Organization. In his mind, we shouldn’t be supporting such initiatives, there have been inefficiencies and scandals……
My mind went another direction. I’m sure there are inefficiencies and scandals, but isn’t this our government’s way of helping the poor and sickly of the world, our corporate way of dealing with those photos of the starving children with distended bellies? Why not use our influence to fix the inefficiencies and scandals and continue to help those less fortunate?
Then I realized that our government is not interested in helping “the least of these”. As the Super Power of the planet, we are the only developed country left without some form of universal health care. We don’t even take care of (30 million) of our own people, why would we spend money on the poor in the developing world?
How had the words of Jesus, about taking care of the poor and favoring the marginalized gone right by my Christian friend? I think that labelling initiatives like universal health care as Socialist or Communist and lauding the strength of American Capitalism had allowed him to close his ears and heart to Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount.
My friend went on to share how various prophetic voices were agreeing that Corona was God’s judgement on our liberal ways and that the end, or at least some Sodom and Gomorrah type event was imminent.
Again, my mind went another direction. What was it, anyway that brought Fire and Brimstone down on Sodom? No it wasn’t who was sleeping with who. It was that they were rich and were not taking care of the poor! Kind of like America. We don’t take care of our own poor (30 million with no health care) and now we’re stopping care to the rest of our world neighbors. Yes, we may have judgement or at least a Wake Up call coming. Yes, we have lax morality, and we are definitely getting a Wake-Up call, but if we’re to be judged like Sodom, it will be for the same reason. Being Rich and Ignoring the Poor. We are indeed guilty of the “Sin of Sodom”
The part that’s hard for me to understand: It’s mainly my Conservative Christian friends who promote this Sin of Sodom. My Liberal friends and my Secular Friends are the ones who seem to hear Jesus’s Sermon on the mount and want to take care of the poor and marginalized. What’s up?
I’m going to be quiet now and see what adventures you have for me today. Please enlighten me on what is really going on with all this Coronavirus in America and what is mine to do. I love you Jesus
When
I am in that darkness, I do not remember anything about anything human. —Angela of Foligno
(1248–1309)
After working as
a physician and bioethicist for decades, Living School alumna and chair of the
CAC Board LaVera Crawley became a hospital chaplain and spiritual companion for
patients and their families in the liminality that often occurs between life
and death. It seems to me that spiritual companionship is an art many of us are
learning to practice these days, but we must be willing to be present to those
in need, not just physically (or virtually), but with our whole selves. LaVera
shares some of the challenges of this spiritual work and how it can be
transformative for both parties.
There
are likely few situations with the power to reliably propel us beyond the
threshold of everyday existence and into the realm of the liminal than the way
of the despair of receiving a diagnosis of a serious, life-threatening illness.
It can feel like being hit by a brick or like being hurled into the dark abyss.
Once there, the territory can be utterly disorienting and terribly frightening.
. . .
Few
know how to enter the liminal space where their loved one or patient has been
forced to go, let alone how to be there should they be brave
enough to dare to enter. We are uncomfortable in these kinds of liminal spaces
because it is strange and unfamiliar territory, woven with the difficult
feelings we’ve been taught to suppress by medicating them away, by bypassing
them through platitudes . . . or denying them all together. . . .
It
takes willingness, fortitude, knowledge, skill, and a deep trust in Spirit to
go into these dark places as both witness and companion.
To
be very clear, I am not equating darkness with something bad or negative, any
more than I would consider the apophatic way [1] as such. There is deep beauty
in the darkness, in the unknowing, in the indescribable, if only we can open
ourselves to its purpose. Metaphorically, the dark emotions of grief, fear,
and despair can be profound teachers and guides. . . . The primal howl of
existential suffering holds within it the lesson that we all must learn at some
time in our lives: To heal from our suffering—not merely to ease or palliate
it, but to transform it into the source and substance of our growth and
wisdom—requires a journey through it. We must listen attentively for whatever message
it has for us and, according to [psychotherapist Miriam] Greenspan, find
authentic ways to befriend it so that we can surrender to its transmuting
power. All spiritual traditions teach some variation of this wisdom. While it
may not come naturally to us to respond to suffering in this way, through
practice, it can become a learned skill. . . .
The art of
spiritual companionship through the realm of the liminal can be learned,
whether we are accompanying others or attending to our own souls. The first step
requires trusting that, in the course of time, the very healing we seek can
emerge by our journeying through liminal space, listening attentively to what
the liminal seeks to tell us.
Many
things can bring us to the “threshold” of our ordinary ways of thinking and
behaving, but even good rituals are merely “stand-ins” until Reality itself,
often in the form of great love or great suffering, steps in and changes us
forever. My friend Paula D’Arcy, with whom I have taught many times over the
years, lost her husband and young daughter in a tragic car accident while she
was pregnant with their second child. This story from Paula reveals how liminal
moments can occur at any time.
One
afternoon, my heart breaking, I began sorting through the clothes my daughter
Sarah would never wear. A dress lay across my lap, a little piece of white
cotton. It evoked one more moment . . . of bitter tears and confused disbelief.
. . . Life was not supposed to turn out this way. . . .
It
was such an innocent and common thing—a child’s garment. Yet even as it broke
my heart, that dress became an opening; the soft cotton tore at me from within
and began to empty me.
You are not the
only heartbroken parent in the world, it said. The pain of loss is not yours
alone. Disappointment is the human condition. I continued to stare at
the cotton and lace, but something had shifted. The dress was somehow
connecting me to the texture and mystery of greater things . . .
Without
fully understanding why, I began to soften. I saw life’s contour, its density
and its brilliance, just as it is, nothing more. . . . I saw how I’d been
caught in a script of my own creation and . . . was totally caught up in my own
world—my emotions, my wants, and my needs. . . . Now it was simply my time—my
turn to know the darkness and discover whether or not I was brave enough to
accept the human journey and find a way through. . . .
I
slowly began to see that within the cells of every living thing is the same
essence—the presence of spirit. The heart of our journey is to awaken to this
spirit within. . . .
Hardly anything turns out the way you expected it to, and you’re frequently ready to write life off as too paradoxical and too difficult to endure. Then some indescribable light fights its way through the impenetrable dark—an unpredictable, unimportant, runaway moment that lights up everything you’ve been unable to see until then. That light removes all the shoulds and oughts, all the illusions about fairness. You enter liminal space . . . In that space you take your first script [or what I call your false or separate self], the one that weighs five hundred pounds, the script that was cutting into your heart all along, bleeding you to death but you didn’t realize the wound or its seriousness—and you simply let it go.
A RECAP of LAST WEEK………..
Teresa of
Ávila and
John of the Cross
April
19 – April 24, 2020
Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross were part of the “final supernova” of nondual, mystical consciousness in 16th-century Spain. (Sunday) Our hearts open either because they have been softened, or perhaps because suffering makes us feel like we have nothing more to lose. It often takes us to the edge of our inner resources where we “fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). (Monday) It was the deeply mutual and loving nature of the “spousal” prayer Teresa entered into with God that led to such bold and faithful action. (Tuesday) For the first time in [John’s] life, he questioned the existence of a God he could no longer feel or remember. He cried out, “Where have you hidden, my Beloved?”Echoing from this cry came an outpouring of love poetry to God. —Mirabai Starr (Wednesday) John’s core intuition is that 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. —James Finley (Thursday) Night signifies that which comes upon us and takes us out of our own control; it announces that as the place of resurrection. A God who heals in darkness— this is John’s word of hope in a destabilized world. -Iain Matthew (Friday)
Jim Finley, my friend and fellow
teacher at the CAC, began studying the mystics at the Abbey of Gethsemani at
age eighteen, with Thomas Merton as his novice master. He remembers when he
first read this excerpt from the Prologue to the Ascent of Mount
Carmel by St. John of the
Cross:
A deeper
enlightenment and wider experience than mine is necessary to explain the dark
night through which a soul journeys toward that divine light of perfect union
with God that is achieved, insofar as possible in this life, through love. The
darknesses and trials, spiritual and temporal, that fortunate souls ordinarily
undergo on their way to the high state of perfection are so numerous and
profound that human science cannot understand them adequately. Nor does
experience of them equip one to explain them. Only those who suffer them will
know what this experience is like, but they won’t be able to describe it. [1]
Jim describes the effect John’s writing had on him:
Now, I could tell in the first paragraph, I was in deep
water, and I could also tell as I kept reading that just a lot of it was going
right over my head. But in John’s poetry, and from the very first paragraph of
his prose, I sensed that his words were coming from some very deep place inside
of him, or really coming from some deep place and [going] through him, and then
intimately accessing that deep place in me. There was a certain resonance in
realizing he was talking about something that I didn’t understand; but I knew
mattered very, very much. And, as I kept reading on in that way, it got clearer
and clearer to me. I am now over 76 years old, and I am still reading John of
the Cross. He is one of my teachers. . . .
John’s core intuition is that 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. For Infinite Love to create us in the image of itself is for
Infinite Love to create us as a capacity to receive the forms of Infinite Love
as our destiny. That love is our origin, love is our ground. That Infinite
Love creates us as a capacity for love, for love’s sake alone. Love is the
fabric of the true nature of everything that’s happening. This is the love
nature of life.
[Richard again: Throughout these
weeks, I have been praying, trying to understand how, as Jim puts it, “love is
the fabric of the true nature of everything that’s happening.” How can it be
that God’s love is at work and present in the tragedies around the globe right
now? But knowing what harrowing circumstances John of the Cross was in when he
came to experience the infinite love of God gives me hope and perseverance.]
In 1567, when Teresa of Ávila was 52 and deeply involved in her attempts to reform the Carmelite Order and create the Discalced (or “barefoot”) Carmelites, she met the newly ordained John of the Cross. Though he was only 25 years old, Teresa persuaded him to join her cause. In her book St.John of the Cross: Devotions, Prayers, and Living Wisdom, spiritual teacher Mirabai Starr,who has translated many works by both John and Teresa, tells the story of John’s loyalty to their shared mission of reformation:
Juan de la Cruz was twenty-nine years old and madly in love with God.The great living saint Teresa of Ávila had recognized a rare sanctity and brilliance in this humble young friar and placed him in charge of her first reform convent [in 1572].
Then late one night [when John was thirty-five], threatened by this movement to return the order to the contemplative path embodied by the Desert Fathers and Mothers, the mainstream Carmelites whisked him away and imprisoned him in Toledo.
His cell was a tiny closet that had formerly served as a latrine. There was not enough room to lie down, and the only window was far above his head. . . .
Twice a day the friars took him out and flogged him. [Hard to imagine, isn’t it? But the church was still trapped in retributive justice, which has lasted until our time among a high percentage of Christians, because that is the way the entire world operates. –RR]
“Denounce Teresa!” they demanded. “Renounce the heresy of this so-called reform!”
But he would not betray the dream. The dream of a life of voluntary simplicity, solitude, and silence. A contemplative life based on the Gospel teachings of poverty of spirit and charity of heart. A life of stripping away rather than accumulating. Of relinquishing power and seeking nothing. Of nothing but loving friendship with the divine and loving service to [God’s] creation. . . .
As the months ground by, [John] began to fear that he had been abandoned by the Holy One. For the first time in his life, he questioned the existence of a God he could no longer feel or remember. And, as his soul dried up, he found he could no longer even conceive of this God to whom he had dedicated everything. When he tried to pray, all he encountered was a cavernous emptiness.
He cried out, “Where have you hidden, my Beloved?”
Echoing from this cry came an outpouring of love poetry to God. He committed each poem to memory and recited them all again and again until they were etched on his heart. His poems became simultaneously a call to and a response from his Beloved. . . .
At last [after nine long months], one dark night, a sympathetic guard turned the other way as the frail friar made his escape. Taking refuge among the sisters in a nearby convent, he fell into an ecstatic state [of love for God], from which he never recovered.
This
is a great favor for those to whom the Lord grants it; the active and the
contemplative lives are joined. . . . The will is occupied in its work and
contemplation without knowing how. –Teresa of Ávila
Author Tessa
Bielecki writes about Teresa of Ávila as an extraordinary example of action and
contemplation. In addition to her physical suffering, Teresa also suffered from
difficult life circumstances, including the suspicion of church authorities who
disapproved of her visions, her Carmelite reforms, and her status as a converso, a member of a Jewish family that had converted to
Catholicism (likely under duress). In her book Holy Daring, Bielecki shows us that it was the deeply mutual and
loving nature of the “spousal” prayer Teresa entered into with God that led to
such bold and faithful action:
Teresa
. . . is not only one of the greatest contemplatives in the Western spiritual
tradition, but also one of its greatest activists. Tremendously involved with
people and projects, constantly on the go, Teresa still found time to make
prayer a priority.
She
founded new convents at the rate of one and sometimes two per year. . . . She
was an ingenious administrator with a flair for organization, an astute
diplomat, and wise in the world of finance, litigation, and contract
negotiation. Her financial worries, business deals, and personnel problems
certainly challenged her life of prayer, but never spoiled it. . . .
Contemplation
and mysticism . . . 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
which spiritual writer William McNamara calls “spousal prayer”. . . . [It is sometimes called bridal mysticism and is found in
the Bible in the Song of Songs.]
Teresa
uses the various stages in human courtship to describe the stages of prayer.
First we meet [with God], exchange gifts and get acquainted. Eventually we are
betrothed, and then finally we marry. True love deepens and grows gradually,
over a lifetime. . . .
But
the matter does not end here. Another consequence of prayer is far more
demanding: generous, self-spending, and exhausting service. . . . The proper relationship between these two
consequences is clear in the teachings of Jesus. First, he says, “Love
the Lord your God with all your mind and heart and soul and body.” Espousal. Second, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Service. [see Mark 12:30–31] . . .
As
our prayer grows deeper and more authentic, we want to spend ourselves serving
God and the world created out of divine love.
To be clear, this type of “spousal”
or unitive prayer is not just for single or celibate people; it is available to
all of us who are willing to risk surrendering our hearts and lives fully to
God.
As of today, like many of you, I have been in self-isolation for several weeks. Honestly, it is a bit like when I sometimes go on a hermitage during Lent; except now, of course, my prayers are with the innumerable people who are ill with COVID-19 and so many who are grieving loved ones who have died. My heart is heavy for the health care workers, first responders, and other essential workers who continue to put themselves at risk every day. I’m also concerned about the many people now facing financial challenges, or whose marginalization has only been made worse by the virus. This type of prayer leads us to experience solidarity with the suffering.
For all the helpers, including people like yourselves who are doing what you can to meet the needs of loved ones and those who are suffering, I offer this excerpt of a prayer from my friend Mirabai Starr, who is a translator of Teresa of Ávila’s works:
You [Teresa] lived that beautiful balance Between active service And quiet contemplation. Teach us to be of use in this troubled world At the same time that we cultivate Joyous intimacy With the Beloved who lives inside us. [1]
I am truly grateful for the people who are living this truth out through their actions in this time of crisis. And there is more we can do, even as most of us stay at home. A few years ago, I wrote, somewhat facetiously, that the Church should close all programs for a year and simply teach people to pray. It seems to me we may unintentionally have just such an opportunity right now, although I sincerely hope it won’t last a year!
In this week’s Daily Meditations, we will meet with two great teachers of prayer, Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582) and John of the Cross (1542–1591). Teresa was canonized (declared a saint) in 1622 and named the first woman Doctor of the Church in 1970. A Doctor of the Church is someone whose teaching can be trusted. Teresa is recognized as the Doctor of Prayer. John, known as the Mystical Doctor, was canonized in 1726 and named a Doctor in 1926.
I like to say that Teresa and John were part of the “final supernova” of nondual, mystical consciousness in 16th-century Spain, before it all but disappeared in Europe for five hundred years in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the invention of the printing press. Both Teresa and John wrote detailed accounts of their lives and experiences with God, which makes them very accessible guides.
One of Teresa’s most famous teachings is a poem known as “Teresa’s Bookmark” that was found in her own prayer book after her death:
Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing upset you. Everything changes. God alone is unchanging. With patience all things are possible. Whoever has God lacks nothing. God alone is enough.[2]
I hope Teresa’s words will bring you some comfort in this challenging time.
Gateway to Action & Contemplation: What word or phrase resonates with or challenges me? What sensations do I notice in my body? What is mine to do?
Prayer for Our Community: O Great Love, thank you for living and loving in us and through us. May all that we do flow from our deep connection with you and all beings. Help us become a community that vulnerably shares each other’s burdens and the weight of glory. Listen to our hearts’ longings for the healing of our world. [Please add your own intentions.] . . . Knowing you are hearing us better than we are speaking, we offer these prayers in all the holy names of God, amen.
Matthew 11:28-30 The Message (MSG)
28-30 “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
Courage in Times of Trouble Monday, April 20, 2020
TessaBieleckiis a Christian hermit in the tradition of the Desert Mothers and Fathers. Co-founder of the Spiritual Life Institute, she was a Carmelite monk and Mother Abbess for almost 40 years, establishing experimental monastic communities of men and women in Arizona, Colorado, Nova Scotia, and Ireland. She has written extensively on the life, spirituality, and enduring legacy of Teresa of Ávila. Bielecki writes that Teresa has much to teach us about suffering:
For over forty years, [Teresa] never spent a single day without physical pain. For most of her life she suffered such nausea that she vomited daily and couldn’t eat until noon. She suffered the little illnesses that afflict us all—colds, headaches, stomachaches, toothaches, and flus. But she also suffered from high fevers, fainting spells, heart trouble, neuritis, tinnitus, her maimed left arm, a three-year paralysis, severe convulsions, a four-day coma, and the influenza that almost killed her in 1580, aged her terribly, and left her palsied for the last two years of her life. . . .
As a result of her experience, Teresa teaches us that poor health is not an obstacle to spiritual growth but actually enhances it. Why? We learn patience and surrender. We learn how to transcend the body and rise above both sickness and health altogether. . . .
Through this, as in all else, Teresa learned how to let go of her own will and trust in God. She vehemently asserts that we must “determine once and for all to swallow death and the lack of health,” or there will be no hope for us. [Italics mine.] [1]
In a letter to the convent at Seville that she had founded, Teresa writes:
Courage, courage, my daughters. Remember, God gives no one more troubles than [she] is able to bear, and [God] is with those who are in tribulation. [2]
And in a letter to one of her spiritual directors, the Dominican Father Gracián, she reflects:
One must not think that a person who is suffering is not praying. He is offering up his sufferings to God, and many a time he is praying much more truly than one who goes away by himself and meditates his head off, and, if he has squeezed out a few tears, thinks that is prayer. [3]
Richard again: Suffering, of course, can lead us in one of two directions. It can make us very bitter and close us down, or it can make us wise, compassionate, and utterly open. Our hearts open either because they have been softened, or perhaps because suffering makes us feel like we have nothing more to lose. It often takes us to the edge of our inner resources where we “fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).
Let us all pray for the grace of this second path of softening and opening.
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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