Francis and Clare of Assisi were not so much prophets by what they said as by the radical, system-critiquing way that they lived their lives. They found both their inner and outer freedom by structurally living on the edge of the inside of both church and society. Too often people seek either inner or outer freedom, but seldom do they find both.
Francis and Clare’s agenda for justice was the most foundational and undercutting of all: a very simple lifestyle outside the system of production and consumption (the real meaning of the vow of poverty) plus a conscious identification with the marginalized of society (the communion of saints pushed to its outer edge). In this position we do not “do” acts of peace and justice as much as our life is itself peace and justice. We take our small and sufficient place in the great and grand scheme of God. By “living on the edge of the inside” I mean building on the solid Tradition (“from the inside”) but doing it from a new and creative stance (“on the edge”) where we cannot be coopted for purposes of security, possessions, or the illusions of power.
Francis and Clare placed themselves outside the system of not just social production and consumption, but ecclesiastical too! Francis was not a priest, nor were Franciscan men originally priests. Theirs was not a spirituality of earning or seeking worthiness, career, church status, or divine favor (which they knew they already had). They represented in their own unique way the old tradition of “holy fools” among the desert fathers and mothers and the Eastern Church, and offered that notion to the very organized and “efficient” Western Church.
For the most part, the path they offered has been ignored or not understood. Most of us prefer quid pro quo (retributive justice) to restorative justice. But those formed by the Gospels should know better. When we try to find personal and individual freedom while remaining inside structural boxes and a system of consumption, we are often unable or unwilling to critique those very structures. Whoever is paying our bills and giving us security and status determines what we can and cannot say, or even what we can or cannot think. We cannot remove the plank we are standing on. Self-serving institutions that give us our security, status, or identity are almost always considered “too big to fail” and are often beyond any honest critique. And thus corruption grows.
The way of radical Christianity is simply to stay out of such systems to begin with, so they cannot control your breadth of thinking, feeling, loving, and living out universal justice.
When Jesus and John’s Gospel used the term “the world,” they did not mean the earth, creation, or civilization, which Jesus clearly came to love and save (John 12:47). They were referring to idolatrous systems and institutions that are invariably self-referential and always passing away (1 Corinthians 7:31).
The Lord gave me, Brother Francis, thus to begin doing penance in this way: for when I was in sin, it seemed too bitter for me to see lepers. And the Lord . . . led me among them and I showed mercy to them. And when I left them, what had seemed bitter to me was turned into sweetness of soul and body. And afterwards I delayed a little and then I left the world. —Francisof Assisi [1]
When Francis said, he “left the world,” he was not talking about creation, which he loved. He was talking about the “rotten, decadent system” as Dorothy Day called it. [2] He was giving up on the usual payoffs, constraints, and rewards of business-as-usual and was choosing to live in the largest Kingdom of all. To pray and actually mean “Thy Kingdom come,” we must also be able to say “my kingdoms go.” Francis and Clare’s first citizenship was always, and in every case, elsewhere (Philippians 3:20), which ironically allowed them to live in this world with joy and freedom.
Augustine Thompson, a Dominican friar, writes:
This encounter with lepers, not the act of stripping off his clothing before the bishop, would always be for Francis the core of his religious conversion. . . . Wherever the leprosarium was, Francis lodged there with the residents and earned his keep caring for them. . . . It was a dramatic personal reorientation that brought forth spiritual fruit. As Francis showed mercy to these outcasts, he came to experience God’s own gift of mercy to himself. As he cleaned the lepers’ bodies, dressed their wounds, and treated them as human beings, not as refuse to be fled from in horror, his perceptions changed. What before was ugly and repulsive now caused him delight and joy, not only spiritually, but also viscerally and physically.
Francis’s aesthetic sense, so central to his personality, had been transformed, even inverted. The startled veteran sensed himself, by God’s grace and no power of his own, remade into a different man. Just as suddenly, the sins which had been tormenting him seemed to melt away, and Francis experienced a kind of spiritual rebirth and healing. Not long after this encounter, later accounts tell us, perhaps in allegory, that Francis was walking down a road and met one of these same lepers. He embraced the man in his arms and kissed him. Francis’s spiritual nightmare was over; he had found peace. [3]
Deep within each of us live a leper and a wolf. These stories did happen historically with Francis, but first they operate in the soul. We must first encounter and embrace the leper and wolf inside. If we haven’t been able to kiss many lepers, if we haven’t been able to tame many wolves, it’s probably because we haven’t made friends with our leper and wolf within. Name your poor leper within. Nurse and tend her wounds. Name your inner wolf; tame him by gentle forgiveness.
Francis and the Wolf Sunday, October 6, 2019
Carlo Carretto (1910–1988) was a member of the Little Brothers of Jesus, a community of contemplatives based on the spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi and founded by Charles de Foucauld (1858–1916). Carretto’s life, like that of Francis, was a combination of action and contemplation. In his book, I, Francis, Carretto speaks in Francis’ voice, combining biography with what Francis might say to us today.
Carretto describes Francis’ experience with a hungry old wolf who had been terrifying the people of Gubbio and preying on their livestock. Francis went out to meet the wolf armed only with love. The townspeople were sure the wolf would eat Francis. But Francis simply considered the needs of both the wolf and the community. He discerned that the wolf was too old to hunt wild animals and just needed to eat, while the people needed safety for themselves and their animals. Francis proposed that the wolf be given food each day, and the wolf agreed to leave their sheep and chickens alone. Carretto writes in Francis’ voice:
No, brothers [and sisters], I was not afraid [to meet with the wolf].
Not since I had experienced the fact that my God is the wolf’s God too.
What is extraordinary in the incident of the wolf of Gubbio is not that the wolf grew tame, but that the people of Gubbio grew tame, and that they ran to meet the cold and hungry wolf not with pruning knives and hatchets but with bread and hot porridge.
This is the miracle of love: to discover that all creation is one, flung out into space by a God who is a Father, and that if you present yourself as [God] does, unarmed and peaceably, creation will recognize and meet you with a smile.
This is the principle of nonviolence, and I want to recommend it to you with all the enthusiasm I can command. . . .
If human beings go to war, it is because they fear someone.
Remove the fear, and you re-establish trust, and will have peace.
Nonviolence means destroying fear.
This is why I, Francis, tell you this once again: Learn to conquer fear, as I did that morning when I went out to meet the wolf with a smile.
By conquering myself, I conquered the wolf. By taming my evil instincts, I tamed those of the wolf. By making an effort to trust the wolf, I found that the wolf trusted me.
My courage had established peace.
You can deduce the rest by yourselves.
Just think what would happen if one day you became nonviolent, and took the huge sums of money you spend on defending yourselves against fear and used them to help the people of whom you are now afraid. . . .
You will know peace then.
Is that too much to hope?
Perhaps someone is listening to me!
To whoever it is, I, Francis say: Be brave!
Summary: Week Forty
September 29 – October 4, 2019
Much of Francis of Assisi’s genius was that he was ready for absolute “newness” from God, and therefore could also trust fresh and new attitudes in himself. (Sunday)
In his “Testament,” Francis said, “No one showed me what I ought to do,” and then, at the very end of his life, he said, “I have done what is mine to do; may Christ teach you what is yours!” (Monday)
If God became a human being, then it’s good to be a human being! The problem is already solved. That Jesus was born into a poor family shows God’s love for the poor. (Tuesday)
Unlike the monastic life, which strove to domesticate nature and to bring it under control, Francis expected to live lightly on the earth, a burden neither to the earth nor to those who fed and clothed him. —John Quigley (Wednesday)
The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. (Thursday)
“My son,” the bishop said to Francis, “have confidence in the Lord and act courageously. God will be your help and will abundantly provide you with whatever is necessary.” —Mirabai Starr (Friday)
Practice: Lectio Divina
Francis of Assisi is the patron saint of ecology, animals, non-violence, and peacemaking—because he understood that the entire circle of life has a Great Lover at the center of it all. In Francis’ world, the sun, moon, animals, plants, and elements are all shown reverence and even personal subjectivity as “brother” and “sister.” He refused to exclude anything. He went to the edge, to the bottom; he kissed the leper, he loved the poor, he wore patches on the outside of his habit so everybody would know that’s what he was like on the inside. He didn’t hide from his shadow. He wasn’t an intellectual; he didn’t begin with universal philosophies and ideas and abstractions. For Francis, there was one world and it was all sacred.
Today I invite you to practice “sacred reading” (lectio divina)using the prayer often attributed to Francis of Assisi. Lectio divina is a contemplative way to read short passages of sacred text and discover meanings running deeper than the literal layer. There are many variations of sacred reading; all are an invitation to take a “long, loving look” at some aspect of life, with scripture, poetry, music, or nature.
With the first reading of the Peace Prayer, listen with your heart’s ear for a phrase or word that stands out for you.
During the second reading, reflect on what touches you, perhaps speaking that response aloud or writing in a journal.
After reading the passage a third time, respond with a prayer or expression of what you have experienced and ask yourself what this passage calls you to do or be.
Finally, after a fourth reading, rest in silence.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
Naked Before God Friday, October 4, 2019 Feast of St. Francis of Assisi
Mirabai Starr is a friend, fellow New Mexican, and a respected author known for her work translating many mystics. Her words provide insight to a pivotal experience of St. Francis’ life.
After Christ spoke to Francis from the [crucifix in the] ruins of San Damiano, directing him to rebuild his church, Francis reached for the most immediate source of funds available: his father’s fabrics. Francis entered Pietro Bernardone’s warehouse when his father was away on business and helped himself to two bolts of expensive cloth.
Francis rode to a nearby village, where he sold both the fabric and his horse. Pocketing his purse of gold, he set off on foot for the crumbled church of San Damiano, where he offered the money to the priest. . . .
But Bernardone’s wrath was infamous, and the priest had no interest in incurring it. He refused the money.
When Francis’s father returned to Assisi and discovered what his errant son had done now, he predictably exploded. He had endured Francis’s outrageous disregard for his hard-earned wealth long enough.
In Francis’s youth, the boy had squandered entire fortunes on entertaining himself and his friends. His father had spent a huge sum to bail him out when Francis was captured as a prisoner of war. He had allowed Francis to do nothing for two years as he recovered from an illness contracted during his incarceration. And now this: stealing from his own father to pursue some crazy new whim.
Bernardone found his estranged son . . . begging in the streets of Assisi for stones to rebuild the church of San Damiano. . . .
When he was summoned before Bishop Guido, Francis went willingly, considering the bishop to be a representative of God. Guido, known for his violent temper, was surprisingly tender with [Francis]. . . . He tried to reason with him, explaining that he had “scandalized” his father and that God wouldn’t want him to use ill-gotten gains to do his work.
“My son,” said the bishop, “have confidence in the Lord and act courageously. . . . [God] will be your help and will abundantly provide you with whatever is necessary.”
These words penetrated Francis’s heart. Moved by a surge of faith, Francis stripped off his clothes in front of the entire assembly and handed them to his father, along with the purse of gold the priest at San Damiano had refused.
“Listen everyone,” Francis called out to the crowd that had gathered to observe the trial. “From now on, I can say with complete freedom, ‘Our Father who art in Heaven.’ Pietro Bernardone is no longer my father.”
Stunned, the bishop wrapped his own cloak around Francis’s naked shoulders. His father left the cathedral defeated. This is not the way Bernardone hoped things would work out. What he really wanted was to have his son back. But Francis, released into the service of humanity, was lost to him forever.
God gave St. Francis to history in a pivotal period when Western civilization began to move into rationality, functionality, consumerism, and perpetual war. Francis was himself a soldier, and his father was a tradesman in cloth. Francis came from the very world he was then able to critique, but he offered a positive critique of these very systems at the beginning of their now eight centuries of world dominance. Rather than fighting the systems directly and in so doing becoming a mirror image of them, Francis just did things differently. The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better (one of the Center’s core principles). [1]
As Adolf Holl put it, Francis emerged precisely when we started “putting clocks into church towers.” [2] When Christian leaders started counting, Francis stopped counting. He moved from the common economy of merit to the scary and wondrous economy of grace, where God does not do any counting, but only gives unreservedly.
As Europe began to centralize and organize everything at high levels of control and fashion, Francis, like a divine trickster, said, “Who cares!” When Roman Catholicism under Pope Innocent III reached the height of papal and worldly power, he said in effect, “There is another way that is much better!” Exactly when we began a style of production and consumption that would eventually ravage planet earth, he decided to love the earth and live simply and barefoot upon it. Francis of Assisi is a Prime Attractor to what we really want, what we definitely need, and who we finally are. And, apparently, he did it all with a “perfect joy” that comes from letting go of the ego!
We are only afraid of death as long as we do not know who we are, but once we know ourselves objectively to be a child of God, we are already home and our inheritance is given to us ahead of time. Then we can begin living and enjoying instead of climbing, proving, or defending. Our false self, as all religions say in one way or another, must “die before we die.” Only then can we sincerely say with Francis, “Welcome, Sister Death” which he said on this day in 1226. Those who face this first death of dying to self lose nothing that is real. And so, “the second death can do them no harm,” as Francis says in his “Canticle of the Creatures.” [3] Death itself will only “keep opening, and opening, and opening,” which is what resurrection means. [4]
All of this creates a very different form and shape to our spiritual life. It is no longer elitist, separatist, or competitive, but changes our deepest imagination in the direction of simplicity. Our worldview will not normally change until we place ourselves, or are placed, in new and different lifestyle situations. Another of the Center’s core principles is: You do not think yourself into a new way of living, you live yourself into a new way of thinking. Francis and Clare displaced themselves into different worlds where their hearts could imagine very different things and they had to pay attention to something other than comfort or convenience.
Today, we will continue with my Franciscan brother and long-time friend John Quigley’s summary of Franciscanism. I’ve added my thoughts in italics within brackets.
[Francis] knew that we share this earth, our loves and work with all of God’s creatures, our brothers and sisters. Unlike the monastic life, which strove to domesticate nature and to bring it under control, Francis expected to live lightly on the earth, a burden neither to the earth nor to those who fed and clothed him.
[Jesus never told us to separate ourselves from the world. That’s why Francis would not be a monk. The friars were a totally new religious movement. Francis wanted us to live in the middle of the cities right with the people and not to separate ourselves. That’s because he didn’t hate the world. He said you have to find a way interiorly to love and have compassion for the world, which may mean going apart for a time for the purpose of prayer and contemplation.]
There are many lively legends about Francis and Clare [which soon took philosophical and theological weight through luminaries like Bonaventure and John Duns Scotus]. These seminal stories and the insights that arise from them have given emphasis to specific themes in Franciscan philosophy and theology. They include the idea that Jesus did not assume flesh to correct Adam and Eve’s sin; rather, Jesus would have taken flesh whether we had sinned or not. Love by its very nature wants to be one with its beloved, so our salvation has been announced and realized in an Incarnate God. The suffering and death of Jesus confirms for us how deep and committed is God’s love in the Incarnation.
[The Franciscan view is that Creation is the first Incarnation. The Christ Mystery was the blueprint of reality from the very start (John 1:1). Francis saw all of creation, including all humans, as part of the one family of God. That’s why he called them Brother Sun and Sister Moon. Duns Scotus gave this a theological explanation by saying, in essence, that God’s first “idea” was to pour out divine, infinite love into finite, visible forms. The Big Bang is the scientific name for that first idea, “Christ” is Christianity’s theological name, and it is all about Love flowing outward in all directions.]
Each individual existence—person, plant, stone, amoeba—is absolutely precious. Each has a certain unique “thisness,” which cannot be completely shared or described by another. [Duns Scotus called this haecceity, from the Latin “haec” or “this.”]Each creature of God must attain the full measure of its own uniqueness, its “thisness” before the full expression of God’s love can be realized in creation.
Simplicity is another Franciscan theme and sign of God’s love. We should multiply words, explanations, and actions only when necessary, he tells us. [You have probably heard the axiom that summarizes part of our Franciscan Rule: “Preach the Gospel at all times; and when absolutely necessary, use words.” Francis was all about orthopraxy, or living the Gospel, rather than orthodoxy, or merely verbal beliefs.]Others may say that we come to understand God by analogies. The Franciscan perspective is that we can have a direct effect and univocal understanding of God by reflecting and understanding our experience of ourselves as human beings. [“Who are you, God? And who am I?” [1] was Francis’ unending prayer. Some have said it is the perfect prayer because it is both humble and honest. Franciscans believe we all participate in God’s Being. Duns Scotus called this the univocity of being. Our being is not just analogous to God’s being, but we may speak of our two supposedly different beings “with one voice.”]Finally, everything, every Scripture, every law, every action, history itself is to be interpreted in light of the primacy of Love and Christ over all [the cosmic or universal Christ].
The Minores Tuesday, October 1, 2019 Feast of Thérèse of Lisieux, “The Little Flower
My friend since 1962 and fellow Franciscan, Father John Quigley, OFM, has written a helpful, succinct summary of Franciscanism. We worked closely together with the New Jerusalem Community in Ohio and could practically finish each other’s sentences, and so it feels natural to freely insert my own views in brackets within his wonderful description.
For the past eight hundred years other men and women, inspired by the simple genius and freshness of Francis and Clare, have been developing and popularizing the original Franciscan revelation. This continual aggiornamento, or updating, has had a profound humanizing effect within Christianity, Western civilization, and other cultures. [Francis fell in love with the humanity and the humility of Jesus; while most of Western and even Eastern Christianity focused on proving the divinity of Jesus.]
It is not easy to put into a capsule the spirit and gifts of Franciscan thinking. Its hallmarks are simplicity, reverence, fraternity, ecumenism, ecology, interdependence, and dialogue. Its motto and salutation is “Peace and All Good!”
Francis believed that God was nonviolent, the God of Peace. This belief may be a simple presupposition for us today [although I still find far too many Christians have been raised to fear God as judgmental and punishing and seem to reflect that in their own lives], but at the time when the Christian church was waging a Holy Crusade against its enemies, the Saracens [Arab Muslims], Francis’s interpretation of the gospel life and its demands was revolutionary. Francis saw it from the viewpoint of the poor, especially from the place of the poor, naked, suffering Christ. He had deep devotion to the God who is revealed as nonviolent and poor in the stable of Bethlehem, as abandoned on the cross, and as food in the Eucharist. God’s meekness, humility, and poverty led Francis to become “perfected as his Heavenly Father was perfect.” [1] [Francis agreed with Luke’s understanding of “perfect” as meaning merciful or compassionate.] Francis identified with the “minores,” the lower class within his society. . . . [The letters OFM after our names stand for Order of Friars Minoror Ordo Fratum Minorum, which means the Little Brothers. Like Thérèse of Lisieux centuries after him, Francis reveled in littleness.] And he passionately pointed to the Incarnation [of Jesus] as the living proof of God’s love. He frequently cried out in his pain that “Love is not loved!”
[Incarnation is absolutely foundational to the Franciscan worldview. It is said that Francis created the first live Nativity scene. Franciscans emphasize Incarnation perhaps even more than redemption. In other words, Christmas is more important than Easter. Francis said that for God to be born a human being, born in a stable among the poor, shows that we already have redemption. Christmas is already Easter because if God became a human being, then it’s good to be a human being! The problem is already solved. That Jesus was born into a poor family shows God’s love for the poor.]
St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) was a master of making room for the new and letting go of that which was tired or empty. His first biographer described Francis as always hopeful, always new, always beginning again. [1] Much of Francis’ genius was that he was ready for absolute “newness” from God, and therefore, could also trust fresh and new attitudes in himself. His God was not old, so Francis remained forever young.
In these two weeks of Daily Meditations, I want to share with you one of the most attractive, appealing, and accessible of all frames and doorways to the divine. It is called the Franciscan way after the man who first exemplified it, Francesco di Bernardone, born in Assisi, Italy.
There are always new vocabularies, fresh symbols, new frames and styles, but Francis must have known, at least intuitively, that there is only one enduring spiritual insight and everything else follows from it: The visible world is an active doorway to the invisible world, and the invisible world is much larger than the visible. I would call this mystical insight “the mystery of incarnation,” or the essential union of the material and the spiritual worlds, or simply “Christ.” [2]
Our outer world and its inner significance must come together for there to be any wholeness—and holiness. The result is deep joy and a resounding sense of coherent beauty. What was personified in the body of Jesus was a manifestation of this one universal truth: Matter is, and has always been, the hiding place for Spirit, forever offering itself to be discovered anew. Perhaps this is exactly what Jesus means when he says, “I am the gate” (John 10:7). Francis and his female companion, Clare (1194–1253), carried this mystery to its full and lovely conclusion. Or, more rightly, they were fully carried by the mystery. They somehow knew that the beyond was not really beyond, but in the depths of here.
One way to understand Francis and Clare is by reading their lives from what has emerged through their imitators and followers—those who discovered and rediscovered what can only be called radical simplification. Here I am thinking of people like Thérèse of Lisieux, Charles de Foucauld, Dorothy Day, Seraphim of Sarov, Nicholas von der Flüe, Mother Teresa, and, most recently, Pope Francis—to name a few Christian examples. The way of Francis of Assisi cannot be contained inside of formal Franciscanism simply because it is nothing more than the Gospel itself—in very distilled and honest form.
Gateway to Presence: If you want to go deeper with today’s meditation, take note of what word or phrase stands out to you. Come back to that word or phrase throughout the day, being present to its impact and invitation.
One World Monday, September 30, 2019
I hope to show what Francis of Assisi clearly changed and did differently and what flowed from his unique wholeness. We will see that Francis was at once very traditional and entirely new in the ways of holiness—a paradox. He stood barefoot on the earth and yet touched the heavens. He was grounded in the Church and yet instinctively moved toward the cosmos. He lived happily inside the visible and yet both suffered and rejoiced in what others thought was invisible. Francis was at home in two worlds at the same time, and thus he revealed it was all one world.
Like all saints, he delighted in both his Absolute Littleness and his Absolute Connection in the very same moment. Of course, they totally depend on one another. Francis and Clare died into the life that they loved instead of living in fear of any death that could end their life. They were both so very eager to love, and they somehow knew that dying to the old and unneeded was an essential part of living this love at any depth. Most of us do not seem to know that—and resist all change.
Yet Francis’ holiness, like all holiness, was unique and never a copy or mere imitation. In his “Testament,” he said, “No one showed me what I ought to do,” [1] and then, at the very end of his life, he said, “I have done what is mine to do; may Christ teach you what is yours!” [2] What permission, freedom, and space he thus gave to his followers! Bonaventure (1217–1274) echoed that understanding of unique and intimate vocation when he taught, “We are each loved by God in a particular and incomparable way, as in the case of a bride and bridegroom.” [3] Francis and Clare knew that the love God has for each soul is unique and made to order, which is why any “saved” person always feels beloved, chosen, and even “God’s favorite” like so many in the Bible. Divine intimacy is precisely particular and made to order—and thus “intimate.”
Jesus himself, Paul (Jesus’ iconoclastic interpreter), and both Francis and Clare made room for the new by a full willingness to let go of the old. This is quite a rare pattern in the history of formal religion, which is too often a love affair with small and comfortable traditions. Each of these game-changing people had the courage and the clarity to sort out what was perennial wisdom from what was unreal, passing, merely cultural, or even destructive, which is how Jesus described the way “a disciple of the reign of God” behaves. He said that such disciples are “householders who bring out from their household things both old and new” (Matthew 13:52). John the Baptist described Jesus as a “winnowing fan” within religion itself—that separates the grain from the chaff (Matthew 3:12)—instead of just presuming that religion is all “grain” and the outsiders are all “chaff.
Summary: Week Thirty-nine
Oneness
September 22 – September 27, 2019
When we carry our small suffering in solidarity with humanity’s one universal longing for deep union, it helps keep us from self-pity or self-preoccupation. We know that we are all in this together. (Sunday)
God is the force that is binding, moving, sustaining, and transforming all of humanity and all of creation with every breath and every evolutionary shift on our planet. (Monday)
The whole thing is one, just at different stages, all of it loved corporately by God (and, one hopes, by us). Within this worldview, we are saved not by being privately perfect, but by being “part of the body,” humble links in the great chain of history.(Tuesday)
The freeing, good news of the Gospel is that God is saving and redeeming the Whole first and foremost, and we are all caught up in this Cosmic Sweep of Divine Love. (Wednesday)
Oneness is less a goal toward which life is pressing, as it is a return to the truth in which we have always been held. —Catherine T. Nerney (Thursday)
A heart transformed by this realization of oneness knows that only love “in here,” in me, can spot and enjoy love “out there.” (Friday)
Practice: Childlike Sincerity
James Finley, one of our core faculty members, writes:
We have each had a taste of nondual consciousness: the face of our beloved, a child at play, the sound of running water, the intimacy of darkness in the middle of a sleepless night. Our lives move in and out of nondual consciousness. In these moments, we intuitively use the word God for the infinity of the primordial preciousness with Whom we realize ourselves to be one. In these moments we realize that nothing is missing anywhere and what fools we are to worry so.
As I reflect on this, it dawns on me that the root of sorrow is my estrangement from the intimately realized oneness and preciousness of all things. I’m skimming over the surface of the depths of my life. Yet, I know in my heart that the God-given, godly nature of every breath and heartbeat is hidden in the ever-present depths over which I am skimming in my preoccupations with the day’s demands.
So, the question becomes: how can I learn not to play the cynic, not to break faith with my awakened heart? In my most childlike hour, I have tasted the presence of God that is perpetually manifesting and giving itself to me as my very life. While the value of my life is not dependent upon the degree to which I realize this unitive mystery that is always there, the experiential quality of my life is profoundly related to the degree to which I am learning to live in habitual awareness of and fidelity to the God-given, godly nature of the life that I’m living.
I cannot make moments of nondual consciousness happen. I can only assume the inner stance that offers the least resistance to be overtaken by the grace of nondual consciousness. Two lovers cannot make moments of oceanic oneness happen, but together they can assume the inner stance that allows them to be overtaken by the oceanic oneness that blesses their life.
My spiritual practice is to sit each day in childlike sincerity with an inner stance that offers the least resistance to being overtaken by the God-given, godly nature of myself just the way I am. This is my sense of what nondual consciousness is and the contemplative way of life in which we, with God’s grace, become ever more habitually grounded. [1]
For today’s contemplative practice, sit in a comfortable position with the simple intention to be in the Presence of God. With playful, childlike sincerity, offer the least resistance to being overtaken by the God-given, godly nature of yourself—just the way you are. Abide for five or ten minutes or more in this state.
You might want to open your sitting session with this prayer:
O God, give me a simple heart, free from duplicity and deceit, a heart which goes to You with childlike simplicity. [2]
Thomas Merton (1915–1968) helped many within and beyond Christianity imagine the oneness at the heart of reality. Catherine Nerney, SSJ, director of the Institute for Forgiveness and Reconciliation at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, shares insights she’s gathered from Merton’s writings:
God’s compassion knows no withholding. This God lives in all and all live in God. We belong together; we belong to one another. My personal identification with [Thomas] Merton’s journey to radical oneness is more than a little autobiographical. . . . As a Sister of St. Joseph, the vision of “living and working that all may be one” is in our DNA; it is our mission, the reason we exist. Something inside me urges me to sniff out this call to unifying love wherever it can be found. In Merton, the scent of the search for oneness is everywhere. . . .
Thomas Merton’s reflective life of contemplation and action found expression in the written word, particularly in his intimate journals, which . . . open up such needed pathways to life in communion, where all are welcomed into God’s compassionate heart, no exceptions, no exclusion. This vision of “the Oneness we already are” was given to Merton, rather than discovered by him. . . .
Many of us have pondered the powerful lines from Merton’s Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, where he shares his experience . . . on a crowded street corner in the midst of an ordinary day: . . .
In Louisville, at the corner of 4th [now Muhammad Ali Blvd.] and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. . . . This changes nothing in the sense and value of my solitude, for it is, in fact, the function of solitude to make one realize such things with a clarity that would be impossible to one completely immersed in other cares. . . . My solitude, however, is not my own. It is because I am one with them that I owe it to them to be alone, and when I am alone, they are not “they” but my own self. There are no strangers. . . . If only we could see each other that way all the time. . . . But this cannot be seen, only believed and “understood” by a peculiar gift. . . . [1]
By the early 1960s, a spiritually mature Merton knew by a contemplative, intuitive grasp that oneness is less a goal toward which life is pressing, as it is a return to the truth in which we have always been held. In October of 1968, just minutes before his death, Merton told a large audience of Asian monks at a Calcutta conference: “My dear brothers, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. What we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.” [2]
The Universal Christ is trying to communicate at the deepest intuitive level that there is only One Life, One Death, and One Suffering on this earth. We are all invited to ride the one wave, which is the only wave there is. Call it Reality, if you wish. But we are all in this together.
Consider how a “one-lump” awareness of reality upends so many of our current obsessions. Our arguments about private worthiness; reward and punishment; gender, race, and class distinctions; private possessions—all the things that make us argue and compete are not essential, ontological traits. Weighing, measuring, counting, listing, labeling, and comparing only gets us so far.
Of course, we must recognize and respect our differences. “Colorblindness” is actually harmful in the face of measurable inequities for people of color. Pride parades and other cultural celebrations of identity are valuable expressions for many groups whose voices have been silenced. People with privilege and power like myself are called to move to the bottom and to destroy the illusion of our supremacy. Those who have been marginalized and deemed inferior are invited to reclaim their inherent value and belonging. As Jesus said, “The last will be first and the first will be last” (Matthew 20:16).
The Gospel is about learning to live and die in and with God—all our warts and wounds included and forgiven by an Infinite Love. The true Gospel democratizes the world. We are all saved in spite of our mistakes, in spite of our suffering, and in spite of ourselves. We are all caught up in the cosmic sweep of Divine grace and mercy. And we all must learn to trust the Psalmist’s prayer: “Not to us, not to us, O Lord, but to your name be the glory” (Psalm 115:1).
The freeing, good news of the Gospel is that God is saving and redeeming the Whole first and foremost, and we are all caught up in this Cosmic Sweep of Divine Love. The parts—you and me and everybody else—are the blessed beneficiaries, the desperate hangers-on, the partly willing participants in the Whole. Paul wrote that our only task is to trust this reality “until God is all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28). What a different idea of faith! “When Christ is revealed,” Paul writes to the Colossians, “and he is your life—you too will be revealed in all your glory with him” (3:4). Unless and until we can enjoy this, so much of what passes for Christianity will amount to little more than well-disguised narcissism and self-referential politics. We see this phenomenon playing out in the de facto values of people who strongly identify as Christian. Often they are more racist, classist, and sexist than non-Christians. “Others can carry the burden and the pain of injustice, but not my group,” they seem to say.
Humans throughout history have often had a strong appreciation for and connection with their ancestors. I think the collective notion of oneness is what Christians were trying to verbalize when they made a late addition to the ancient Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in the communion of saints.” They were offering us the idea that the dead are at one with the living, whether they’re our direct ancestors, the saints in glory, or even the so-called souls in purgatory.
Sister Catherine Nerney, SSJ illustrates this idea in her book The Compassion Connection: Recovering Our Original Oneness:
I, who once found life within my mother, was in turn responsible for my mother’s ongoing life in me.
The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh tells a beautiful story about an experience he had following his mother’s death which makes this point very powerfully:
The day my mother died I wrote in my journal, “A serious misfortune in my life has arrived.” I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut of my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk with her as if she had never died. When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me. [1]
This kind of mutual interdependence I sense to be true. We live in and through one another. We become ourselves only in and through a process of mutual inter-becoming. It all began in God’s own creative, self-giving love. Much deeper than the inevitability of my [physically] resembling my earthly mother is the reality of my core identity, the core identity of all who bear the same family resemblance, a unique but related face of compassion—the same divine Love has birthed us all. God will never be dead as long as we’re alive. [2]
The whole thing is one, just at different stages, all of it loved corporately by God (and, one hopes, by us). Within this worldview, we are saved not by being privately perfect, but by being “part of the body,” humble links in the great chain of history. This view echoes the biblical concept of a covenant love that was granted to the Jewish people as a whole, and never just to one individual like Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Esther, or David. Similarly, the prophets and Jesus spoke both their judgments and their promises to the collective of the House of Jacob, Moab, Bashan, Gilgal, Capernaum, Bethsaida, Jerusalem (and on and on) much more than they ever did to individuals. Many Christians’ failure to recognize this has led to a major misinterpretation of the entire Bible.
Oneness Love Is Universal Monday, September 23, 2019
Every rational creature, every person, and every angel has two main strengths: the power to know and the power to love. God made both of these, but [God is] not knowable through the first one. To the power of love, however, [God] is entirely known, because a loving soul is open to receive God’s abundance. . . . [God’s] very nature makes love endless and miraculous. God will never stop loving us. Consider this truth, and, if by grace you can make love your own, do. For the experience is eternal joy; its absence is unending suffering. —The Cloud of Unknowing [1]
In the fourteenth century, the inspired, anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing taught that God in Christ dealt with sin, death, forgiveness, and salvation “all in one lump.” It is a most unusual, even homely, phrase, but for me, this corporate and mystical reading of history contributes to the unitive vision we are seeking, as we try to understand the Universal Christ. Jesus by himself looks like an individual, albeit a divine individual, but the Christ is a compelling image for this “one-lump” view of reality. In the fourteenth century, The Cloud’s author would’ve enjoyed the last remnants of mystical holism before the Reformation and Enlightenment elevated dualistic thinking. The writer reflected the more Eastern church understanding of the resurrection as a universal phenomenon, and not just the lone Jesus rising from the dead and raising his hands as if he just scored a touchdown, as is depicted in most Western art—and even in a giant mosaic that looms over the University of Notre Dame’s football stadium.
I am convinced that the Gospel offers us a holistic, “all in one lump” understanding of things. We also see this idea everywhere in Pauline passages, expressed in different ways: “in that one body he condemned sin” (Romans 8:3); “He experienced death for all humankind” (Hebrews 2:19); he has done suffering and sacrifice “once and for all” (Hebrews 7:28); or the embodiment language of Philippians, where Jesus is said to lead us through the “pattern of sin and death” so we can “take our place in the pattern of resurrection” (3:9-12). And of course, this all emerges from Jesus’ major metaphor of the “Reign of God,” a collective notion which some scholars say is just about all that he talks about. Until we start reading the Jesus story through the collective lens of Christ, I honestly think Christians miss much of his core message and limit its meaning to individual salvation, reward, and punishment. Without a universal and unifying spirituality, society will remain untransformed. Only surrendering humbly to the radical path of love will result in the discovery that God is not the object of our longing and love, but is the loving itself. As the author of The Cloud teaches, God is the force that is binding, moving, sustaining, and transforming all of humanity and all of creation with every breath and every evolutionary shift on our planet.
Oneness The Suffering of God Sunday, September 22, 2019
I am not alone in my tiredness or sickness or fears, but at one with millions of others from many centuries, and it is all part of life. —Etty Hillesum [1]
Just days before I began writing my book about the Universal Christ, I learned that I would have to put down my fifteen-year-old black Lab because she was suffering from inoperable cancer. Venus had been giving me a knowing and profoundly accepting look for weeks, but I did not know how to read it. Deep down, I did not want to know. After her diagnosis, every time I looked at her, she gazed up at me with those same soft and fully permissive eyes, as if to say, “It is okay. You can let me go. I know it is my time.” But she patiently waited until I, too, was ready.
In the weeks before she died, Venus somehow communicated to me that all sadness, whether cosmic, human, or canine, is one and the same. Somehow, her eyes were all eyes, even God’s eyes, and the sadness she expressed was a divine and universal sadness.
When we carry our small suffering in solidarity with humanity’s one universal longing for deep union, it helps keep us from self-pity or self-preoccupation. We know that we are all in this together. It is just as hard for everybody else, and our healing is bound up in each other’s. Almost all people are carrying a great and secret hurt, even when they don’t know it. This realization softens the space around our overly defended hearts. It makes it hard to be cruel to anyone. It somehow makes us one—in a way that easy comfort and entertainment never can.
Some mystics go so far as to say that individual suffering doesn’t exist at all and that there is only one suffering. It is all the same, and it is all the suffering of God. The image of Jesus on the cross somehow communicates that to the willing soul. A Crucified God is the dramatic symbol of the one suffering that God fully enters into with us—much more than just for us, as many Christians were trained to think.
If suffering, even unjust suffering (and all suffering is unjust), is part of one Great Mystery, then I am willing to carry my little portion. Etty Hillesum (1914–1943), a young, Dutch, Jewish woman who died in Auschwitz, truly believed her suffering was also the suffering of God. She even expressed a deep desire to help God carry some of it:
And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn’t seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible. You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last. [2]
Such freedom and generosity of spirit are almost unimaginable to me. What creates such altruistic and loving people?
Peacemakers
Summary: Sunday, September 15—Friday, September 20, 2019
Much of Christianity seems to have forgotten Jesus’ teachings on nonviolence. We’ve relegated visions of a peaceful kingdom to a far distant heaven, hardly believing Jesus could have meant we should turn the other cheek here and now. (Sunday)
Nonviolence is not ineffective, passive, weak, utopian, naïve, unpatriotic, marginal, simplistic, or impractical, but it recognizes evil in the world and responds to it with good. —Ken Butigan (Monday)
Gandhi spoke of making himself zero but seemed to have become instead a kind of cosmic conduit, a channel for some tremendous universal power, an “instrument of peace.” —Eknath Easwaran (Tuesday)
It is urgent to understand Gandhi’s message that nonviolence is a way of thinking, a way of life, not a tactic, but a way of putting love to work in resolving problems, healing relationships, and generally raising the quality of our lives. —Eknath Easwaran (Wednesday)
I saw that the Sermon on the Mount was the whole of Christianity for those who wanted to live a Christian life. It is that Sermon which has endeared Jesus to me. —Mahatma Gandhi (Thursday)
If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. If you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together. — Shared by Lilla Watson (Friday)
Practice: Vow of Nonviolence
Years ago, the Center for Action and Contemplation staff, volunteers, and friends were invited to say this vow together. Today I renew my commitment to nonviolence and invite you to make this vow your own as well.
Recognizing the violence in my own heart, yet trusting in the goodness and mercy of God, I vow for one year to practice the nonviolence of Jesus who taught us in the Sermon on the Mount:
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons and daughters of God. . . . You have learned how it was said, “You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy”; but I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. In this way, you will be daughters and sons of your Creator in heaven (Matthew 5:9, 43-45).
Before God the Creator and the Sanctifying Spirit, I vow to carry out in my life the love and example of Jesus
by striving for peace within myself and seeking to be a peacemaker in my daily life;
by accepting suffering rather than inflicting it;
by refusing to retaliate in the face of provocation and violence;
by persevering in nonviolence of tongue and heart;
by living conscientiously and simply so that I do not deprive others of the means to live;
by actively resisting evil and working nonviolently to abolish war and the causes of war from my own heart and from the face of the earth.
God, I trust in Your sustaining love and believe that just as You gave me the grace and desire to offer this, so You will also bestow abundant grace to fulfill it. [1]
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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