Richard Rohr

Disciples of Love

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

True, what Christians are after is different from what Buddhists are after. For Christians, it’s identification with the Christ-Spirit. For Buddhists, it’s realizing their Buddha-nature. And yet, both of these very different experiences have something in common: they are unitive, non-dualistic, mystical experiences in which we find that our own identity is somehow joined with that which is both more than, and at the same time one with, our identity. —Paul F. Knitter [1]
“Putting on the mind of Christ” . . . [is] what we are actually supposed to be doing on this path: not just admiring Jesus, but acquiring his consciousness. —Cynthia Bourgeault [2]
In my (Richard’s) view, we would do better if we had the faith of Jesus (open, humble, trusting toward God and reality) instead of simply having faith in Jesus (which history has shown usually becomes competitive and sectarian).
Today James Finley, one of CAC’s core faculty members, continues reflecting on interfaith friendship:
When we seek what is truest in our own tradition, we discover we are one with those who seek what is truest in their tradition. There is a point of convergence where we meet each other and we recognize each other as seekers of awakening.
In order to do this, it’s important to understand the distinction between exoteric and esoteric aspects of religion. Exoteric qualities are the specific sets of beliefs, customs, rituals, and traditions that make each religion unique. We are not attempting to blur the line between religions at this level. As Thomastic philosopher Jacques Maritain (1906-1973) says, “distinguish to unite.” [3] Being clear about the Gospel of Jesus allows us to have a meaningful conversation with a Buddhist who is very clear about the Dharma. How could that not be good for all concerned? (Unfortunately, many Christians—both liberals and conservatives—are not at all clear about their own essential Gospel.)
Esoteric qualities have to do with transformation of hearts. In the free fall into the boundless abyss of God, we meet one another, beyond all distinctions. This is the oneness that includes and is not limited by differences.
In the Christian Scripture Paul writes, “May the mind that is in Christ Jesus also be in you” (Philippians 2:5). This is the truest depth of our Christian tradition, what it truly means to be a disciple of Jesus. We are called to recognize, surrender to, and ultimately be identified with the mystery of God utterly beyond all concepts, all words, and all designations. This is our destiny.
And, what’s more, we are to realize that this destiny—the boundless, oceanic, birthless, deathless mystery of God—is manifesting itself and giving itself to us completely in every breath and heartbeat. If we fully experienced the generosity of God loving us into existence, we would then bear witness to that realization by the way we treat ourselves, others, and all living things. There is a way to do this that will not compromise our faith in our own tradition but enrich it.

Gateway to Silence:
We are already one.

________________________________________

“The Temple of the Holy Spirit”

By Oswald Chambers

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM Interfaith Friendship

Truth Is Known by Its Fruits
Monday, December 4, 2017

If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective. —Martin Luther King, Jr. [1]

Different religious traditions can engage in dialogue with one another in a true spirit of ecumenism. Dialogue can be fruitful and enriching if both sides are truly open. . . . Peace will be a beautiful flower blooming on this field of practice. —Thich Nhat Hanh [2]

The Perennial Tradition includes truths within Catholic, Franciscan, Episcopalian, Calvinist, Lutheran, and other Christian denominations and orders. It also embraces wisdom within Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam. In fact, if we’re honest, each of these faith traditions share something in common with Christianity. We need to honor truth and wisdom’s authority in all its forms. If it’s true, it’s true everywhere. That should make us happy—not defensive or aggressive.

In discerning truth, our first question should not be, “Who said it? Did a Catholic, Methodist, or Hindu say it?” That should be of little concern. Of greater importance is, “Is it true?” Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), a Doctor of the Church, held that if it was true, it was always from the one Holy Spirit. [3]

Notice that two-thirds of the Christian Bible are comprised of the Hebrew Scriptures; and the Old Testament writers themselves built upon stories, traditions, names of God, and practices that existed before Israelite history. Scripture gathers together cumulative visions of the divine. Jesus befriended and affirmed Samaritans, Roman citizens, pagans, and Syrophoenicians, which was shocking to many of his Jewish compatriots. But what’s even more shocking is that, in the name of this entirely inclusive Jewish man, Jesus, we created an exclusionary religion that ended up repeating what he condemned in his lifetime. It is the non-argumentative, contemplative mind that can easily see this.

Cistercian monk Thomas Merton (1915-1968) helped Christianity recover its contemplative foundations, which quickly opened the doors to interfaith dialogue. Most Catholics were not ready for Merton before the reforms of Vatican II (1962-1965). Prophets are always ahead of their times. Merton corresponded and met with spiritual leaders from many traditions: Abraham Heschel (1907-1972), a Jewish rabbi and scholar; Sufi Muslims from the mystical vein of Islam; Bede Griffiths (1906-1993), a Benedictine monk and yogi from an ashram in India; and Zen Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh (b. 1926).

CAC core teacher James Finley learned from Merton while living at the Abbey of Gethsemani from 1961-1967. He reflects that Merton believed the world could not survive if religion remained at the clannish level. This false competition doesn’t serve anyone. On the other hand, openness to other traditions can and should deepen our commitment to our own faith and practice. This is one of the primary fruits of obeying Jesus’ simple command to “love our neighbor.” I presume loving others means listening to them and respecting them as brothers and sisters.

Gateway to Silence:
We are already one.

—————-

The Law of Opposition
By Oswald Chambers

To him who overcomes… —Revelation 2:7

Life without war is impossible in the natural or the supernatural realm. It is a fact that there is a continuing struggle in the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual areas of life.
Health is the balance between the physical parts of my body and all the things and forces surrounding me. To maintain good health I must have sufficient internal strength to fight off the things that are external. Everything outside my physical life is designed to cause my death. The very elements that sustain me while I am alive work to decay and disintegrate my body once it is dead. If I have enough inner strength to fight, I help to produce the balance needed for health. The same is true of the mental life. If I want to maintain a strong and active mental life, I have to fight. This struggle produces the mental balance called thought.
Morally it is the same. Anything that does not strengthen me morally is the enemy of virtue within me. Whether I overcome, thereby producing virtue, depends on the level of moral excellence in my life. But we must fight to be moral. Morality does not happen by accident; moral virtue is acquired.
And spiritually it is also the same. Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation…” (John 16:33). This means that anything which is not spiritual leads to my downfall. Jesus went on to say, “…but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” I must learn to fight against and overcome the things that come against me, and in that way produce the balance of holiness. Then it becomes a delight to meet opposition.
Holiness is the balance between my nature and the law of God as expressed in Jesus Christ.

Rooted and Grounded in Love — Richard Rohr
Friday, December 1, 2017

Brian McLaren, a longtime friend and speaker at many CAC conferences, has been a leading presence in the Emerging Church movement. Today I share a favorite passage from his recent book, The Great Spiritual Migration:

The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself in love. —Galatians 5:6

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. . . . No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and [God’s] love is perfected in us. —1 John 4:7-8, 12

In light of Scriptures like these, you might think that the primacy of love would be a settled matter in Christian faith. But here we are two thousand years into this religion, and for many beliefs still rule, and love too often waits out in the hallway, hoping to be invited in and taken more seriously. (Even Pope Francis seems to be facing some resistance in this regard among his bishops, who fear that his emphasis on mercy and love violates the tradition.) True, we may have decentered old behavior-correctness codes, but in essence, many of us have merely exchanged them for new belief-correctness codes. We couldn’t handle the call to faith expressing itself in love, so we reverted to beliefs expressing themselves in exclusion instead.

Could it be that now is the time, at long last, for Christians to migrate to the vision shared by its original founder and his original followers? . . . If Christian faith can be redefined in this way, if our prime contribution to humanity can be shifted from teaching correct beliefs to practicing the way of love as Jesus taught, then our whole understanding and experience of the church could be transformed . . . [into] a school of love.

What I believe can and should happen is that tens of thousands of congregations will become what I call “schools” or “studios” of love. . . . What I care about is whether they are teaching people to live a life of love, from the heart, for God, for all people (no exceptions), and for all creation. . . .

If our churches make this migration, if they make the way of love their highest aim, they will experience what Paul prayed for in his Epistle to the Ephesians: their members will be “strengthened in [their] inner being with power through [God’s] Spirit, [so] that Christ may dwell in [their] hearts through faith, as [they] are being rooted and grounded in love” (3:16-17). They will employ every text, prayer, song, poem, work of visual and dramatic art, ritual, rite of passage, and other spiritual resource to help people comprehend “what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that [they] may be filled with all the fullness of God” (3:18-19).

Gateway to Silence:
Rooted and growing in Love

——-

The Law and the Gospel
By Oswald Chambers

Whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. —James 2:10

The moral law does not consider our weaknesses as human beings; in fact, it does not take into account our heredity or infirmities. It simply demands that we be absolutely moral. The moral law never changes, either for the highest of society or for the weakest in the world. It is enduring and eternally the same. The moral law, ordained by God, does not make itself weak to the weak by excusing our shortcomings. It remains absolute for all time and eternity. If we are not aware of this, it is because we are less than alive. Once we do realize it, our life immediately becomes a fatal tragedy. “I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died” (Romans 7:9). The moment we realize this, the Spirit of God convicts us of sin. Until a person gets there and sees that there is no hope, the Cross of Christ remains absurd to him. Conviction of sin always brings a fearful, confining sense of the law. It makes a person hopeless— “…sold under sin” (Romans 7:14). I, a guilty sinner, can never work to get right with God— it is impossible. There is only one way by which I can get right with God, and that is through the death of Jesus Christ. I must get rid of the underlying idea that I can ever be right with God because of my obedience. Who of us could ever obey God to absolute perfection!
We only begin to realize the power of the moral law once we see that it comes with a condition and a promise. But God never coerces us. Sometimes we wish He would make us be obedient, and at other times we wish He would leave us alone. Whenever God’s will is in complete control, He removes all pressure. And when we deliberately choose to obey Him, He will reach to the remotest star and to the ends of the earth to assist us with all of His almighty power.

Richard Rohr

Returning to Essentials
Thursday, November 30, 2017

Hospitality is the practice that keeps the church from becoming a club, a members-only society. —Diana Butler Bass [1]

Practical, practice-based Christianity has been avoided, denied, minimized, ignored, delayed, and sidelined for too many centuries, by too many Christians who were never told Christianity was anything more than a belonging or belief system. Now we know that there is no Methodist or Catholic way of loving. There is no Orthodox or Presbyterian way of living a simple and nonviolent life. There is no Lutheran or Evangelical way of showing mercy. There is no Baptist or Episcopalian way of visiting the imprisoned. If there is, we are invariably emphasizing the accidentals, which distract us from the very “marrow of the Gospel,” as St. Francis called it. We have made this mistake for too long. We cannot keep avoiding what Jesus actually emphasized and mandated. In this most urgent time, “it is the very love of Christ that now urges us” (2 Corinthians 5:14).

Quaker pastor Philip Gulley superbly summarizes how we must rebuild spirituality from the bottom up in his book, If the Church Were Christian. [2] Here I take the liberty of using my own words to restate his message, which offers a rather excellent description of Emerging Christianity:

1. Jesus is a model for living more than an object of worship.
2. Affirming people’s potential is more important than reminding them of their brokenness.
3. The work of reconciliation should be valued over making judgments.
4. Gracious behavior is more important than right belief.
5. Inviting questions is more valuable than supplying answers.
6. Encouraging the personal search is more important than group uniformity.
7. Meeting actual needs is more important than maintaining institutions.
8. Peacemaking is more important than power.
9. We should care more about love and less about sex.
10. Life in this world is more important than the afterlife (eternity is God’s work anyway).

If this makes sense to you, you are already inside of Emerging Christianity.

Gateway to Silence:
Rooted and growing in Love

________________________________________________________________

By the Grace of God I Am What I Am”

By Oswald Chambers

Wednesday, November 29, 2017 Richard Rohr

I have learned to prize holy ignorance more highly than religious certainty and to seek companions who have arrived at the same place. We are a motley crew, distinguished not only by our inability to explain ourselves to those who are more certain of their beliefs than we are but in many cases by our distance from the centers of our faith communities as well. Like campers who have bonded over cook fires far from home, we remain grateful for the provisions that we have brought with us from those cupboards, but we also find them more delicious when we share them with one another under the stars. —Barbara Brown Taylor [1]
What is happening in Emerging Christianity is far bigger than any mere structural or organizational re-arrangement. It is a revolutionary change in Christian consciousness itself. It is a change of mind and of heart that has been a long time in coming and now seems to be a new work of the Holy Spirit. Only such a sea-change of consciousness—drawing from the depths of the Great Ocean of Love—will bear fruits that will last.
The change that changes everything is the movement away from dualistic thinking toward non-dual consciousness. We know that if we settle for our old patterns of dualistic thought, this emerging phenomenon will be just one more of the many reformations in Christianity that have characterized our entire history. The movement will quickly and surely subdivide into liberal or conservative, Catholic or Protestant, intellectual or emotional, gay or straight, liturgical or Pentecostal, feminist or patriarchal, activist or contemplative—like all of the other dualisms—instead of the wonderful holism of Jesus, a fully contemplative way of being active and involved in our suffering world.
Emerging Christianity is both longing for and moving toward a way of following Jesus that has much more to do with lifestyle than with belief. We do not want to solidify into an institution focused on certain words and the writing of documents. We want to remain, if at all possible, focused on orthopraxy (right practice), compassionate action flowing from non-dual consciousness.
We are grateful and content to let our historic churches and denominations take care of the substructures and the superstructures of Christianity. Some are gifted and called to that, but most are not. Our churches have trained us, grounded us, and sent us on this radical mission. We will keep one happy foot in our Mother churches, but we have something else that we must do and other places that we must also stand. We have no time to walk away from anything. We want to walk toward and alongside.

Gateway to Silence:
Rooted and growing in Love.

——————–

The Supremacy of Jesus Christ
By Oswald Chambers

He will glorify Me… —John 16:14
The holiness movements of today have none of the rugged reality of the New Testament about them. There is nothing about them that needs the death of Jesus Christ. All that is required is a pious atmosphere, prayer, and devotion. This type of experience is not supernatural nor miraculous. It did not cost the sufferings of God, nor is it stained with “the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 12:11). It is not marked or sealed by the Holy Spirit as being genuine, and it has no visual sign that causes people to exclaim with awe and wonder, “That is the work of God Almighty!” Yet the New Testament is about the work of God and nothing else.
The New Testament example of the Christian experience is that of a personal, passionate devotion to the Person of Jesus Christ. Every other kind of so-called Christian experience is detached from the Person of Jesus. There is no regeneration— no being born again into the kingdom in which Christ lives and reigns supreme. There is only the idea that He is our pattern. In the New Testament Jesus Christ is the Savior long before He is the pattern. Today He is being portrayed as the figurehead of a religion— a mere example. He is that, but He is infinitely more. He is salvation itself; He is the gospel of God!
Jesus said, “…when He, the Spirit of truth, has come,…He will glorify Me…” (John 16:13-14). When I commit myself to the revealed truth of the New Testament, I receive from God the gift of the Holy Spirit, who then begins interpreting to me what Jesus did. The Spirit of God does in me internally all that Jesus Christ did for me externally.

Great Convergence

Richard Rohr

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

The emerging church, a convergence of hopeful and liberating Christian themes, is happening on all continents, in all denominations, at all levels—and at a rather quick pace. I want to name this movement so that you can first of all recognize how it has already happened in you on some level and so that you can offer this wonderful Gospel emergence your time, your prayer, your love, and your energy. If you do that, there will be no time left to oppose, hate, or deny anything or anybody. There is no need to reject or deny any one’s present or past experience. God will lead us from here, including and transcending the past, as Ken Wilber says.

Continuing where we left off yesterday, here are some more of the historical developments propelling the emerging church movement:
A global sense of Christianity frames the denominational divisions in a larger context. Many of the things we historically fought about are resolved, boring, or non-essential. We have all been both victims and beneficiaries of these very specific histories and cultures, and we can find unity in that.

There is a growing recognition of the unnecessary limits that church protocols and historical idiosyncrasies have put on reading and living the Gospels for each of our denominations. This is a new ability to distinguish the essentials from the incidentals in church practice and teaching.
The Pentecostal/Charismatic movement tells us that experiential Christianity is actually possible, desirable, and has the potential to lead us to a more Trinitarian theology—opening up the mystical and the prayer levels of Christianity. So many who have had “baptism in the Spirit” experiences find themselves naturally Trinitarian, even if they lack formal theology to understand it.

A developing spirituality and theology of nonviolence allows us to pursue things in a “third way” beyond the old fight-or-flight dualism.

We see new structures of community and solidarity, including groups for recovery, study, contemplation, lectio divina, service and mission (for example, New Monasticism, Catholic Worker houses, JustFaith). Many of these are led by lay people. The emphasis is on “mediating institutions” instead of just parish churches, yet these are normally not anti or against the local or official church.

There is a new appreciation for “many gifts and ministries” (1 Corinthians 12), “together making a unity in the work of service” (Ephesians 4), instead of concentrating on a top tier of ordained leadership where gender and power issues dominate. With many gifts and many ministries, legitimacy comes from ability, solidarity with suffering, and willingness to serve, rather than from top-down authorization.

With this new kind of reformation happening, we are happy to stay at the exciting movement level as long as we can—and God allows—and if possible, avoid becoming rigid and stagnant as “monuments, museums, or machines.” Remember, “The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better” (a CAC core principle).

Gateway to Silence:
Rooted and growing in Love

______________________________________________

The Riches of the Destitute

By Oswald Chambers

A New Reformation

Monday, November 27, 2017

I believe that what some refer to as the “emerging church” is a movement of the Holy Spirit. Movements are the energy-building stages of things, before they become monuments, museums, or machines. In the last sixty years, several significant events have taken place, both within and alongside the various Christian churches, to foster this movement. Spiritual globalization is allowing churches worldwide to profit from these breakthroughs at approximately the same time, which of itself is a new kind of reformation! No one is directing, controlling, or limiting this movement. We are all just trying to listen together. It is happening almost in spite of all of us—which tells me the Spirit must be guiding it.
I will identify briefly some of the historical developments that I see propelling this movement:
Our awareness is broadening, recognizing that Jesus was clearly teaching nonviolence, simplicity of lifestyle, peacemaking, love of creation, and letting go of ego, both for individuals and groups. More and more Christians are now acknowledging Jesus’ radical social critique to the systems of domination, money, and power. In the past, most of Jesus’ practical teaching was ignored by Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians. The establishment chose instead to concentrate on private sinfulness and personal salvation and, as Brian McLaren says, an “evacuation plan” into the next world.
There is a common-sense and growing recognition that Jesus was clearly concerned about the specific healing and transformation of real persons and human society “on earth as it is in heaven.” The Church, more than Jesus, historically focused on doctrinal belief and moral stances, which ask almost nothing of us in terms of real change. They just define groups—often in an oppositional way.
We are recovering the older and essential contemplative tradition, starting with Thomas Merton in the 1950s, now spreading to numerous denominations, like a “treasure hidden in the field” (Matthew 13:44). Some Emerging Church leaders have yet to grasp the centrality of contemplative and inner wisdom.
Critical biblical scholarship is occurring on a broad ecumenical level, especially honest historical and anthropological scholarship about Jesus as a Jew in the culture of his time. This leads us far beyond the liberal reductionism and the conservative fundamentalism that divide so many churches. We now see the liberal/conservative divide as a bogus and finally unhelpful framing of the issues.

____________________________________________

The Consecration of Spiritual Power

By Oswald Chambers

Emerging Church Richard Rohr

I believe that what some refer to as the “emerging church” is a movement of the Holy Spirit. Movements are the energy-building stages of things, before they become monuments, museums, or machines. In the last sixty years, several significant events have taken place, both within and alongside the various Christian churches, to foster this movement. Spiritual globalization is allowing churches worldwide to profit from these breakthroughs at approximately the same time, which of itself is a new kind of reformation! No one is directing, controlling, or limiting this movement. We are all just trying to listen together. It is happening almost in spite of all of us—which tells me the Spirit must be guiding it.

I will identify briefly some of the historical developments that I see propelling this movement:

Our awareness is broadening, recognizing that Jesus was clearly teaching nonviolence, simplicity of lifestyle, peacemaking, love of creation, and letting go of ego, both for individuals and groups. More and more Christians are now acknowledging Jesus’ radical social critique to the systems of domination, money, and power. In the past, most of Jesus’ practical teaching was ignored by Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians. The establishment chose instead to concentrate on private sinfulness and personal salvation and, as Brian McLaren says, an “evacuation plan” into the next world.
There is a common-sense and growing recognition that Jesus was clearly concerned about the specific healing and transformation of real persons and human society “on earth as it is in heaven.” The Church, more than Jesus, historically focused on doctrinal belief and moral stances, which ask almost nothing of us in terms of real change. They just define groups—often in an oppositional way.
We are recovering the older and essential contemplative tradition, starting with Thomas Merton in the 1950s, now spreading to numerous denominations, like a “treasure hidden in the field” (Matthew 13:44). Some Emerging Church leaders have yet to grasp the centrality of contemplative and inner wisdom.
Critical biblical scholarship is occurring on a broad ecumenical level, especially honest historical and anthropological scholarship about Jesus as a Jew in the culture of his time. This leads us far beyond the liberal reductionism and the conservative fundamentalism that divide so many churches. We now see the liberal/conservative divide as a bogus and finally unhelpful framing of the issues.
Gateway to Silence:
Rooted and growing in Love

—————-

The Consecration of Spiritual Power
By Oswald Chambers

…by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. —Galatians 6:14 » Read more: A New Reformation

Living in the Now
Friday, November 24, 2017 Richard Rohr
12
The presence of God is infinite, everywhere, always, and forever. You cannot not be in the presence of God. There’s no other place to be. It is we who are not present to Presence. We’ll make any excuse to be somewhere else than right here. Right here, right now never seems enough. It actually is, but it is we who are not aware enough yet.

All spiritual teaching—this is not an oversimplification—is about how to be present to the moment. When you’re present, you will experience the Presence. But the problem is, we’re almost always somewhere else: reliving the past or worrying about the future.

As a Franciscan, I have many opportunities to go away for long periods in solitude. When I’m in a hermitage, there’s no television, smart phone, computer, or radio. There’s pretty much nothing but the natural. You’d think it would be easier to be present to Presence in this setting, and in some ways it is—watching the snow fall, listening to a hawk’s cry, walking slowly without any particular destination or deadline. But I can’t escape my monkey mind even on retreat. Daily contemplative prayer is crucial to helping me live in the now. It takes constant intention and practice to remain open, receptive, and awake to the moment.

We live in a time with more easily available obstacles to presence than any other period in history. We carry our obstacles in our pockets now, vibrating and notifying and emoji-ing us about everything and nothing. And let’s be honest: most of our digital and personal conversation is about nothing. Nothing that matters, nothing that lasts, nothing that’s real. We think and talk about the same things again and again, like a broken record. Pretty soon we realize we’ve frittered away years of our life, and it is the only life we have.

We have to find a way to more deeply experience our experiences. Otherwise we’re just on cruise control, and we go through our whole life not knowing what’s happening. Whether we realize it or not, the divine energy of God is flowing through each one of us. When we draw upon this Source consciously, our life starts filling with what some call coincidences or synchronicities which we can never explain. This has nothing to do with being perfect, highly moral, or formally religious. I wish someone had told me that when I was young. I would still have been religious, but now in a whole different way—and all the time.

Gateway to Silence:
God is right here right now.

————————

Direction of Focus
By Oswald Chambers

Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters…, so our eyes look to the Lord our God… —Psalm 123:2
This verse is a description of total reliance on God. Just as the eyes of a servant are riveted on his master, our eyes should be directed to and focused on God. This is how knowledge of His countenance is gained and how God reveals Himself to us (see Isaiah 53:1). Our spiritual strength begins to be drained when we stop lifting our eyes to Him. Our stamina is sapped, not so much through external troubles surrounding us but through problems in our thinking. We wrongfully think, “I suppose I’ve been stretching myself a little too much, standing too tall and trying to look like God instead of being an ordinary humble person.” We have to realize that no effort can be too high.
For example, you came to a crisis in your life, took a stand for God, and even had the witness of the Spirit as a confirmation that what you did was right. But now, maybe weeks or years have gone by, and you are slowly coming to the conclusion— “Well, maybe what I did showed too much pride or was superficial. Was I taking a stand a bit too high for me?” Your “rational” friends come and say, “Don’t be silly. We knew when you first talked about this spiritual awakening that it was a passing impulse, that you couldn’t hold up under the strain. And anyway, God doesn’t expect you to endure.” You respond by saying, “Well, I suppose I was expecting too much.” That sounds humble to say, but it means that your reliance on God is gone, and you are now relying on worldly opinion. The danger comes when, no longer relying on God, you neglect to focus your eyes on Him. Only when God brings you to a sudden stop will you realize that you have been the loser. Whenever there is a spiritual drain in your life, correct it immediately. Realize that something has been coming between you and God, and change or remove it at once.

Pure Presence
Thursday, November 23, 2017
(Thanksgiving in the United States)

Wisdom is not the gathering of more facts and information, as if that would eventually coalesce into truth. Wisdom is a way of seeing and knowing the same old ten thousand things but in a new way. As my colleague Cynthia Bourgeault often says, it’s not about knowing more, but knowing with more of you. I suggest that wise people are those who are free to be truly present to what is right in front of them. It has little to do with formal education. Presence is pretty much the same as wisdom!

Presence is the one thing necessary to attain wisdom, and in many ways, it is the hardest thing of all. Just try to keep your heart open and soft, your mind receptive without division or resistance, and your body aware of where it is and its deepest level of feeling. Presence is when all three centers are awake at the same time! Most religions decided it was easier to believe doctrines—and obey often arbitrary laws—than undertake the truly converting work of being present.

The Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh teaches this wisdom through the ceremony and meditation of tea (a Buddhist parallel to the Christian Eucharist):

You must be completely awake in the present to enjoy the tea.
Only in the awareness of the present, can your hands feel the pleasant warmth of the cup.
Only in the present, can you savor the aroma, taste the sweetness, appreciate the delicacy.
If you are ruminating about the past, or worrying about the future, you will completely miss the experience of enjoying the cup of tea.
You will look down at the cup, and the tea will be gone.
Life is like that.
If you are not fully present, you will look around and it will be gone.
You will have missed the feel, the aroma, the delicacy and beauty of life.
It will seem to be speeding past you. The past is finished.
Learn from it and let it go.
The future is not even here yet. Plan for it, but do not waste your time worrying about it.
Worrying is worthless.
When you stop ruminating about what has already happened, when you stop worrying about what might never happen, then you will be in the present moment.
Then you will begin to experience joy in life. [1]

As you eat your next meal—perhaps with family gathered for Thanksgiving—enter into the experience mindfully. Savor the aroma. Taste the sweetness. Appreciate the delicacy. Experience the joy—right now—without needing anyone to notice. But they will!

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The Distraction of Contempt

By Oswald Chambers