Inviting Further Conversion

Brian McLaren considers how Jesus’ inclusive message invites us to ongoing conversion:  

[Jesus] loved to compare the kingdom of God to a party. He would demonstrate the open border of the kingdom of God by hosting or participating in parties where even the most notorious outcasts and sinners were welcome.  

Jesus was often criticized for this “table fellowship” with notorious sinners; his critics assumed that Jesus’ acceptance of these people implied an approval and endorsement of their shabby behavior. But they misunderstood: Jesus wanted to help them experience transformation. Rejection hardens people, but acceptance makes transformation possible. By accepting and welcoming people into his presence, just as they were, with all their problems and imperfections, Jesus was exposing them to his example and to his secret message. In this way, he could challenge them to think—and think again—and consider becoming part of the kingdom of God so they could experience and participate in the transformation that flows from being in interactive relationship with God and others…. 

The thrust of Jesus’ message is about inclusion—shocking, scandalous inclusion: the kingdom of God is available to all, beginning with the least. Yet Jesus often warns people of the possibility of missing the kingdom. “Unless you become like a little child,” he said, “you shall not enter the kingdom” (see Matthew 18:3). So the possibility is real: the kingdom of God that is available to all can be missed by some.  

This concern is especially relevant these days when the Christian religion is too often perceived as a divisive, judgmental, rancorous, and exclusionary movement—nearly the opposite of a kingdom of peace, available to all, beginning with the least. How can some people interpret Jesus’ message as exclusive, while others see it as the most radically inclusive message in human history? 

McLaren points to the sacramental nature of baptism and the Eucharist, honoring the radical inclusivity of Jesus’ mission, while also naming the deep commitment required to join it:  

What we need is a requirement that those who wish to enter actually have a change of heart—that they don’t sneak in to accomplish their own agenda, but rather that they genuinely want to learn a new way of thinking, feeling, living, and being in “the pastures of God.” Perhaps that is why baptism … was so important to Jesus and his disciples…. It was important to call people to a change of heart and give them a dramatic way of going public by saying, “Yes, this change of heart has happened within me, and I’m willing to identify myself publicly as a person who is on a new path.” And perhaps the Christian ritual of Eucharist was intended to function in a similar way—a kind of regular recommitment where people say, by gathering around a table and sharing in bread and wine, that they are continuing Jesus’ tradition of gathering in an inclusive community. “I’m still in,” they’re saying, “My heart is still in this mission and dream. I’m still committed.”  

Quote of the Week:   “We are intimately bonded with the traumas that have formed us.” – from The Contemplative Heart, p.20.Reflection  Jim is correct. Of course, as a clinical psychologist, he knows what he is talking about here.  As a human being, he also knows what he is talking about. Jim’s family of origin was deeply traumatic with an alcoholic and violent father.  His mother, a devout catholic, taught him prayer as a coping strategy for the pain.  Throughout high school, he dreamt of moving away until he found the writings of Thomas Merton and sought to join the monastery.  The monastery would surely be an escape from the trauma. Except it wasn’t. It was quiet and it was serene for a time, but the trauma was within.  To change the external circumstances or environment might be an improvement, but it cannot change what was internal to Jim.  For that to heal and to be well would take confrontation, counseling, and much prayer.   Fortunately, God granted Jim the grace of healing from those past traumas and is now a highly sought speaker and writer about transformative and contemplative practices alongside clinical psychology.  The reality is that we are intimately bonded with the traumas that have formed us.  It is difficult to let go of those traumas because they have shaped who we are or have been for years or even decades.  To give up that trauma is to take away the grounding of the person we thought we were, and it can leave us feeling as though we do not have an identity any longer. For this reason, many of us hold onto our traumas far longer than we should.  We say to ourselves, “If I give this up, who am I?  Who will I become?  I have learned how to live my life because of this event, will I have to learn a new way to live?”  To give up who we are, who we have become, and to become who we might be is no small task. But God is intimately interested in the restoration, renewal, and repair of the human heart, soul, mind, and spirit.  The traumas of life are not what define us, the unconditional love of God is what defines us. Prayer  Heavenly Father.  Grant us the courage to let go of the traumas that have formed us, so that we might become free to be who we can be, rather than the person the trauma influenced us to become.  We recognize that this is not an easy task, and we recognize our unhealthy attachments to these things.  Be gracious as well as merciful as you do your work of healing in us.  Amen and amen.

Life Overview:  Who is He: James Finley  When: Born in Akron, Ohio in 1943.  Why He is Important: As a Clinical Psychologist and Spiritual Director, James speaks from the depth of his own experience and training about the life of a Christian mystic.  Most Known For: James was a direct mentee of Thomas Merton while living in the cloistered monastery of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Trappist, Kentucky. Notable Works to Check Out: Merton’s Palace of NowhereThe Contemplative HeartChristian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of GodTurning to the Mystics Podcast

Rachel Held Evans (1981–2019) retells one of Jesus’ parables as an expansive invitation to come to God’s table:  

Jesus once had [a conversation] with a group of religious leaders at the home of a prominent Pharisee. “When you give a banquet,” Jesus said to his host, “invite the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed.” He told them a parable about a man who prepared a banquet and invited many guests. When those on the guest list declined to attend, the man instructed his servant to go into the streets and alleyways in town and bring back the poor, the hungry…. The servant obeyed, but told his master there was still room at the table. “Then go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come,” the master said, “so that my house will be full” (Luke 14:12–23). This is what God’s kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there’s always room for more.  

Evans shares the story of author Sara Miles, whose experience of Jesus through communion inspired her to start a food pantry:  

Not only did [Sara] convert to Christianity, she devoted herself entirely to “a religion rooted in the most ordinary yet subversive practice: a dinner table where everyone is welcome, where the despised and outcasts are honored.” [1]  Sara partnered with St. Gregory’s [Episcopal Church] to create a massive food pantry, where the poor, elderly, sick, homeless, and marginalized from the community are served each week from the very table where Sara took her first communion—no strings attached, no questions asked. With the saints painted on the walls looking on, hundreds gather around the communion table to fill their bags with fruit, vegetables, rice, cereal … and whatever happens to be in the five-to-six-ton bounty of food that particular Friday.  

Evans honors Christ’s transformative presence in the bread and wine. 

I don’t know exactly how Jesus is present in the bread and wine, but I believe Jesus is present, so it seems counterintuitive to tell people they have to wait and meet him someplace else before they meet him at the table. If people are hungry, let them come and eat. If they are thirsty, let them come and drink. It’s not my table anyway. It’s not my denomination’s table or my church’s table. It’s Christ’s table. Christ sends out the invitations, and if he has to run through the streets gathering up the riffraff to fill up his house, then that’s exactly what he’ll do…. 

The gospel doesn’t need a coalition devoted to keeping the wrong people out. It needs a family of sinners, saved by grace, committed to tearing down the walls, throwing open the doors, and shouting, “Welcome! There’s bread and wine. Come eat with us and talk.” This isn’t a kingdom for the worthy; it’s a kingdom for the hungry. 

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From The Corners by Nadia Bolz Weber

I was 29 years old and 6 months pregnant with our first child when my (former) husband and I moved to dry land wheat farming country for his first job as a Lutheran pastor; a town of 5,000 people in Eastern Washington, several hours drive from anything like a yoga class.

I remember thinking that since the town had a library, a gym and access to an NPR station, I could make a go of it. Maybe. I had, at this point in my life, only ever driven through a small town, never stayed the night in one, much less moved there without knowing a soul. 

The two and a half years we spent there were not unhappy ones, my days busy with nursing a baby (and eventually conceiving and birthing a second), washing the diapers, making our meals (thank God for WIC since we made maybe 25k a year), and hanging out the laundry on the backyard clothesline. The people at the church were kind folks, and I did my best to find a place for myself in a place I did not belong or understand.

I was not unhappy, as I said, but I was profoundly lonely.

Which is why Sally meant so much to me.

Sally was the town’s earth mama, the one who knew how to make anything, grow anything, fix anything. Her home had a warm witchy feel to it, filled with herbs, knitting projects and laughter. She found bugs, especially beetles, to be beautiful, knew how to cut hair even though hers was so long, and had a stash of chocolate chips in a jelly jar she’d pull out when I visited, knowing I have a sweet tooth.

When this big city liberal tattooed smart mouthed very pregnant girl showed up, who was also somehow married to the new Lutheran pastor, Sally took me in.

She taught me to knit, would watch the baby when I took a night class, and just about always seemed to be ok with me stopping by. Her home was a soft landing place. At Sally’s I didn’t have to be on my best behavior. 

She loved me. And let the reader understand, I had done precious little “personal work” at this point in time. I was a LOT. But still, even in all my bossy anger, dysregulation and self-centeredness, she loved me.

And that love was nothing short of manna. Manna; enough to make a difficult time feel survivable. 

I’m telling you all of this because last week in Boise, at the Red State Revival, I got to see Sally for the first time in 24 years and tell her, albeit inadequately, what she meant to me. I was too immature at the time to be as grateful for it as I am now. Some things only come after getting them wrong enough. 

Of course she came bearing gifts: crocheted vegetables and something she’d sewn that I couldn’t identify right away. “It’s a dead house fly!” she said with cheer.

And all I could offer her in exchange, was to say the words, “Thank you for loving me during a time when I really needed it. You’ll never know how much it mattered”.

She just hugged me for a long time, said I love you, and went and found her seats.

There’s a verse in Hebrews that says, Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.

Yes, I was the stranger – but Sally was the angel.

And I may not have felt as grateful as I should have at the time, but I can feel it now. We get to do that. We get to embody the gratitude we lacked when young (or the humility, or wisdom, or patience) and hopefully it leads us not just to expressing it when possible, but also to a sweet compassion for our younger selves who just did the best they could with what they had before they knew better.

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Do you have a story about your one person who loved you when you needed it most? 

Or a time when you got to thank somebody for something years after the fact?

I’d love to read them.

In it with you,

-Love, Nadia

Father Richard Rohr understands Jesus’ eating habits as a model for the kind of inclusive and open hospitality Christians might practice.  

God’s major problem in liberating humanity has become apparent to me as I consider the undying recurrence of hatred of the other, century after century, in culture after culture and religion after religion. 

Can you think of an era or nation or culture that did not oppose otherness? I doubt there has ever been such a sustained group. There have been enlightened individuals, thank God, but seldom established groups—not even in churches, I’m sorry to say. The Christian Eucharist was supposed to model equality and inclusivity, but we turned the holy meal into an exclusionary game, a religiously sanctioned declaration and division into groups of the worthy and the unworthy—as if any of us were worthy! [1]  

Before Christianity developed the relatively safe ritual meal we call the Eucharist, Jesus’ most consistent social action was eating in new ways and with new people, encountering those who were oppressed or excluded from the system. It seems Jesus didn’t please anybody by breaking rules to make a bigger table. Notice how his contemporaries accused Jesus: one side criticized him for eating with tax collectors and sinners (see Matthew 9:10–11). The other side judged him for eating too much (Luke 7:34) or dining with the Pharisees and lawyers (Luke 7:36–50, 11:37–54, 14:1). Jesus ate with all sides. He ate with lepers (Mark 14:3), he received a woman with a poor reputation at a men’s dinner (Luke 7:36–39), and he even invited himself to a “sinner’s” house (Luke 19:1–10). How do we not see that? [2]  

It seems we ordinary humans must have our “other”! It appears we don’t know who we are except by opposition and exclusion. “Where can my negative energy go?” is the enduring human question; it must be exported somewhere. Sadly, it never occurs to us that we are the negative energy, which then sees and contributes to that negative energy in others. The ego refuses to see this in itself. Recognizing this takes foundational conversion from the egoic self, and most have not undergone that transformation. We can only give away the goodness (or the sadness) that we ourselves have experienced and become.  

Eucharist is meant to identify us in a positive, inclusionary way, but we are not yet well-practiced at this. We honestly don’t know how to do unity. Many today want to make the holy meal into a “prize for the perfect,” as Pope Francis observed. [3] Most Christians still do not know how to receive a positive identity from God—that we belong and are loved by our very nature! [4] The Eucharistic meal is meant to be a microcosmic event, summarizing at one table what is true in the whole macrocosm: we are one, we are equal in dignity, we all eat of the same divine food, and Jesus still and always “eats with sinners,” just as he did when on Earth. [5]

Meal-Based Social Action

Jesus didn’t please anybody, it seems. He was always breaking the rules and spreading out the table.
—Richard Rohr  

Father Richard considers how Jesus’ eating habits challenged the religious and cultural norms of his time—and our own:  

Jesus didn’t want his community to have a social ethic; he wanted it to be a social ethic. Their very way of relating was to be an affront to the system of dominance and power; it was to name reality in a new way. They were to live in a new symbolic universe. This radical idea is given in a simple clue found throughout the Christian Scriptures—one that biblical scholars overlooked until only recently: Jesus’ presence with others at table. That theme is so constant in the Christian Scriptures that scholars today see it as central to Jesus’ message. Jesus never appears to be pushing what we call social programs. He is much more radical. He calls us to a new social order in which we literally share table differently!   

The mystery of sharing food and a common table takes place on different levels. First, there’s the unifying idea of sharing the same food. Then, there is the whole symbolism of the table itself: where we sit at the table and how the table is arranged. Together, the food and table become a symbol of how our social world is arranged. Once we rearrange life around the table we begin to change our notions of social life.  

That, I believe, was Jesus’ most consistent social action: eating in new ways! In the midst of that eating, he announced the reign of God and talked in new ways. Usually, on his way in or out of a house, he encountered those who were oppressed and eliminated from the system. A great number of Jesus’ healings and exorcisms take place while he’s either entering a house to have a meal with someone or leaving a house just after having had a meal with someone. He redefines where power is on many different levels at the same time. Religious power is, for one thing, mostly exercised outside the Temple and synagogue.  

It’s necessary to calculate very carefully what was lost and what was gained as Christianity developed. The church moved from Jesus’ real meal with open table fellowship to its continuance in the relatively safe ritual meal that became the Christian Eucharist. Unfortunately, the meal itself came to redefine social reality in a negative way, in terms of worthiness and unworthiness.  

That is almost exactly the opposite of Jesus’ intention. To this day, we use Eucharist to define membership in terms of worthy and unworthy. Even if we deny that is our intention, it’s clearly the practical message people hear. Isn’t it strange that sins of marriage and sexuality are the primary ones we use to exclude people from the table, when other sins like greed and hatefulness that cause more public damage are never considered?  

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From Chuck DeGroat.

Here is an abridged section of Ch. 3 of Healing What’s Within. 

Storm and Fog

Some of us live in what I call Storm. From a nervous system perspective, this is a state of hyperarousal — our sympathetic system activated to survive a perceived threat. Blood pressure rises, heart rate spikes, adrenaline pumps. We go into fight (enemy mode, demanding, defensive), flight (anxious, vigilant), fawn (appeasing, compliant), or find (searching for rescue). These responses are designed for short-term survival — to get our immediate needs met. But for many, this Storm becomes a long-term reality. We adapt to it. We suffer in it. Alone.

Others get caught in what I call Fog — a state of hypoarousal. Here, we feel depleted, shut down, disconnected. This is the domain of the dorsal vagal system. Where Storm mobilizes us to act in self-protection, Fog immobilizes us through disconnection. In freeze, we’re stuck between the urge to act and the instinct to protect. In fold, our system numbs out to survive — heart rate drops, muscles relax, awareness blurs. We may feel ashamed, helpless, even forgetful of what overwhelmed us. It can feel like depression. Or complete shutdown. We may adapt to life here, too. 

Feels Like Home

To navigate the dysregulating impact of Storm and Fog, we also need to know what it feels like to be Home — the internal space of safety, clarity, and connection.

After moving into a new house with Sara, I remember a lazy Sunday afternoon, lying in bed, watching leaves fall. A whisper rose from within: Home. It took weeks to get there, to settle. But my body recognized it.

Home is where your nervous system breathes.

It’s not just comfort — it’s coherence. Psychiatrist Daniel Siegel calls this the Window of Tolerance: the internal space where you can feel your emotions in a right-sized way and respond from presence. The wider your window, the more able you are to stay grounded amid life’s chaos. 

We are meant to live here, hidden with Christ (Col. 3:3), rooted in love (Eph. 3:17). This is our truest place. Home begins in Eden, and its memory lingers in us. As Frederick Buechner writes, “At the innermost heart… there is peace… Eden is there. Home is there.”

When we’re pulled from Home into Storm or Fog, God’s first question still comes: Where are you? (Gen. 3:9). And like the father in Jesus’ parable, God runs to greet us (Luke 15:20). Even when we drift, we’re not untethered. Nothing can separate us from this love (Rom. 8:39). As Martin Laird puts it, “God is our homeland. And the homing instinct of the human being is homed on God.”

To live from Home is to live from your center. As Teresa of Avila asks, “What could be worse than not being at home in our own house?” And you can cultivate a sense of Home, physiologically and spiritually. Practices of nervous system regulation can cultivate an enduring sense of Home, even as you occasionally feel pulled to-and-fro. Even the simple act of placing your hand on your chest and breathing can whisper to your body, “It’s ok. I’m here.” 

Pay attention to what it feels like in your body to be present and at peace — grounded, open, connected. I know I’m there when I’m breathing, when I’m not rushing, when I feel like myself… and even like myself.

You might pause right now and reflect:

• When do I feel most at Home?
• Where, with whom, under what conditions?
• And when do I feel far from Home — reactive, avoidant, ashamed, disconnected, numb?
• How can I continue to cultivate a sense of Home? 

Storm and Fog will visit — that’s part of being human. But Home is always there, waiting, at the center of your being, beside a window of grace.

Chasing Success, Creating Shadow

Friday, May 30, 2025

Father Richard explores how chasing success is one of the greatest temptations we face. The things that Jesus cared about, such as powerlessness and humility, instead become our shadow.   

Our shadow self is any part of ourselves or our institutions that we try to hide or deny because it seems socially unacceptable. The church and popular media primarily focus on sexuality and body issues as our “sinful” shadow, but that is far too narrow a definition. The larger and deeper shadow for Western individuals and culture is actually failure itself. Thus, the genius of the gospel is that it incorporates failure into a new definition of spiritual success. This is why Jesus says that prostitutes and tax collectors are getting into the kingdom of God before the chief priests and religious elders (see Matthew 21:31).  

Our success-driven culture scorns failure, powerlessness, and any form of poverty. Yet Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount by praising “the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3)! Just that should tell us how thoroughly we have missed the point of the gospel. Nonviolence, weakness, and simplicity are also part of the Western shadow self. We avoid the very things that Jesus praises, and we try to project a strong, secure, successful image to ourselves and the world. We reject vulnerability and seek dominance instead, and we elect leaders who falsely promise us the same.  

I can see why my spiritual father St. Francis of Assisi made a revolutionary and pre-emptive move into the shadow self from which everyone else ran. In effect, Francis said through his lifestyle, “I will delight in powerlessness, humility, poverty, simplicity, and failure.” He lived so close to the bottom of things that there was no place to fall. Even when insulted, he did not take offence. Now that is freedom, or what he called “perfect joy”!   

Our shadow is often subconscious, hidden even from our own awareness. It takes effort and life-long practice to look for, find, and embrace what we dismiss, deny, and disdain. After spending so much energy avoiding the very appearance of failure, it will take a major paradigm shift in consciousness to integrate our shadow in Western upwardly mobile cultures. [1]  

Just know that it is the false self that is sad and humbled by shadow work, because its game is over. The true self, “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3), is incapable of being humiliated. It only grows from such supposedly humiliating insight.  

One of the great surprises on the human journey is that we come to full consciousness precisely by shadowboxing, facing our own contradictions, and making friends with our own mistakes and failings. People who have had no inner struggles are invariably superficial and uninteresting. We tend to endure them more than appreciate them because they have little to communicate and show little curiosity. Shadow work is what I call “falling upward.” God hid holiness quite well: the proud will never recognize it, and the humble will fall into it every day—not even realizing it is holiness. [2]  

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John Chaffee

I just can’t fully give up on faith.

I don’t know if it is because it won’t give up on me, I have no idea.

Here is what I believe: The literal world is at stake, and it is dependent upon each of us to double down on faith individually and to take it more seriously than ever before.

This does not mean that we double down on some immature and fractured understanding of the faith that diabolically tears the world apart with its tribalism and foolishness. It means that we take the time to find the minority and mature understanding of the faith that recognizes a global common humanity that teaches us to give up our ego, our need for power and security, that dissolves our tribal lines, focuses on accountability for ourselves (and not just for those outside of our chosen group), takes the Sermon on the Mount seriously, and would make a conscious decision to be a healing and reconciling presence.

A few years ago I heard someone speak about how spirituality is the sole discipline that encourages us to wake up to our responsibility to one another and the world around us. A healthy spirituality is the only thing that reminds us to give up the vices that modernity values as virtues, and encourages us to “aim up together.” Without a healthy spirituality, we are prone to using business, science, economics, and the like in horribly inhumane ways, ways that create human collateral, atomic warfare, homelessness, and selfishness on a massive scale.

So yes, I understand some people’s decision to walk away from childish and unhealthy spirituality, but that does not necessarily mean to walk into the desert of nothingness. To me, it means to consciously double down and commit to a healthier and holier faith practice that might actually save the world.

  

Collective Shadow: Hate Disguised as Love 

Thursday, May 29, 2025

Feast of the Ascension

Just because ego and greed and hatred are doing cosplay as religion, I don’t want us to give it that much credit. I want us to insist that no, there is real religion!
—Omid Safi 

In an episode of CAC’s podcast Everything Belongs, CAC staff member and poet Drew Jackson dialogues with guest Omid Safi, a poet and Islamic scholar. Jackson asks: How might poetry support our efforts for peace, particularly in the conflicted space between religious identities? Safi shares his perspective that it is not religions that are in conflict, but the shadow selves of hate and other harmful beliefs disguised as religion: 

I fundamentally do not believe that there is religious conflict and tension in this world. There’s conflict in this world! There is genocide in this world—we’ve been watching it for a year and a half. There is racism, there is starvation, and the intentional starvation of people. There’s occupation. There’s lots of hideous things happening.  

I think that’s ego, and that’s greed, and that’s selfishness that’s putting the small self individually, communally, nationally, and racially on the throne of wrong and to put, as Brother Martin [Luther King Jr.] used to say, the right forever on the scaffold. [1] Greed and ego and hatred love to do cosplay [2].… Their favorite costumes are the things that are of light, including religion.  

I want us to really sit with that question: Is there actually religious conflict in this world with what we find our religious traditions teaching us? At the heart of the Jewish faith, that beautiful noble tradition: Be kind to the stranger for you yourselves were once strangers in Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:19). Our beloved Christ: Be kind to the poor, the orphan, the needy, the widow; that which you do to the least of these, you do unto me (Matthew 25:40). Our beloved Prophet Muhammad: That the cry of the orphan rises all the way up to the throne of God and shakes it to its mighty foundation. [3] These folks are drinking from the same fountain. They’re bathed in the same light.  

I want us to be able to discern the meaning of that beautiful prayer of the Prophet Muhammad when he says, “My Lord, allow us to see things as they are in You. Allow us to see things as they are in truth.” Just because ego and greed and hatred are doing cosplay as religion, I don’t want us to give it that much credit. I want us to insist that no, there is real religion! There’s real faith, and it’s humble and it carries the scent of love and concern, not just for our own kind, but for all of us.   

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Sarah Young Jesus Calling

Learn to relate to others through My Love rather than yours. Your human love is ever so limited, full of flaws and manipulation. My loving Presence, which always enfolds you, is available to bless others as well as you. Instead of trying harder to help people through your own paltry supplies, become aware of My unlimited supply, which is accessible to you continually. Let My Love envelop your outreach to other people.

Many of My precious children have fallen prey to burnout. A better description of their condition might be “drainout.” Countless interactions with needy people have drained them, without their conscious awareness. You are among these weary ones, who are like wounded soldiers needing R&R. Take time to rest in the Love-Light of My Presence. I will gradually restore to you the energy that you have lost over the years. Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and you will find rest for your souls.

RECOMMENDED BIBLE VERSES:
Exodus 33:14 NLT
14 The LORD replied, “I will personally go with you, Moses, and I will give you rest—everything will be fine for you.” (Related scriptures = Exodus 12:21, Joshua 22:4, Isiah 63:9)

Matthew 11:28 NLT
28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. (Related scripture = Jeremiah 6:16)

Additional insight regarding Matthew 11:28-30: A yoke is a heavy wooden harness that fits over the shoulders of an ox or oxen. It is attached to a piece of equipment the oxen are to pull. A person may be carrying heavy burdens of (1) sin, (2) excessive demands of religious leaders, (3) oppression and persecution, or (4) weariness in the search for God.

Jesus frees people from all these burdens. The rest that Jesus promises is love, healing, and peace with God, not the end of all labor. A relationship with God changes meaningless, wearisome toil into spiritual productivity and purpose.

Today’s Prayer: Dear God, I thank You for Your boundless love that surpasses my human limitations. Guide me to relate to others through Your loving presence rather than relying on my own inadequate abilities. I recognize the need for rest and rejuvenation, for I’ve often felt drained by trying to help others in my own strength. Like a wounded soldier needing R&R, I come to You seeking restoration. As I rest in the light of Your love, I trust in Your promise to renew my energy and refresh my soul. Thank You for inviting the weary and burdened to find rest in Your arms. In your Son’s name, Amen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ9cJbkW094

Searching in the Shadows 

Jungian therapists Connie Zweig and Steve Wolf describe shadow work as a path to deeper moral integrity and intimacy with our own soul.  

For most people … greater shadow awareness can lead to greater morality. In fact, Carl Jung, who coined the term “shadow,” posed it as a moral problem. He suggested that we need a reorientation or fundamental change of attitude, a metanoia, to look it squarely in the eyes—that is, our own eyes:  

The individual who wishes to have an answer to the problem of evil … has need, first and foremost, of self-knowledge, that is, the utmost possible knowledge of their own wholeness. They must know relentlessly how much good they can do, and what crimes they are capable of, and must beware of regarding the one as real and the other as illusion. Both are elements within their nature, and both are bound to come to light in them, should they wish—as they ought—to live without self-deception or self-delusion. [1] 

This idea—that to face the best and the worst in our own natures is to live an authentic life—is not new. Theologians and philosophers in many traditions have pointed to the hidden reality of our split nature, and its secret value…. Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it beautifully: “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” [2] 

Zweig and Wolf suggest we search for answers in the mystery of what we have placed in the shadow:  

Throughout human history, wise women and men, in their own ways, have understood the old Sufi parable of the person who looks for the key under the lamppost because that’s where the light is, but it’s not where the key was dropped, which is in the darkness.  

Looking into the darkness or living with shadow awareness is not an easy path…. Rather, to live with shadow awareness we follow the detours; we walk into the debris, groping our way through dark corridors and past dead ends. We look for the key where it is difficult to find. Shadow-work asks us to turn in that direction.  

It asks us to stop blaming others.  
It asks us to take responsibility.  
It asks us to move slowly.  
It asks us to deepen awareness.  
It asks us to hold paradox.  
It asks us to open our hearts.  
It asks us to sacrifice our ideals of perfection.  
It asks us to live the mystery.  

We suggest that you relate to the shadow as a mystery, rather than as a problem to be solved or an illness to be cured. When the Other arrives, honor that part of yourself as a guest. You may discover that it comes bearing gifts. You may discover that shadow-work is, indeed, soul work.  

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May 27 

Written By Andrew Lang

This past weekend, our kids visited their biological dad’s house for the first time in over two years.

For the sake of privacy, I won’t share many of the details, but you can probably guess: it was a big change. For them, for their biological dad, for my partner and I, for our community around us. Even our dogs, nonplussed for the most part, probably smelled the shift in the air.

And this morning as I sit to write this, I keep coming back to the same words:

We don’t always create change; change creates us.

I’m far more comfortable with the experience of being in control and using my agency and imagination to develop something new from the old. But most change just happens, entirely regardless of our desire for it. A car merges wildly into our lane and we have to adapt; an illness is discovered and we’re faced with what to do; the President sets a new horrific policy and we’re challenged with how to respond.

Change tends to require us to shape ourselves around its presence.

For my kiddos, this meant being a lot more tender in the lead-up to their visit. More big emotions, more questions, more worries, more long hugs seemingly out of the blue. For my partner and I, it meant leaning into the logistics: how to best prepare them, how to prepare their biological dad to have success, how to make sure our home held them with love and care beforehand and after. And of course, feeling our own big emotions as well.

And as it often goes when change happens, I’ll be processing this newfound reality for quite awhile.

The newness of change and what it unearths in us and around us lingers. This is part of why I think it’s so important to stay gentle with ourselves and what we believe the outcome of any change “should be.” The truth is, I don’t know what comes next – but I trust in my family’s capacity to meet it and hold the messiness of it without losing the center we’ve come to know.

So that’s my invitation for you this week:

Whatever change you find yourself navigating, how can you meet it with gentleness and intentionality? What might become possible if you trust in your capacity to hold the change and to shift with it, while staying true to your center?

Spiritual writer Ruth Haley Barton explores the necessity of doing our shadow work through the story of Moses, who was born into a Hebrew family and raised by the Egyptian pharaoh’s daughter (see Exodus 2:1–15).  

As an outsider both among his own people and among the Egyptians who had raised him, [Moses] probably wrestled every day with issues related to his identity. Should he fit into the environment in which he had been raised and follow the path marked out for him there? Or should he identify with his own people and try to make it by those rules instead?… 

We can be fairly certain that Moses developed some pretty good coping mechanisms for dealing with the pain of his situation, as all human beings do. All of us develop ways of adjusting and staying safe in the midst of whatever danger or difficulty is present in our environment….  

It appears that one of Moses’ coping mechanisms was to repress his anger since he had nowhere to go with it…. One day his anger—anger that had probably been building for quite a long time—got the best of him and everything exploded…. When he saw an Egyptian abusing a Hebrew, his anger overwhelmed him, and he killed the Egyptian. Then he tried to hide his sin by burying the body in the sand. This reactive and out-of-control response was a snapshot of Moses’ leadership before solitude.   

Barton invites us to consider how silence might help us respond when we are trapped in reactive patterns:  

That one glimpse of the destructive power of his raw and unrefined leadership was so frightening to Moses that he fled into solitude…. He said, in effect, “This part of me, if left as it is, will be no good for anyone.” Yes, he ran because he was afraid of Pharaoh, but oftentimes it is the fear of being found out or the actual experience of being found out that alerts us to what lies beneath. It actually places us on the path of self-discovery and (hopefully) forces us to do whatever work we need to do to take more responsibility for the dark forces that have propelled our bad behavior…. 

There is some behavioral pattern, something unresolved, something out of control enough, something destructive enough, that we say, “I must go into solitude with this.” We thought we had kept it fairly well hidden. We thought we could manage it or at least keep its destructive nature fairly private, but now here it is—out there for all to see—and it is wreaking havoc on our attempts to accomplish something good.   

We must not ignore this moment when it comes…. If such a moment comes early on as it did for Moses, thanks be to God…. If it comes later on—as it does for most of us—then thanks be to God. It means that God is at work, leading us to greater freedom than we have yet known.  

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Authenticity

From Chuck DeGroat

True authenticity is not the loudest voice in the room, nor the most unfiltered confession. It is not the impulse to say whatever we feel, whenever we feel it. That may be catharsis, but it is not always truth.

Authenticity is quieter than that. Truer. It is the slow remembering of who you were before the world named you too much or not enough. It is not performance, nor rebellion against performance—it is the shedding of both. It is the alignment of your outer life with your inner essence, the part of you that was whispered into being by God.

This week’s meditations focus on the shadow self, a recurring theme in Father Richard Rohr’s work. 

The shadow self is an essential concept in my work, which always needs initial clarification and definition. My understanding of the shadow comes primarily from Swiss psychotherapist Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961).  

Let’s begin with the personal shadow. During the first half of our lives (and for many, into the chronological second half of life), we are building up our persona, our separate or false self. To put it very simply, as children we learn which behaviors cause approval and disapproval from our families, teachers, and friends. If we want to have some sort of control over our lives and create pleasant outcomes, we tend to develop those things which are acceptable and repress those things which are not. Those things we repress or deny about ourselves become our shadow. The qualities we “place” in our shadow aren’t necessarily bad; they’re simply the ones that are not rewarded by our family system or culture. [1] 

Persona (the self we present to the world) and shadow are correlative terms. Our shadow is what we refuse to recognize about ourselves and what we do not want others to perceive. The more we have cultivated and protected a chosen persona, the more shadow work we will need to do. Therefore, we need to be especially careful of clinging to any idealized role or self-image, like that of minister, parent, doctor, nice person, professor, moral believer, or president of this or that. These are huge personas to live up to, and they trap many people in lifelong delusion that the role is who they are and all they are allowed to be. The more we are attached to our protected self-image, the more shadow self we will likely have. In my experience, this is especially dangerous for a “spiritual leader” or “professional religious person” because it involves such an ego-inflating self-image. Whenever ministers, or any true believers, are too anti anything, we can be pretty sure there’s some shadow material lurking somewhere nearby. Zealotry often reveals one’s overly repressed shadow.  

Our self-image is not substantial or lasting; it’s simply created out of our own mind, desire, and choice—and everybody else’s preferences for us! It’s not objective at all but entirely subjective (which does not mean that it doesn’t have real influence). The movement to second-half-of-life wisdom has much to do with necessary shadow work and the emergence of healthy self-critical thinking. These alone allow us to see beyond our own shadow and disguise and to find who we are, “hidden with Christ in God,” as Paul puts it (Colossians 3:3). The Zen masters call it “the face we had before we were born.” This self cannot die, lives forever and is our true self. Religion is always in some way about discovering our true self (or soul), which is also to discover God, who is our deepest truth. [2] 

Humility Welcomes the Shadow

To know love we have to tell the truth to ourselves and to others. Creating a false self to mask fears and insecurities has become so common that many of us forget who we are and what we feel underneath the pretense. Breaking through this denial is always the first step in uncovering our longing to be honest and clear.   
—bell hooks, All About Love 

Richard Rohr describes the temptation to hide and deny what we’ve been taught is unacceptable within us:  

We identify with our persona/mask so strongly when we’re young that we become masters of denial and learn to eliminate or hide anything that doesn’t support it. Neither our persona nor our shadow is evil in itself; they just allow us to do evil without recognizing it. Our shadow self makes us all into hypocrites on some level. Hypocrite is a Greek word that simply means “actor,” someone playing a role rather than being “real.” We’re all in one kind of closet or another and are even encouraged by society to play such roles. Usually everybody else can see our shadow, so it’s crucial that we learn what everybody else knows about us—except us!  

Holy or whole individuals, the ones we call “saints,” are precisely the ones who have no “I” to protect or project. Their “I” is in conscious union with the “I AM” of God, and that is more than enough. Divine union overrides any need for self-hatred or self-adoration. Love holds us tightly and safely and always. Such people have met the enemy and know that the major enemy is “me” (to borrow from the comic strip character Pogo). But they do not hate the “me” either; they just see through and beyond the little “me.”  

The closer we get to the light, the more of our shadow we see. Thus, truly holy people are always humble people. Christians would have been done a great service if the shadow had been distinguished from sin. Sin and shadow are not the same! We were so encouraged to avoid sin that many of us avoided facing our shadow, and then we ended up “sinning” even worse—while unaware besides! As Paul taught, “The angels of darkness must disguise themselves as angels of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14). The persona cannot bear to see evil in itself, so it always disguises it as good. The shadow self invariably presents itself as something like prudence, common sense, and justice. It says, “I’m doing this for your good,” when it actually manifests fear, control, manipulation, or even vengeance. Isn’t it fascinating that the name Lucifer literally means “light bearer”? The evil one always makes darkness look like light—and makes light look like darkness.  

The gift of shadowboxing is in recognizing the shadow and its games, which takes away most of the shadow’s hidden power. No wonder that Teresa of Ávila said that the mansion of true self-knowledge was the necessary first mansion on the spiritual journey. Socrates said the same thing, “Know yourself!”  

Learning from the Mystics: James Finley

Quote of the Week:  “The three directives are:  Find your contemplative practice and practice it.   Find your contemplative community and enter it.   Find your contemplative teaching and follow it.”  – from The Contemplative Heart, p.20. Reflection  There is nothing so slow as spiritual growth. Not only that, but it does not happen accidentally! This means that if we want to grow at all in our faith, it will take both patience as well as intentionality… not to forget it is a grace through and through!  Unfortunately, there are so few that can speak to an authentic deepening of faith.  Few people have gone the distance and reported back about the journey.  Fortunately, we have spiritual masters such as Jim Finley. In the quote from The Contemplative Heart (above), we have a distillation of Jim’s thoughts and process.  As a former monastery monk himself, he sought to take his monastery training out into the world.  His life goal came to be “a monk beyond the monastery walls.”  During his later work as a clinical psychologist and spiritual director, he stumbled upon “three directives” that he would encourage his patients and clients to follow. Let’s walk through them together.  Find your contemplative practice and practice it. – Whether our practice is morning prayer or evening prayer, it does not matter.  Whether it is done in silence with a candle or being present at a child’s soccer game, all activities are already spiritual, the thing that qualifies our contemplative practice is that we are present in it.  Baking, playing music, going for a daily walk, there is no hard line concerning what is contemplative or not.  The fact of the matter is that the word “contemplative” simply means “to see deeply.”  Whatever practice we stumble upon, that helps us to see ourselves, others, the world, and God “deeply” is the practice that we must incorporate into our lives.  Given that each of us has different temperaments and affections/proclivities, it is a marvelous freedom that our practices resonate with our personalities while fulfilling the same goal, “to see deeply.”  Find your contemplative community and enter it. – To take faith seriously, and to attempt to deepen it is a lonely activity.  There are only so many people in the world who take earnest care of that task.  Still, those people are out there.  It may take some searching, and it may even take some creating, but “no man is an island.”  Whether at a church, coffee shop, bar, or barn, it does not matter.  The Holy Trinity itself is a community, and so we should find it no far leap to say that we were meant for the community as well.  So search online for a local group, or start one yourself.  The reality is that we all need other people to “mirror” back to us how we are doing as we pursue intimacy with God and authentic Christlikeness.  Find your contemplative teaching and follow it. – Our “teaching” can come to us in any number of ways.  It can be through the tried and true books of church history, it can be through podcasts, it can be through YouTube videos, and it can be through a mentor who speaks to us.  The fact of the matter is that we are better off listening to the teachings of people from beyond ourselves in life and history rather than simply trying to teach ourselves (which would likely come with much trial and error).  All the contemplatives of church history are speaking of the same intimate and infinite mystery of God, the task at hand is to find the one contemplative whose words are like a key that unlocks us.  Some keys will fit, and others will not.  The goal is to find the contemplative teaching that opens us up to greater expression and receptivity to Divine Love. In a world that benefits and even profits off of shallow faith, seeking out a contemplative practice, community, and teaching is a rebellious task.  It is counter-cultural while also being deeply life-giving. As you are able this week, see about developing a practice, finding some people to do it with, and finding something or someone to start learning from! Prayer  Heavenly Father, speak tenderly to us, and invite us into greater and greater intimacy with you at all times.  If we do not have a practice, help us to discover ours.  If we have no community, help us to stumble into it.  If we have no teaching, help us to find it.  All we ever want is more of you, and that alone is the heart, core, roots, and foundation of every one of our prayers.  Amen and amen.

Life Overview of James Finley  Who is He: James Finley  When: Born in Akron, Ohio in 1943.  Why He is Important: As a Clinical Psychologist and Spiritual Director, James speaks from the depth of his own experience and training about the life of a Christian mystic.  Most Known For: James was a direct mentee of Thomas Merton while living in the cloistered monastery of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Trappist, Kentucky. (Also one of the Faculty of Center for Action and Contemplation) Notable Works to Check Out:Merton’s Palace of NowhereThe Contemplative HeartChristian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of GodTurning to the Mystics Podcast

A Broad Wisdom Tradition

Father Richard describes the importance of Tradition, which includes a legacy of wisdom, beliefs, practices, prayers, and rituals:  

I don’t believe that God expects all human beings to start from zero and to reinvent the wheel of life in our own small lifetimes. We must build on the common “communion of saints” throughout the ages. This is the inherited fruit and gift, which is sometimes called the “Wisdom Tradition.” It is not always inherited simply by belonging to one group or religion. It largely depends on how informed, mature, and experienced our particular teachers are.  

Most seminaries, I’m afraid, have merely exposed ministers to their own denomination’s conclusions and don’t offer space or time for much Indigenous, interfaith, or ecumenical education, which broadens the field from “my religion, which has the whole truth,” to some sense of “universal wisdom, which my religion teaches in this way.” If it is true, then it has to be true everywhere.  

There have been countless generations of sincere seekers who’ve gone through the same human journey and there is plenty of collective and common wisdom to be had. There is ongoing wisdom that keeps recurring in different world religions with different metaphors and vocabulary. The foundational wisdom is much the same, although never exactly the same. As in the Trinity, spiritual unity is diversity loved and united, never mere uniformity. [1]  

Here is my succinct summary of this deep and recurring Wisdom Tradition:  

• There is a Divine Reality underneath and inherent in the world of things.  
• There is in the human soul a natural capacity, similarity, and longing for this Divine Reality.  
• The final goal of all existence is union with Divine Reality. [2]  

I trust and hope that my writing and teaching contain more than my own little bit of experience and truth, precisely because I have found some serious validation in both the Hebrew and the Christian Scriptures, along with the testimonies of many other witnesses along the way.

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1.

“You cannot follow both Christ and the cruelty of kings.  A leader who mocks the weak, exalts himself, and preys on the innocent is not sent by God.  He is sent to test you.  And many are failing.”

– Pope Leo XIV, Head of the Catholic Church

When I have taught the Scriptures, I enjoy telling people they are timely as well as timeless.

They were written for a particular people, in a particular place, dealing with a particular problem.

Yet, they can be applied to anyone, no matter where they are, dealing with very different situations.

The Scriptures have much to say about leadership today.

Whether people want to admit it or not, the Bible is inherently political.  If the Second Greatest Commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself, we must pay attention to public policies and politicians.  Out of sincere love of neighbor and a call to help them to carry their burdens, a faithful follower of Christ must push back against abuse of power and any attempt from the Top of a society to take advantage of or dehumanize those at the Bottom of a society.

2.

“There was not a single question or doubt I raised for which our good Lord did not have a reassuring response. “I have the power to make all things well,” he said, “I know how to make all things well, and I wish to make all things well.” Then he said, “I shall make all things well. You will see for yourself: every kind of thing shall be well.”

– Julian of Norwich, English Anchoress

Surprisingly, I have been reading Julian of Norwich’s writings. I have read them three or four times before, but this time, they are gripping me and holding my attention in a new way.

It is fascinating that she writes about Christ as our “liberator,” God “one-ing” us to Himself, the need to know ourselves to know God, sin as “nothing,” and the insistence that through God “all things will be well.”

The quote above stood out to me, and it demanded that I reread it aloud.

It is beautiful because it says God has the power, the knowledge, and the wish to make all things well, and we will see it someday for ourselves.

Now that is a bold hope.

Despite all the pain, devastation, fractured relationships, natural disasters, wars, and conflicts, somehow, God will make all things well.

3.

“We can be sure that whoever sneers at [Beauty], as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past, whether he admits it or not, can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love.”

– Hans Urs von Balthasar, Swiss Theologian

Hans von Balthasar was an important theologian of the 20th century. His magnum opus, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, was based on the idea that theology is often built upon logic but can also be built upon beauty. Drawing from the Greek philosophers and their trifecta of “goodness, beauty, and truth,” he sought to frame the Christian faith in a new fashion.

I stumbled upon von Balthasar’s work after reading Bonaventure of Bagnoregio.  Through The Soul’s Journey into God, I learned how Bonaventure saw Christ as an archetypal beauty, through whom all other things derive their own beauty.

Perhaps it is the fact that a large part of my interior life leans toward being an Enneagram 4, but I find a strange poetic comfort in the idea that our beliefs about God can be based on beauty as much as logic.

4.

“Poetry is an invitation to be completely present to the world.”

– Padraig O’Tuama, Irish Poet

My goodness, I feel that we all would benefit from getting out of our heads a bit more often and being more present to the world.

This probably means that all of us would benefit from experiencing more poetry.

5.

“Who, looking at the universe, would be so feeble-minded as not to believe that God is all in all; that He clothes himself with the universe, and at the same time contains it and dwells in it? What exists depends on Him who exists, and nothing can exist except in the bosom of Him who is.”

– Gregory of Nyssa, 4th Century Theologian

One thing that I enjoy about the early Patristics of Church History is how they emphasize the mutual indwelling of God in all things and all things in God.  It is as if God is pregnant with the universe, and the universe is pregnant with God.

Instead, most people have a more Platonic understanding of reality today.  If they are not strict materialists, most people believe we are here on earth and God is up, off, and far away in some other realm that is more perfect than this one.  As I said, this is more of a Platonic way of looking at reality than a Christian one.

The end of the New Testament finishes with a New Heaven and a New Earth that are merged together in a New Jerusalem, a Garden-City.

That is more an eschatology of integration rather than separation.

I am convinced that the realization that God is not far off but is intimately a part of everything we experience with our five senses would completely transform our ethics, mode of being in the world, appreciation for the environment, and love of each other.

Married to the Land

No other place I know speaks simultaneously of meadows and desert

DAVID WHYTEMAY 23

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Married to the Land

It’s as if the solid green
of the valley
were an island
held and bound
by the river flow
of stone
and when
in summer rain
white limestone
turns black
and the central green
is light-wracked
round the edges,
that dark
reflective gleam
of rock
becomes
an edging brilliance
that centers
each field
to deep emerald.

No other place
I know
speaks
simultaneously
of meadows
and desert,
absorbing dryness
and winter wet,
the ground
porous and forgiving
of all elements,
white and black,
wet and dry,
rich and barren,
like a human marriage,
one hand
of welcome
raised,
the other
tightened
involuntary
on a concealed
knife in the
necessary
protections
of otherness.

As if someone
had said, you will
learn
in this land
the same welcome
and the same exile
as you do in your
mortal vows
to another,
you will promise
yourself
and abase yourself and find yourself
again
in the intimacy
of opposites,
you will pasture yourself
in the living green
and the bare rock,
you will find
comfort in strangeness
and prayer
in aloneness,
you will be proud
and fierce
and single minded
even
in your unknowing
and you will
carry on
through all the seasons
of your living and dying
until
your aloneness
becomes equal
to the trials
you have set yourself.

Then this land
will become again
the land
you imagined
when you saw it
for the first time
and these vows
of marriage
can become
again and again
the place you
make your
residence
like
this same
rough
intimate
and cradled
ground
between
stone horizons,
embracing
and also,
like the one
to whom
you made the vows,
always beyond you,
both utterly
with you
and both
strangely beautiful
to know
by their distance.


-from The Seven Streams: An Irish Cycle, originally published as The Vows at Glencolmcille in Everything is Waiting for You