Lectio, Meditatio, Oratio, Contemplatio

Contemplative theologian Beverly Lanzetta offers instructions for the monastic practice of lectio divina which today can be practiced by all. The first stage is lectio or reading:  

Reading at a slow pace, with a contemplative state of mind, nourishes the inner path and opens us to become aware of the movement of spirit. We do not rush through the text to gain details or knowledge but seek instead through words the Divine presence and action in our lives. A gentle, prayerful attitude opens the door and unlocks the text, so that we may pass over to our journey into the sacred….  

Unlike reading for content, lectio divina approaches the text as a form of prayer, guiding us closer to union with the Holy One. At its simplest, lectio is not reading intellectually to gather information or instruction, but with the intention that the reader be formed in the divine likeness. In and through text, one comes face-to-face with Spirit. Through slowly reading, we allow words to penetrate our hearts and fill us with wisdom and love. Sometimes we are pulled clean out of our ordinary state of mind. We may awaken to new truths or insights, suffer compunction or shame, or be forgiven and bathed in light. By whatever means, when we read with meditative attention, communion occurs through surrender and rest. We do not hurry reading, trying to find the thesis, underlying cause, or doing critical analysis. We stop. We remain still in the presence of mystery….  

Three additional stages are practiced. Meditation, meditatio, is reflective engagement with a text. For example, let’s say you read the passage from the Sermon on the Mount, “Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” [Matthew 5:39]. During the day, you carry the passage with you, ruminate on it as you are walking, at work, or running errands. It becomes your meditatio, as you listen for the Divine speaking through Scripture and learn how the passage relates to your life.  

From conscious engagement with the text, we shift to a mode of receiving or simply being with God:   

Prayer or oratio gives over to God the wisdom gained in meditation. Thus, one prays to be led to truth and virtue, to practice the principles discerned from the day’s reading, and to express praise and thanksgiving. Ultimately, oratio moves into contemplatio, or contemplation. Here you are not “doing” anything but opening yourself to receive and rest in God. You can move into a passive or receptive form of knowing, where you may experience the text coming directly from the divine mind and heart into your being. 

Of course, from the slow reading of a text there is no need to curtail how the spirit moves you from one stage to the next. You can remain in any of these stages for the duration of the practice, and you can move spontaneously, and not linearly, from reading to meditation, prayer, or contemplation. 

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Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

Let Me Help you get through this day. There are many possible paths to travel between your getting up in the morning and your lying down at night. Stay alert to the many choice-points along the way, being continually aware of My Presence. You will get through this day one way or the other. One way is to moan and groan, stumbling along with shuffling feet. This will get you to the end of the day eventually, but there is a better way. You can choose to walk with Me along the path of Peace, leaning on Me as much as you need. There will still be difficulties along the way, but you can face them confidently in My strength. Thank Me for each problem you encounter, and watch to see how I transform trials into blessings.

RELATED BIBLE VERSES:

1st Corinthians 10:10 NLT
10 And don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death.

Additional insight regarding 1st Corinthians 10:10: Paul warned the Corinthian believers not to grumble. We start to grumble when our attention shifts from what we have to what we don’t have. The people of Israel didn’t seem to notice what God was doing for them – setting them free, making them a nation, giving them a new land – because they were so wrapped up in what God wasn’t doing for them. They could think of nothing but the delicious Egyptian food they had left behind (Numbers 11:5). Before we judge the Israelites too harshly, it’s helpful to think about what occupies our attention most of the time. Are we grateful for what God has given us, or are we always thinking about what we would like to have? Don’t allow your unfulfilled desires to cause you to forget God’s gifts of life, family, friends, food, health, and work.

Luke 1:79 NLT
79 “…to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace.”

Father Richard encourages us to read the Scriptures by following the model of Jesus and in the company of the Holy Spirit, whose presence the church celebrates today.  

Jesus knows how to connect the dots and find out where the sacred text is truly heading, beyond the lower-level consciousness of a particular moment, individual, or circumstance. He knows there’s a bigger arc to the story—one that reveals God as compassionate and inclusive. Jesus doesn’t quote lines that are punitive, imperialistic (“My country is the best!”), wrathful, or exclusionary. He doesn’t mention the twenty-eight “thou shall nots” listed in Leviticus 18 and 20 but chooses to echo the one positive command of Leviticus 19:18: “You must love your neighbor as yourself.” The longest single passage he quotes (in Luke 4:18–19) is from Isaiah 61:1–2. Jesus closes with the words “proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,” deliberately omitting the next line—“and the day of vengeance of our God”—because he didn’t come to announce vengeance.  

This is what the Holy Spirit teaches any faithful person to do—read Scripture (and the very experiences of life) with a gaze of love. Contemplative practice helps us develop a third eye that reads between the lines and finds the thread always moving toward inclusivity, mercy, and justice. [1]  

The biblical revelation is about awakening. It’s about realization, not performance principles. We cannot get there, we can only be there, but that foundational Being-in-God, for some reason, is too hard to believe, and too good to be true. Only the humble can receive it, because it affirms more about God than it does about us. To achieve that realization, I invite us to read the Old Testament and the New Testament as one complete book: an anthology of inspired stories, with a beginning, middle, and end. Read it as one Spirit-led text.  

Read it as inspiration, by which I primarily mean that God is slowly evolving the reader’s consciousness, so that it can receive an ever-clearer understanding of itself as the beloved of God. Biblical texts, when read with “poverty of spirit” (Matthew 5:3), explain both ourselves and history to us. When read with a sense of entitlement, as if we are owed something, they unfortunately lead us to an imagined ability to explain God to others.  

God does not change in the text, but we do. The written words are inspired precisely insofar as they inspire and change us! Here, I’m using the literal meaning of the word inspire—to “breathe into us” a larger life. If the written words don’t accomplish that, then they’re not at all “inspired”—at least for us.  

I’ve met too many people who believe in all kinds of inspired texts but are lifeless—without the breath of life that was blown into the nostrils of Adam (Genesis 2:7). “They approach me, but only in words” (Isaiah 29:13), with what both Isaiah and Jesus called “lip service” (Isaiah 29:13; Matthew 15:8). [2]  

Chewing on Sacred Texts

One day when I was busy working with my hands I began to think about our spiritual work, and all at once four stages in spiritual exercise came into my mind: reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation. These make a ladder for monks by which they are lifted up from earth to heaven.  
— Guigo II, The Ladder of Monks 

CAC faculty member James Finley describes the wisdom that comes from contemplative reading, as taught by the Carthusian monk Guigo II (c. 1114–1188):  

The first rung of the ladder to heaven is reading. By reading, Guigo means a “careful reading of Scripture, concentrating all one’s powers on it.” He likens reading to the act of eating, saying that when we read God’s word we take in spiritual nourishment…. Guigo writes:  

I hear the words read: “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” [Matthew 5:8]. This is a short text of Scripture, but it is of great sweetness, like a grape that is put in the mouth filled with many senses to feed the soul…. Wishing to have a fuller understanding of this, the soul begins to bite and chew upon this grape as though putting it in a wine press to ask what this precious purity may be and how it might be had. [1] 

Finley continues: 

The transformative power of reading, as described by Guigo, holds true in a unique sense in the reading of Scripture. For to read the Scriptures as an act of faith means that the words of the living God are on your lips. The power of God’s words works as leaven in the heart, awakening us to a personal experience of the presence of God that Scripture reveals. Read in this way, the Scriptures are one long love letter from God. Each verse tells the story of the love that perpetually calls us to itself….  

Spiritual reading is not limited to the reading of Scripture…. Reading Guigo and other works of spiritual wisdom can embody our search for God. As we search for God in the writings of the mystics, we can experience in their words something of the experience of God the mystics are writing about…. As you continue on in your own spiritual journey you will no doubt come across those spiritual books, written by authors both ancient and contemporary, that you will learn to cherish. These are the books we never really finish. For each time we open them and read a few passages, we once again recognize something of ourselves and the path along which we are being led…. 

To commit ourselves to seeking God in the practice of meditation … assumes that we are learning to read the Scriptures … in the manner Guigo describes. That is, it assumes that we are committed to the ongoing process of quietly and unhurriedly reading, as a way of seeking and coming upon intimations of God’s presence manifested to us in the midst of our reading.  

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Quote of the Week:  (Learning from the Mystics by John Chaffee). (Jim Finley) “Imagine a caterpillar who is about to undergo a metamorphosis.  Imagine, too, that this caterpillar has been eagerly looking forward to this great event.  It has studied and researched metamorphosis.  It has a camera and a journal at hand to take pictures and carefully record everything that happens, so as to publish what it senses will be a best-seller – My Metamorphosis. But when its metamorphosis actually begins to occur, something the caterpillar had never anticipated happens.  Its brain begins to change first.  That is, the state of caterpillar consciousness from which it assumed it was going to observe its metamorphosis is the first thing that begins to change!  For a butterfly is not a caterpillar with wings.  If it were, it could never fly.  Resurrection is not the resuscitation of a corpse.  Enlightenment is not insight.” – from The Contemplative Heart, p.66. Reflection  A transformation that only happens on the surface level is not transformation at all. Jesus even seemed to identify this issue in Matthew’s Gospel when he said,“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First, clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside, you appear to people as righteous but on the inside, you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”- Matthew 23:25-27 The spiritual life has the same temptations as any other field, the temptation to be further along the path than one truly is. Theologian and writer Chris Hall maintains, “Spiritual growth is the slowest kind of growth possible.” We can easily become impatient and so dress ourselves up. And this is where Jim Finley’s insight comes into play. The first thing that transforms when a caterpillar enters the chrysalis is its mind, its interior life.  The old must be done away with to make room for the new. It is not enough to simply cling to the new while still holding on to the old. It is no wonder that spiritual figures and titans from across the world’s religious traditions have held butterflies as their main symbol of transformation.  Perhaps we need to recognize that transformation happens first in silence, stillness, and solitude.  It is barely perceptible and cannot exactly be witnessed at the moment by ourselves.  If any of us are seeking to be transformed, it will likely demand that we give up any desire to be a detached observer of our metamorphosis and give ourselves fully over to the process.  Spirituality is not a spectator sport, if anything, it more likely looks like a butterfly’s metamorphosis, a seed dying in the ground, a death and rebirth. Prayer  Heavenly Father.  We admit that we do not dare to change ourselves.  We cannot help ourselves as we attempt to cling to the old rather than embrace the new.  We desire to be detached from the process of our transformation rather than to dive into it with our whole selves.  Be gracious with us, and remind us that we can trust the process because it is you leading us at all times and in all things.  We pray this in the matchless name of Jesus of Nazareth.  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

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Wine, Bread, and Fish

Friday, June 6, 2025

The first meals Jesus shared with his community included bread and fish, while a meal of bread and wine became the official meal of the church. Father Richard explores the importance of each:  

The tradition of table fellowship shows up in many places in the Christian Scriptures—for example, the several loaves and fishes accounts in the Gospels (Matthew 14:13–21, 15:32–39; Mark 6:30–44, 8:1–10; Luke 9:10–17; John 6:1–13). Scholars say now that even while Jesus was still alive, there seemed to be two traditions of open table fellowship: one of bread and wine, the other of bread and fish. The bread and wine finally won out—that meal is what we call the Mass today in the Roman Catholic church.  

But the bread and fish stories also point to an open table fellowship tradition. The exciting thing about these stories is that they emphasize surplus and outside guests. At the end of each event, there are seven or twelve baskets left over. That surplus seems to be a point of this form of table fellowship. It’s a type of meal we’d call a potluck supper today. Apparently, Jesus invited everybody to bring their food together and there was plenty for all the poor and then some. 

It’s unfortunate that we lost the bread and fish ritual meal, because the bread and wine ritual meal didn’t emphasize this idea of surplus: real food that actually fed the poor. The bread and wine tradition lent itself more to purity codes, insider/outsider dynamics, and ritualization. The bread and fish tradition, if retained, might have contributed to issues of justice, community, and social reordering. We see this after the resurrection. In John 21:1–14, the apostles are out on the lake. They see Jesus on the shore, cooking fish at a charcoal fire. He invites them to come share bread and fish.  

If we remember what happened after Jesus’ arrest, we see the significance of this charcoal fire. The only other charcoal fire in the Gospels is where Peter stood when he betrayed Jesus (John 18:18). Jesus invites him now to another charcoal fire, where they share the bread and the fish. He says, in effect, “Peter, it’s okay. Forget it.” At this second charcoal fire the risen Jesus initiates table fellowship with Peter, who just a few days before rejected, betrayed, and abandoned him in his hour of need. It seems the bread and fish meal also had a healing, reconciling significance. What a shame we have lost this.  

It’s very likely that the Last Supper was a Passover meal of open table fellowship—the final one of many among Jesus and his closest followers—that evolved into a ritualized offering of bread and wine. The disciples had come to understand it as a way of gathering, as the way to define their reality and their relationship to one another. It became for them a powerful symbol of unity, of giving and sharing, of breaking the self and giving the self over.  

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John Chaffee 5 On Friday

1.

“The poor tell us who we are. The prophets tell us who we can be. So we hide the poor and kill the prophets.”

– Philip Berrigan, Jesuit Priest

The ills of society are not things which we must eliminate; rather, they are symptoms that point the way to a larger problem.

The homelessness problem in America is not the real problem.

The income inequality in America is not the problem.

The rates of student debt in America are not the problem.

All of those three things above are the SYMPTOMS of something larger going on.

The only problem is that we dislike it when people point out the larger issue at hand, with which we are likely also complicit.

2.

“What makes us human is not our mind but our heart, not our ability to think but our ability to love.”

– Henri Nouwen, Dutch Priest and Theologian

As an Enneagram 5, I love taking the time to research a topic.  I literally cannot remember the last time I felt legitimately bored.  There is always a book to read, an idea to explore, a concept to grasp, a new philosopher or theologian to dive into.

For a while, I was proud of myself for what I had learned and was able to teach.

That is, until I realized that to be such a nerd was coming at the expense of bettering my relationships around me.  It was a hard pill to swallow, but I had to acknowledge that I needed to improve my ability to be present with others, set firmer boundaries, and communicate more effectively.

In essence, I still had a great deal to learn about loving others well.

All those books, studying, learning, and gaining degrees did not necessarily help me learn how to be human.  Again, it was a hard pill to swallow.

I cannot say that I know how to love well, but hopefully, I am on the way.  All I can say is that I have gotten faster at apologizing,  quicker to listen to feedback rather than defend against it, and learned to tell people I love them.  It has been a challenging yet enormously rewarding journey to undertake.

You know, learning how to be human.

3.

“Systems reward you for staying immature.”

– Fr. Richard Rohr, Franciscan Friar

Whew.  This is a big one.

We like to think that our church communities, our clubs, our government, etc., all want us to be mature.

And, in one sense, they do want us to be mature.

Just not TOO mature.

If we are TOO mature, then we might just push back when those systems have lost their way, and when they need to be held accountable.

Systems want to be held accountable by themselves; they do not want to be held responsible by their whistleblowers.

As a result, systems will reward you for staying either immature or half-way mature.  They will give you accolades, raises, titles, celebrations, and more as long as you don’t rock the boat.

Religious, political, or familial systems are looking for people who will protect their status quo, not for people who try to raise it.  So, if a group loves you, be careful.  God might want you to rock their boat, even if they loudly applaud you for not rocking it so far.

4.

“All of us experience a wonderful mixture of both well-being and woe. It is necessary for us to fall. If we did not fall, we would have the wrong idea about ourselves. Eventually we will understand that we are never lost to God’s love. At no time are we ever less valuable in God’s sight. Through failure we will clearly understand that God’s love is endless nothing we can do will destroy it.”

– Julian of Norwich, 14th Century English Mystic

One of the most confounding and comforting insights from Julian of Norwich is the idea that mistakes, failure, and even sin are inevitable aspects of what it means to live and to learn how to love.

No one begins life knowing exactly how to love as we ought.  It is only through doing things the wrong way that we learn how to do things the right way.

Not only that, but the fact that God loves us unconditionally would not land with us unless we stop and experience that same love of God coming to us despite our failures.

For Julian, sin is a necessary teacher that has much to teach us about our immaturity, the limitations that hinder us, and the depth of God’s love through all our foibles.

5.

“Conquer evil people by gentle kindness, and make zealous people wonder at your goodness. Put the lover of legality to shame by your compassion.”

– St. Isaac the Syrian, 8th Century Orthodox Saint

I firmly believe that when it is all said and done, the virtues of Christianity will always be the best way to live.

Eucharistic Solidarity

Thursday, June 5, 2025

Dr. Yolanda Pierce expresses her call to welcome those who come to the communion table: 

There is no more sacred ritual I perform within the church context than serving communion. It is a duty I do not take lightly. I relish the opportunity to preside over the table and invite others into a moment of remembrance and reflection. Whether in the most modest of sanctuaries or in the grandest of buildings, standing before the people with unleavened bread and a cup of wine (or grape juice, as in my own tradition) is a humbling act…. 

When I stand behind the table, calling the gathered community to remembrance, I call forth all their sacred memories: those connected to the biblical text and those that emerge from their own lives. In that divine moment and in this one, I take seriously the exhortation in 2 Peter 1:13: “As long as I live in the tent of this body,” I will call the people to remembrance…. 

We do this in remembrance of the Holy One, who was and is and is to come…. In remembrance of the warriors for justice, the table turners, and the freedom riders. Those prophets who stood outside the gates of the city and declared the Word of the Lord. Those poets who penned indictments against inhumanity and degradation. 

In remembrance of those who have experienced justice delayed and justice denied. Those whose sadness has yet to turn to joy, and those whose weeping has endured for more than one night…. We are all welcome at this table, whether with visible wounds or unblemished flesh, in the radical belief that only God’s justice quenches our thirst, heals our spirits, and renews our hearts. [1] 

Theologian M. Shawn Copeland describes how the Eucharist calls us to solidarity with those who suffer:  

Eucharist is the heart of Christian community. We know in our bodies that eating the bread and drinking the wine involve something much deeper and far more extensive than consuming elements of the ritual meal…. We [all] strive to become what we have received and to do what we are being made…. 

Eucharistic solidarity orients us to the cross of the lynched Jesus of Nazareth, where we grasp the enormity of suffering, affliction, and oppression as well as apprehend our complicity in the suffering, affliction, and oppression of others.… Eucharistic solidarity teaches us to imagine, to hope for, and to create new possibilities. Because that solidarity enfolds us, rather than dismiss “others,” we act in love; rather than refuse “others,” we respond in acts of self-sacrifice—committing ourselves to the long labor of creation, to the enfleshment of freedom….  

At the table that Jesus prepares, all may assemble: In his body we are made anew, a community of faith—the living and the dead. In our presence, the Son of Man gathers up the remnants of our memories, the broken fragments of our histories, [and] judges, blesses, and transforms them. His Eucharistic banquet re-orders us, re-members us, restores us, and makes us one. [2]  

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Sarah Young Jesus Calling

Remember that you live in a fallen world: an abnormal world tainted by sin. Much frustration and failure result from your seeking perfection in this life. There is nothing perfect in this world except Me. That is why closeness to Me satisfies deep yearnings and fills you with Joy.
     I have planted longing for perfection in every human heart. This is a good desire, which I alone can fulfill. But most people seek this fulfillment in other people and earthly pleasures or achievements. Thus they create idols, before which they bow down. I will have no other gods before Me! Make Me the deepest desire of your heart. Let Me fulfill your yearning for perfection.

RELATED SCRIPTURES:

Exodus 20:3 (NLT)
3 “You must not have any other god but me.

Additional insight regarding Exodus 20:3: The Israelites have just come from Egypt, a land of many idols and many gods. Because each god represented a different aspect of life, it was common to worship many gods in order to get the maximum number of blessings. When God told his people to worship and believe in him, that wasn’t so hard for them – he was just one more god to add to their list. But when God said, “You must not have any other god but me,” that was difficult for the people to accept. But if they didn’t learn that the God who led them out of Egypt was the only true God, they could not be his people – no matter how faithfully they kept the other nine commandments. Thus, God made this his first commandment. Today we can allow many things to become gods to us. Money, fame, work, or pleasure can become gods when we concentrate too much on them for personal identity, meaning, and security. No one sets out with the intention of worshipping these things. But by the amount of time we devote to them they can grow into gods that ultimately control our thoughts and energies. Letting God hold the central place in our lives keeps these things from turning into gods.

Psalm 27:4 (NLT)
4 The one thing I ask of the Lord—
    the thing I seek most—
is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
    delighting in the Lord’s perfections
    and meditating in his Temple.

Additional insight regarding Psalm 27:4: By the “House of the Lord” and “his Temple,” David could be referring to the Tabernacle in Gibeon, to the sanctuary he has built to house the Ark of the Covenant, or to the Temple that his son Solomon was to build. David probably had the Temple in mind because he had made plans for it in 1st Chronicles 22. David may also have used the word Temple to refer to the presence of the Lord. David’s greatest desire was to live in God’s presence each day of his life. Sadly, this is not the greatest desire of many who claim to be believers. What do you desire the most? Do you look forward to being in the presence of the Lord?

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.