Lamenting All That’s Lost

Thursday, March 6, 2025

Artist and organizer Stephen Pavey finds parallels between Israel during the prophet Amos’ time (8th century BCE) and the United States today: 

In Amos’s time, the Northern Kingdom of Israel had extended its lands and increased its influence over trade routes, which brought great economic prosperity to the nation. God’s vision of society—in which wealth is shared and the needs of every member of society are met—was fracturing because of rampant materialism, greed, corruption, and bribery. Like we see in the United States, the gap between the wealthy few and the masses of poor and oppressed had grown wide. While moral standards were collapsing in the public sphere, religious practices and worship of God remained very important in society.…   

In chapter 5, Amos begins a lament, or cry of sorrow, against this way of life: “There will be wailing in all the streets” (5:16). In our own day, the prophet Callie Greer, who lives in Selma, Alabama, and organizes with the Poor People’s Campaign, tells the nation, “You must let me wail.” In February 2020, she testified to her pain and oppression at a public gathering in Selma: years earlier, her daughter had died in her arms due to poverty and lack of health care. Callie cried out, “You must let me wail for the children I’ve lost to poverty and will never get back, wail for all the children we mothers have lost. I won’t waste my pain. I hope I make you feel uncomfortable. I hope I make you feel angry. I’m wailing because my babies are no more.” [1]

Richard Rohr reflects on Jesus’ blessing for those who weep:  

Jesus did not intend his statement “Blessed are those who weep” (Luke 6:21) to be sentimentalized or remain unnoticed. Hard-heartedness, or what Zechariah and other prophets called “hearts of flint,” prevented the people from hearing the law and the words that YHWH had sent by the Spirit. A heart of stone cannot recognize the empires it builds and the empires it worships. Lamentation does. It moves us through anger and sadness, empowering us to truly hear and respond to the always-tragic now.  

The prophet Ezekiel says: “I shall give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you; I shall remove the heart of stone from your bodies and give you a heart of flesh instead. I shall put my spirit in you…. You shall be my people and I will be your God” (Ezekiel 36:26–28). This is the organ transplant that we all long for, the interior religiosity that all spirituality seeks.  

Of course, language about God having emotions is always a projection of our human emotions onto God. But if we can understand that God weeps over the human situation—as Jesus wept over Jerusalem, again over Lazarus’ death, and in Gethsemane—we know it’s a universal truth. God doesn’t hate anything God created; God pities it in the true meaning of the word pity, which is to have compassion for the suffering of everything. [2] 

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Lamenting but Not Losing Hope…

Scripture: Lamentations 3:22-23
“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

Devotional Thought

Life brings seasons of deep sorrow, disappointment, and grief. The Bible does not shy away from this reality. In fact, an entire book—Lamentations—is devoted to expressing sorrow. The psalmists also pour out their hearts to God in lament, and even Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus.

Lament is not a lack of faith—it is an expression of it. When we cry out to God, we are acknowledging His sovereignty and inviting Him into our pain. But biblical lament does not end in despair; it leads us back to hope.

Jeremiah, the author of Lamentations, describes the destruction of Jerusalem in agonizing detail. Yet, in the midst of his sorrow, he remembers the faithfulness of God: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end.”

No matter how dark our circumstances, God’s mercies are new every morning. Our weeping may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5). Even when we don’t see the way forward, we can trust that God is working all things for good (Romans 8:28).

Reflection Questions

• What sorrow or disappointment are you carrying today?
• Have you brought your lament to God in prayer?
• How can you remind yourself of God’s faithfulness in this season?

Prayer

Father, I bring my sorrow before You. I don’t understand everything that is happening, but I trust in Your faithfulness. Thank You for Your mercy that never runs dry. Help me to hold on to hope even in the midst of pain. Renew my strength and remind me that You are with me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

As Christians begin to observe Lent, the forty days before Easter, Father Richard highlights lamentation as an essential aspect of our faith:  

Only one book in the Bible is named after an emotion: the book of Lamentations. Jeremiah is said to have written it to express grief over the people’s exile from Jerusalem when they were invaded by the Babylonians in 587 BCE. But the book reads more like an expression of universal sadness over the human situation, or what is often called “the tragic sense of life.” It’s notable for an almost entire lack of anecdotes or clear examples. Elsewhere in the prophetic writings, we read references to specific rulers, kingdoms, and moments in history. Not here. This is universal sadness. It is an invitation to universal solidarity.  

The Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha expresses the devastation of grief and the longing for peace:  

I wish I could wake up and find the electricity on all day long.  
I wish I could hear the birds sing again, no shooting and no  
     buzzing drones.  
I wish my desk would call me to hold my pen and write again,  
  or at least plow through a novel, revisit a poem, or read a play.  
All around me are nothing  
but silent walls  
and people sobbing 
without sound. [1] 

Richard continues:  

The prophets, and Jeremiah in particular, invite us into a divine sadness about reality itself, more than outrage at this or that event. The language then changes from anger at “sin” to pity over suffering and woundedness, yet still holds out for relief: “I will restore you to health and I will heal your wounds, says YHWH” (Jeremiah 30:17). Felt reality is invariably wept reality, and wept reality is soon compassion and kindness. Decisive and harsh judgments slip away in the tracks of tears. 

As an example of this “slipping away,” my mind recalls the Roman church’s change in its official stance toward suicide, shifting from an emphasis on punishment to empathy for the person and family. I also think of Alcoholics Anonymous’ recognition that addiction isn’t a malicious moral failing but “a sickness to be cured.” Anger can’t make such switches. Tears can.  

Has God changed, or have we just grown up enough to hear a grown-up God? Old Scripture passages of mercy and pity that once seemed sentimental or impossible begin to finally make sense—and we suddenly notice their frequency, although they were always there. “You had left in tears, but I brought you back. I guided you to springs of water by a smooth path” (Jeremiah 31:9, Jerusalem Bible). This process of transformation by way of tears is largely hidden and unconscious, characteristic of the work of the Spirit.  

My belief is that tears, although they look like a mere emotive reaction, are much more: a deeply free action that many do not enjoy. They proceed from deep inside, where we are most truly ourselves. Tears reveal the depths at which and from which we care.  

Ash Wednesday’s Bad Piety

We’re doing it all wrong — at least according to the prophets

DIANA BUTLER BASS MAR 5

TODAY IS ASH WEDNESDAY

We come to the most reflective, and most discomforting, time of the Christian calendar: Lent.

This is the hard season. A time of repentance and repair.

The Ash Wednesday passage from the Hebrew scriptures is from Isaiah. Our Jewish friends read this same text for Yom Kippur, their holy day of repentance. The prophet’s vision of true piety is shared by Jews and Christians — and is central to faithful living. 

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Isaiah 58:1-12

Shout out, do not hold back!
Lift up your voice like a trumpet!

Announce to my people their rebellion,
to the house of Jacob their sins.

Yet day after day they seek me
and delight to know my ways,

as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;

they ask of me righteous judgments,
they delight to draw near to God.

“Why do we fast, but you do not see?
Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”

Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
and oppress all your workers.

Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to strike with a wicked fist.

Such fasting as you do today
will not make your voice heard on high.

Is such the fast that I choose,
a day to humble oneself?

Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?

Will you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;

your vindicator shall go before you,
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,

if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,

then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.

The Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail.

Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.

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On this Ash Wednesday, my heart is broken and every shred of hope I once had is gone. 

I’m not well. My soul is sick. I see nothing but greed, destruction, lying, inhumanity, and evil all around. 

If anyone tells me that I came from ash and will return to it, I may well laugh in their face. Or cry and never stop. I just hope I don’t hit the priest. Because — read the room, people — we’re standing in ash up to our knees. 

This is a brutal Ash Wednesday. 

There. I said it. 

I’ve prayed so much in recent months that I can’t tell you how much I’ve prayed. Literally face on the ground sobbing prayer. I’ve taken cues from Anne Lamott’s famous dictum that there are three kinds of prayer — help, thanks, and wow — by occasionally yelling (I’m not kidding) “Help, help, help!” in a loud voice when we sit down for dinner. 

Shouting help is really not bad, especially when compared with prostrate wailing. I’ve become an expert at the HELP prayer. On rare occasion, I’ve made it to “thanks.” But wow? Nope. None of that. One out of three isn’t bad, is it? 

In short, the last thing I want or need right now is Lent. I’m nearly Lent-ed out already. I’ve been Lenting for months. 

Honestly, I’ve got questions for God. Like: Why? Why is this happening? Why don’t you stop this? What kind of God would allow these amoral, corrupt men to purposefully hurt and destroy the good work, dignity, and lives of so many truly decent people? 

I’m making a lot of noise down here praying and fasting — and you, God, don’t seem to be doing your part. 

Enter Isaiah the Prophet on this Ash Wednesday. 

Most historians and biblical scholars believe that this text was written after the Jews returned to Jerusalem from having been enslaved in exile for fifty years by the Babylonians, sometime around 540 BCE. They came home to, well, not much. A ravished homeland in ruins. There’s a lot of hard work ahead. Where is God in the midst of all this mess? 

They probably think they are doing the right things — after all, they are praying and fasting. But God didn’t seem to be helping. God was silent:

Why do we fast, but you do not see?
Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?

I hear echoes of my own prayer: HELP DOWN HERE! WHY AREN’T YOU PAYING ATTENTION? WHAT HAVE WE GOT TO DO TO GET SOME ASSISTANCE? WHERE ARE YOU?

There’s a pretty surprising divine answer. God’s not the problem. Instead of blaming God, the prophet criticized them:

Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
and oppress all your workers.

Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to strike with a wicked fist.

Such fasting as you do today
will not make your voice heard on high.

Is such the fast that I choose,
a day to humble oneself?

Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?

Will you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?

Ah, can I take it back? Maybe I’m sorry I asked? If all my praying, sobbing, self-humiliation, and wailing won’t work to change things, what will then? 

God demands a different kind of fast. 

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?

Historian Amy Oden describes it thus, “The fasting acceptable to God is a daily fast from domination, blaming others, evil speech, self-satisfaction, entitlement and blindness to one’s privilege. The fast that God seeks calls for vigilance for justice and generosity day in and day out.” 

A daily fast from domination?

Sounds nice. But maybe a bit vague. Overly theoretical. Perhaps a little too Walter Wink or Dom Crossan. Can we have some specifics, God? 

If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,

if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,

then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.

If…then. If…then. It’s like a to-do list. 

Do these things. Then, I’ll give you strength. I’ll water your souls. 

But: You have to do it. Your ruins will be rebuilt because you laid new foundations. You will be repairers of the breach. You will restore the streets. 

God doesn’t say that God will do these things for us. We will do them. God says that we must. We must build, repair, and restore. 

Hey, wait a minute. I’m a Protestant. We don’t believe in works. We believe in grace. We can’t be saved by what we do. We believe in letting go and letting God. That sort of thing.

But Isaiah says: “If…then.”

Up off the floor. Stop sitting around sniveling about sin. You are part of the solution. Get to work and do something about injustice. Overthrow the domination system. Stand up to evil. Feed the hungry. Care for the suffering. Don’t beg for a miracle or a magic fix. Just do it. Spiritual wellness and social justice are intimately entwined. Indeed, spiritual wellness depends on doing the work of justice.

If….then….

That’s the piety God wants. Thus says the prophet. That’s the acceptable fast. 

Welcome to Lent. Let’s do this thing

Father Richard considers the inherent connection between anger and grief that ultimately heals and liberates:  

After a lifetime of counseling and retreat work—not to mention my own spiritual direction—I have become convinced that most anger comes, first of all, from a place of deep sadness. Years ago, when I led male initiation rites at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, I would watch men’s jaws drop open and their faces turn pale when I said this. Life disappoints and hurts us all, and the majority of people, particularly men, don’t know how to react—except as children do, with anger and rage. It’s a defensive, reactionary, and totally understandable posture, but it often goes nowhere, and only creates cycles of bitterness and retaliation.  

Over time, the Hebrew prophets came to see this profound connection between sadness and anger. It was what converted them to a level of truth-telling. They first needed to get angry at injustices, oppression, and war. Anger can be deserved, and even virtuous, particularly when it motivates us to begin seeking necessary change. But only until sunset, Paul says (Ephesians 4:26). If we stay with our rage and resentment too long, we will righteously and unthinkingly pass on the hurt in ever new directions, and we injure our own souls in ways we don’t even recognize. 

Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III shares how the prophets’ grief empowers them to seek justice:  

We must learn to grieve prophetically, seeing our world, even at its darkest, with the spirit and energy of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible. Those ancient teachers warned that the world was out of balance and that its repair requires our help. Grieving with them, we weep sometimes, yes, but without giving in to cynicism, hatred, and violence. We mourn as we work for change.… The challenge is to remember, even in our justified hurt and anger, that answering insult with insult and harm with harm just worsens the situation for everyone. We must remember the words of Dr. King: “Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that.” When we grieve prophetically, we heal ourselves and the world by looking to shape the larger forces that damaged the soul of the person who caused hurt or anger, whether minor or devastating. [1]  

Richard Rohr considers Jesus a model of prophetic tears.  

In this way, the realization that all things have tears, and most things deserve tears, might even be defined as a form of salvation from ourselves and from our illusions. The prophets knew and taught and modeled that anger must first be recognized, allowed—even loved!—as an expression of the deep, normally inaccessible sadness that each of us carry. Even Jesus, our enlightened one, “sobbed” over the whole city of Jerusalem (Luke 19:41) and at the death of his friend Lazarus (John 11:35). In his final “sadness … and great distress” in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:37), “his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood” (Luke 22:44).  

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 Originally posted on August 6, 2023. Diana Butler Bass

Luke 9:28-36

Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” —not knowing what he said.

While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

* * * * *

A few weeks ago, on a Sunday evening after a speaking engagement, I flew out of St. Louis. My hosts dropped me off at the airport about three hours before my flight. As I waited, I noticed that the sky grew threatening and my weather app indicated large storms moving toward the city from the west.

“Maybe we’ll beat it out of here,” I said to a fellow passenger, my words wary in a half-prayer and half-plea for assurance.

No such luck. We boarded just as the storm was bearing down on the airport.

As it happened, my seat-mate was an airline pilot who didn’t much like the look of things out of the window. He was glued to a professional flight app on his phone. The weather worsened, and I couldn’t believe that we were actually going to fly through it. I’ve flown a couple million miles in my life and had never seen a plane take off in such a storm. I asked him questions — a lot of them. He could tell I was nervous as we pulled out of the gate.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “We’ll be just fine as long as there’s no lightning.”

At that moment, the sky lit up. “Like that?” I asked and pointed out the window.

He looked out and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. My sense was that even he wasn’t completely comfortable. He buried himself in his navigation app.

We took off. It was raining like a monsoon. The plane rose into the cloud, turbulence bouncing us through the ascent. People gasped, one woman let out a scream. I gripped the armrest and my knuckles really turned white. I was glad not to be hooked up to a blood pressure monitor.

It went on like that for about ten minutes — terrified in those clouds.

Then, the plane broke through the top of the storm. Smooth air greeted us. We left the turbulence below. The rest of the flight was uneventful — and the clouds beneath us soon dispersed. 

Some Christians believe that today’s gospel story records a literal miracle of Moses and Elijah meeting Jesus on a mountain. I don’t know about miracles — we historians can be skeptical about evidence when it comes to miracles. That’s just our DNA. But I do recognize it as something else, something mysterious at the very least.

This episode sounds like thousands of stories from native religions or a transcript of a contemporary psychedelic therapy session. This gospel passage relates a mystical experience that was shared by Jesus and his closest followers. It includes all the requisite elements of such — prayer, the mountain, “dazzling” light, altered reality, hearing sacred voices.

And clouds. The transcendent zenith of the passage isn’t the appearance of Moses and Elijah — the prophets are the prelude to the real point of the story.

The climax is in the clouds:

While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

They were terrified as they entered the cloud.

I can relate. Clouds are scary.

There are, of course, different kinds of clouds. If you’ve ever lived by the shore, you might experience clouds as fog. Embracive, protecting, silent fog. Carl Sandberg’s cloudy “little cat feet” is an enigmatic presence: “it sits looking/over harbor and city/on silent haunches/and then moves on.” Or, if you live in the hills, you know the cloud wisps that cling to a mountain at night or in the morning, the sort of thickened mists that beg you to stay inside by the fire rather than venture out on uncertain roads. 

They were terrified as they entered the cloud.

That’s a stunning line, if you think about it. Written centuries ago by someone who never took off in a storm, never descended through rough clouds, it is a metaphor for an experience of God on the ground. Certainly, the author had known violent thunderstorms and desert haboobs. But to describe the divine presence as a cloud — a terrifying obscurity, a kind of blindness — speaks as much to our contemporary experience as it did ancient fears. 

The Transfiguration isn’t about celebrating glory. It is about encountering God in the turbulence. You won’t hear God — you can’t really know the presence — in temples that commemorate dazzling miracles. 

Rather, the Voice speaks in the midst of tumult. And its directive is odd — not “come and see,” a phrase often repeated in the gospels, but it is instead, “listen.”

Yes, this is a mystical experience of the sensory perception of hearing.

And it is also oddly true in its description of life — our ordinary reality these days — and compelling in its practicality. Because the best mystical experiences speak to living with faith in the world. Everyone comes off the mountain, carrying only the memory of what was learned.

The news right now is a bit like staring out the window of the plane in St. Louis or being glued to a weather app while speeding down the runway. There are storms in every direction — and we’re going right into the clouds. There’s no way out but through. And it is terrifying.

But what if that’s where God is? In the turbulence, the instability, the wild windy currents? Longing for miracles — and building lovely temples on a scenic hillside — might be the delusion of our days. Too much of politics caters to our craving miracles; faith is too often about finding some magical safe place. Promising miracles is little more than planting seeds of cynicism. You may win an election or grow a church, but if you are seeking the quick spiritual fix, the fruit will be rotten. 

Learning to navigate through the storm is what is needed.

Don’t cling to what dazzles, all those glittering images. On Transfiguration Sunday, God comes in the clouds: listen.

When lightning lit the sky in St. Louis, I closed my eyes. We were heading into the storm and there was no turning back. The plane rocked, making a way through the clouds. And I remember hearing inwardly: This is the way home, the only way. Breathe. Trust. You are not alone.

You are loved. 

Listen. 

It is we who need to be transformed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLtnThtaET4

In his book The Tears of Things, Father Richard Rohr describes the path of tears as one that leads to sympathy with suffering and communion with reality.   

Are we the only animal that cries and sheds tears as an emotional response? It seems so, but what function do they serve for us? Jesus says we should be happy if we can weep (Luke 6:21), but why? Tears seem to appear in situations of sadness, happiness, awe, and fear—and usually come unbidden. What is their free message to us and to those who observe them? Has humanity gotten the message yet? Whatever it is, it’s surely a message too deep for words.  

In the first book of Virgil’s Aeneid (line 462), the hero Aeneas gazes at a mural depicting a battle of the Trojan War and the deaths of his friends and countrymen. He’s so moved with sorrow at the tragedy of it all that he speaks of “the tears of things” (lacrimae rerum). As Seamus Heaney translates it, “There are tears at the heart of things”—at the heart of our human experience. [1] Only tears can move both Aeneas and us beyond our deserved and paralyzing anger at evil, death, and injustice without losing the deep legitimacy of that anger.  

This phrase “the tears of things” has continued to be quoted and requoted in many contexts over centuries. We find it on war memorials, in poetry, in the music of Franz Liszt, and in Pope Francis’ recent encyclical letter Fratelli Tutti. (I myself remember it because of a haggard, bent-over Latin teacher who would often enter the classroom moaning “Lacrimae rerum” several times before he began quizzing us.) 

Because the phrase has no prepositions in Latin, it allows two meanings at the same time: Virgil seems to be saying that there are both “tears in things” and “tears for things.” And each of these tears leads to the other. Though translators often feel compelled to choose one or the other meaning, I believe the poet implies it is both.  

There’s an inherent sadness and tragedy in almost all situations: in our relationships, our mistakes, our failures large and small, and even our victories. We must develop a very real empathy for this reality, knowing that we cannot fully fix things, entirely change them, or make them to our liking. This “way of tears,” and the deep vulnerability that it expresses, is opposed to our normal ways of seeking control through willpower, commandment, force, retribution, and violence. Instead, we begin in a state of empathy with and for things and people and events, which just might be the opposite of judgmentalism. It’s hard to be on the attack when you are weeping.  

Prophets and mystics recognize what most of us do not—that all things have tears and all things deserve tears. The sympathy that wells up when we weep can be life changing, too, drawing us out of ourselves and into communion with those around us.  

Letting Grief Flow

In an article for ONEING: The Path of the Prophet, Pixie Lighthorse, an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, describes how grief can encourage us to change:  

As external chaos rises, inner chaos is touched off. The need for inner resources to “see the bigger picture” and maintain faith is becoming amplified. As within, so without. The world out there reflects what’s going on inside.  

What’s going on inside is grief and the need for healing the constricted parts of us that are ready to be revealed and healed. The underground river within each of us is becoming more conscious, truth is coming to the surface, and with that comes collective and individual accountability…. 

When felt and acknowledged, grief becomes a daily reprieve. Healing involves inviting in the truth of how we feel, which is constantly changing, and valuing it as much as our perception of reality and the world of matter. Our feeling bodies have been relegated to the shadows for the most part, pushed under the rug in favor of what’s more convenient and acceptable. Feeling can be vulnerable, and we’ve learned all the ways to mask emotions as part of our social conditioning.  

Lighthorse prompts us to reflect on the grief we may be experiencing today: 

Our feelings are our inner waters, and to Indigenous peoples, water is our First Medicine. We should not find it surprising that authentic feelings had to go underground during the centuries-long process of colonization and expansive frontierism. The raw material of awakening to healing is found in tolerating the discomfort of our heinous mistakes and those of our ancestors. What if we are at a tipping point on humanity’s timeline, where we must name what hurts, grieve the losses, and learn how to make larger-scale repairs? Redemption is the process by which we make new choices to clear our debts. Emotionally speaking, noticing and naming injustice leads to protection of what is sacred, starting today.… 

What new levels of grieving, feeling, healing, and awakening to deeper individual and collective purposes will be required to make the kinds of shifts you want to see in the world? What waters can you honor and protect as sacred? What kind of world do you want for all our grandchildren? What fears are held in your unconscious, underground river that may be holding you hostage? What items from the past are tied to unprocessed grief?…

When grief flows, the past heals. We inherit new transmissions of wisdom from sources already surrounding us. By honoring grief and healing, we re-member, and we put ourselves back together. We can make decisions about how to move forward from our core selves rather than our guarded hurts. The shape of us and our world is being reimagined in this process from a place that has a little bit more wholeness. When the past is offered healing, compassion, and forgiveness, the future will have good water to put our feet in.  

Learning from the Mystics: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. from John Chaffee

Quote of the Week: “The only thing that I can be; a voice that repeats, opportune et importune, that the Church will waste away so long as she does not escape from the factitious world of verbal theology, of quantitative sacramentalism, and over-refined devotions in which she is enveloped, so as to reincarnate herself in the real aspirations of mankind…Of course I can see well enough what is paradoxical in this attitude: if I need Christ and the Church I should accept Christ as he is presented by the Church, with its burden of rites, administration and theology…  But now I can’t get away from the evidence that the moment has come when the Christian impulse should ‘save Christ’ from the hands of the clerics so that the world may be saved.”- A Journal Entry from Teilhard included in Spirit of Fire by Ursula King Reflection  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is a polarizing figure.  And, I think, for the right reasons. During his lifetime, de Chardin was exiled to China by the Catholic Church for his writings, which at the time, were wrestling with how to understand Christianity alongside the understanding of evolution at the time.  As a result, he was present at the finding of the Peking Man.  The Peking Man is understood as the remains of the Homo Erectus and dates back 400,000 years. This event led Teilhard to ask very important questions and to re-evaluate the role of the Church, ministry, the priesthood, and Christ.  Along with his observations of the Catholic Church during WWI and WWII, Teilhard wrote the journal entry above.  Rather than being ossified or concretized into something static and unchanging, Teilhard imagined a Church that could evolve WITH humanity and the world rather than hold it back. He believed that Christianity was AHEAD of where humanity finds itself today. And so, what does it mean for Teilhard to “save Christ”?  It means to reclaim an understanding of the Christ that is ahead rather than behind.  It means to wrestle the Christ from the hands of a priesthood that is looking to maintain a status quo that was established in the past.  If God is our Alpha and Omega, then it is important to recognize that our trajectory is headed toward the Omega, who is Christ and Christ is in the future. Teilhard calls this “Christ of the future” as our “Omega Point” to which all of cosmic history is headed.  And before you might say that this is a stretch, consider this passage from St. Paul. “With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment – to bring unity to all things in heaven and earth under the headship of Christ.” – Ephesians 1:8-10  Has our understanding of Christ become something that holds humanity back?  Is our understanding of Christ still something that inspires and beckons humanity into tomorrow?  Does our understanding of Christ integrate this material world or reject it?  Does our understanding of Christ remind us of our calling to “cultivate and care” for nature?  Does our understanding of Christ endorse a status quo that the Omega of History would say is holding humanity back?  Is it possible that the next evolution of humanity is an involution of a deepening spirituality along with the interconnectedness of the whole cosmos in Christ? The failure to recognize all these questions could lead to disaster.  Remember, Teilhard lived and wrote during the invention and inauguration of nuclear warfare.  For Teilhard, understanding what Christ would have for humanity is of absolute importance. These are all the questions that Teilhard was censored for asking.  These may be questions you are asking as well.  If so, then you are in good company.  You are not alone. May we be like Teilhard, and help “save Christ from the clerics so that the world may be saved.” Prayer  Alpha and Omega, inspire us and grant us the eyes to see your plan for cosmic history to reclaim all things back to you.  We admit that we have allowed  Christ to be small, allowed our faith to hold us back rather than invite us forward, and allowed our gaze to be more to yesterday than to tomorrow.  Help us to reclaim a view of Christ that calls us with courage into the future.  Help us to see that anything that helps us to grow in health and holiness, unity and community is what you want and will.  Help us to already live out Ephesians 1:10.  In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen and amen.

Life Overview Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:  Who is He: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin  When: Born on May 1st, 1881 in Orcines, France. Died on April 10th (Easter), 1955 in New York City, USA.  Why He is Important: Teilhard is a figure that “saw things deeply” while also navigating being a modern scientist.  He was an archaeologist as well as a Jesuit priest and sought to bring together evolution and Christianity by writing about how Christ is the goal of all cosmic history.  He was exiled and censured by the Vatican during his life, but his writings were allowed to be published after his death.  He was recently quoted by Pope Francis, which many see as an endorsement.  Most Known For: Synthesizing his scientific worldview along with his religious worldview, to then offer a modern approach to Christian spirituality. Notable Works to Check Out: The Divine Milieu | The Phenomenon of Man | The Future of Man | Selected Writings

Carl Jung: An Unexpected Mystic

Friday, February 28, 2025

I find that all my thoughts circle round God like the planets round the sun, and are as irresistibly attracted by [God]. I would feel it the most heinous sin were I to offer any resistance to this compelling force. —Carl Jung, letter, March 1955 

Father Richard considers Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung a mystic who had a deep connection to the divine:  

One of the major figures in my spiritual lineage is the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961). Although he was not a church-going Christian and said many things highly critical of organized Christianity as he saw it in his time, he laid a very solid foundation for the rediscovery of the spiritual world in an extremely materialistic and increasingly secular Europe. Jung utterly knew and believed that the inner life was the source of the outer; late in his life, he firmly and proudly replied when asked “Do you now believe in God?” with “I know. I don’t need to believe. I know.”  [1]  

Jung made statements that would surprise many Christians, conservative and liberal alike. For example, he saw Jesus’ life and many of the doctrines of the Church as a complete and perfect map and guide for human transformation. He believed in the central importance of rituals, myths, and symbols, which Catholics and Orthodox Christians could appreciate. Although Jung gave Bible passages more meaning and more credibility, he was perceived as an unbeliever by most Protestants. His development of concepts such as shadow, paradox, archetypes, symbols, and the psychological character of human transformation into the Divine made him a true prophet of the soul and a teacher of deep, inner sacramentalism. [2] 

Jung believed that if God wants to speak to us, God has to use words that will, first of all, feel like our own thoughts. How else could God come to us? That’s why we have to be taught how to recognize, honor, and allow that sometimes our thoughts are God’s thoughts. That internal trust and authority is necessary to balance out the almost exclusive reliance upon external authority promoted by mainline Christianity. While Scripture, priests, pastors, and the pope may be necessary, Jung recognized that they are all external to the self, and offer us a religion from the outside in. Jung wanted to teach us to honor those same symbols, but from the inside out, to recognize that there are already numinous voices in our deepest depths. If we do not have deep contact with our in-depth self, he believed we could not know God. 

Jung wrote, “The whole world is God’s suffering.” [3] That is the knowing of a mystic, and it’s one of my favorite lines of his. A mystic sees thing in wholes, not just in parts. They can connect all the anecdotes and intuit the big patterns. Christian mystics recognize that every incidence of suffering is a participation in what we Christians would call the eternal crucifixion of the Christ. When we see in wholes, we can always find a place for each of the parts. [4] 

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Jesus Calling: February 28

    Stop judging and evaluating yourself, for this is not your role. Above all, stop comparing yourself with other people. This produces feelings of pride or inferiority; sometimes, a mixture of both. I lead each of My children along a path that is uniquely tailor-made for him or her. Comparing is not only wrong; it is also meaningless.
    Don’t look for affirmation in the wrong places: your own evaluations, or those of other people. The only source of real affirmation is My unconditional Love. Many believers perceive Me as an unpleasable Judge, angrily searching out their faults and failures. Nothing could be farther from the truth! I died for your sins, so that I might clothe you in My garments of salvation. This is how I see you: radiant in My robe of righteousness. When I discipline you, it is never in anger or disgust; it is to prepare you for face-to-Face fellowship with me throughout all eternity. Immerse yourself in My loving Presence. Be receptive to My affirmation, which flows continually from the throne of grace. 

Luke 6:37 NLT

Do Not Judge Others

37 “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you. Forgive others, and you will be forgiven.

John 3:16-17 NLT

16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave[a] his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

Isaiah 61:10 NLT

10 I am overwhelmed with joy in the Lord my God!

    For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation

    and draped me in a robe of righteousness.

I am like a bridegroom dressed for his wedding

    or a bride with her jewels.

Proverbs 3:11-12 NLT

11 My child, don’t reject the Lord’s discipline,

    and don’t be upset when he corrects you.

12 For the Lord corrects those he loves,

    just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights.

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John Ruusbroec: The Struggle for Love

Thursday, February 27, 2025

Jesuit scholar Harvey Egan writes about the Dutch mystic John Ruusbroec:   

John Ruusbroec, “the Admirable,” [1293–1381] has been called the greatest contemplative and mystical writer in the Christian tradition. He has also been praised as the most articulate trinitarian mystic of the West, unmatched in his power to describe the unitive life. Yet, if those who know something about the Christian tradition are asked to list the great mystics, rarely is Ruusbroec named first—if he is named at all.  

John was born in Ruusbroec, South Brabant, about five miles from Brussels. When he was 11 years old, he went to live with an uncle of his who was a canon [senior priest] of a Brussels cathedral…. Ordained at the age of 24, Ruusbroec spent 26 years at St. Gudula’s. There he maintained close contact with the local Beguines. At 50 years of age, Ruusbroec … retired for a more contemplative life to the forest of Soignes, Groenendaal (green valley), just outside of Brussels…. Here Ruusbroec lived the “God-seeing” life for 38 years before dying at the age of 88. [1] 

James Finley recommends that we read John Ruusbroec and mystics like him with a deliberate, contemplative reading style: 

When we look at these writings of this mystic, what makes him so worth reading in my mind is the poetic eloquence of his language. It’s just exquisite. There are certain passages where he reaches a certain sublime altitude. It’s his gift to put words to these very subtle unitive states of oneness with God. You can read him one paragraph at a time, outline it and sit with it, take it in, walk with it; it’s like a rich inner landscape of the awakened heart, a very carefully nuanced, rich, and grounding place. [2] 

We invite you to use Finley’s instructions to sit with this passage from Ruusbroec’s famous text The Divine Espousals, in which he describes intimate union with God “without difference”:  

In this storm of love two spirits struggle—the Spirit of God and our spirit. God, by means of the Holy Spirit, inclines [Godself] toward us, and we are thereby touched in love; our spirit, by means of God’s activity and the amorous power, impels and inclines itself toward God, and thereby God is touched. From these two movements there arises the struggle of love, for in this most profound meeting, in this most intimate and ardent encounter, each spirit is wounded by love. These two spirits, that is, our spirit and God’s Spirit, cast a radiant light upon one another and each reveals to the other its countenance. This makes the two spirits incessantly strive after one another in love. Each demands of the other what it is, and each offers to the other and invites it to accept what it is. This makes these loving spirits lose themselves in one another. God’s touch and his giving of himself, together with our striving in love and our giving of ourselves in return—this is what sets love on a firm foundation. [3] 

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Sara Young Jesus Calling

Jesus Calling: February 27

    Keep your eyes on Me! Waves of adversity are washing over you, and you feel tempted to give up. As your circumstances consume more and more of your attention, you are losing sight of Me. Yet I am with you always, holding you by your right hand. I am fully aware of your situation, and I will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able to bear. 

    Your gravest danger is worrying about tomorrow. If you try to carry tomorrow’s burdens today, you will stagger under the load and eventually fall flat. You must discipline yourself to live within the boundaries of today. It is in the present moment that I walk close to you, helping you carry your burdens. Keep your focus on My Presence in the present.

RELATED SCRIPTURE: 

Psalm 73:23 NLT

23 Yet I still belong to you;

    you hold my right hand.

1st Corinthians 10:13 NLT

13 The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.

Scholar Wendy Farley introduces the Rhineland mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg:  

Little is known about Mechthild [c. 1212–c.1282], though her name indicates that she lived most of her life in Magdeburg, near the border between German-speaking and Slavic territory…. A pious child, she was twelve when her almost daily “greetings” by the Holy Spirit began. As a young woman of about twenty she moved to Magdeburg, a city where she knew only one person, perhaps a Dominican friar. She lived as a beguine for most of the rest of her life…. Mechthild’s beautiful and bold book The Flowing Light of the Godhead is among the first religious writings in Middle Low German. By writing in her native language, she makes her spiritual journey and her theological reflections available to women and laypeople. [1]  

Farley focuses on Mechthild’s radical understanding of God’s power:  

The church of Mechthild’s time used monarchical images for God to justify a hierarchical ordering of human society: from God descended popes, bishops, clergy, lords, vassals, and fathers. Like medieval rulers, God demands obedience and loyalty. God’s favor is to be desired and God’s punishments feared.  

Mechthild uses royal imagery for God (empress, queen, or lord). But because she conceives of power as a form of love, she understands monarchical metaphors in a distinctive way. God’s majesty and omnipotence are qualities related to the divine desire for intimacy with humanity. For Mechthild, it is not sheer power that makes God divine. It is love. This play between love and power is evident in the preface of Mechthild’s book, where God claims authorship of the book. “I made [gemachet] it in my powerlessness [unmaht], for I cannot restrain myself as to my gifts.” [2] This is a paradoxical way of describing divine power. Even God is powerless to contain God…. God is powerless to stop giving gifts to humanity. Because the divine nature is love, to do so would require the unmaking of divinity itself.  

Theologians such as Augustine and [Martin] Luther struggle to understand how to reconcile love and justice or divine omnipotence and human agency. This is in part because they think of power as coercive or univocal agency. But for Mechthild, God’s desire for humanity is incompatible with sheer omnipotence, not because God has less power but because it is a different kind of power. God renounces power as “might,” in favor of love….  

Mechthild acknowledges that there is a kind of power that demands strict justice and leaves the guilty to languish in their prison…. But she withholds this kind of power from God. This is not because God has less power than these wielders of might but because that kind of power is a diseased and distorted power. Out of love, the Father abandons the power to perpetuate suffering because the deeper and more authentic power is what redeems, heals, and restores. Mercy is a different kind of almighty-ness which draws even those brutalized by sin back into loving communion.… Divine power allows love to displace might. [3]  

The Well. by David Whyte

But the miracle had come simply
from allowing yourself to know
that this time you had found it,
that some now familiar stranger
appearing from far inside you,
had decided not to walk past
it any more;
that the miracle had come in the kneeling to drink
and the prayer you said, and the tears you shed
and the memories you held
and the realization that in this silence
you no longer had to keep
your eyes and ears averted
from the place that could save you,
and that you had the strength
at last to let go of the thirsty,
unhappy, dust-laden
pilgrim-self that brought you here,
walking with her bent back,
her bowed head
and her careful explanations.

No, the miracle had already
happened before you stood up,
before you shook off the dust
and walked along the road
beyond the well, out of the desert
and on, toward the mountain,
as if home again, as if you
deserved to have everything
you had loved all along,
as if just remembering the first
fresh taste of that clear cool spring
could lift up your face
to the morning light and set you free.

Theologian Matthew Fox introduces the life and teachings of German mystic Meister Eckhart:  

Of all the mystics of the West, it is difficult to find anyone who more profoundly articulates the journey we make into the divine and out in the world again than Meister Eckhart. His is a spirituality of passion and compassion. Eckhart, a Dominican friar and preacher, lived from 1260 to 1329…. He teaches that spiritual awakening is to lead to justice-making and compassion in the world. He practiced what he preached…. Two examples of this are his support of the Beguine movement which was the women’s movement of the fourteenth century. And another is his support of the peasants. Indeed, half his sermons were preached in the peasant dialect of his day, and at his trial he was accused of “confusing the simple people” by telling them that they were all “aristocrats,” or “royal persons.”  

But this is precisely the heart of Eckhart’s teaching and the heart of the biblical tradition of creation spirituality: That humans are blessed with divine powers and beauty but also with responsibilities of justice-making and compassion that characterize all royal personhood. How do we get to such deep self-esteem and to such deep acceptance of our responsibility?…. Our awareness is everything; our waking up is everything. We need to move from the superficial or “outer self” to the true self or “inner self.” Who is this inner self? Eckhart answers this question in his treatise “On the Aristocrat,” or “On the Royal Person.”  

Fox presents Eckhart’s teaching: 

The inner person is the soil in which God has sown the divine likeness and image and in which God sows the good seed, the roots of all wisdom, all skills, all virtues, all goodness—the seed of the divine nature…. This is the good tree of which our Lord says that it always bears good fruit and never evil fruit. For it desires goodness and is inclined toward goodness…. 

The seed of God is in us. If the seed had a good, wise, and industrious cultivator, it would thrive all the more and grow up to God whose seed it is, and the fruit would be equal to the nature of God. Now, the seed of a pear tree grows into a pear tree, a hazel seed into a hazel tree, the seed of God into God…. While this seed may be crowded, hidden away, and never cultivated, it will still never be obliterated. It glows and shines, gives off light, burns, and is unceasingly inclined toward God. 

Fox concludes: 

It is our task to cultivate this seed and give it nourishment so that the divine image in us can grow and thrive and prosper. This is what the spiritual journey is all about. Our spiritual journey consists in nourishing and watering and caring for this God-seed that is in all of us. 

God’s Temple Expansion Project

Failing to read the creation chapters in Genesis as temple narratives means that we will probably interpret them with another, less accurate, lens. For example, I thought of Eden as a divine zoo when I was young. It’s where God set up a comfortable habitat to watch his naked human creatures frolic without a care in the world. Like most modern Americans, my understanding of paradise was defined by leisure. In this way, the Garden of Eden seemed more like a hippie commune to me than anything resembling a temple. Viewing Eden as an all-inclusive resort or a human zoo presents God as a puppet master and reduces humanity’s purpose to just divine amusement. This, of course, is a terrible reading of Genesis.If we properly understand Eden as a temple where the heavens and earth overlap, and the humans as priests called to care for this bridge between God and his creation, then the garden becomes a collaborative environment where the Creator and people work together for a common goal. That goal becomes clear when we combine the seven-day temple inauguration account in Genesis 1 with the garden-temple narrative in Genesis 2-3. After creating his image/idols in Genesis 1:26-28, God instructs the man and women to “rule” over the earth on his behalf and cultivate order, beauty, and abundance everywhere. They were to “fill the earth and subdue it.” This is the very first command given in the Bible.Theologians refer to this verse in Genesis 1 as the “Cultural Mandate.” Nancy Pearcey, in her book Total Truth, explains why:The first phrase, ‘be fruitful and multiply,’ means to develop the social world: build families, churches, schools, cities, governments, laws. The second phrase, ‘subdue the earth,’ means to harness the natural world: plant crops, build bridges, design computers, and compose music. This passage is sometimes called the Cultural Mandate because it tells us that our original purpose was to create cultures, build civilizations—nothing less.Moving into the next chapter about the garden with this in mind, rather than a zoo created by God to contain humans it’s evident that Eden was intended to be a base camp to launch this shared God-human project. The man and woman were never supposed to remain in the garden. Instead, they and their descendants were to cooperate with God to expand the garden’s order, beauty, and abundance to fill the earth. In other words, God’s goal was for his temple to grow and encompass the whole world and everyone in it. As we continue through the Bible, it’s this temple-expansion mission that will explain God’s calling of Abraham and his descendants (Israel), the arrival of Jesus, his death, resurrection, and ascension, the purpose of God’s multiethnic community (the church), and the vision we see at the very end the Bible of God dwelling with all of his people in a renewed earth full of his glory. And, more immediately, it will help us make sense of humanity’s rebellion against God and their expulsion from the garden-temple. Stay tuned. DAILY SCRIPTURE GENESIS 1:26-29 PSALM 8:3-8 WEEKLY PRAYER. from Clement of Rome (d. 99) May God, who sees all things, and who is the Ruler of all spirits and the Lord of all flesh—who chose our Lord Jesus Christ and us through Him to be a peculiar people—grant to every soul that calls upon His glorious and holy Name, faith, peace, patience, long-suffering, self-control, purity, and sobriety, to the well-pleasing of His Name, through our High Priest and Protector, Jesus Christ, by whom be to Him glory, and majesty, and power, and honor, both now and forevermore. Amen.

Mystics of the Rhine Valley

This week’s meditations will explore some of the mystics of the European Rhine Valley from medieval times until the 20th century. Father Richard Rohr begins:  

We live in a time of both crisis and opportunity. While there are many reasons to be anxious today, I still have hope, not only in God, but in the fact that many Westerners, including Christians, are rediscovering the value of nonduality: a way of thinking, acting, reconciling, boundary-crossing, and bridge-building based on inner experience of God and God’s Spirit moving in the world. It moves us beyond binary, either-or, us-against-them mentality. To be clear, nondual thinking isn’t about throwing out our rational mind or refusing to act against injustice; it’s about growing in mystical, contemplative, and unitive consciousness. When we have both, we’re able to see more broadly, deeply, wisely, and lovingly. We can collaborate on creative solutions to today’s problems. I’m encouraged that there’s renewed appreciation in the Christian tradition for people like the mystics who model such wholeness. [1]  

My own cultural roots are in the Rhineland of Northern Europe. The Rhineland mystics were mostly German-speaking spiritual writers, preachers, and teachers, who lived largely between the 11th and 15th centuries. Their importance has only recently been rediscovered. The “trans-alpine” Church (meaning those on the other side of the Alps from Rome) always enjoyed a certain degree of freedom from Roman oversight and control, simply by reason of distance, and drew upon different sources and inspirations than did the “cis-alpine” Church of Italy, France, and Spain. The Rhineland Mystics were outstanding in their courage and very creative viewpoints.   

Some of the most familiar Rhineland mystics would include the Benedictines Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) and Gertrude the Great (1256–1302); the Beguine Mechthild of Magdeburg (c. 1212–c. 1282); the Dominicans, including Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–1327), Johannes Tauler (c. 1300–1361), and Henry Suso (1295–1366); and Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464). A more recent Rhineland mystic I’d like to include is psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961), who acknowledged the influence of Hildegard, Eckhart, and Nicholas of Cusa.  

After the Protestant Reformation, the mystical path was largely mistrusted. Some would even say it was squelched because of Martin Luther’s (1483–1546) emphasis on the Bible as the only source of knowledge about God (sola Scriptura). Personal spiritual experience was considered unimportant and suspect. To be fair, Luther’s contributions led Christians to an early stage “rational” use of the Scriptures which was a necessary corrective to Catholic over-spiritualization. But within Luther’s own reformed tradition, profound mystics arose such as the German shoemaker Jacob Boehme (1575–1624) and the inventor Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772).  

In the following centuries, German academic theology flourished, relying almost exclusively on post-Reformation rationalism. While theological study continues to be an immense gift to the world, one can easily get trapped inside of endless discussions about abstract ideas with little emphasis on experience or practice. In contrast, mystics honor the experience of the essential mystery and unknowability of God and invite us to do the same. [2]  

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Hildegard of Bingen: A Multi-Talented Mystic

I burn in the sun and the moon and the stars. The secret Life of Me breathes in the wind and holds all things together soulfully.   
—Hildegard of Bingen, Book of Divine Works 1.1.2  

CAC affiliate faculty member Carmen Acevedo Butcher describes the extraordinary life of Hildegard of Bingen:  

Between the summer of 1098 and the autumn of 1179, a remarkable German woman lived eighty-one years at a time when half that long was considered a full life. The Über-multitasking Frau, this Benedictine nun founded two convents; organized the first-ever public preaching tours conducted by a woman; authored nearly four hundred bold letters to popes, emperors, abbesses, abbots, monks, nuns, and laypeople; worked as healer, naturalist, botanist, dietary specialist, and exorcist; composed daring music; crafted poetry with staying power; wrote the first surviving sung morality play; and spent decades writing three compelling theological works. Meet the incomparable Hildegard of Bingen. Her long resume is impressive in any age, but it pales when compared with her life, which she considered her best divine offering. [1]  

Acevedo Butcher highlights Hildegard’s passion for music as a pathway to God:  

A multi-faceted artist, Hildegard was not only an author and a talented visual designer, but a musician of note. Her allegiance to God through her music is one of the strongest refrains in her life. She believed music was necessary for salvation, because it was the best representation of the state of humanity before the Fall. If a person wanted to know what it felt like to be alive before the Fall, Hildegard believed holy music could take you there, as she writes in her famous letter to the Prelates of Mainz:  

Music stirs our hearts and engages our souls in ways we can’t describe. When this happens, we are taken beyond our earthly banishment back to the divine melody Adam knew when he sang with the angels, when he was whole in God, before his exile. In fact, before Adam refused God’s fragrant flower of obedience, his voice was the best on earth, because he was made by God’s green thumb, who is the Holy Spirit. And if Adam had never lost the harmony God first gave him, the mortal fragilities that we all possess today could never have survived hearing the booming resonance of that original voice. [2]  

Hildegard’s songs often praised God’s presence in creation:  

O Holy Power who forged the Way for us!  
You penetrate all in heaven and earth and even down below.   
You’re everything in One.   
Through You, clouds billow and roll and winds fly!  
Seeds drip juice,   
springs bubble into brooks, and   
spring’s refreshing greens flow—through You—over all the earth!  
You also lead my spirit into Fullness.   
Holy Power, blow wisdom in my soul and—with your wisdom—Joy! [3]  

Mystical Union in Times of Crisis

MARK LONGHURSTFEB 23

from CAC editor Mark Longhurst

The crises of our time demand that our spiritualities no longer navel gaze. That’s the criticism, at least, of contemplation. How can we pray when authoritarian leaders grow in power, when they scapegoat immigrants and transgender people, and when the earth burns from fossil fuels? How can we pray when genocide and ethnic cleansing take place? To me, the question is: How can we not pray in times like these? The true mystics are not those who retreat from the world but who find union with it. Such people are the ones whose intimacy with God and Life itself is such that their eyes are wide open to reality and their hearts necessarily break with those who suffer.

People who chronicle the mystical life often use language of “union” to describe what they’ve only glimpsed. Evelyn Underhill says mysticism is “the art of union with Reality.” There’s even a long tradition in Christian tradition of so-called “spousal mysticism.” Sixteenth-century Spanish mystics like John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila found such delight in divine love that only ecstatic exclamations of erotic, marital union could approximate their experience. Mystics from early Christianity onwards read the erotic poetry of the Hebrew Bible (yes, it’s in there!) and applied it to the soul and God: “I am my beloved and he is mine,” says the poetic voice of the Song of Songs (6:3).

But anyone who cares about the world, or even their neighborhood, today is painfully aware how far we are from union. Our cultural, political, and moral landscapes are filled with wounded division, the grossest abuses of power, groupthink, vitriol, scapegoating, and attribution of evil to the other. It’s almost enough to give up on unity. What can the mystical vision possibly offer such a world? How can there be true oneness without justice for all, especially for those who suffer most? And if we take sides, say, with the poor or immigrant person, or the incarcerated person, or the transgender person, does that mean we are giving up on oneness because certain other neighbors will be upset? If we are concerned about what’s happening to democracy in the United States, and stand against the President’s assault on longstanding legal norms, we are necessarily generating conflict, indeed a type of division rather than oneness, with the way things are. What’s a compassionate, everyday mystic to do?

I once heard speaker and author Brian McLaren talk about three stages towards union, or “unitive consciousness.” First, he said, there is naïve oneness, followed by duality, which eventually gives way to a more mature and heterogeneous oneness. Naïve oneness, on the positive and innocent side, is the undifferentiated union of mother and baby in utero. But out of the womb, naïve oneness often takes a harmful turn: it’s the narcissistic claim of the white, privileged person doing yogic breathing and heralding “oneness with the universe”—but while spinning COVID misinformation and demonstrating no awareness of systemic racism.

Bible readers will recall the desired “one language” of the builders of Babel’s tower, the imperial claim of powers to make the world in their image: “Look they are one people, and they all have one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do” (Genesis 11:6). Instead of a oneness that values diversity, naïve oneness is the ego doing the self-preservation that the ego usually does. When naïve oneness meets institutional power and privilege, it clings to it at all costs. 

Duality and separation are a fact and not negative in themselves. We order our lives by binaries. For instance, I’m grateful for the code that wrote the program to build the computer on which I’m typing this post. I drove to the library today and made a binary, either-or choice to stop at the stop light when it turned red instead of crashing into the oncoming car. We necessarily differentiate from our parents in order to become our individual, adult selves. We are constantly choosing “this” and not “that,” and that’s good.

The holy and ordinary mystic knows how to operate in a world of binaries but also sees that reality is always more than two. A consciousness that has moved beyond dualism understands and participates in a wide and inclusive reality beyond Black/white, male/female, LGBTQ+/straight, Christian/non-Christian, citizen/undocumented immigrant. Compassionate wholeness holds a consciousness that is more than dual or what some writers call non-dual.

But just what is such a nondual or “unitive” consciousness? It’s far easier to name what it’s not than to articulate what it is, but you know it when you see it. The elderly person with a unitive heart who has nothing to prove, shines authentic joy, and speaks with just as much sparkle to children as to adults. The person who awakens the passion of being alive within you and makes you laugh more than you thought possible. Union is when I hunker down by my local brook and the incessant gurgle and flow of water cracks open something spacious inside me. Nondual or “unitive” consciousness is the elusive oneness that emerges only after learning from and even loving duality and difference.

First-stage, naïve “oneness” is really another word for domination and homogeny. When white people in the United States nurse resentments and grievances against “those” people, it festers into white nationalism and supremacy. It is “oneness” only for the few. Mega-corporations who sell the world their products may seem to be bringing people together but the brand façade often hides the injustice of Babel all over again. The world uses Google to search the internet and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram to share their lives—but whatever nondual consciousness is, it is more than digital non-intimacy and a platform for oligarchy. Instead of homogeneity and echo-chamber scrolling, unitive consciousness is, paradoxically, an oneness that includes difference. It is the spacious ability to honor multiple truths and identities without falling prey to the postmodern trap that would have us believe that multiple truths and identities are all there is.

Jesus lays claim to a spiritual fact of unity when he says, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30) and then prays “that they may all be one” (John 17:21). But Jesus also shows in his life and ministry that the oneness he experiences with the Father is anything but naïve. The oneness he experiences with the divine is the same oneness that he enacts with everyone around him—whether eating with tax collectors, healing lepers, hanging with the poor, or delivering the demon-possessed. “You will always have the poor with you,” he tells his followers (John 12:8), not because he is insensitive to the pain of poverty, but because Jesus followers are the ones who are united with those who suffer.

The mature mystic understands that the excluded can form a cast of saints rather than a deviation from the binary code. The degree of solidarity we demonstrate with people who suffer mirrors the degree of growth in true unity.

This is an adapted excerpt from my book The Holy Ordinary. If you haven’t read it yet, I hope it might be a resource for you to discover divine depths, even in these times.

Friday, February 21, 2025

Father Richard considers the transformative impact of people who live within the cosmic egg: 

The person who lives within the total cosmic egg is the mystic, the prophet, the universal human, the saint, the whole one. These are people like Mahatma Gandhi, St. Bonaventure, Martin Luther King Jr., St. Teresa of Calcutta, St. John Henry Newman, Dag Hammarskjöld, and Julian of Norwich (my favorite mystic). These are the people who look out—with eyes wide as saucers—at the smaller pictures because they observe from the utterly big picture. These are the ones who can both honor and listen to smaller, personal stories, and also live in the final state of affairs, already, now. They are often called seers because their perspective contains many eyes, even, somehow, the eyes of God.  

Great “seers” operate beyond mere group loyalties; beyond any simple, dualistic thinking that always puts them on the “right” side; beyond winners and losers, good and bad. They are somehow able to live by universal principles while still caring for the specific; honoring cultural norms, yet making room for the exceptions. They have seen in a contemplative way, beyond the shadow and the disguise, beyond the suffocating skin of the private self and the self-serving egotisms of group. The contemplative mind integrates and gives focus to all our calculating and controlling. Without it, there is only civil and self-serving religion.  

True reconstruction will be led by those who can engage reality at all four levels simultaneously. They can honor the divine level and live ultimately inside of a great big story line. They appreciate the needs and context of our story and other stories and don’t dismiss them as mere cultural trappings or meaningless traditions. They won’t say that my story is not important, either. They won’t demean or dismiss people who are working on personal issues or addressing the important identity concerns of the first half of life.  

Most importantly, we cannot separate personal healing from societal healing. It’s not sequential, but simultaneous. Many in our therapeutically focused society think they first must find healing and integration personally and then they will be free to serve groups or search for God. Yet it seems to me that it all happens in a spiral. In fact, there is a natural ecology of checks and balances between the four domes of meaning. I was lucky and blessed enough to have good family, religion, community, helpful therapy, and time for self-knowledge—overlapping one another like waves from an endless sea. Most people emphasize only one or the other, but those who honor all four levels have transcended the limitations of a single story. True transcendence frees us from the tyranny of I am, the idolatry of we are, and the scapegoating of they are. When all four stories are taken seriously, as the Bible shows us very well, we have a full life—fully human and fully divine.  

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5 On Friday; John Chaffee

1.

“Distrust anyone in whom the desire to punish is strong.“

– Friedrich Nietzsche, Atheist German Philosopher

Lutheranism surrounded Nietzsche in his younger years.  His father was a Lutheran pastor.  And, although he is understood as a strong critic of religion and Christianity in particular, there are ways in which he was critiquing the dominant religiosity with what Christianity already taught him.

From my Lutheran upbringing and seminary education, it was a central point that God is not punishing.  God might prune us, but that is not the same as punishment.  I cannot help but think that this quote above is in complete harmony with what Lutheran theology teaches.

Here is the thing: Our image of God creates a moral limit for us.  If God is allowed to punish, then we are allowed to punish.  If God does not punish but seeks to restore, then we should not punish and should seek to restore.  If God’s mercy eventually runs out, then we are permitted to, at some point, become merciless with others.

Do you see what I am getting at?

If we do not trust a false god who is quick to punish, then perhaps we should stop trusting figures who are also quick to punish.

2.

“Whether this is the first day of the Apocalypse or the first day of the Golden Age, the work remains the same… love each other and ease as much suffering as possible.“

– Ram Dass (aka Dr. Richard Alpert), Havard Professor

This is fantastic.

In other words, this is the work of the Tikkun Olam.  I have mentioned this idea many times in the past, but it is just that good.

Tikkun Olam is the “ongoing repairing of the world.”  It is a task that none of us can complete, and none can abdicate.  We are all called to participate in and help the world heal, no matter our life circumstances.

The Tikkun Olam is the work of Divine Love.

3.

“The closer one approaches to God, the simpler one becomes.“

– St. Teresa of Avila, Spanish Catholic Reformer

If I were to point out the two most influential female Christian mystics and theologians in my life, they would undoubtedly be Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Avila.  I would love to reread Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love, but I have already read Interior Castle by Teresa of Avila 4 times.

It feels like the simple life is less and less valued in today’s culture.  It feels as though people are chasing after being complex or multifaceted.  We want to stand out by being masters of all things and to chase after the endless treadmill of being unique “enough” to be loveable.

However, the idea that God is simple and invites us into simplicity is attractive.

In the past month, I have debated not just deleting all social media but the accounts altogether.  I have wondered what my life would be like if I had more quotes coming to me from Jesus rather than Trump.  How might my life look if I intentionally downsized my life’s activities so that I could have more time to be slow and intentional?  What could my life look like if every moment was grounded in presence rather than distraction after distraction?

If Teresa of Avila is correct here, I wonder if our pursuit of complexity and increase is also a way of running away from God.

4.

“There is no way to peace, peace is the way.“

– AJ Muste, Reformed Pastor and Activist

The idea that peace must be fought for or that violence must happen and that there might eventually be peace is a common one.  We all know the adage, “If you want peace, prepare for war.”

Some history buffs might also know about the Pax Romana, a Latin phrase meaning “The Peace of Rome.”  The Roman Empire indeed produced a lot of peace for its citizens. However, it came at the cost of obliterating anyone who opposed Rome.  The Roman Empire would crush and destroy any foreigner or civilian who opposed its rule.  Hence, there was “peace.”

AJ Muste put it simply, though.  “There is no way to peace, peace is the way.”  It is not that we must fight to have peace; if we want peace, we must learn to practice it now rather than in an imagined or delayed future.  It means that we must disagree and even argue with one another peaceably.  Peace itself IS the way.

5.

“The Gospel of liberation is bad news to all oppressors because they have defined their freedom in terms of slavery of others.”

– James H. Cone, American Theologian

To all the kings and pharaohs and presidents of the world, the true Gospel of Jesus is inherently disruptive.  It means that those at the bottom are worthy of being treated with dignity and respect and that God turns a special eye to them.  In Liberation Theology, this is the “preferential option for the poor.”  In Jesus’ verbiage, “Whatever you do for the least of these brothers and sisters you do for me.” (Matthew 25:45)

To those at the top of the hierarchies of the world, the “Gospel” benefits them when it only cares about sins but not about structures of oppression.  They want the “Gospel” to be about forgiving people when they disobey their government.

(Sin is so much more than simply violating the laws of the land.)

To any oppressors who stand upon the backs of poor peasants and slaves, it means that their little empires deserve to crumble.  God is not willing that any human empire be built upon the backs of forced labor; that is a significant theme of the Book of Exodus, and yet we miss it!

It is fascinating, though, that the Greek word for Savior is Σοτερ (Soter), and it also means “Liberator.”  Conservatives love to focus on Christ as a Savior of Sinners, and Liberals love to focus on Christ as a Liberator of the Oppressed.  Our task is to hold Christ fully as both Savior AND Liberator.