In a teaching for the CAC’s forthcoming Living School: Essentials of Engaged Contemplation program, guest teacher Carmen Acevedo Butcher shares how she came to know and be transformed by the Jesus Prayer: 

It was the coldest winter of my entire life thus far. I was 22 and I was a student at Heidelberg University. I was lonesome and homesick, and I was also suffering and recovering from an eating disorder. Into that mix came a 79-year-old woman named Frau Sophie Buschbeck. No one was better named, since her name was Sophie, which means wisdom. Sophie was a refugee in World War II, and her husband spent five years in a Russian prison camp. He was a Lutheran minister and contemporary of the theologian and Nazi resister Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Sophie’s husband was writing her letters in Germany, while she was moving around the country with eight children fleeing the incoming Russian soldiers. One of my college professors and his wife sent clothing and shoes to Sophie and her eight children while they were refugees, and thus our friendship began.  

Acevedo Butcher wanted to learn German and was offered a scholarship to attend the University of Heidelberg.  

I had suffered a traumatic childhood. The abuse in my family was ongoing, and by the time I landed in Germany, I felt that I was hemorrhaging inside. I was wondering, how am I going to make this?…  

I was very tired of Christianity at that point. I could hardly read the Bible, and I certainly could not read it in English. Sophie Buschbeck at that time was a widow living alone…. She asked me to read the Bible to her in German. She didn’t know my backstory, so I read the Bible to her. I was just suffering, and she must have seen it. She took me under her wing…. One day, right before Christmas, she gave me a gift and the gift was a book entitled Das Jesusgebet (The Jesus Prayer). I still have the book. She said, “I think you would like this book,” and that’s when my love for the Jesus Prayer started. 

I was walking all over Heidelberg during that very cold winter. I came over from Georgia in the U.S. with only polyester sweaters which just would not cut it, and Sophie had to give me a wool sweater. I began to pray, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” and variations of the Jesus Prayer. I said it over and over and over all day long. At the end of that time, when I went back home, all my problems were still there. I still had my own internal struggles, and I was trying to navigate my ongoing breakdown. [But] the Jesus Prayer—this constant returning to the present awareness of love—had begun to heal me. I will always be grateful for Sophie, for giving me that nudge and for being able to repeat this prayer until I could feel my soul being knit together again.   

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Sarah Young Jesus Calling

Trust Me and don’t be afraid, for I am your Strength and Song. Do not let fear dissipate your energy. Instead, invest your energy in trusting Me and singing My Song. The battle for control of your mind is fierce, and years of worry have made you vulnerable to the enemy. Therefore, you need to be vigilant in guarding your thoughts. Do not despise this weakness in yourself, since I am using it to draw you closer to Me. Your constant need for Me creates an intimacy that is well worth all the effort. You are not alone in this struggle for your mind. My Spirit living within you is ever ready to help in this striving. Ask Him to control your mind; He will bless you with Life and Peace.

RELATED BIBLE SCRIPTURES:

Isaiah 12:2 NLT
“See, God has come to save me.
    I will trust in him and not be afraid.
The Lord God is my strength and my song;
    he has given me victory.”

Additional insight: This chapter of Isaiah is a hymn of praise – another graphic description of the people’s joy when Jesus Christ comes to reign over the earth. Even now we need to express our gratitude to God, thanking him, praising him, and telling others about him. From the depths of our gratitude, we must praise him. And we should share the Good News with others.
Romans 8:6 NLT
6 So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.

Additional insight regarding Romans 8:6: Once we have said yes to Jesus, we will want to continue following him, because his way brings life and peace. Daily we must consciously choose to center our life on God. Use the Bible to discover God’s guidelines, and then follow them. In every perplexing situation, ask yourself – What would Jesus want me to do? When the Holy Spirit points out what is right, do it eagerly. For more on sinful nature versus our new life in Christ, see Romans 6:6-8, Ephesians 4:22-24, and Colossians 3:3-15.

From Head to Heart

Lower your head, shut your eyes, breathe out gently and imagine yourself looking into your own heart. Carry your mind, that is, your thoughts, from your head to your heart.  
—St. Symeon the New Theologian 

CAC teacher James Finley continues to reflect on St. Symeon’s instructions for praying the Jesus Prayer:  

St. Symeon instructs us to “shut your eyes” when praying the Jesus Prayer. What if we could all close our eyes right now and be interiorly awakened? And what if, when we open our eyes, we would see through our own awakened eyes what Jesus saw in all that he saw? What would we see? We’d see God! Because Jesus saw God in all that he saw.  

What’s wonderful about this is that it didn’t matter whether Jesus saw his own mother or a prostitute, the joy of those gathered at a wedding or the sorrow of those gathered at the burial of a loved one. It didn’t matter whether he saw his disciples or his executioners, or a bird or a tree—Jesus saw God in all that he saw. Jesus tells us, “You have eyes to see but you do not see” (Mark 8:18). You have not learned to awaken to your God-given capacity to see the God-given, godly nature of yourselves, others, and all things. This is the source of all your sorrow and confusion. Our prayer then becomes, “Lord, that I might see your presence presencing itself and giving itself away as the intimate immediacy of the grace and miracle of our very presence and of all things in our communal nothingness without you. Help us to understand that the generosity of the Infinite is infinite and that we are the generosity of God. We are the song you sing.”  

St. Symeon tells us, “Imagine yourself looking into your own heart.” We’re looking into our own hearts not only as the center of emotions, but as the very place where the ongoing, self-donating presence of God, and us in our nothingness without God, are pouring out and touching each other. In our heart there is this oneness….  

Next, “Carry your mind, that is, your thoughts, from your head to your heart.” We learn to settle into the transformative energies of the prayer by being quietly absorbed in the deepening communion with God by doing our best not to be carried off by the thoughts that arise and fall around the edges of our minds. Each time we realize we have been carried off into thinking, we return to the words of the prayer as a way of renewing our trust in God’s merciful love…. In this way, we make our descent into the realm of the heart where our own presence is realized to be eternally one with the mercy of God revealed to us in Christ. Little by little, we begin to realize that our deepening experience of learning to rest in the realm of heart … is beginning to show up in all sorts of unexpected ways, in each passing moment of our lives, up to and including the moment of our death and beyond.

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Acknowledging the Problem of Evil

One of the most persistent challenges to faith is what philosophers call the Problem of Evil. The problem is easy to understand, but much hard to answer. It says: If God is all-powerful and all-good, why is there so much evil in the world? This sets up three possible answers: 1) God is good but not all-powerful and therefore unable to stop evil. 2) God is all-powerful and could stop evil but chooses not to and is therefore not all-good. Or, 3) God does not exist. Some skeptics engage this problem by observing the world around them. Stephen Fry, for example, is a famous comedian and atheist in the U.K. When asked what he would say to God if he discovered he existed after death, Fry responded: “How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault? It’s not right. It’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-spirited, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?” Fry went on to talk about bone cancer in children and parasites in people’s eyes—all manner of inexplicably terrible things. For others, the Problem of Evil is deeply personal. Russell Baker was a well-known columnist for The New York Times and wrote frequently about his childhood. His father died when he was a boy, and Baker said, “After this, I never cried again with any real conviction, nor expected much of anyone’s God except indifference.” Every worldview, including the non-religious ones, must address our universal experience of evil. Some do this by ignoring God, like Russell Baker. Others address evil by denying God’s existence altogether, like Stephen Fry. But in their attempt to solve the Problem of Evil, these answers actually create another problem. As celebrity atheists Richard Dawkins admits, without God there is “no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” In other words, by solving the Problem of Evil you create the Problem of Good. How does one explain the existence of goodness, justice, and hope in a world without God? Other philosophies solve the Problem of Evil by denying the reality of evil preferring to redefine it as merely the absence of good the way darkness is the absence of light, but not a thing itself. Some Eastern philosophies go farther by dismissing suffering as merely an illusion one must transcend. Christian faith is different. While affirming an all-powerful, all-loving Creator, it also acknowledges the very real presence of evil in the world. This seemingly paradoxical vision is what Jesus’ parable of the Wheat and the Weeds illustrates. Good and evil are real and exist in this age side-by-side; a truth that is self-evident. The parable, however, does not explain why evil exists but instead draws our attention to the coming harvest when evil will be extracted from the world and destroyed forever. For me, this is one of the more appealing aspects of Jesus’ teaching. Unlike others, he fully acknowledges and sympathizes with our experience of evil while also offering us hope for the day when it will be overcome by good. DAILY SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 13:24-30 MATTHEW 13:36-43 REVELATION 21:1-4 WEEKLY PRAYER C. Eric Lincoln (1924 – 2000) Lord, let me love, though love may be the losing of every earthly treasure I possess. Lord, make your love the pattern of my choosing. And let your will dictate my happiness. I have no wish to wield the sword of power, and I want no man to leap at my command; nor let my critics feel constrained to cower for fear of some reprisal at my hand. Lord, let me love the lowly and the humble, forgetting not the mighty and the strong; and give me grace to love those who may stumble, nor let me seek to judge of right or wrong. Lord, let my parish be the world unbounded, let love of race and clan be at an end. Let every hateful doctrine be confounded that interdicts the love of friend for friend. Amen.

Sit down alone and in silence. 
—St. Symeon the New Theologian 

In Turning to the Mystics, CAC teacher James Finley focuses on the instructions of St. Symeon the New Theologian (d. 1022) for praying the Jesus Prayer:  

First, St. Symeon says, “Sit down.” The prayer is in our bodily presence sitting in the presence of God. Sensing that we cannot settle into the prayer if we keep fidgeting, we discover that in learning to sit still, we can learn to be still. In this way, we are graced with an experiential understanding of God revealing to us in the Psalms, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). When you’re sitting this way, it’s like the still point of the turning world is this deep axis of your own body.  

Next, St. Symeon urges us “to sit down alone.” We’re alone in a mystical sense: God alone is God, and … you alone are you…. It isn’t that each of us has a relationship with God, it’s that each of us is an utterly unique relationship with God. We’re trying to awaken and surrender to that aloneness in which we are all—living and dead—alone together as siblings in this love in whom we’re one and subsist as one. We start to see all people with love, because everybody is walking around created by God in the image of God.  

St. Symeon also says, “Sit down alone, and in silence.”  

In silence we are learning how to listen. If we’re not silent, we can’t listen, and it’s in listening that we can learn to hear. This ties into a mystical understanding of creation. In God’s “Let it be,” God is speaking all things into being: “Let there be light, let there be stones, and trees, and stars.” It isn’t as if God speaks everything into being and then goes off to leave the universe to run on its own. Rather, creation is absolute and perpetual. Right now, we’re being created by God in this self-donating act by which God is giving God’s very presence to us in our nothingness without God. Our body embodies the presence of God in our nothingness without God. God is speaking all things into being right now, and if God would cease this speaking, we’d all disappear. So we’re trying to become so silent that we can hear God speaking us into being. How can I become so silent that I can hear God speaking the sun into being as it moves across the sky, over the trees and fields rendered sacred in being created by God in their nothingness without God? And so the silence of our prayer embodies the deep, vast silence in which we learn from God how to listen to the living word of God, embodying itself as the reality of all things in their nothingness without God. 

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The Kingdom is Not the Church

Among causal readers of the Bible, there has been a long tradition of confusing the kingdom of God with the church. This was especially common during the era of Christendom in Europe where the church and state powers were enmeshed, and it persists today where people assume the organizational structures of the church and the power wielded by church leaders is synonymous with God’s kingdom. Unfortunately, this has led to a dangerous misreading of Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds. In the story, Jesus compares “the kingdom of heaven” to a man who sowed good seed in a field while his enemy secretly sowed weeds. In order to protect the wheat from being uprooted prematurely, the weeds are allowed to grow alongside the wheat until the harvest. Those who equate the kingdom with the church have understood this parable to mean that wicked, harmful people should be tolerated within the church alongside those seeking righteousness. In other words, it is not appropriate to exercise church discipline or expel anyone for any reason. Such actions, they say, are reserved for God alone at the final judgment. This view, however, is a complete misreading of Jesus’ parable and requires one to ignore many other passages within the New Testament—and the words of Jesus himself—that call upon church leaders to exercise discernment and discipline in order to protect the church from harm and guide everyone toward godliness. In its worst application, this read of the parable has been an excuse for not removing corrupt or abusive church leaders. The story of the wheat and the weeds is not about the church. It is about the world. We occupy an age in which the kingdom of God and its righteousness has taken root. It is growing and expanding. But its presence is not without resistance. Alongside God’s kingdom is also the evil of the world. Until the harvest, we must expect the goodness of God’s kingdom and the evil of the world to coexist in tension with each other. But the fact that evil persists in the world is never an excuse for the church to ignore it within its own community or to silence those who have been wounded by its agents. DAILY SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 13:24-30 MATTHEW 13:36-43 1 CORINTHIANS 5:6-13 WEEKLY PRAYERC. Eric Lincoln (1924 – 2000) Lord, let me love, though love may be the losing of every earthly treasure I possess. Lord, make your love the pattern of my choosing. And let your will dictate my happiness. I have no wish to wield the sword of power, and I want no man to leap at my command; nor let my critics feel constrained to cower for fear of some reprisal at my hand. Lord, let me love the lowly and the humble, forgetting not the mighty and the strong; and give me grace to love those who may stumble, nor let me seek to judge of right or wrong. Lord, let my parish be the world unbounded, let love of race and clan be at an end. Let every hateful doctrine be confounded that interdicts the love of friend for friend. Amen.

Contemplation Changes Everything

Father Richard shares how contemplative practice offers access to a deeper, more loving response to the world: 

Neurosurgeon Eben Alexander writes, “True thought is not the brain’s affair. But we have—in part by the brain itself—been so trained to associate our brains with what we think and who we are that we have lost the ability to realize that we are at all times much more.” [1] In this moment, in every moment, we are much more than our physical brain and our physical body.  

True thought is pre-physical. This is the thinking behind the thinking, the consciousness behind our small ability to plug into it. If we stay at the horizontal level of calculating, judging, and labeling, we won’t plug into it very well because we don’t really believe in it. Many of us don’t really believe there’s anything spiritual beyond this material body. I think those of us in the West have probably been influenced by the materialistic worldview more than we realize, but Alexander and other scientists are coming to the recognition that there’s something more. The recognition that the real power, as in the Trinity, is in the capacity for relationship, for communion, for being mirrored, and therefore gaining the ability to mirror other people. This type of thinking isn’t dependent on linear deduction. It moves as fast as lightning, making connections on different levels. It might be hard to verbalize, but it’s experienced as a moment of insight, a spontaneous gift of compassionate, inner clarity. It will never be angry or violent, only a clarity of love.   

In the face of this free inner intelligence, our ordinary thought is hopelessly slow and fumbling. It’s this free thinking that comes up with the radical insight or writes the inspired song. Handel composed the Messiah score in less than a month; clearly, he was in the flow. I hope we’ve all had moments when we’re inside of grace, inside of love, inside of communion. To revert to negative, resentful thinking is simply five steps backward, and yet we do it. Of course, we have to return to face the injustice, the evil, the stupidity, and the oppression present on this earth. Yet I believe that we’ll have the clarity, the calmness, the grace, and the freedom to do it better than we ever did before. We won’t respond to the urgency in angry or dualistic ways, and that makes all the difference.  

Is it any wonder that so many people are excited to learn about the contemplative mind? This is why we dare to say that it really is or can be the change that changes everything. Contemplation gives us access to our birthright waiting within us. If we stay on this journey, we come to know that we are merely a grain of sand, though a wonderful grain of sand, in this marvelous universe. We are a part and therefore a participant. To the soul, that’s enough specialness for a lifetime. 

The Way of a Pilgrim

Eastern Orthodox theologian Kallistos Ware (1934–2022) considers how we can become people of prayer:  

How are we to enter into the mystery of living prayer? How can we advance from prayer repeated by our lips—from prayer as an external act—to prayer that is part of our inner being, a true union of our mind and heart with the Holy Trinity? How can we make prayer not merely something that we do, but something that we are? For that is what the world needs: not persons who say prayers from time to time, but persons who are prayer all the time. [1] 

In The Way of a Pilgrim, a 19th-century Russian mystical text, the unnamed pilgrim begins by sharing the moment he was unexpectedly quickened by God:  

On the twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost I went to church to say my prayers there during the liturgy…. Among other words I heard these—“Pray without ceasing” [1 Thessalonians 5:17]. It was this text, more than any other, which forced itself upon my mind, and I began to think how it was possible to pray without ceasing, since a man has to concern himself with other things also in order to make a living. I looked at my Bible, and with my own eyes read the words which I had heard, that is, that we ought always, at all times and in all places, to pray with uplifted hands. I thought and thought, but knew not what to make of it. “What ought I to do?” I thought. “Where shall I find someone to explain it to me? I will go to the churches where famous preachers are to be heard; perhaps there I shall hear something which will throw light on it for me.” I did so. I heard a number of very fine sermons on prayer—what prayer is, how much we need it, and what its fruits are—but no one said how one could succeed in prayer. I heard a sermon on spiritual prayer, and unceasing prayer, but how it was to be done was not pointed out. 

The pilgrim sought many esteemed elders before encountering a starets—an Eastern Orthodox spiritual teacher—who guided him to the Jesus Prayer. 

He began to speak as follows. “The continuous interior prayer of Jesus is a constant uninterrupted calling upon the divine name of Jesus with the lips, in the spirit, in the heart, while forming a mental picture of His constant presence, and imploring His grace, during every occupation, at all times, in all places, even during sleep. The appeal is couched in these terms, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.’ One who accustoms himself to this appeal experiences as a result so deep a consolation and so great a need to offer the prayer always, that he can no longer live without it, and it will continue to voice itself within him of its own accord. Now do you understand what prayer without ceasing is?” 

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Is America Good or Evil?

Over the holiday weekend, I’ve been reflecting on what it means to be patriotic, and whether our love of country should have limits. The questions arose because I rewatched Hamilton, the award-winning musical about Alexander Hamilton and America’s other founders. Although the show has been praised for its artistic brilliance and for casting people of color to represent the Founding Fathers, others say it wrongly celebrates men who were slaveholders, misogynists, and white supremacists. We Americans are split over our own history. Some want to see the founders as flawless saints who were inspired by God to establish a nation of “justice and liberty for all.” Others see the founders as irredeemable sinners who demanded freedom for themselves while enslaving millions and exploiting their labor to become rich. And the way we view these men—whether as heroes or hypocrites—often determines how we see the country overall. So, which is it? Is America good or evil?Interestingly, Jesus faced a similar dilemma. The Jewish leaders frequently questioned Jesus and wanted definitive answers from him. Are you on our side or Rome’s? Is this person a sinner or righteous? Who exactly is blessed and who is cursed? In almost every case Jesus responded by either rejecting the question or confounding the categories assumed by the person asking it. Their unreflective, either-or thinking simply did not match the more complicated, messy reality that Jesus saw. He knew that good and evil did not conform to national, social, or religious boundaries. Instead, they are entangled which means we require a wisdom far beyond the blunt categories of “us” and “them.”The entanglement of good and evil is also the theme of another of Jesus’ agricultural parables. In the story of the wheat and the weeds, Jesus illustrated how in this age the good seed of his kingdom grows alongside the weeds sown by the enemy. Someday everything will be sorted and evil will be destroyed, but until then we live with the entanglement.I think that’s a helpful way of understanding America and its founders as well. Our history is a messy entanglement of good and evil, of justice and oppression, of virtue and villainy. Therefore, slogans and simple declarations are not sufficient. We need true wisdom to discern the wheat and the weeds in our history and in our own lives. In the next few days, we’ll look more closely at what the parable means, its implications for how we see the world, and for how we see ourselves. DAILY SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 13:24-30 MATTHEW 13:36-43 PSALM 94:1-11 WEEKLY PRAYERC. Eric Lincoln (1924 – 2000)Lord, let me love, though love may be the losing of every earthly treasure I possess. Lord, make your love the pattern of my choosing. And let your will dictate my happiness. I have no wish to wield the sword of power, and I want no man to leap at my command; nor let my critics feel constrained to cower for fear of some reprisal at my hand. Lord, let me love the lowly and the humble, forgetting not the mighty and the strong; and give me grace to love those who may stumble, nor let me seek to judge of right or wrong. Lord, let my parish be the world unbounded, let love of race and clan be at an end. Let every hateful doctrine be confounded that interdicts the love of friend for friend. Amen.

One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus replied, “The first is this: …‘You shall love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
—Mark 12:28–31 

In this homily, Father Richard considers Jesus’ response to the question, “Which is the first of all the commandments?”: 

I don’t think any of us really know how to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We might want to love like that, but how do we put all the parts of ourselves together and actually do it? It takes our whole life to figure out what Jesus’ words might even mean. Then Jesus says, “You must love your neighbor as you love yourself” (Mark 12:31). Do any of us do that? Do we really love other people? Do we really give them as much attention as we give to ourselves? I don’t think so. We need to recognize, of course, that Jesus does imply that you must love yourself. If we hate ourselves, then how can we possibly know how to love our neighbor? We have to know proper and appropriate love of self, but we cannot stop there. 

Imagine how different the world would be if we just obeyed that one commandment—to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. It would be the most mighty political, social upheaval imaginable. The world would be radically different if human beings really treated other people as they would like to be treated. We can take this as a simple rule of thumb: What would I want from that person right now? What would be helpful for me to receive? Well, there’s our commandment. There’s our obligation to do to others!  

It’s so simple that we can see why we put all our attention on the Ten Commandments, or the hundreds of other regulations culture and religion place on us. It’s much easier to worry about things that keep us “pure,” so to speak, but are of little consequence.  

I think the scribe is asking a very good question. After all is said and done, it comes down to loving God and loving our neighbor—and that implies loving ourselves. If I said this without quoting Jesus, I could be accused of oversimplifying or ignoring some of the important commandments, but thank God Jesus said it first. He taught that it’s all about love, and in the end, that’s all we’re all going to be judged for. Did we love? Did we love life? Did we love ourselves? Did we love God and did we love our neighbor? Concentrating on that takes just about our whole lifetime and we won’t have much time left over to worry about what other people are doing or not doing. Our job is to love God, love ourselves, and love our neighbor. 

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Story From Our Community

One of my neighbors is very outspoken with her political views. Her yard signs sometimes aggravate other neighbors by promoting ideas that some would call conspiracy theories and other divisive ideas. As I have been reading the Daily Meditations, I have felt the spirit of Love and reconciliation grow in my heart. One day, I thanked her for her devotion, explaining that she was an important voice in our community. She looked shocked, and then quickly softened her defensive manner toward me. I felt a shift and something was transformed that day. Now, as I communicate with her, she trusts that I respect her dignity. I have begun to fold her into my life as a gift. Thank you for preparing me for this powerful moment of grace.

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5 For Friday John Chaffee

Grace and Peace, Friends!

We are speeding toward Summer now, and all that season brings!  Sunlight, outside time, adventures, and whatnot.  Spring here near Philly was pretty wet, but I admit the summers are great.

This Spring was somewhat challenging for me to be teaching an online class, teaching theology in the Philly prison system, and maintaining what hours I could at REI.  It felt for a long time as if everyday off from one part-time job was spent working at a different part-time job.

This means that for the past 8 months, I have not been as able to work on other projects, but I am excited to have a few more hours back each week this summer to work on other things (see below the 5 quotes to find what I am doing)!

On a side note, and as many of you already know, I thoroughly enjoy the works of Thomas Merton and did a silent week at his former abbey back in 2019.  Since then, I have been a member of the International Thomas Merton Society and recently reached out to start back up the Philly Chapter of the Thomas Merton Society.  I hope to connect with other Merton-ites and generally share Merton with new people.  When that starts up, I will let you know.

That’s all I can think of for now so…

Onto this week’s 5 quotes!

(Always feel free to forward this email to friends if you want to share a quote with them!)

1.
“Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything. People kill one another over idols. Wonder makes us fall to our knees.”

• Gregory of Nyssa
   
  Idolatry is sneaky, and my oh my how we love to cling to and violently defend our ideas of what we think ‘God’ is.

2.
“I’m not sure I have made this clear: self-knowledge is so important that even if you were drawn directly into heaven in prayer, I wouldn’t want you to replace your practices of humble and honest self-reflection.”

• St. Teresa of Avila in Interior Castle
   
  Recently, I ordered a new translation of Interior Castle.  This is my 4th reread of this classic text, and while it is familiar it still feels fresh.  It is interesting to know a text so well that you can pick up the nuances of 4 translations.

Teresa of Avila has much to teach modern Evangelicalism, which in my mind has a faulty understanding of self-knowledge.

While working in the church world I saw how Evangelicalism only wants people to focus on their breaking of commandments, rules, or codes but not become aware of the ways we are negatively affected by traumas and attachment.

This means that “as long as you follow the rules, you are good.”  In reality, though, we can “follow the rules” and yet deeply hurt those close to us because we are acting out of a certain reactivity or need for control that is unhealthy and ultimately, unholy.

In the 1600s, Teresa saw this dynamic at play and while she did not have the modern resources of psychology, I believe she was long ahead of the curve in knowing the importance of self-inquiry and self-knowledge.

3.
“Clinging to your identity as a ‘spiritual person’ is still an ego attachment.”

• Unknown
   
  The thought of being completely without an ego is intriguing to me.  First off, who knows if it is even possible, and secondarily, I wonder about the egolessness of Jesus.

Consider this, Jesus never reacted in such a way that when he was misunderstood, slandered, or accused he took it as a personal affront.

This communicates to me something about his lack of ego.  The Philippians Hymn refers to the idea of “kenosis” or “the process of pouring out.”  Jesus was so completely poured out/emptied that he had no ego to defend or broadcast.  He was able to be completely free for the sake of Goodness, Beauty, Truth, and Love.

4.
“Sit silently in your cell and it will teach you everything.”

• An Early Desert Monastic Proverb
   
  Early desert monasticism had so much right!

The ability to sit alone with ourselves is not simply revealing, it leaves us completely vulnerable to our thoughts, attachments, addictions, idols, grief, need for connection, and so on.

Perhaps that is why we are so uncomfortable being alone and so often misunderstand the difference between being alone and lonely.

To sit alone and in silence is a deafening experience.

Without the ability to distract our minds, hearts, or souls, we are left having to finally listen to all the unaddressed themes swirling around in us.  It takes courage, it takes bravery, it takes conscious commitment, and choice to engage those parts of ourselves.

5.
“Strength is creative when it expresses itself by making the weak strong… Strength that shows its power directly without reference to strengthening the weak is pagan.”

• Kosuke Koyama in Three Mile an Hour God
   
  This one jumped out at me.  I have been reading Three Mile an Hour God, which is a collection of essays from Kosuke Koyama, and within a few pages, I could tell how it is a classic text.  With wit and superb insight, Koyama expounds upon topics that have reasonable critiques of Western culture.  Speaking as a Japanese theologian, his words both made me chuckle as well as pause.

Howard Thurman (1899–1981) reflected that contemplation helped him distinguish between pity and compassion.  

God is making room in my heart for compassion.  

There is already a vast abundance of room for pity … [including] self-pity, that sticky substance that ruins everything it touches…. There is pity in me—pity for others. But there is something in it that cannot be trusted; it is mixed with pride, arrogance, cunning. I see this only when I expose myself to the eyes of God in the quiet time. It is now that I see what my pity really is and the sources from which it springs.  

God is making room in my heart for compassion: the awareness that where my life begins is where your life begins; the awareness that … your needs cannot be separated from … my needs; the awareness that the joys of my heart are never mine alone—nor are my sorrows. I struggle against the work of God in my heart; I want to be let alone. I want my boundaries to remain fixed, that I may be at rest. But even now, as I turn to [God] in the quietness, [God’s] work in me is ever the same.  

God is at work enlarging the boundaries of my heart. [1] 

During a prison visit, public theologian Nadia Bolz-Weber rejects the temptation to view others with pity instead of compassion.  

I look those two young men in the eyes and think, I will not pity you. But I will, in this moment, see even just a fraction of your pain, and acknowledge how it is like mine and very much not like mine. 

In my mind, pity isn’t even analogous to compassion. Pity is just the paternalistic cousin of contempt. It allows us to see others as “those less fortunate than ourselves” (a term I loathe). Pity keeps the other person at a distance and me in a rarified state of satisfaction.… Compassion, on the other hand, draws us close. 

So no, I do not pity the men I met…. Like me and like you, they are complex human beings. They have experienced love I do not know about and have really great stories I will never hear…. So to “feel sorry” for them based solely on what little I now know of their stories is reductive…. 

This world will break your heart. There’s enough sorrow to go around and for everyone to have seconds. 

But this world has a thousand forms of medicine too. 

I’ve yet to find healing in: 
Self-pity, isolation, pretending I am not hurting, comparison, hardening myself, standing in judgment (although it sure feels good). 

But I have found it in: 
Eye contact with another person who is in a tender place, the rare moments I stop filling in the blank about another person, compassion toward myself and others, remaining open hearted in moments I want to shut down, … using my pain to see it in others rather than only in myself. [2] 

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Sarah Young; Jesus Calling

 I am involved in each moment of your life. I have carefully mapped out every inch of your journey through this day, even though much of it may feel haphazard. Because the world is in a fallen condition, things always seem to be unraveling around the edges. Expect to find trouble in this day. At the same time, trust that My way is perfect, even in the midst of such messy imperfection.
     Stay conscious of Me as you go through this day, remembering that I never leave your side. Let the Holy Spirit guide you step by step, protecting you from unnecessary trials and equipping you to get through whatever must be endured. As you trudge through the sludge of this fallen world, keep your mind in heavenly places with Me. Thus the Light of My Presence shines on you, giving you Peace and Joy that circumstances cannot touch.

RELATED BIBLE VERSES:

Psalm 18:30 (NLT)
30 God’s way is perfect.
    All the Lord’s promises prove true.
    He is a shield for all who look to him for protection.

Additional insight regarding Psalm 18:30: Some people think that belief in God is a crutch for weak people who cannot make it on their own. God is indeed a shield to protect us when we are too weak to face certain trials by ourselves, but he does not want us to remain weak. He strengthens, protects, and guides us in order to send us back into an evil world to fight for him. Then he continues to work with us because the strongest person on earth is infinitely weaker than God and needs his help. David was not a coward; he was a mighty warrior who, even with all his armies and weapons, knew that only God could ultimately protect and save him.
Isaiah 41:13 (NLT)
13 For I hold you by your right hand—
    I, the Lord your God.
And I say to you,
   ‘Don’t be afraid. I am here to help you.’

A Painful Conflict

Advocate Carl Siciliano recounts how relationship with his LGBTQ community has often placed him at odds with what Christian churches have taught:  

The love I discovered in God when I was younger was wild and boundless. But as I grew up and grew into my queerness, I had to reckon with some heavy questions. How could leaders of a religion devoted to a God of love vilify my community? Why must they value their dogmas over the lives of God’s queer children? How could the spiritual tradition that nurtured my early years of service be the very same entity that so recklessly brought devastation upon the young people in my care?  

Now an answer began to present itself: What if I was not meant to turn away from this conflict but in fact called upon to confront it? What if I was meant to witness the devastation inflicted on LGBT youths and use my voice for truth, to cry out that such cruelties are not the way of Christ?…

Thomas Merton wrote of an “eternal conflict” [1] within Christianity—a conflict between those who become self-righteous and judgmental of the sins of others and those who learn to humbly accept their essential unity with their fellow humans. I hope the Church will come to such humility and repent of the terrible harm it has done to queer people, especially queer children. I don’t know if I will live to see that. All I know is I cannot imagine how the harmful elements of the Church can be healed if I cannot uproot the rage and division in my own heart. I’m tired of being angry.  

Over three decades, Siciliano has supported LGBTQ youth suffering from addiction, rejection, and heartbreak. He witnesses their grief through his understanding of Christ’s death and resurrection:  

As a teenager, I longed to see the face of Christ with my own eyes. I spent many, many hours in prayer and meditation, desperate to catch a glimpse of my beloved God. That longing has changed. For I have seen the face of the crucified Christ, over and over again, for decades. I saw Christ when Cheri was choked with tears in the SafeSpace kitchen. I saw Christ when Ali sat with me in sorrow at the subway station, and when I looked into the stunned, grief-stricken eyes of KJ, Rashon, and so many other young people as they told me how it felt to be abandoned by family and sleep in the streets.  

For the better part of my life, I have looked upon the broken Christ, the Christ of the persecuted, the Christ bound to us in our desolation. Now my deepest yearning is to see the healing of their wounds, the binding up of what was broken, the wiping away of every tear, the “making all things well.”  

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Avoiding Sin Isn’t the Goal

We should not read Jesus’ words in Matthew 25 as a full view of the final judgment. In fact, we would be foolish to view any of his parables as complete theological treatments. They exist, in most cases, to make a single, surprising point about the topic at hand rather than a comprehensive argument. Therefore, it’s incorrect to assume that our care or neglect of the poor will be the only dimension of God’s judgment.Understanding that, we must not diminish the gravity of Jesus’ warning either. Notice that the “goats” on the King’s left side are condemned for their sins of omission rather than their sins of commission. Their guilt did not stem from what they did, but for what they failed to do. In many religious communities, people are preoccupied, even fixated, upon their transgressions (and especially the transgressions of others). As a result, they make the Christian life little more than a sin-avoidance program. The goal simply becomes not actively participating in evil. This is a very low bar. It’s like celebrating an Olympic swimmer for crossing the pool without drowning. In the parable just before the judgment of the sheep and goats, Jesus told of a “wicked” servant who buried his master’s talents (a sum of money) in the ground. He did not lose his master’s money, but he didn’t do anything productive with it either. The same theme is repeated in the King’s judgment of the goats. They are not condemned because they have committed evil acts, but because they have failed to commit good ones. Likewise, merely avoiding moral calamity is not what we are called to as Jesus’ disciples. Instead, we are to use the love and power he has graced us with for the blessing of others and the healing of his world. It is not the sins we are tempted to commit that ought to frighten us, but the acts of justice we are never inspired to attempt. DAILY SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 25:31-46 MATTHEW 25:14-30 WEEKLY PRAYERFrom an African Christian O God, enlarge my heart that it may be big enough to receive the greatness of your love. Stretch my heart that it may take into it all those who with me around the world believe in Jesus Christ. Stretch it that it may take into it all those who do not know him, but who are my responsibility because I know him. And stretch it that it may take in all those who are not lovely in my eyes, and whose hands I do not want to touch; through Jesus Christ, my Savior. Amen.

One Source of Love

Yet before you can love your neighbor—your brother or sister—as yourself, you must first love yourself. And to first love yourself, you must know that God loves you now and loves you always.
—Archbishop Desmond Tutu, God Has a Dream 

Richard Rohr connects our ability to love others with our ability to receive God’s love. 

Authentic love is of one piece. How we love anything is how we love everything. Jesus commands us to “Love our neighbors as we love ourselves,” and he connects the two great commandments of love of God and of neighbor, saying they are “like” one another (Matthew 22:39). So often, we think this means to love our neighbor with the same amount of love—as much as we love ourselves—when it really means that it is the same Source and the same Love that allows us to love ourselves, others, and God at the same time! That is unfortunately not the way most people understand love, compassion, and forgiveness—yet it is the only way they ever work.  

We cannot sincerely love another or forgive offenses inside of dualistic consciousness. Many pastors and priests have done the people of God a great disservice by preaching the gospel to them but not giving them the tools to live it out. As Jesus put it, “Cut off from the vine, you can do nothing” (John 15:5). The “vine and the branches” offer one of the greatest Christian mystical images of the non-duality between God and the soul. In and with God, I can love everything and everyone—even my enemies. Alone and by myself, my willpower and intellect will seldom be able to love in difficult situations over time. Many folks try to love by willpower, with themselves as the only source. They try to obey the second commandment without the first. It never works long term. 

Finally, of course, there’s a straight line between love and suffering. If we love anyone or anything deeply and greatly, it’s fairly certain we’ll soon suffer because we have offered control to another, and the cost of self-giving will soon show itself. Undoubtedly, this is why we are told to be faithful in our loves, because such long-term loyalty and truly conscious love will always lead us to the necessary pruning (John 15:2) of the narcissistic self. 

Until we love and until we suffer, we all try to figure out life and death with our minds. Then a Larger Source opens up within us and we “think” and feel quite differently through “knowing the Love, which is beyond all knowledge” (Ephesians 3:19). Thus, Jesus would naturally say something like, “This is my commandment: you must love one another!” (John 13:34). Authentic love (which is always more than an emotion) initially opens the door of awareness and aliveness, and then suffering for that love keeps that door open for mind, body, and will to enter. I suspect for most of us that is the work of a lifetime. 

Knowing Our Neighbors

Rabbi Sharon Brous draws on her Jewish tradition to name the dignity of every human being.   

[A] Rabbinic text … from the ninth century declares that every person is accompanied, at all times, by a procession of angels crying out, “Make way, for an image of the Holy One is approaching!” Every person, like royalty. And yet, again and again, the image of the Holy One is controlled and contained, humiliated and degraded, incarcerated and incapacitated, shot and killed before our very eyes. How do we keep missing all those angels, with their trumpets and proclamations, desperate to rouse us to the dignity of every human being? 

The call to awaken to the image of God, to the dignity of every person, has been the driving force of my religious life, the very heart of my faith…. What would it mean to build a society in which every person is treated as an image of the Divine? How would this affect our relationships with our neighbors, our coworkers, the stranger lying beneath the stained blankets and trash outside Starbucks? Wouldn’t it compel us to recast the cultures of our schools, organizations, and faith communities? How would it impact health care, education, public policy?… How would it transform law enforcement and criminal justice systems—where today judgment is too often rendered based on whether a person is Black or white, rich or poor, rather than guilty or innocent? 

Brous shares a story illustrating how nearness and neighborliness lead to loving action: 

My friend goes to a church of Caribbean immigrants in downtown Los Angeles. One day his pastor preached: Say you’re walking in downtown LA, or Chicago, or New York. A naked man runs in front of you on the sidewalk, screaming and cursing. What do you do? Most of us, of course, briskly cross the street. That guy’s unwell, we think.  

But say you live in a tiny town of maybe fifty households. You’re walking around one day when a naked man runs in front of you on the sidewalk, screaming and cursing. And because you live in a tiny town, you know this man … it’s Henry. Last week, you just happen to know, there was a terrible tragedy, and fire burned Henry’s house to the ground, leaving him with nothing. What do you do?  

“Henry,” you say, “come with me, friend. You need a warm meal and a safe place to stay.”  

What does it take to shift our collective consciousness from stranger who is unwell to Henry, my neighbor, created in God’s own image?… 

The challenge is to imagine a fundamentally different reality: a world in which we recognize and fight for each other’s dignity. A world in which we … train our hearts to see even the people others might render invisible. A world in which we recognize that we—images of the Divine—are all bound up in the bond of life with one another. And our hardest and holiest work is not to look away.

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The Danger of a Dis-Integrated Life

In Jesus’ description of the final judgment in Matthew 25, we often overlook a startling detail. Jesus said the King will judge all people by how they treated him when he was hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, and in prison. Both the righteous and the wicked, however, respond the same way: “Lord, when did we see you hungry…thirsty…a stranger…naked…sick or in prison?” Jesus answered both groups the same way, “I say to you, as you did [or did not do] to one of the least of these you did [or did not do] it to me.” Here’s the surprising and important detail—it is clear from the story that the righteous showed compassion and kindness without knowingthey were serving Jesus. It wasn’t like the righteous were in on the secret and the wicked were not. The righteous did not offer food, drink, clothing, or medicine to strangers because they knew each person was Jesus incognito. That raises a critical question: Why did the righteous show kindness if they weren’t doing it to earn points on God’s final exam?The answer is that they lived integrated lives. The righteous do not segment their lives into categories of “sacred” and “ordinary;” they do not view some activities or people as important to God and others as unimportant. They do not limit their devotion to Sunday morning or the confines of a church or cathedral. Their love for God flows into all aspects of their lives, including how they see and act toward strangers. Justice marks all of their relationships. There is no indication in Jesus’ story that the “goats” whom he casts away were irreligious or followers of bad theology. Their great error was that they kept their devotion to God within the neat boundaries of religious activity. Their commitment to Christ was disconnected from the other parts of their existence. Therefore, when they encountered the hungry, sick, and poor in the ordinary course of life their faith had no role to play.The question Matthew 25 ought to provoke is this: How has your devotion to Christ and commitment to kingdom justice been integrated into every aspect of your life, or do you prefer to keep religion at church? DAILY SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 25:31-46 PROVERBS 19:17 1 JOHN 3:17-18 WEEKLY PRAYERFrom an African ChristianO God, enlarge my heart that it may be big enough to receive the greatness of your love. Stretch my heart that it may take into it all those who with me around the world believe in Jesus Christ. Stretch it that it may take into it all those who do not know him, but who are my responsibility because I know him. And stretch it that it may take in all those who are not lovely in my eyes, and whose hands I do not want to touch; through Jesus Christ, my Savior. Amen.

Father Richard describes how we can grow in our love for God, others, and ourselves: 

The God Jesus incarnates and embodies is not a distant God that must be placated. Jesus’ God is not sitting on some throne demanding worship and throwing down thunderbolts like Zeus. Jesus never said, “Worship me.” He said, “Follow me.” He asks us to imitate him in his own journey of full incarnation. To do so, he gives us the two great commandments: (1) Love God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength; and (2) Love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:28–31; Luke 10:25–28). In the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29–37), Jesus shows us that our “neighbor” even includes our “enemy.” 

So how do we love God? Many of us seem to have concluded that we love God by attending church services. For some reason, we think that makes God happy, but I’m not sure why. Jesus never talked about attending services, although church can be a good container to begin with. I believe our inability to recognize and love God in what is right in front of us has allowed us to separate religion from our actual lives. There is Sunday morning, and then there is real life. 

The only way I know how to teach anyone to love God, and how I myself seek to love God, is to love what God loves, which is everything and everyone, including you and including me! “We love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19). “If we love one another, God remains in us, and God’s love is brought to perfection in us” (1 John 4:12). Then we love with God’s infinite love that can always flow through us. We’re able to love people and things for themselves and in themselves—and not for what they do for us. That takes both work and surrender. As we get ourselves out of the way, there is a slow but real expansion of consciousness. We’re not the central reference point anymore. We love in greater and greater circles until we can finally do what Jesus did: love and forgive even our enemies. 

Most of us were given the impression that we had to be totally selfless, and when we couldn’t achieve that, many of us gave up altogether. One of John Duns Scotus’ most helpful teachings is that Christian morality at its best seeks “a harmony of goodness.” [1] We harmonize and balance necessary self-care with a constant expansion beyond ourselves to loving others. This is brilliant! It’s both simple and elegant, showing us how to love our neighbor as our self. Imagining and working toward this harmony keeps us from seeking impossible, private, and heroic ideals. Now the possibility of love is potentially right in front of us and always concrete. Love is no longer a theory or a heroic ideal. Love is seeking the good of as many as possible.  

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Who Are Jesus’ “Brothers”?

Few topics make modern people more uncomfortable than judgment. There is a false narrative that judgment is something people did in the past, but today we’ve grown more tolerant and accepting—other than religious people who would prefer to remain in the past. This is, of course, nonsense. Every society judges. What is today’s “cancel culture” if not an updated version of religious ex-communication perpetually judging what voices, people, and ideas are acceptable and which are to be condemned? The ubiquity of judgment, although often misguided and destructive, is rooted in the admirable human desire for justice. We want good praised and evil punished. We want victory for victims and villains vanquished. While we may have glimpses of justice now, Jesus promises true and final justice will come with his kingdom.In Matthew 25 Jesus compared the final judgment with a shepherd separating the sheep from the goats in his herd. Some have tried to find significance in the imagery of the animals, but that is a case of over-interpreting the metaphor. In ancient Israel, goats were not viewed negatively and were often herded together with sheep. Goats were even identified as an acceptable sacrifice for the Passover lamb (see Exodus 12:5). The emphasis of Jesus’ metaphor is not on the nature of sheep or goats but on the eventual separation of two groups. Much like the parable of the Wheat and the Weeds (Matthew 13:24-30), the righteous and unrighteous, the just and the unjust, are allowed to coexist until the end of the age when they are finally identified and separated at the judgment. The basis for their separation is ultimately how they acted toward “the least of these my brothers” (25:40).Who are these “brothers” Jesus refers to? The entire meaning of the parable hangs on that question, and there has been much debate over the correct reading. Some argue that Jesus’ was speaking of his disciples. He uses similar language in Matthew 10:40-42, but that is a text about mission and not the final judgment. There are many more instances in Matthew where Jesus uses the word brothers without referring to his disciples. Furthermore, there is no support elsewhere in Scripture that the final judgment will be determined solely by how the world serves or neglects Christians, or that Christians will be exempt from judgment as this interpretation would imply. Finally, when the judgment is repeated for the “goats” in verse 45, Jesus does not include the word brothers but only speaks of “the least of these.”For these reasons—and numerous others—the most common view has always been that Jesus’ “brothers” in the story refers generally to people in need who’ve been neglected by the world, and those who are declared righteous are the ones who showed compassion. As we find throughout the Bible, in Matthew 25 we see personal righteousness (our standing before God) being inexorably linked to social righteousness (how we have cared for those mistreated by the world). With this important matter of interpretation in hand, we will explore the scene in more depth in the days ahead. Until then, consider who in your community Jesus would identify as his “brothers.” DAILY SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 25:31-46 JAMES 2:14-17 WEEKLY PRAYER From an African Christian O God, enlarge my heart that it may be big enough to receive the greatness of your love. Stretch my heart that it may take into it all those who with me around the world believe in Jesus Christ. Stretch it that it may take into it all those who do not know him, but who are my responsibility because I know him. And stretch it that it may take in all those who are not lovely in my eyes, and whose hands I do not want to touch; through Jesus Christ, my Savior. Amen.

Father Richard reflects on how the Spirit’s presence can transform our lives and institutions:  

Without a conscious living in the flow of the Spirit—through us, within us, and for us—and those are the three movements—I think prayer can become merely functional. But if we live within that flow, prayer can become an experience of mystical communion. There is no problem to be solved; it’s simply enjoying what is, learning how to taste it, learning how to receive it, learning how to see God in it, and knowing that this now—whatever it is—is enough.    

When that flow is not there, church becomes overly problem-solving and practical. Sacraments without the Spirit become strategic. They become something we feel obligated to attend or belong to in order to go to heaven. Church becomes about paying fire insurance dues. We don’t really want to be there, but we go along for the ride in case the whole thing just happens to be true. I know this might be shocking to say and hear, but this kind of church deserves to die. There’s no life to it; there’s no future to it. It is not of the Spirit. It is precisely a blocking of the Spirit, but it’s disguised as if it’s spiritual.    

Outside of the Spirit, reading the Bible can also become nothing more than ego ammunition. Without the Spirit, Bible study does not lead to divine intimacy and union; rather, it can lead to self-sufficiency and confirmation about why we’re right. Instead of leading us to God, it becomes a way for us to protect ourselves and to judge and diminish other people. But when we read the scriptures inside of the energy and flow of the Spirit, the stories themselves reveal a thousand confirmations of that very pattern—people allowing the flow, people resisting and opposing the flow, and sometimes, finally being swept up by it. They become models for us that allowing the flow of the Spirit leads to new life.  

Outside of the Spirit, authority becomes domination. Inside of the Spirit, authority becomes service. Outside of the Spirit, politics becomes control. Inside of the Spirit, leadership is something we know is given to us to offer to others: not authority over people but authority to call forth the presence of God within so they can be in the same flow and enjoy the same freedom. 

I think the simplest way to discern the presence of the Spirit is to look for where there is unity, where there’s movement toward reconciliation, for two becoming one, for enemies becoming friends. The Spirit self has no need to think of itself as better than anyone. We just live with an energy and aliveness that Paul called the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23). Our job is simply to stay inside the flow of the Spirit which is love.  

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John Chaffee 5 For Friday………Jesus Was a Troublemaker

1.

“Yeshua was a troublemaker.”

– James Cone, Methodist Minister and Theologian

This may not come as a shock to some of you, but Jesus was a troublemaker.  He stood in the same lineage of the prophets and spoke hopeful critiques of the status quo of his day.

However, sometimes we think that Jesus was a troublemaker toward those outside of the religious sphere.  The problem is that he was not violent, did not overthrow the Roman oppressors of his day, and try to establish himself as a new emporer or pharaoh.

Rather, Jesus was quite a troublemaker WITHIN the religious sphere.  He challenged the special seats, those with impressive titles, the class systems of the Temple, what defined ritual vs spiritual cleanliness, and so much more.

Jesus was a troublemaker because he upended the religious paradigm from within itself while staying true to the roots of his tradition: Judaism.  In many ways, he was such a radical and faithful Jew that it gave him a target on his back from the religious leadership of his Jewish tradition.

It is then ratcheted up to an even higher degree when we contemplate the Christian tenet that Jesus was God incarnate, and it was God himself who was upending religious paradigms from within!

This earnestly makes me question what kinds of things God would be willing to overturn today within the religious sphere.

2.

“The only thing that matters is you getting better at your craft.”

– Jerry Seinfeld, American Comedian

This past week, as I contemplated my work in the world, this insight from Jerry Seinfeld spoke to me.

Some may like what I do, some may not.  I cannot control that perception of my work and certainly cannot persuade someone to like it if they don’t.

The only thing we can do is focus on what we are here to do and dive deep into that task, so deep that we cannot be bothered with outcomes or approval.

The only thing that matters is doing what we are here to do.

3.

“I am neither of the East nor of the West, no boundaries exist within my breast.”

– Rumi, Sufi Mystic and Poet

Rumi has spoken to me for a while.  Ever since the Philly band mewithoutYou introduced him to me through their lyrics, his poetry has been something  I return to frequently.

There is so much division within the world because there is so much division within ourselves.  We love to separate or divide.  We think it is a mark of maturity or intellect or holier-than-thou-ness to hold ourselves in differentiation from people and things.

But what if the world peace we are all looking for, hoping for, and praying for is a personal issue?  What if external wars end because we have learned how to reconcile the internal wars within each of us?  What if the solution to our loneliness is solidarity with those around us?

What would happen if we lived lives that had “no boundaries” at all?  Is it possible we might start seeing everything as connected?  Is it possible we could see how we are all already in this together if we just stopped to realize it?  Are we not all on the same team?  Are we not wanderers each walking one another home?

4.

“For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.”

– 1 Corinthians 15:22

The ratio is 1:Infinity.  As all die, all will be made alive.

The First Adam’s capacity for chaos is eclipsed by the Second Adam’s ability to redeem.

5.

“Love and do what you will.”

– St. Augustine of Hippo, 4th Century Philosopher and Theologian

This is both easy and difficult to grasp.  Within the Christian faith, there is a constant dialogue/struggle between obedience and freedom.

However, obedience is not slavery and freedom is not anarchy.  Freedom without any purpose or guardrails is chaos.  Freedom must be governed by something or else it can devolve into disconnected, unbounded, wildness.

That said, if Love is present, then Love redefines obedience and freedom.  The one who Loves will not seek anything that causes hurt or harm to someone else, it will not allow us to use and abuse one another, Love is the fulfillment of the Law.