Expanding Our Faith

Margaret Swedish, an advocate for ecological wholeness, believes our time of planetary crisis invites us to a deeper, more expansive faith:  

We are coming to the end of the world, or at least to the end of a world. How it ends will be very much up to us. We have many choices in front of us, but not this one—that the world we know is ending. What has been familiar to us as a framework in which we have lived our lives for a very long time is ending….  

It is incumbent upon us to expand our experience of faith to embrace the full reality of our predicament and to inform the decisions we make from here on out. This is what Jesus did—face his world fully and honestly, not shying away from the suffering or the disquieting demands that it would make on him. We need a faith now that can help us face this world that we have made … and help us find a way through and beyond it.…  

Because all of this can appear daunting and terrifying, we also search for an experience of God, a relationship, that is both large enough—and intimate enough—to counter the disorientation, dizziness, and sense of displacement we feel…. We seek … a place for an experience of the Divine within it, a new sense of our true home, of our cherished place in the cosmos and on this planet, a spiritual space large enough to contain all of our fears and our hopes, our questions and our bewilderment….  

We need a sense of God that does not invite us to grow smaller, to retreat into personal sins with the expectation of some salvation apart from and outside this larger drama of our earth and cosmos. We need a sense of God that embraces that drama fully, with urgency, with passion, with love, as did the God revealed in Jesus Christ. [1] 

Sharing our faith rituals and stories can strengthen and nourish us:  

Our faith offers an insight into the way forward, a vision that can help us feel our way toward the new world we must create. We reach into its depths not for something spiritually superior, not for a holier way of life than others.… Relinquishment, simplicity, sharing things in common, becoming downwardly mobile, these things are no longer just admirable traits for the spiritually wise and advanced, they have become necessities for the future of life.  

What kind of human beings will we become? As we embrace this difficult passage in our earth story, these shared stories and rituals [of faith] will be important to expressing our fears and hopes, our sense of purpose, our visions for a new world, for healing, regeneration, hope beyond the “end of the world.” They offer us a place to draw strength, build community, and find sustenance for the long haul as we make the necessary transformations. We are not carried outside faith, but deeper into it. [2]  

True Realism

In his 1980 talks on the prophets, Richard Rohr delves into the message of hope found in the book of Isaiah:  

When the prophet Second Isaiah* is writing, it’s to people who are still in the midst of unbelievable pain and suffering. The ancient Israelites are still exiled and enslaved in Babylon, and they have been for decades. I imagine they would be overwhelmed by hopelessness. Yet in the midst of their exile, Isaiah writes what biblical scholars call the “Book of Consolations.” Isaiah says that injustice and evil are not the final reality. Instead, the final reality is the comfort and compassion of God. The prophet stands in that place of trust. Isaiah becomes the prophet of hope because he knows God is not neutral but is involved in history. [1] 

Rev. Douglas Donley writes about Isaiah’s hope for those in exile: 

The experience of the people Second Isaiah wrote to was not unlike the experience of the ancestors of many of the people gathered in our congregations who were yanked from their homes in Africa and forced to work [in slavery] on the plantations of North America and the West Indies.   

Second Isaiah gives hope to the people who must try to sing the sacred songs in a strange land. In exile and despair, Isaiah preaches a word of hope. Too many of us have lost hope and see the future as nothing but bleak.… So to a people who are in a strange land, with a strange language, with laws and religious beliefs that seek to squelch any kind of integrity that they may have at their disposal, God through Isaiah speaks these words of comfort and hope:   

You shall go out in joy,   
and be led back in peace;   
the mountains and the hills before you  
shall burst into song,   
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. (Isaiah 55:12) [2] 

Rohr continues:  

Hope is not primarily for the future. It’s for now! Hope is a way of seeing time and understanding the present. It’s a way of tasting and receiving the moment. It gives us the capacity to enter into the future in a new way. In that sense, we can call hope true realism, because hope takes seriously all the many possibilities that fill the moment. Hope sees all the alternatives; it recognizes and creates an alternative consciousness. That’s the hope of the prophet.  

The person who can see the moment fully is never hopeless. Hopelessness is an experience whereby a person’s sight is set in one direction: “The only way I’ll be happy is if such and such happens.” When we can imagine only one way to be happy, we don’t recognize the fullness and possibilities of the moment. We collapse if our one way is taken away from us. That’s the power of the prophets—to recognize that there is always another way for the promise to be fulfilled, another way for Divine Love to reach us. [3] 

Energizing Hope

It is the task of the prophet to bring to expression the new realities against the more visible ones of the old order. Energizing is closely linked to hope. We are energized not by that which we already possess but by that which is promised and about to be given.  
—Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination 

In 1980, Richard Rohr gave a series of talks on the Hebrew prophets. Here he speaks of the hopeful imagination to which the prophets and God invite us:  

Prophets nurture and evoke a new way of thinking. They give us images and words which subvert our system and tell us that we haven’t seen the whole picture yet. Prophets are not just concerned about social change for the sake of social change. They are concerned above all with transformation and freedom of the heart, and then out of that free heart, the prophet says, “Listen.” The prophet creates a new, freeing consciousness which allows us to hear the divine word.  

In the midst of that freedom, the prophets plant a promise, an alternative and new vision. In the Hebrew imagination, this became the promised land. But the promise never really gets fulfilled. It both tantalizes and torments us with dissatisfaction—and nevertheless calls us forward! It isn’t that God or the prophets are playing games with us. It’s that we are energized by the hope of God’s promises. What gives us the energy and power to keep moving is the promise, the dream, the vision of what could be and what’s beyond the moment. The prophet knows that, and God knows that. In the exodus, God plants the promise in Moses’ heart, and then Moses gives it to the people. 

These promises are not lies. They’re true, but they’re not always what we expect or hope for, and so God calls us a little further. This is the way that divine love stretches our hearts. This is the real rebirth. This is the way we’re reborn again and again until we enter, through death, the promise of a deeper life.  

The established and dominant culture does not have authentic promises because it seeks to maintain itself. The system has materialistic and self-protecting promises for more money and a better life; it encourages us to consume more and more. It cannot offer a promise which fills and expands the heart beyond itself to the larger world.  

God’s promises energize and expand the heart, deepening our capacity for life and our quality of being in this world. They put the authority inside us. This, finally, is the only overcoming of death, the only answer to the absurdity that this time is going to end. That’s what the promises of God do—lead us to the experience of deeper life. The Gospel writers call it resurrection.  

Hope, Peace, and Justice

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1931–2021) envisions God’s dream for the world through a message of hope, justice, peace, and inclusion:  

Dear Child of God, before we can become God’s partners, we must know what God wants for us. “I have a dream,” God says. “Please help Me to realize it. It is a dream of a world whose ugliness and squalor and poverty, its war and hostility, its greed and harsh competitiveness, its alienation and disharmony are changed into their glorious counterparts, when there will be more laughter, joy, and peace, where there will be justice and goodness and compassion and love and caring and sharing. I have a dream that swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, that My children will know that they are members of one family, the human family, God’s family, My family.” 

In God’s family, there are no outsiders. All are insiders. Black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, Jew and Arab, Palestinian and Israeli, Roman Catholic and Protestant, Serb and Albanian, Hutu and Tutsi, Muslim and Christian, Buddhist and Hindu, Pakistani and Indian—all belong.…  

We have heard of God’s dream from His prophets throughout history and in modern times from great leaders and humanitarians like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. King spoke of it … when he dreamed of the day that the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners in Georgia would be able “to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.” [1] Gandhi wrote about it in 1929 when he stated that his goal was not just the brotherhood of Indian humanity but “the mission of brotherhood of man.” [2] (Today they would have referred to daughters and sisterhood, too.) The visions and triumphs of these prophets of God helped change their nations and inspire the rest of us around the world in our own struggles for equality.  

Tutu finds God’s dream for an inclusive community embodied in Jesus: 

We can look at the life of Jesus to see what God asks of us. Jesus came into a deeply divided and polarized society. There was the divide between the hated foreign oppressor and the citizens of the vassal state. Within Judaism there were different religious groupings, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Zealots. There was the divide between the Jew, the Gentile, and the Samaritan. And then men were segregated from women. There were free persons and there were slaves. There were the rich; there were the poor. The world saw a veritable miracle unfolding before its very eyes as all sorts and conditions of women and men, rich and poor, slave and free, Jew and Gentile—all these came to belong in one fellowship, one communion. They did not regard one another just as equals. That in itself would have been a huge miracle…. No, they regarded one another not just as equals but as sisters and brothers

CAC teacher Barbara Holmes shares how communal healing begins after we make space for communal grieving:   

I am a gardener, a lover of dark soil and rooted mysteries. The fact that flowers, herbs, and vegetables eventually burst forth from dampened seeds is always a wonder. It is also a joyful surprise when people who’ve been harmed to the extreme find peace and healing even while trauma continues. My anecdotal observations of my own community have convinced me that the roots of healing are deeply sown by the same Spirit that hovered over creation during the “let there be” transformation of the world. The shamans and root workers, the aunties and folk healers long gone, taught us that everything we needed to heal us was within our reach. Even salty tears could cure raw wounds if we could stand the pain. 

What does healing look like for communities overwhelmed by ongoing trauma? How do communities survive? Those of us who are raised in communities under siege can tell you that there are many coping mechanisms. As one of the first steps toward healing and survival, we take a big gulp of reality. We have to admit that we’ve been broken before we can be healed. We can’t heal until we grieve the events that have wounded us, release the spiritual toxins left behind, and open ourselves to something new. Communal grieving offers something that we cannot get when we grieve by ourselves. [1]  

Author Marcie Alvis Walker witnesses how making space for lament can give birth to authentic gratitude and praise:  

Back in the day, church services began with loss and lament. Today most churches begin with praise and worship. I’m not saying one is better than the other, but if given the choice, I think a Bible character such as Job, who was abandoned, homeless, broke, and covered in sores and dirt and judgment, would rather attend the old-school church service of my youth, while believers today, bathed in candlelight and adoration, would much prefer a worship service that begins and ends on the upbeat swing of praise and gratitude.

If given the choice, … I think a crucified Jesus being executed on a cross would choose to lament because there was darkness and the tomb before the resurrection and the feast at the shore.  

The church of my youth also feasted. We also sang those praises. We too were grateful. But that praise and that gratefulness was weighted with a heavy history burdened with great pain and great unfairness. Before we could offer songs of praise and appreciation, or feast, or fellowship, we had to remind one another of all the reasons we were so very, very grateful in the first place. And we had to allow a time to weep for all that had been taken and was still being taken. [2]   

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Joy: A Brief Introduction

Close your eyes and picture the three people closest to you in your life, those you spend most of your time with, or those who mean the most to you. What do you see? No, really. Close your eyes for just a minute and draw to mind the three or four intimate relationships you have. Stay there for a minute and notice how these people appear to you. What do their faces look like? Are they laughing at you? Disgusted by you? Ashamed of you? Disappointed in you? Angry at you? Maybe they are not looking at you at all. Maybe they are not noticing you are even there. Or perhaps they are smiling at you? Laughing with you? Enjoying you? Delighting in who you are? If you can picture someone enjoying you at some point in your life and can imagine their face being glad to be with you, you have just experienced joy.

Perhaps the most revolutionary idea we have come to embrace is that joy is primarily relational. This could be a relationship with God, with another human, or even with yourself! It can also be experienced in memories of joyful moments together, in gift exchanging and acts of service. However, it is primarily experienced when someone enjoys us, delights in who we are and wants to be with us no matter what we are feeling in the moment. We are precious to them and they show it on their face or through their actions. Joy flows from giving and receiving love—the life of God. God is love, and where love is being expressed and received, the joy of God is also flowing. Nothing brings us closer to the center of all creative power than the joy of God. Sure enough, as scripture says, “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10 NIV). In a simple way, we experience this joy whenever we find ourselves in the presence of someone who makes it clear they are glad to be with us no matter what. Maybe it is the sparkle in their eyes when they look at us or a gentle touch when we are sad. The gift of their expressed love draws out our joy.

We now know through studies in neuro-science that this pattern of love-sparking-joy forms the basis from earliest infancy for all healthy human development. When we witness a baby light up in the presence of her smiling mother, we’re witnessing the genesis of joy-fuel being formed in another life. This is love embodied—God’s life. The Greek language of the New Testament offers intriguing insight. The words for joy, gift and gratitude are closely related. All share the same root, char—pronounced “car.” Here’s the connection: Joy —Chara (delight) Gift or Grace—Charis (that which brings joy or delight) Gratitude—Eucharistia (joy or delight returned) These three ideas together, in any language, give us a way to describe what love-in-action looks like.

Lovers give a gift to show their delight in the one they love. On receiving the gift, joy wells up in the beloved. Naturally, they say “thank you!” and deeper joy flows back to the lover. We sometimes say, “Love grows in the dance of joy between gift and gratitude.” More love, more joy. When you stop to think about it, this is astounding. What other process do we know that, all by itself, produces more than it starts with? Love-ignited joy is the one perpetual-motion fuel. Nothing else compares. This feeling of joy that flows from giving and receiving delight taps into God’s own life—the most enduring, powerful and motivational fuel of all (ref. John 15:11). Instead of living out of fear of shame, guilt or duty, when we receive from one another and God at the heart level, we experience a deep sense of joy that makes the relationship greater than any problems we face.

No doubt, this is what Jesus had in mind when he said, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11 NIV). Two stunning truths to notice here. First, Jesus desires that the very joy and delight in his heart would be in our hearts, that we would feel what he feels. But he doesn’t stop there. The second stunning truth is that he wants the joy in our hearts to be full to overflowing. (A better translation than “complete.”) If joy is a fuel source, Jesus is saying that he wants our “tank” to be filled beyond full.

What a picture of abundance! When we share this LK10 Core Value, almost everyone says, “Well, of course! Who wouldn’t want joy to be their primary motivation for life and ministry?” What is easily missed, however, is how revolutionary this value actually is within the current Christian culture. We will say more about how we see joy as our primary fuel in later chapters. For now, let’s turn to the limited and ultimately harmful fuel source that many of us have used at some point in our lives: the gospel of knowledge and duty. This motivating source competes with joy, eventually smothering it out altogether. While appearing very spiritual, over time it will not only thwart intended character development but will erode the very lives it flows through. 3

White, John C.; Daniels, Toni M.; Smith, Dr Kent. Joy Fueled: Catalyzing a Revolution of Joyful Communities (LK10 Core Values) (pp. 7-11). LK10. Kindle Edition.

“A woman … was bent over and quite unable to stand up straight.… When [Jesus] laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.” —Luke 13:11–13

Lutheran minister and public theologian Nadia Bolz-Weber offers a sermon on the sacred nature of the human body:

I want to start by saying from the pulpit to you who live in bodies which society deem as broken or deficient—that you are already whole…. Today I speak of the woman with the bent back [Luke 13:10–17] allegorically and metaphorically and spiritually and not as a commentary on the bodies of any of God’s children specifically.

But also the woman with the bent back has made me think a lot about the bodies of God’s children specifically. Our individual containers of the holy. These inconvenient and disappointing and majestic wonders of God that carry us through this life from womb to tomb.…

I do not know her story but I do know that the designations society places on us when our bodies are deemed too much or too little—too fat, too mannish, not masculine enough, too Black, not small enough, too loud, not pretty enough, too limited, not young enough—that the man-made designations our God-made bodies are given can add up—so much so that it can feel like a spirit is binding us, keeping us from taking up the space our dignity affords us as children of the most high.

Jesus restores the woman’s posture and the way she relates to her community:

She stands up straight, her shoulders back, her chin raised, her eyes available to give and receive light and love and recognition. She stands among them with the full dignity afforded her by her creator….

I do not know the designations that the world has given you, or the things that have been said about your body or done to your body. I do not know what binds you. But … how amazing is it that a human body is also what God chose to take on to be with us?… That God would, as we say, slip into skin and walk among us … that God would choose to make God’s home in an actual human body—in the person of Jesus of Nazareth….

All of this is to say, that God saves you IN your body, not FROM your body. Your body is in the same form and substance as that which God chose to put on and walk among us as Jesus. Your body is holy and beautiful to God—your young, old, fit, fat, cis, queer, disabled, strong body. For after all, it is the human body in which God placed God’s image, the imago dei. God could have chosen to place the imago dei—the image of God—in the mountains, but instead she put it in our bodies. We might experience the awesomeness of God in the mountains … but we see the image of God in the human body in all its perfectly glorious diversity.

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Joy Fueled

Join Us Jesus: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11:28-30

MSG Research shows that 65 million Americans are done with church as most know it, but at least half of them are not done with God. Many of these are seasoned pastors, missionaries, church planters, elders, seminary professors or church staff members—in a word: leaders. This mass exodus is a staggering reality that cannot be ignored by those who know and love Jesus. One in every three adults in the United States committed their life to God but has since given up hope of finding joyful community within the churches they have known. Yet ironically, vibrancy and joy are what we have been promised. Jesus said, “I have come so that they (my sheep) can have real life and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of” (John 10:10 MSG). And again, “I have told you these things for a purpose: that my joy may be your joy and your joy wholly mature” (John 15:11 MSG). Sadly, the experience of many who have shared in the life of a congregation and served the church for decades has been the opposite: a guilt-ridden, duty-based, judgmental experience, void of true joy, that has left them still searching for the life Jesus promises. Perhaps you are one of those people. Perhaps you left the church discouraged, hurt, frustrated, angry, or just apathetic. Maybe you are still there, still trying to effect sustainable transformation but find yourself discouraged and tired, overwhelmed, losing hope. Either way, you’re looking for better answers. You’re done being guilted, cajoled, judged and expected upon. You are ready to encounter this joy and vibrant life Jesus has promised is your birthright as a child of God. We would like to offer you just that: joy as your primary source of motivation that leads to the vibrant life in community that Jesus promised. With our combined 100+ years of Christian ministry in the pastorate, the mission field, church planting and Christian education, John, Kent and I (Toni) have experienced how powerful this joy is and how you can nurture it in yourself, in your family and yes, even in your church—whatever form that might take. Joy, in fact, is a far superior fuel for motivating us to grow and mature emotionally and spiritually. In the following pages, we will define this joy and explain a common but harmful fuel source or motivation that many of us in the Christian world have succumbed to. Understanding this damaging motivation is so important that we will devote three chapters to it. In subsequent chapters, we will explore how mission can be a spontaneous explosion of joy. Then we will unpack this motivation from both a scriptural perspective as well as from a neurobiological perspective. Finally, we will reveal the implications of being joy-fueled for individuals as well as all expressions of the church, both locally and globally. We will also introduce two of our favorite people: Roland Allen, an Anglican priest who wrote almost a hundred years ago about the importance of joy as our primary source of motivation, and Dr. Jim Wilder of Life Model Works, whose study of joy as our primary source of motivation has paved the way for many to find relational wholeness. Notice we say “primary” source of motivation. We acknowledge that throughout Scripture, other motivations are drawn upon to “spur us on toward love and good deeds” (Hebrew 10:24 NIV), motivations such as fear of bad things happening and pleasure of rewards that could come. We do not want to negate these motivations, as they may all serve good, necessary and helpful roles to a certain point in our human development. However, while they might be useful fuel for a little while, the energy they give dies out. In Joy Fueled, you will discover the only fuel that will go the long haul, lead you into mature relationships with others and with God, and give you the strength to endure the cross set before you. It is the very motivation that allowed Jesus to do the same: joy. “For the joy set before Him He endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2 NIV). After 10 years of coaching individuals, families and churches in the joy-fueled way described in these pages, LK10 has seen a spontaneous, world-wide movement spring up. People come to us every day for training and equipping in how to become more vibrant and effectively pass on what they have found. From six continents and across the divides of race, class, culture, privilege and politics, we are seeing joyful community rising. It has been our deep delight to witness this movement emerging. It is our deep joy to share what we are learning.

Now, we offer these experiences, ideas and practices to you. We are confident that Jesus wants to fill you with great delight. There is hope for you to find this vibrancy that comes from joy-fueled relationships. The unforced rhythms of grace we share in these pages not only help you nurture joy in your own life and family but also in the communities you serve. Our online resources document stories from around the world of individuals, families and church leaders like you finding deep delight in connecting heart-to-heart with their loved ones and with the God who loves us. Do you have all the joy you want? Would you like to know how to nurture joy in yourself, your family and your community? Are you ready to reimagine church and reclaim joy as your motivation? The journey awaits you; the promise is real and we are here to cheer you on.

White, John C.; Daniels, Toni M.; Smith, Dr Kent. Joy Fueled: Catalyzing a Revolution of Joyful Communities (LK10 Core Values) (pp. 1-6). LK10. Kindle Edition.

A Wholemaking Saint

Today we commemorate the Transitus of St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226), the date he passed from death into eternal life. Father Richard introduces us to the “wholemaking” life and death of Francis:

There are always new vocabularies, fresh symbols, new frames and styles, but Francis of Assisi must have known, at least intuitively, that there is only one enduring spiritual insight and everything else follows from it: The visible world is an active doorway to the invisible world, and the invisible world is much larger than the visible. I would call this mystical insight “the mystery of incarnation,” or the essential union of the material and the spiritual worlds, or simply “Christ.”

Our outer world and its inner significance must come together for there to be any wholeness—and holiness. The result is both deep joy and a resounding sense of coherent beauty. What was personified in the body of Jesus was a manifestation of this one universal truth: Matter is, and has always been, the hiding place for Spirit, forever offering itself to be discovered anew. Perhaps this is exactly what Jesus means when he says, “I am the gate” (John 10:7). Francis and his companion St. Clare carried this mystery to its full and lovely conclusions. Or, more rightly, they were fully carried by it. They somehow knew that the beyond was not really beyond, but in the depths of here.  

Francis held many opposites together in himself, embodying what Richard calls a “unique wholeness”:

Francis had a unique wholeness. He was at once very traditional and entirely new in the ways of holiness, and he is still such a standing paradox. He stood barefoot on the earth and yet touched the heavens. He was grounded in the Church and yet instinctively moved toward the cosmos. He lived happily inside the visible and yet both suffered and rejoiced in what others thought was invisible. Again and again, he was totally at home in two worlds at the same time, and thus he made them into one world.

He, like all saints, delighted in both his Absolute Littleness and his Absolute Connection in the very same moment. Of course, they totally depend on one another. He and Clare died into the life that they loved instead of living in fear of any death that could end their life. They were both so very eager to love, and they somehow knew that dying to the old and unneeded was an essential part of living this love at any depth.

Francis and Clare show us how to die into our one and only life, the life that we must learn to love. It will show itself to be one continuous movement—first learning to love our life and then allowing ourself to fully die into it—and never to die away from it. Once death is joyfully incorporated into life, we are already in heaven, and there is no possibility or fear of hell. That is the Franciscan way.

Connecting to the Whole

Father Richard describes the holiness we experience through connection and healing: 

Holiness reveals itself through our capacity for positive connection. The more we can make connections, and the more with which we can connect, the “holier” we are. God is precisely the One who connects all things, one to another. Before enlightenment or wholeness, we rank things up or down; afterward, we connect things horizontally—almost automatically!

Many have said most of our problems today tend to be psychological, but the solution is always spiritual. Only healthy, great religion is prepared to realign, re-heal, and reconnect all things, and reposition us inside the whole universe of things. Thomas Merton said the True Self should not be thought of as anything different than life itself—not my little life, but the Big Life. [1]

I’m not going to call the True Self just “life” or “being.” More basically, I’m going to call it “love.” We were made for love and love is who we are, as I believe we are metaphysically created out of the infinite love relationships that are the Trinity (see Genesis 1:26–27). There is increasing evidence that love is the basic physical structure of the universe, as revealed in all things existing in orbital, contextual, magnetic, and sexual ways. The Song of Songs (8:6) says love is as strong as death, and the flash of love is a flash of fire, a flame of YHWH. Everything can be seen as a little experience of the Big Flame. We’re just a little tiny flicker of a much-larger flame that is Life itself, Consciousness itself, Being itself, Love itself, God’s very Self. Once we say it, it seems obvious. What else would it be?

On one level, soul, consciousness, love, and the Holy Spirit can all be thought of as one and the same. Each of these point to something larger than the self, shared with God, and even eternal. That’s what Jesus means when he speaks of “giving” us the Spirit or sharing his consciousness with us. One whose soul is thus awakened has the “mind of Christ” (see 1 Corinthians 2:10–16). That doesn’t mean the person is psychologically or morally perfect, although such a transformed person does see things in a much more expanded and compassionate way. Ephesians calls it a “spiritual revolution of the mind” (4:23)—and it is!

In chapter 14 of John’s Gospel, Jesus calls this implanted Spirit the “Advocate” (v. 16) who is “with you and in you” (v. 17), makes us live with the same life that he lives (v. 19), and unites us to everything else (v. 18, 20). He goes on to say that this “spirit of truth” will “teach you everything” and “remind you of all things” (v. 26) as if we already knew this somehow. Talk about being well-equipped from a Secret Inner Source. Religion’s main and final goal is to reconnect us (re-ligio) to the Whole, to ourselves, and to one another—and thus heal us.

Jesus Is a Wholemaker

Franciscan author Ilia Delio understands Jesus as a “wholemaker” who gathers and heals disconnected and wounded parts of individuals and communities: 

The Gospels open with the word metanoia, “repent,” indicating a summons to a complete change of life for both the individual and society. This change is not a single event but a permanent newness of life. Christianity … is more dynamic than the classical hierarchic pyramid with God at the top, humans in the middle, and plant and animal life below. The new Christian order is not about fixity of place in the hierarchy but inclusiveness within the whole concept of order itself, a holarchy [a system of “holons,” or parts that also make up a whole, such as a seed]. Jesus’ intimate experience of God and his self-identity with the Father (“The Father and I are one,”) empower him to act in the name of love by healing and reconciling all that is unloved in human persons. He gathers what is scattered, healing the sick, eating with sinners, speaking with women, dining with tax collectors and Gentiles, dealing with each person as one called into greater wholeness. The story of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman (John 4:4–26) shows the new religious consciousness that erupts in this man from Galilee….

In his encounter with the woman at the well, Jesus broke three Jewish customs: first, he spoke to a woman; second, she was a Samaritan woman, a group the Jews traditionally despised; and third, he asked her to get him a drink of water, which would have made him ceremonially unclean from using her cup or jar. This shocked the woman at the well. But Jesus lived in unrestrained love, inwardly free from laws and customs that hindered wholeness and community.

Jesus prioritizes what Delio calls a “love that makes whole” and heals through an ever-greater unity between God, people, and creation: 

Jesus was a “wholemaker,” bringing together those who were divided, separated, or left out of the whole. He initiated a new way of “catholicity,” a gathering together of persons in love. At the end of his life he prayed: “That they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me” (John 17:21). He gathered together what was divided and confronted systems that diminished, marginalized, or excluded human persons. He challenged others not by argument or attack but out of a deep center of love. Jesus said, “Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39). Faith in Christ should move us to be loving and free, to create new wholes, and in doing so, to create a new future for the human person, for society, and for the whole earthly community.

Barbara Holmes identifies sacred space beyond our usual holy environments:

We are told that Jesus hung out with publicans, tax collectors, and sinners. Perhaps during these sessions of music, laughter, and food fellowship, there were also sacred moments when the love of God and mutual care and concern became the focus of their time together. Contemplation is not confined to designated and institutional sacred spaces. God breaks into nightclubs and Billie Holiday’s sultry torch songs; God tap dances with Bill Robinson and Savion Glover. And when Coltrane blew his horn, the angels paused to consider.

Some sacred spaces bear none of the expected characteristics. The fact that we prefer stained glass windows, pomp and circumstance … has nothing to do with the sacred. It may seem as if the mysteries of divine-human reunion erupt in our lives when, in fact, the otherness of spiritual abiding is integral to human interiority. On occasion, we turn our attention to this abiding presence and are startled. But it was always there.

Dr. Holmes finds a welcome and fertile space for the Divine in the arts:

Art can amplify the sacred and challenge the status quo. The arts help us to hear above the cacophony in the midst of our multitasking. The arts engage a sacred frequency that is perforated with pauses. Artists learned … there were things too full for human tongues, too alive for articulation. You can dance and rhyme and sing it, you almost reach it in the high notes, but joy unspeakable is experience and sojourn, it is the ineffable within our reach.

When you least expect it, during the most mundane daily tasks, a shift of focus occurs. This shift bends us toward the universe, a cosmos of soul and spirit, bone and flesh, which constantly reaches toward divinity. Ecclesial organizations want to control access to this milieu but cannot. The only divisions between the sacred and the secular are in the minds of those who believe in and reinforce the split….

All things draw from the same wellspring of spiritual energy. This means that the sermonic and religious can be mediated through a saxophone just as effectively as through a pastor…. How can this be?… [Can] tapping feet and blues guitar strokes … evoke the contemplative moment and call the listener to a deeper understanding of inner and outer realities?… The need to create impermeable boundaries between the sacred and the secular is … a much more recent appropriation of western values….

Historically, most efforts to wall off the doctrinal rightness and wrongness of particular practices failed. Instead, hearers of the gospel enculturated and improvised on the main themes so as to tune the message for their own hearing. Given Christianity’s preferential option for the poor, the cross-pollination of jazz, blues, and tap with church music and practices could be considered the epitome of missional outreach and spiritual creativity.

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Sarah Young

Hebrews 12:1-2 NLT

God’s Discipline Proves His Love

12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. 2 We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.

Additional insight regarding Hebrews 12:1: This “huge crowd of witnesses” is composed of the people described in Chapter 11. Their faithfulness is a constant encouragement for us. We do not struggle alone, and we are not the first to struggle with the problems we face. Others have run the race and won, and their witness stirs us to run and win also. What an inspiring heritage we have

Additional insight regarding Hebrews 12:1: Long-distance runners work hard to build endurance and strength. On race day, their clothes are lightweight and their bodies lean. To run the race that God has set before us, we must also strip off the excess weight that slows us down. How can we do that? (1) Choose friends who are also committed to the race. Wrong friends will have values and activities that may deter you from the course. Much of your own weight may result from the crowd you run with. Make wise choices. (2) Drop certain activities. That is, for you at this time these may be weight. Try dropping them for a while; then check the results in your life. (3) Get help from addictions that disable you. If you have a secret “weight” such as pornography, gambling, or alcohol, admit your need and get help today.

Additional insight regarding Hebrews 12:1-4: The Christian life involves hard work. It requires us to give up whatever endangers our relationship with God, to run with endurance, and to struggle against since with the power of the Holy Spirit. To live effectively, we must keep our eyes on Jesus. We will stumble if we look away from him to stare at ourselves or at the circumstances surrounding us. We should be running for Christ, not ourselves, and we must always keep him in sight.

Richard Rohr considers how dwelling in sacred space ultimately involves seeing God and the world through a unified vision. But we don’t get there without some sort of suffering:

Whenever we’re led out of normalcy into sacred, open space, it’s going to feel like suffering, because it’s letting go of what we’re used to. This is always painful, but part of us has to die if we are ever to grow larger (John 12:24). If we’re not willing to let go and die to our small self, we won’t enter into any new or sacred space.

Prophets lead us into sacred space by showing us the insufficiency of the old order; the priest’s role is to teach us how to live in the new realm. Unfortunately, priests too often operate separately from prophets. They talk of a new realm but never lead us out of the old order where we are still largely trapped.

In this new realm, everything belongs. This awareness is sometimes called a second naivete. It is a return to simple consciousness. The first awareness is a dangerous naivete, which doesn’t know but thinks it does. In second naivete, darkness and light coexist, paradox is revealed, and we are finally at home in the only world that has ever existed. This is true knowing. Here, death is a part of life and failure is a part of victory. Opposites collide and unite, and everything belongs.

In mature religion, the secular becomes sacred. There are no longer two worlds. We no longer have to leave the secular world to find sacred space because they’ve come together. That was the significance of the temple veil rending when Jesus died. The temple divided reality into the holy world inside and the unholy world outside. That’s why Jesus said the temple had to fall: “Not a stone shall stand on a stone” (Matthew 24:2). Our word “profane” comes from the Latin words pro and fanum, meaning “outside the temple.” Teilhard de Chardin said, “Nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see.” [1] There is only one world, and it’s the supernatural one. There is no “natural” world where God is not. It is all supernatural. All the bushes burn now if we’ve seen one burn. Only one tree has to fill up with light and angels, and then we never again see trees the same way. That’s the true seeing we call contemplation.

We need to refresh our seeing through contemplation because we forget. We start clinging and protecting. Unless there is a readiness to let go, we will not see the vision of the whole. God cannot be seen through such a small lens.

I can see why Christians use the language of “born again.” The great traditions seem to recognize the first birth is not enough. We not only have to be born, but also remade. The remaking of the soul and the refreshing of the eye is the return to simplicity.

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Sarah Young

 Be on guard against the pit of self-pity. When you are weary or unwell, this demonic trap is the greatest danger you face. Don’t even go near the edge of the pit. Its edges crumble easily, and before you know it, you are on the way down. It is ever so much harder to get out of the pit than to keep a safe distance from it. That is why i tell you to be on guard.

    There are several ways to protect yourself from self-pity. When you are occupied with praising and thanking Me, it is impossible to feel sorry for yourself. Also, the closer you live to Me, the more distance there is between you and the pit. Live in the Light of My Presence by fixing your eyes on Me. Then you will be able to run with endurance the race that is set before you, without stumbling or falling. 

RELATED SCRIPTURE: 

Psalm 89:15-16 NLT

15 Happy are those who hear the joyful call to worship,

    for they will walk in the light of your presence, Lord.

16 They rejoice all day long in your wonderful reputation.

    They exult in your righteousness.

Additional insight regarding Psalm 89:14,15: Righteousness, justice, love, and truth are the foundation of God’s throne; they are central characteristics of the way God rules. They summarize his character. As God’s ambassadors, we should exhibit the same traits when we deal with people. Make sure your actions flow out of righteousness, justice, love, and faithfulness, because any unfair, unloving, or dishonest action cannot come from God.

Sacred Refuge

CAC faculty member Barbara Holmes teaches about contemplation that arises in collective experiences of crisis. Against all odds, crisis becomes transformative “sacred space.” In her podcast The Cosmic We, Holmes reflects that in such a space:

We let go of our narratives, our plans, and the stories that we tell ourselves about who we are and where we come from. We toss our resumes or CVs to the winds, and we finally realize with regard to our corporate or social climbing that there is no there, there. When a crisis impacts a community, we collectively plunge into a space of stillness and unknowing, a shared interiority of potential and spiritual re-birthing.

After each crisis, questions loom. Will we rise to the occasion and allow the planet to recover from our toxic greed? Or will we continue to destroy our planet, our only home? A crisis forces those caught in its clutches to come to terms with the fact that life as we knew it may never be the same. When the crisis strikes, the response from the village must be a pause. There’s little that we can do, but we can be. We can listen. We can love our neighbors and we can host the Spirit that utters over every dawning day. [1]

Barbara Holmes describes the transformative benefits that can emerge from crisis—if we allow them:

I see crisis contemplation becoming a refuge. When everything around you is beyond your control and you shatter, you find within you a space of solitude, peace, and refuge that allows you to begin to gather yourself again. Howard Thurman talks about an inner island that no one can breach without your permission.

A second benefit is that crisis contemplation becomes a wellspring of discernment in a disordered life space. In other words, there is this moment of shattering where we can do nothing, and we have an opportunity to be still. We are told in Psalm 46:10 to “Be still and know that I am God,” but how many of us allow time or even have the capability to be still? Our nervous systems are such a jangle that sitting still can also be nearly impossible for some of us. When we have no choice but to be still, though, there’s an opportunity to discern what comes next. Many of us operate on instinct and impulse, but there is a way to live where we’re operating out of discernment and where there is a knowing that is beyond our own. [2]

In her book Crisis Contemplation, Barbara Holmes—or “Dr B”—ends with a prayer of gratitude: 

For the crises, the disruption of order,
and the plunge into contemplation,
we are grateful.
For the welcoming darkness
and the wounds that bring us
to a place of unknowing,
we thank God!
For the nurture of our many villages
Of belonging, we are grateful.
For healing that comes in unexpected ways,
and the imaginative pathways
of futurism and cosmic rebirth,
thanks be. [4]