“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]

Liminal Space 

Father Richard describes how both life and religion can invite us into liminal, sacred space as well as provide us opportunities to escape or ignore it:

We keep praying that our illusions will fall away. God erodes them from many sides, hoping they will fall. But we often remain trapped in what we call normalcy—“the way things are.” Life then revolves around problem-solving, fixing, explaining, and taking sides with winners and losers. It can be a pretty circular and even nonsensical existence.

To get out of this repetitive cycle, we have to allow ourselves to be drawn into sacred space, into liminality. All transformation takes place here. There alone is our old world left behind, though we’re not yet sure of the new existence. That’s a good space where genuine newness can begin. We must get there often and stay as long as we can by whatever means possible. It’s the realm where God can best get at us because our false certitudes are finally out of the way. This is the sacred space where the old world is able to fall apart, and a bigger world is revealed. If we don’t encounter liminal space in our lives, we start idealizing normalcy. The threshold is God’s waiting room. Here we are taught openness and patience as we come to expect an appointment with the Divine Doctor. 

I believe that religion’s unique and necessary function is to lead us into liminal space. Instead, religion has largely become a confirmation of the status quo and business as usual. Religion should lead us into sacred space where deconstruction of the old “normal” can occur. Much of my criticism of religion comes about when I see it not only affirming the system of normalcy but teaching folks how to live there comfortably. [1] 

Culturally, we don’t want to embrace liminal space or recognize our natural egocentricity. In fact, we avoid trying to experience it at all. We shut away people who are ill and dying in hospitals and nursing homes, rather than allowing them to spend their final days at home, surrounded by loved ones who will learn and grow by dwelling together in the liminal space between life and death. We avoid other times of liminality in our lives through denial, escaping with the help of alcohol, sugar, and drugs to avoid truly experiencing the opportunities of liminal space. Yet the irony is that liminal space doesn’t have to be difficult. While it can be challenging, it can also be extremely rewarding. I discover there is another Center, and it’s not me! 

Liminal space relativizes our perspective. When we embrace liminality, we choose hope over sleepwalking, denial, or despair. The world around us becomes again an enchanted universe, something we intuitively understood when we were young and somehow lost touch with as we grew older. [2]

Sacred Space

In a 1994 retreat on the Hebrew prophets for CAC interns, Richard Rohr stressed that the prophets’ love for God and passion for justice came from a transforming experience of “sacred space”:

Comparative religion scholar Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) describes sacred space and profane space. He identifies sacred space with an inbreaking of divine reality, and thinks that modern people have uneasy and weak connections to sacred space. [1] Since the Enlightenment, we live almost entirely in profane space. If we picture a circle as sacred space, inside the circle, there is one reference point, and everything bounces off of that center point.
 
Most of us have been inside sacred space before. It’s whenever something jolts us into the absolute now. It could be when we’re frightened to death, or it could be like the moment we received the call that our mother or father had just died. That’s sacred space. Sometimes it lasts for days or weeks, and it’s where everything is experienced in terms of that one reference point. We can’t think of anything else. After I heard my mother died, I went down to the local store, and I really wanted to shout narcissistically to everybody, “Why are you just going ahead with your business, don’t you know my mother died?!” We’re that caught up in this differently shaped universe. I really couldn’t believe why anybody else would be buying and selling things, because don’t they know the world has been rearranged? Maybe we’ve only experienced it for a second, but this sacred space is anything that pulls us to experience the Total Now.
 
The secret of the Hebrew prophets is they had a transforming experience of sacred space. The calls of Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel each are a clear description of a transformative moment of sacred space. Their world is reconfigured, life is reconfigured, and afterwards they have to go back to what looks ordinary but now has become entirely extraordinary for them. They see reality with a different set of eyes. I think the reason that we need a place like the CAC or a school for prophets is because we’ve got to find a way to honor and send people on this serious search for God. That is primary, and it’s from this that we develop critical consciousness.
 
I don’t think this will ever be a grand agenda for a large amount of people, but I do think the prophetic gift can be educated, and I do believe the prophetic gift can be called forth. Once we start speaking about the prophets and naming the prophetic gift, a lot more people might recognize, “I might just have that gift now and then.” We don’t need to name ourselves as prophets, or for anyone else to call us prophets, but we can operate prophetically now and then. We can be radically committed to the big picture, the great tradition, while being free to critique it.

A Sense of Presence

Minister and author Howard Thurman (1899–1981) stressed the importance of coming face to face with God: 

The central fact in religious experience is the awareness of meeting God. The descriptive words are varied: sometimes it is called an encounter; sometimes, a confrontation; and sometimes, a sense of Presence. What is insisted upon, however, … [is that] the individual is seen as being exposed to direct knowledge of ultimate meaning … in which all that the individual is, becomes clear as immediate and often distinct revelation. He is face to face with something which is so much more, and so much more inclusive, than all of his awareness of himself that for him, in the moment, there are no questions. Without asking, somehow he knows.

The mind apprehends the whole—the experience is beyond or inclusive of the discursive…. The individual in the experience seems to come into possession of what he has known as being true all along. The thing that is new is the realization. And this is of profound importance. [1]

Spending time with Quakers provided Thurman with sacred space to experience his oneness with God and other people. It proved to be a doorway to both action and contemplation. Author Lerita Coleman Brown writes:  

For more than four hundred years, a vibrant Quaker commitment to the mystical practice of silence has persisted…. Staunch promoters of the “still small voice,” Quakers believe that everyone carries the divine light of God within them and that we are all equal regardless of title or socioeconomic status. They believe that God speaks ceaselessly to us and that quietness and stillness are prerequisites for hearing the soft, gentle, wordless communication of God. Yet for Quakers, being contemplative is not enough; they assume that actions emerging from the silence should facilitate the end of social injustices and the creation of a more benevolent world. As advocates of peace and equality, many Quakers participated in the Underground Railroad, assisting thousands in escaping slavery.

As part of his study of mysticism, Howard Thurman attended Quaker meetings and sat in the silence that characterizes unscripted forms of Quaker worship. In a 1951 sermon on the strength of silence in corporate worship … Thurman speaks of his personal experience of group silence during a traditional Quaker meeting:

Nobody said a word … just silence. Silence. Silence. And in that silence I felt as though all of them were on one side and I was on the other side, by myself, with my noise. And every time I would try to get across the barrier, nothing happened. I was just Howard Thurman. And then … I don’t know when it happened, how it happened, I wish I could tell you, but somewhere in that hour I passed over the invisible line, and I became one with all the seekers. I wasn’t Howard Thurman anymore; I was, I was a human spirit involved in a creative moment with human spirits, in the presence of God. [2]

A compassionate presence is one of the fruits of contemplation. Richard Rohr writes about the great compassion St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) had for others, which is inspired by the great compassion of Jesus. 

The most obvious change that results from the holding and allowing that we learn in the practice of contemplative prayer is that we will naturally become much more compassionate and patient toward just about everything. Compassion and patience are the absolutely unique characteristics of true spiritual authority, and without any doubt are the way both St. Francis and St. Clare led their communities. They led, not from above, and not even from below, but mostly from within, by walking with their brothers and sisters, or “smelling like the sheep,” as Pope Francis puts it. Only people at home in such a spacious place can take on the social illnesses of their time, and not be destroyed by cynicism or bitterness. 

Spiritual leaders who lack basic human compassion have almost no power to change other people, because people intuitively know they do not represent the Whole and Holy One. Such leaders need to rely upon roles, laws, costume, and enforcement powers to effect any change in others. Such change does not go deep, nor does it last. In fact, it is not really change at all. It is mere conformity. [1] 

We see this movement toward a shared compassion in all true saints. For example, St. Francis was able to rightly distinguish between institutional evil and the individual who is victimized by it. He still felt compassion for the individual soldiers fighting in the crusades, although he objected to the war itself. He realized the folly and yet the sincerity of their patriotism, which led them, however, to be un-patriotic to the much larger kingdom of God, where he placed his first and final loyalty. What Jesus calls “the Reign of God” we could call the Great Compassion. [2] 

Catholic author Judy Cannato (1949–2011), who worked to integrate the gospels with the new cosmology, believed this Great Compassion was Jesus’ primary objective. She writes: 

The realm of God that Jesus preached and died for was one that was known for its kindness and generosity, its compassion and healing. There was no one deemed outside the love of the Holy One whom Jesus called “Father.” No one was excluded from fellowship, not the rich or poor, male or female, slave or free. Jesus went beyond superficial divisions and called for a culture of compassion.  Compassion changes everything. Compassion heals. Compassion mends the broken and restores what has been lost. Compassion draws together those who have been estranged or never even dreamed they were connected. Compassion pulls us out of ourselves and into the heart of another, placing us on holy ground where we instinctively take off our shoes and walk in reverence. Compassion springs out of vulnerability and triumphs in unity.

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Sarah Young

Be still in the Light of My Presence, while I communicate Love to you. There is no force in the universe as powerful as My Love. You are constantly aware of limitations: your own and others’. But there is no limit to My Love; it fills all of space, time, and eternity.

    Now you see through a glass, darkly, but someday you will see Me face to Face. Then you will be able to experience fully how wide and long and high and deep is My Love for you. If you were to experience that now, you would be overwhelmed to the point of feeling crushed. But you have an eternity ahead of you, absolutely guaranteed, during when you can enjoy My Presence in unrestricted ecstasy. For now, the knowledge of My loving Presence is sufficient to carry you through each day.

RELATED SCRIPTURE: 

1st Corinthians 13:12 NLT

12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

Ephesians 3:16-19

16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. 17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

For Franciscan scholar Ilia Delio, compassion stems from knowing that we belong to one another:   

I think our greatest fear is our deepest desire: to love and to be loved. We long to be for another and to give ourselves nobly to another, but we fear the cost of love. Deep within we yearn for wholeness in love, but to become more whole in love we must accept our weaknesses and transcend our limits of separation in order to unite in love. We long for oneness of heart, mind and soul, but we fear the demands of unity. Sometimes I think we choose to be alone because it is safe. To be comfortable in our isolation is our greatest poverty.   

Compassion transcends isolation because the choice to be for another is the rejection of being alone. The compassionate person recognizes the other as part of oneself in a way that is mystical and ineffable. It is not a rational caring for another but a deep identification with the other as brother and sister. [1] 

Delio stresses that compassion nourishes our interconnectedness with each other and the earth: 

We must seek to unite—in all aspects of our lives—with one another and with the creatures of the earth. Such union calls us out of isolated existences into community. We must slow down, discover our essential relatedness, be patient and compassionate toward all living creatures, and realize that it is a shared planet with finite resources. We are called to see and love in solidarity with all creation. Only in this way can the earth enjoy justice and peace which means right, loving relations with the natural world of God’s good creation.   

Compassion requires a depth of soul, a connectedness of soul to earth, an earthiness of person to person, and a flow of love from heart to heart. [2]  

Recognizing our relatedness creates space within us that we wouldn’t otherwise find, and opens a deeper capacity to love: 

Compassion is realized when we know ourselves related to one another, a deep relatedness of our humanity despite our limitations. It goes beyond the differences that separate us and enters the shared space of created being. To enter this space is to have space within ourselves, to welcome into our lives the stranger, the outcast, and the poor. Love is stronger than death and the heart that no longer fears death is truly free. Compassion flourishes when we have nothing to protect and everything to share. It is the gravity of all living beings that binds together all that is weak and limited into a single ocean of love.   

We have the capacity to heal this earth of its divisions, its wars, its violence, and its hatreds. This capacity is the love within us to suffer with another and to love the other without reward. Love that transcends the ego is love that heals. When we lose ourselves for the sake of love, we shall find ourselves capable of real love. [3]   

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Sarah Young

Receive My Peace. It is My continual gift to you. The best way to receive this gift is to sit quietly in My Presence, trusting Me in every area of your life. Quietness and trust accomplish far more than you can imagine not only in you, but also on earth and in heaven. When you trust Me in a given area, you release that problem or person into My care.
     Spending time alone with Me can be a difficult discipline, because it goes against the activity addiction of this age. You may appear to be doing nothing, but actually, you are participating in battles going on within spiritual realms. You are waging war – not with the weapons of this world, but with heavenly weapons, which have divine power to demolish strongholds. Living close to Me is a sure defense against evil.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:

John 14:27 (NLT)
27 “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.