Blessed Are the Confused
by M. Scott Peck
"When Jesus gave his big sermon, the first words out of his mouth were: "Blessed are the poor in spirit." There are a number of ways to translate "poor in spirit," but on an intellectual level, the best translation is "confused." Blessed are the confused. If you ask why Jesus might have said that, then I must point out to you that confusion leads to a search for clarification and with that search comes a great deal of learning. For an old idea to die and a new and better idea to take place, we have to go through periods of confusion. It is uncomfortable, sometimes painful to be in such periods. Nonetheless it is blessed because when we are in them, we are open to the new, we are looking, we are growing. And so it is that Jesus said, "Blessed are the confused." Virtually all of the evil in this world is committed by people who are absolutely certain they know what they're doing. It is not committed by people who think of themselves as confused. It is not committed by the poor in spirit."
If the confused are blessed then I am truly one blessed person! How about you? Are you feeling blessed today...and hopeful...now that you know the confused are blessed?
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Trust Your Experience
"In recent years I seem to hear God say, 'Put your books away. Be with me. Trust your experience. There are no experts in prayer, only people who have been faithful to the ache.' I reflecton this with both anxiety and joy. Why shouldn'tour experiences be filled with God? Who do we think it is who is breathing in us? Where do we think this ache has come from? And has it ever crossed our minds that God, too, has a deep yearning for us? This is the only message I've been receiving in prayer these days: 'Forget the experts for a while. Trust your own experience.'
Trusting our own experience is not nearly as easy as it sounds. We have not been brought up to trust our own experience; we have been encouraged to listen to 'the ones who know.'...You are a dwelling place for the Source of AllLIfe. You are an offspring of the One who said, 'I Am who Am.' If the One who gave you birth lives within you, surely you can find some resources there in your sacred Center. An expert lives within you. An expert breathes out of you. Are you able to be still enough to become intimate with the One who lives within? This is the only expert you will ever meet. Your life is entwined with the God who gave you birth. Frail dust, remember, you are splendor!"
( A Tree Full of Angels, Macrina Wiederkehr)
We live in an "expert saturated" culture. We leave it up to the "experts" to handle all the tough issues of life. To be sure, there are those that are trained to help us through tough times and help us see issues that we might never see on our own. But, we also lose sight of the fact that our present experience can often be our best teacher and our most reliable guide. Present with our experience is the Living Teacher - the Living Christ.
We delegate our spiritual journey and our spiritual work to others. We delegate it to them and expect them to do it for us and simply give us a report - we want them to "get back to us." We delegate it to authors, pastors, priests, teachers, government officials, kings, queens, governors, and presidents. We delegate our growth, understanding, and realities to the "experts".
Friends, an "expert" lives within - an expert called "your experience" guided and informed the the Living God who resided within us all and is the source of our experience. Trust your experience!
Trusting our own experience is not nearly as easy as it sounds. We have not been brought up to trust our own experience; we have been encouraged to listen to 'the ones who know.'...You are a dwelling place for the Source of AllLIfe. You are an offspring of the One who said, 'I Am who Am.' If the One who gave you birth lives within you, surely you can find some resources there in your sacred Center. An expert lives within you. An expert breathes out of you. Are you able to be still enough to become intimate with the One who lives within? This is the only expert you will ever meet. Your life is entwined with the God who gave you birth. Frail dust, remember, you are splendor!"
( A Tree Full of Angels, Macrina Wiederkehr)
We live in an "expert saturated" culture. We leave it up to the "experts" to handle all the tough issues of life. To be sure, there are those that are trained to help us through tough times and help us see issues that we might never see on our own. But, we also lose sight of the fact that our present experience can often be our best teacher and our most reliable guide. Present with our experience is the Living Teacher - the Living Christ.
We delegate our spiritual journey and our spiritual work to others. We delegate it to them and expect them to do it for us and simply give us a report - we want them to "get back to us." We delegate it to authors, pastors, priests, teachers, government officials, kings, queens, governors, and presidents. We delegate our growth, understanding, and realities to the "experts".
Friends, an "expert" lives within - an expert called "your experience" guided and informed the the Living God who resided within us all and is the source of our experience. Trust your experience!
Monday, June 15, 2009
The Theoretical Person
"The picture that I had inside me was more real than anything outside, and yet it was getting ever smaller and farther away and harder to call back. That, I guess is why I got so sad. I was living, but I was not living my life. So far as I could see, I was going nowhere. And now, more and more, I seemed also to have come from nowhere. Without a loved life to live, I was becoming more and more a theoretical person, as if I might have been a figment of institutional self-justification: a theoretical ignorant person from the sticks, who one day would go to a theoretical somewhere and make a theoretical something of himself - the implication being that until he became that something he would be nothing."
(words of Jayber Crow in Wendell Berry's novel, Jayber Crow)
Personal sadness is an elusive thing in the sense that we often don't know where it comes from and we're not sure we know where it will take us. Since it doesnt seem to take us anywhere we often look for where it comes from. We end up looking outside of ourselves to locate the source of our sadness and we try to fix it with things outside of ourselves. But, if young Jayber Crow is right...and I think he's on to something...the source of our sadness can often be found inside of ourselves. The sadness finds us when we realize that we are living...we're just not living our life. We're living but we are living the life everyone expects us to live and imagines us living. We have never truly given thought to who we are and where we might be going and what it is our hearts calls us to be and do. Jayber Crow says it well, "The picture that I had inside me was more real than anything outside, and yet it was getting smaller and farther away and harder to call back."
The picture that we have inside of us is often the dream that God plants within. It's the picture of who we feel called to be and do..it's the "God dream" planted within our soul. Young Jayer Crow is fighing with all his might to keep that dream alive amidst his struggles with who he is, where he is from, and where he is going. He is on a journey...literally...back home Port Williams where he eventually becomes the town barber. But, he is also on a different kind of journey - the journey back to who he truly is and what he truly believe. That picture of ourselves is inside of us and it is more real than anything outside but it gets smaller and farther away as the years go by. And, if we let it, that which is real inside of us becomes nothing more then a distant memory. It becomes so distant that we convince ourselves that it's not real and that it was foolish to believe we could ever do "this or that." Pretty soo, we just give up and we enter into living a resigned life...resigned to "that's just the way things are" and we go through the motions of doing what is most productive and necessary.
The spiritual journey, among other things, seems to me to be an experience of calling back that which is most real inside of each of us. It's a "going home" to who we truly are and who we knew we were created to be. The spiritual life is exactly that...a life. It's not an event. It's not a show. It's not an exercise in "impression management". It's a life - a life of calling back that which is more real within us - and living our life.
The danger, as Jayber Crow put is, is that we may end up living a "theoretical life". The meaningof "theory" is simply, "A set of ideas offering an explanation on how something work or why something happens but has not been completely proved." A "theoretical life" is a life that has all sort of opinions, explanations, and ideas...but it's not a life that has been lived. A theortical faith is the same - all sort of opinions, ideas, explanations, ideas, and answers - but not something that has really been lived. Jayber Crow tells us directly that without a loved life we simply become theoretical people...and what's worse...who we really are and were created to be becomes a distant memory which, some day, we might never be able to call back.
Dont' just live...live your life...live a loved life.
(words of Jayber Crow in Wendell Berry's novel, Jayber Crow)
Personal sadness is an elusive thing in the sense that we often don't know where it comes from and we're not sure we know where it will take us. Since it doesnt seem to take us anywhere we often look for where it comes from. We end up looking outside of ourselves to locate the source of our sadness and we try to fix it with things outside of ourselves. But, if young Jayber Crow is right...and I think he's on to something...the source of our sadness can often be found inside of ourselves. The sadness finds us when we realize that we are living...we're just not living our life. We're living but we are living the life everyone expects us to live and imagines us living. We have never truly given thought to who we are and where we might be going and what it is our hearts calls us to be and do. Jayber Crow says it well, "The picture that I had inside me was more real than anything outside, and yet it was getting smaller and farther away and harder to call back."
The picture that we have inside of us is often the dream that God plants within. It's the picture of who we feel called to be and do..it's the "God dream" planted within our soul. Young Jayer Crow is fighing with all his might to keep that dream alive amidst his struggles with who he is, where he is from, and where he is going. He is on a journey...literally...back home Port Williams where he eventually becomes the town barber. But, he is also on a different kind of journey - the journey back to who he truly is and what he truly believe. That picture of ourselves is inside of us and it is more real than anything outside but it gets smaller and farther away as the years go by. And, if we let it, that which is real inside of us becomes nothing more then a distant memory. It becomes so distant that we convince ourselves that it's not real and that it was foolish to believe we could ever do "this or that." Pretty soo, we just give up and we enter into living a resigned life...resigned to "that's just the way things are" and we go through the motions of doing what is most productive and necessary.
The spiritual journey, among other things, seems to me to be an experience of calling back that which is most real inside of each of us. It's a "going home" to who we truly are and who we knew we were created to be. The spiritual life is exactly that...a life. It's not an event. It's not a show. It's not an exercise in "impression management". It's a life - a life of calling back that which is more real within us - and living our life.
The danger, as Jayber Crow put is, is that we may end up living a "theoretical life". The meaningof "theory" is simply, "A set of ideas offering an explanation on how something work or why something happens but has not been completely proved." A "theoretical life" is a life that has all sort of opinions, explanations, and ideas...but it's not a life that has been lived. A theortical faith is the same - all sort of opinions, ideas, explanations, ideas, and answers - but not something that has really been lived. Jayber Crow tells us directly that without a loved life we simply become theoretical people...and what's worse...who we really are and were created to be becomes a distant memory which, some day, we might never be able to call back.
Dont' just live...live your life...live a loved life.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Being Changed By Questions
"By then I wasn't just asking questions; I was being changed by them. I was being changed by my prayers, which dwindled down nearer and nearer to silence, which weren't confrontations with God but with the difficulty - in my own mind, or in the human lot - of knowing what or how to pray. Lying awake at night, I could feel myself being changed - into what, I had no idea. It was worse than wondering if I had received the call. I wasn't just a student or a going-to-be preacher anymore. I was a lost traveler wandering in the woods, needing to be on my way somewhere but not knowing where."
Jayber Crow, by Wendell Berry
I am just beginning this novel by Wendell Berry. It's about a young man who struggles with his "call" to ministry and in the end abandons that call and becomes a barber. Through his struggles, you read about his spiritual journey and his interactions with the various people of the town. In this novel - this story - I find myself reflected in the Jayber's thoughts and struggles.
In the end, we just don't ask questions, we are changed by them. Questions have a negative connotation with some folks - as if they signify doubt. And, maybe they do indicate doubt. But doubt is not the end of faith. Sometimes it's the beginning. If we allow them to, our questions will change us and not always for the negative - many times for the positive. Our questions change us into folks who realize that life is not always about having easy answers but sometimes living in the middle of ambiguity but with a deep faith in God who also resides in that ambiguity. Our questions change us into people who keep searching and keep exploring because we don't believe we hear the final word in this lifetime - but that there is more to learn, more to hear, and more to understand. Our questions keep us humble and open because we don't fall into the arrogance of feeling we now know it all.
A deep step in faith happens when we realize we are not just asking questions but that we are allowing the questions to change us. That's when we realize we are truly on a spiritual journey and a powerful search. And maybe, just maybe, there will be an answer along the way that will transform our hearts and souls.
Jayber Crow, by Wendell Berry
I am just beginning this novel by Wendell Berry. It's about a young man who struggles with his "call" to ministry and in the end abandons that call and becomes a barber. Through his struggles, you read about his spiritual journey and his interactions with the various people of the town. In this novel - this story - I find myself reflected in the Jayber's thoughts and struggles.
In the end, we just don't ask questions, we are changed by them. Questions have a negative connotation with some folks - as if they signify doubt. And, maybe they do indicate doubt. But doubt is not the end of faith. Sometimes it's the beginning. If we allow them to, our questions will change us and not always for the negative - many times for the positive. Our questions change us into folks who realize that life is not always about having easy answers but sometimes living in the middle of ambiguity but with a deep faith in God who also resides in that ambiguity. Our questions change us into people who keep searching and keep exploring because we don't believe we hear the final word in this lifetime - but that there is more to learn, more to hear, and more to understand. Our questions keep us humble and open because we don't fall into the arrogance of feeling we now know it all.
A deep step in faith happens when we realize we are not just asking questions but that we are allowing the questions to change us. That's when we realize we are truly on a spiritual journey and a powerful search. And maybe, just maybe, there will be an answer along the way that will transform our hearts and souls.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Our Smaller Stories In Light of God's Story
Since the retreat with the good folks at the Advent Center, I have been contemplating the meaning of story even more. In preparation for teaching a summer series on Ephesians for an Adult Sunday morning class, I picked up the new commentary by N.T Wright entitled Paul for Everyone. In his introduction Ephesians and his beginning comments about chapter one in Ephesians, Wright as this to say:
"Paul's great prayer at the opening of this letter is a celebration of the larger story within which every single Christian story - every story of individual conversion, faith, spiritual life, obedience and hope - is set. Only by understanding and celebrating the larger story can we hope to understand everything that's going on in our own smaller stories, and so observe God at work in and through our own lives."
N.T. Wright's thought were just a reminder to me that our lives are truly made up of smaller stories. These stories are sometimes written by us and sometimes they are scripts handed to us through other people's expectations. Also, we find "substitute stories" that give our lives a sense of meaning and even hope. The only way we can truly understand our stories is to live them in light of the larger story which has to do with God and God's work in our life and world.
And, as a way of explaining the "contents" of this story, N.T Wright states it this way: "Look back over the story which Paul has told as an act of worship. God has taken the initiative; God has done what was necessary at great cost to himself, to buy us back from the slavery of sin; God has given us the spirit as a sign and foretaste of the whole renewed cosmos which awaits us as our inheritance. Discovering that you are to receive an inheritance like that should change your whole life. How can you not join in the hymn of praise."
Our story...our larger story...is a story or praise which gives shape and meaning to our smaller stories.
"Paul's great prayer at the opening of this letter is a celebration of the larger story within which every single Christian story - every story of individual conversion, faith, spiritual life, obedience and hope - is set. Only by understanding and celebrating the larger story can we hope to understand everything that's going on in our own smaller stories, and so observe God at work in and through our own lives."
N.T. Wright's thought were just a reminder to me that our lives are truly made up of smaller stories. These stories are sometimes written by us and sometimes they are scripts handed to us through other people's expectations. Also, we find "substitute stories" that give our lives a sense of meaning and even hope. The only way we can truly understand our stories is to live them in light of the larger story which has to do with God and God's work in our life and world.
And, as a way of explaining the "contents" of this story, N.T Wright states it this way: "Look back over the story which Paul has told as an act of worship. God has taken the initiative; God has done what was necessary at great cost to himself, to buy us back from the slavery of sin; God has given us the spirit as a sign and foretaste of the whole renewed cosmos which awaits us as our inheritance. Discovering that you are to receive an inheritance like that should change your whole life. How can you not join in the hymn of praise."
Our story...our larger story...is a story or praise which gives shape and meaning to our smaller stories.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
The Spiritual Life as Story - Advent Center Retreat, June 3-6, 2009
Last week I had the good fortune of being a presenter at a retreat sponsored by the Advent Center out of Mars Hill, NC. The Advent Center is a ministry that offers a place for folks to experience spirituality and forms of contemplative worship, centering prayer, and a variety of spiritual practices. It is inter-denominational and inter-faith although it has a defined Christian orientation. But, within it's Christian focus, it is very inclusive. The retreat was held at the Laurel Ridge Moravian Conference Center north of Wilkesboro, North Carolina - a beautiful conference center that is probably one of the best kept secrets in North Carolina...other then the Moravians...I'm sure they know about it.
The theme of the retreat was "A Story-Filled Life: Listening to and Living Into Our Stories." Essentially the focus was on acknowledging that our lives are shaped and formed by stories and that our life is, in fact, a living story. The question becomes - what is shaping and forming our personal story? Without a doubt, many forces, events, people, and places have formed and informed our personal stories. Some of these have been positive and some have not. The other piece to this retreat, then, was to connect up our personal stories with the Biblical story. Or, as Ron Martoia calls it, God's "Great Big Fat Story". In other words, how can God's story inform our personal stories and how can the great big story of the Biblical narrative inform our personal stories and journey? To this end, we are invited to listen to the Biblical story to see how it informs our story and where we are invited in.
In this retreat, we are invited to consider four areas that affect and impact our personal stories: events, places, people, and community. Each of these areas has the potential to have a significant impact on our personal story. And, in fact, they might already have. For my part, I sought to show how certain Biblical stories exemplified each of these areas. For example, the event of Jesus baptism and places such as Jacob wrestling with God or the woman at the well that interacted with Jesus. And, people such as Eli and Samuel or Ruth and Naomi. Each of these Bibical stories exemplified these areas and reminded us that we have had events, places, people, and even communites that have shaped our story. To this end, it was a few days of truly hearing people's stories and exploring our own stories.
I want to add what a fantastic job the leadership team of Amy Jennings, Stephanie Ford, and Paula Dempsey did in planning such a spiritually enriching event. I have spoken at events before but this was a first time of not only giving but receiving! A huge part of what enriched me were the worship times organized around the Daily Office. We had morning, noon, late afternoon, and evening prayes. It was a nice way to add a spiritual rhythm to our lives. This was a gift to me. Having come off a very hectic schedule prior to the retreat, the pace of the worship times, the music, and the intentional focus on prayer, centering, and seeking the Living Christ was like cool water to a parched soul.
I will have more to say about this retreat and it's theme but I would encourage everyone to check out the Advent Center and all it has to offer. These are wonderful folks offering a wonderful ministry that truly exemplifies hospitality. You can find out more about them at www.adventcenter.org
I close with this quote from Sue Monk Kidd: "A personal spiritual story is the narration of the unique movements of the human soul. At the deepest level we are stories being told by the Storyteller. Yet we are called to participate with God in the telling of our own tale, to become co-story-tellers, discovering and shaping our individual stories, and in doing so, enriching God's universal story."
The theme of the retreat was "A Story-Filled Life: Listening to and Living Into Our Stories." Essentially the focus was on acknowledging that our lives are shaped and formed by stories and that our life is, in fact, a living story. The question becomes - what is shaping and forming our personal story? Without a doubt, many forces, events, people, and places have formed and informed our personal stories. Some of these have been positive and some have not. The other piece to this retreat, then, was to connect up our personal stories with the Biblical story. Or, as Ron Martoia calls it, God's "Great Big Fat Story". In other words, how can God's story inform our personal stories and how can the great big story of the Biblical narrative inform our personal stories and journey? To this end, we are invited to listen to the Biblical story to see how it informs our story and where we are invited in.
In this retreat, we are invited to consider four areas that affect and impact our personal stories: events, places, people, and community. Each of these areas has the potential to have a significant impact on our personal story. And, in fact, they might already have. For my part, I sought to show how certain Biblical stories exemplified each of these areas. For example, the event of Jesus baptism and places such as Jacob wrestling with God or the woman at the well that interacted with Jesus. And, people such as Eli and Samuel or Ruth and Naomi. Each of these Bibical stories exemplified these areas and reminded us that we have had events, places, people, and even communites that have shaped our story. To this end, it was a few days of truly hearing people's stories and exploring our own stories.
I want to add what a fantastic job the leadership team of Amy Jennings, Stephanie Ford, and Paula Dempsey did in planning such a spiritually enriching event. I have spoken at events before but this was a first time of not only giving but receiving! A huge part of what enriched me were the worship times organized around the Daily Office. We had morning, noon, late afternoon, and evening prayes. It was a nice way to add a spiritual rhythm to our lives. This was a gift to me. Having come off a very hectic schedule prior to the retreat, the pace of the worship times, the music, and the intentional focus on prayer, centering, and seeking the Living Christ was like cool water to a parched soul.
I will have more to say about this retreat and it's theme but I would encourage everyone to check out the Advent Center and all it has to offer. These are wonderful folks offering a wonderful ministry that truly exemplifies hospitality. You can find out more about them at www.adventcenter.org
I close with this quote from Sue Monk Kidd: "A personal spiritual story is the narration of the unique movements of the human soul. At the deepest level we are stories being told by the Storyteller. Yet we are called to participate with God in the telling of our own tale, to become co-story-tellers, discovering and shaping our individual stories, and in doing so, enriching God's universal story."
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Prayer as Attentiveness
In her book, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, author Kathleen Norris has this to say about her experience of prayer:
"Prayer is not doing, but being. It is not words but the beyond-words experience of coming into the presence of something much greater than oneself. It is an invitation to recognize holiness, and to utter simple words---"Holy, Holy, Holy"---in response. Attentiveness is all; I sometimes think of prayer as a certain quality of attention that comes upon me when I'm busy doing something else."
Prayer as "attentiveness" is another way of describing how one can "pray without ceasing." It's not going through life with our eyes closed and our head bowed. It's going through life with our eyes wide open -even the eyes of our heart. It's being attentive to what is going on around me an within me and seeing that as being in prayer. The minute I turn prayer into "doing" then it become a performance or something I need to accomplish and achieve. It becomes an assignment that I need to complete and turn in to God before class is over. But, prayer as being means that all I have to do is be present to who I am in that moment and present to God in that moment as well. No performance. No mask. No pretense. Just be.
"Prayer is not doing, but being. It is not words but the beyond-words experience of coming into the presence of something much greater than oneself. It is an invitation to recognize holiness, and to utter simple words---"Holy, Holy, Holy"---in response. Attentiveness is all; I sometimes think of prayer as a certain quality of attention that comes upon me when I'm busy doing something else."
Prayer as "attentiveness" is another way of describing how one can "pray without ceasing." It's not going through life with our eyes closed and our head bowed. It's going through life with our eyes wide open -even the eyes of our heart. It's being attentive to what is going on around me an within me and seeing that as being in prayer. The minute I turn prayer into "doing" then it become a performance or something I need to accomplish and achieve. It becomes an assignment that I need to complete and turn in to God before class is over. But, prayer as being means that all I have to do is be present to who I am in that moment and present to God in that moment as well. No performance. No mask. No pretense. Just be.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)