In the Cleft of the Rock: Of Mystics and Mountains

My second hike since moving to Arizona:

My asthmatic Midwest lungs aren’t used to the mountain-desert air.  So I wheeze along in the elation of the climb and the frustration of breathing.  I find hiding places off the path to catch my breath, read a little; and my mind is full of phrases and lines from poetry and Scripture which contain imagery matching the scenery around me.

Humankind should ponder God…

recognize God’s wonders and signs.

Let these signs and wonders be

the firmament on which to build,

            so as not to be shaken by fear,

            or distracted from the love of God.

                                                            Hildegard of Bingen

Dillard couldn’t understand why mystics sought God on mountaintops, knowing He is fearsome and powerful.  She declared she would hide in a cave into which only slivers of God could shine in as light through the cracks.  I think I understand the mystics’ approach more than hers.

Upon the Altar of the World

"What if God's priests, if empty-handed, might consecrate at sunrise each day is that day's development: all that the evolving world will gain and produce, and all it will lose in exhaustion and suffering.  These the priest could raise and offer.

In China again, four years later yet, [Teilhard] rode a pony north in the Mongolian grasslands and traced Quaternary strata.  Every day still he said to himself what he now called his Mass upon the altar of the world, 'To divinize the new day': 'Since once more, my Lord, not now in the forests of the Aisne but in the steppes of Asia, I have neither bread, nor wine, nor altar, I shall rise beyond symbols to the pure majesty of the real, and I shall offer you, I your priest, on the altar of the whole earth, the toil and sorrow of the world.' " 

                             - Annie Dillard, For the Time Being, 128

These words in my reading caught me, held me, compel me.
I get so caught up sometimes in my daily world that I forget about my priest-role.

It strikes me that Teilhard's words and actions are the truth, and what he represents is an act of holiness and love.
But what is a true and good and holy thing, it seems to me, is also a dangerous thing.

To give God thus all the "toil and sorrow" of each day in one's community is to open oneself to seeing the community, one's people, and their toils and cares, as God does.

This too is a holy and beautiful thing, but it is a powerful thing and heavy.  There is undoubtedly significant joy, but O what weight of sorrow is infused in people's daily lives!  To be willing to see them as God does therefore entails great suffering.

Perhaps Teilhard's exercise is a guard against excess heaviness--that in the consecration of the day he simultaneously opens himself to it and hands it over to God.  He recognizes necessarily that it is beyond the scope of his heart or his own two hands.  He must trust the wisdom and compassion of the heart of God and the sovereign control of God. 

Both acts of submission must take place or we become blind and calloused, or else worn down, heavy, and eventually cynical.  Whatever God gives us to see and hold onto in this world is never truly our own and by consecrating all that we see and do not, by opening our eyes and hearts to see the "toil and sorrow" and then offering it back to Him on the altar, we acknowledge His ultimate control.  We learn our responsibilities to what we see, and the ways He would use us to do His work.  But I must never forget that in the end, it is not my work.

In doing this, are we not becoming more like Christ? 

And as always, I have much to learn.

Fall Poetry: Frost + St. Vincent Millay

Autumn Chant

                       Edna St. Vincent Millay

Now the autumn shudders

  In the rose's root.

Far and wide the ladders

  Lean among the fruit.

Now the autumn clambers

  Up the trellised frame,

And the rose remembers

  The dust from which it came.

Cascades of Grace

"Experiencing the present purely is being emptied and hollow; you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall.

....These are our few live seasons.  Let us live them as purely as we can."

- Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

I love that picture—grace like holding a cup under a waterfall.  Dillard mostly means trying to hold onto the present, I think, but it fits the Biblical idea of grace, too.  It's not something you can catch and hold onto; put your hands around and keep in your fists.  Grace is supposed to flow through you: an enormous power that fills your smallness beyond measure only to pour out, sloshing and spilling all around you.  Experiencing grace for myself means I can't help but leave drips and puddles behind me and splashing a little on everyone I meet.

But alas...I think perhaps too few people keep themselves soaked in the waterfall all the time.  Great God, let me not be a dried-up Christian!

How amazing too that, though God could send His grace crashing through everyone and everything at once as He pleases, He sweetly allows us to carry about our dripping little cups in hopes that the small taste of His goodness and love might bring others to the waterfall in hopes of being drenched themselves.

Cascades of grace.  What a beautiful encouragement—I have an idea Annie Dillard hit the truth much more deeply than she probably realized!

He Would Possess Our Hearts Alone

"Let us not content ourselves with loving God for the mere sensible favors, how elevated soever, which He has done or may do us.... Let us seek Him often by faith.... If we do love Him alone, are we not rude, and do we not deserve blame, if we busy ourselves about trifles which do not please and perhaps offend Him?  It is to be feared these trifles will one day cost us dear.
"Let us begin to be devoted to Him in good earnest.  Let us cast everything besides out of our hearts.  He would possess them alone."

        - Brother Lawrence, The Fifteenth Letter


"Jesus said to him, 'If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.'  When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
"And Jesus said to his disciples, 'Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven.  Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.'"

        - Matthew 19:21-24

Reading these passages, I cannot help but ask: what are the "trifles" which distract my attention from God?  Let us not be lured by the seductiveness of possessions so rampant in our culture!  Lord, keep our eyes and hearts fixed on You!

"At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, 'Yet once more will I shake not only the earth but also the heavens.'  This phrase, 'Yet once more,' indicates the removal of things that are shaken--that is, things that have been made--in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.  
Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire."

        - Hebrews 12:26-29

Sunrise: Psalm 19

The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;

night after night they display knowledge.

There is no speech or language

where their voice is not heard.

Their voice goes out into all the earth,

their words to the ends of the world.

A Line-Storm Song

     Robert Frost

The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift, 

  The road is forlorn all day, 

Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift, 

  And the hoof-prints vanish away. 

The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,

  Expend their bloom in vain. 

Come over the hills and far with me, 

  And be my love in the rain. 

A Word

(Photo: That Red One, by Arthur Dove, 1880-1946) 

      by Gary Gildner

Give me I said to those round

young faces a round word

and they looked at me

fully puzzled until finally

several cried What do you mean?

I mean I said round round

you know about round

and Oh yes they said but

give us examples!

Okay I said let's have a

square word

square maybe

will lead us to round.

And they groaned

they groaned and they frowned

every one except one

little voice way in the back said

Toast.

The Ingenious Little Old Man

I just found out April is National Poetry Month! Thus I am obliged to observe by posting lots of good poems.

The Ingenious Little Old Man
                       by John Bennett

A little old man of the sea
Went out in a boat for a sail:
The water came in
Almost up to his chin
And he had nothing with which to bail.
But this little old man of the sea
Just drew out his jackknife so stout,
And a hole with his blade
In the bottom he made
So that all of the water ran out.

Crucifying (another Good Friday post)

Crucifying
        by John Donne

By miracles exceeding power of man,
He faith in some, envy in some begat,
For, what weak spirits admire, ambitious hate:
In both affections many to Him ran.
But O! the worst are most, they will and can,
Alas! and do, unto th’ Immaculate,
Whose creature Fate is, now prescribe a fate,
Measuring self-life’s infinity to span,
Nay to an inch. Lo! where condemned He
Bears His own cross, with pain, yet by and by
When it bears him, He must bear more and die.
Now Thou art lifted up, draw me to Thee,
And at Thy death giving such liberal dole,
Moist with one drop of Thy blood my dry soul.

Dark (a Good Friday post)

Dark

     by Dom Julian Stead

Has there been a break in it
The soundless cry?
Has there been any relenting to the cry, cry,
Cry from the hollow dark?
Cry to the height of invisible light.
Light which cannot penetrate
Unless on the waves of the comprehending cry.
Do not ask what to cry,
The hollow resounds best with silence
And the horror-struck eye
Sees best in the stillness of dark.
Only one Voice can fill
And thrill
This hollow void.

"Living with Contradiction"

"I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the greatest heights.  It is when things go wrong, when the good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present....


We need to say 'Thank you' whenever possible, even if we are not able to reconcile the human creature's free will with the Master's working out of the pattern.  Thanks and praise are, I believe, some of the threads with which the pattern is woven.


...Living with contradiction is nothing new to the human being."

                                                                        -Madeleine L'Engle, Two-Part Invention




"Mysticism keeps men sane.  As long as you have mystery you have health; when you create mystery you create morbidity.  The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic.  He has permitted the twilight.  He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to believe in them.  He has always cared more for truth than for consistency.  If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them.  His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that.... The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand.


...The one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything.  Like the sun at noonday, mysticism explains everything else by the blaze of its own victorious invisibility."

                                                                      -G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

the deep longing

Do you ever feel that deep longing?

Does the yearning of your soul ever fill you until you feel it with all that you are, and it is a pulling, expanding ache within you?

Until you are sure that to glimpse something beautiful or become witness to some sorrow or pain might overwhelm you with wordless emotion?

It is hard to put the longing into words...indeed, it almost seems sacrilege to do so.
But I think this is a holy longing.

I think this is the longing that keeps us coming back to God and hoping and praying for redemption and restoration, for all things to be made right.  How long, O Lord?


This longing keeps us alive. Its pain is a form of hope—it reminds us that there is something more, that this world and its pain are not ends in themselves; that God will restore us to Him, restore our relationships with one another, restore the world to peace free from the cataclysm of drought, hurricane, earthquake, famine, war.

The medieval abbess and mystic Hildegard of Bingen wrote of this longing, and her words are an encouragement to me:

Like billowing clouds,
like the incessant gurgle of the brook,
the longing of the soul can never be
stilled. 

It is this longing with which holy
persons seek their work from God. 

Perhaps God also uses this longing to not only keep us seeking Him, but to bring us into participation in bringing about His work of redemption. Whether through proclaiming truth, creating works of beauty, or working to alleviate suffering, perhaps this longing serves as an impetus toward our personal involvement in God's work.  Perhaps that's part of what the Kingdom is all about....

"think often on God"

Brother Lawrence was a monk who lived in the 1600s and who wrote a collection of letters, notes and conversations published as The Practice of the Presence of God.


Here are a few morsels I found especially helpful or thought-provoking.

 "Accustom yourself, then, by degrees thus to worship Him, to beg His grace, to offer Him your heart from time to time in the midst of your business, even every moment, if you can.  Do not always scrupulously confine yourself to certain rules, or particular forms of devotion, but act with a general confidence in God, with love and humility." (Seventh Letter)

"[He] had no scruples; for, said he, when I fail in my duty, I readily acknowledge it, saying, I am used to do so; I shall never do otherwise if I am left to myself.  If I fail not, then I give God thanks, acknowledging that the strength comes from Him." (Second Conversation)

"[We] might accustom ourselves to a continual conversation with Him [God], with freedom and in simplicity.  [We] need only to recognize God intimately present with us, to address ourselves to Him every moment, that we may beg His assistance for knowing His will in things doubtful, and for rightly performing those which we plainly see He requires of us, offering them to Him before we do them, and giving Him thanks when we have done." (Fourth Conversation)

"There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God..... It is not pleasure which we ought to seek in this exercise; but let us do it from a principle of love, and because God would have us....  Ah! knew we but the want we have of the grace and assistance of God, we should never lose sight of Him—no, not for a moment." (Fifth Letter)

"It is, however, necessary to put our whole trust in God, laying aside all other cares, and even some particular forms of devotion, though very good in themselves, yet such as one often engages in unreasonably, because these devotions are only means to attain to the end.  So when by this exercise of the presence of God we are with Him who is our end, it is then useless to return to the means; but we may continue with Him." (Sixth Letter)

"She seems to me full of good will, but she would go faster than grace.  One does not become holy all at once." (Ninth Letter)

(That last letter could have been written about me, so strongly does it hit me!)

"Pray remember what I have recommended to you, which is, to think often on God, by day, by night, in your business, and even in your diversions.  He is always near you and with you; leave Him not alone.  You would think it rude to leave a friend alone who came to visit you; why, then, must God be neglected?  Do not, then, forget Him, but think on Him often, adore Him continually, live and die with Him; this is the glorious employment of a Christian.  In a word, this is our profession; if we do not know it, we must learn it."  (Tenth Letter) 

more thoughts on suffering

A follow-up to my last post:

"The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like his." -George MacDonald

We are not left alone in our sufferings.  On the contrary, hardship often brings us back to God as we realize just how much we need him, and so we may come to rely on him once more, or more fully.  As we read in 1 Peter 1, suffering purifies our faith while testing our faithfulness.  But instead of merely an inescapable reality, perhaps suffering is important.

We do live in a twisted, broken world, and the pain and discord are tragic.  As followers of a crucified Christ (resurrected, yes, but also crucified!) perhaps we ought to view suffering as vital rather than something to flee from.  Perhaps it is our opportunity to show the power of the hope that we have in the name we carry.  For the power of the resurrection tells us that all our trials are temporary and that God is restoring all things to harmony and beauty and wholeness, and that the pain we experience now brings us closer to the everlasting joy to come.  And the power of the ascension tells us that Christ is on the throne: that he is sovereign and powerful.  And he will return and bring it all to completion.


¡gloria a Dios!

Called to Suffer

I was reading Acts 9 the other day.
Context: Saul (later called Paul), the Jewish religious leader, is on a mission to persecute the early believers when he has a terrifying encounter with Jesus and is struck blind.  He goes to a nearby town, where he will find out what he is to do.  Meanwhile, Ananias has a vision in which God tells him to go to Saul, that God might use him to restore his sight.
Ananias, of course, is disconcerted.  "Lord," he says, "This man is murdering your people left and right, and now he has orders to come here and kill us!"

But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name." (Acts 9:15)

 This really struck me. God clearly called Saul/Paul to preach the Gospel all over the Roman empire; he used him to write most of our New Testament.  But he doesn't use any of those qualifications as the basis for his call here.  Instead, he calls Paul to suffer.
At a time when Christianity was unpopular to say the least, the call to suffer was not an unusual one. Were believers then called to the same basic elements of the Christian life that we are now? Grace. Forgiveness. Adoption as sons and daughters.  Freedom.  Life everlasting.  Perfect love...etc.  Indeed, I certainly believe so.  But they were also called to suffer.

So this made me think.

What about us? Are we called to suffer?  Would we even recognize the call if we heard it?  Suffering is not a popular concept to our culture, and the church in America tends to brush over the topic as well.  Most people I know wouldn't want to be called to suffer. But it certainly did not deter Paul from following Christ and fulfilling his apostolic role.
Or did suffering mean something different then than it does today?  I wonder.

It's fascinating to read the writings of the early martyrs.  For instance, Ignatius in the first century AD wrote that his sufferings would make him a true disciple; he hoped that through them he would become pure, a literally living sacrifice before God (Romans 12:1).  He wrote:

Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let tearings, breakings and dislocations of bones; let cutting off of members; let shatterings of the whole body; and let all the dreadful tortures of the devil come upon me; only let me get to Jesus Christ….  All the pleasures of the world, and all the kingdoms of this earth, shall profit me nothing…. Him I seek, who died for us; Him I desire, who rose again for our sake.  This is the gain which is laid up for me.  Pardon me, brethren, do not keep me from living, do not wish to keep me in a state of death; while I desire to belong to God, do not give me over to the world. 

What role does (or should) suffering play for us in North America as followers of a crucified and risen Christ?

an outburst of joy

Inexplicable but undeniable—
Quiet and first, but pouring eventually over;
The pieces askew suddenly set right.

Surely you have turned my mourning to dancing,
taken my rags and clothed me in gladness;
surely you've transformed these doubts to singing
and laughter so easily comes bubbling forth!

Psalm 117

Praise the Lord, all nations!

Extol him, all peoples!

For great is his steadfast love toward us,

and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.

Praise the Lord!

My questions are yet unanswered;
Life's challenges shall remain;
imperfections persist in me.

But of this he has reassured me;
From this he brings me peace:
His steadfast love and sovereignty
and faithfulness never cease!



[Praise the Lord, O my soul,
Praise the Lord!]

Wilkerson: Death & Wisdom

David Wilkerson, author of The Cross and the Switchblade and founder of Teen Challenge and World Challenge, died in a car crash last night.

A friend sent me a link to Rev. Wilkerson's blog and I found his post yesterday, and particularly the day before (April 26) a strong encouragement to persevere in all areas of my life but particularly my faith--especially right now in this stressful time at the end of a hectic semester, and as I am faced with my own shortcomings and failings.  It strikes me too, that his last post spoke of trusting God and finding hope in Him even when facing "the valley of the shadow of death" and that "one day it will all make sense."

I encourage you to peruse his blog and read wisdom from a godly man who lived out the gospel he preached!

http://davidwilkersontoday.blogspot.com/

"For these seeds to come to life, first they must die"

Lately I've been feeling somewhat as though I am losing control of my life.  Likely it's a good thing, albeit scary, and I found this reminder from Elisabeth Elliot encouraging on the importance of letting go of what God has given us and trusting Him:

There is no ongoing spiritual life without this process of letting go.  At the precise moment where we refuse, growth stops.  If we hold tightly to anything given to us, unwilling to let it go when the time comes to let it go or unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver meant it to be used, we stunt the growth of the soul....

The truth is that it is ours to thank Him for and ours to offer back to Him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of—if we want to find our true selves, if we want real Life, if our hearts are set on glory.

....The lesson of the seed had not been fully learned.  There must be relinquishment.  There is no way around it.  The seed does not "know" what will happen.  It only knows what is happening—the falling, the darkness, the dying....

We are given the chance to trust Him when He says to us, "...If any man will let himself be lost for my sake, he will find his true self."

When will we find it? we ask.  The answer is, Trust Me.
How will we find it? The answer again is, Trust Me.
Why must I let myself be lost? we persist.  The answer is, Look at the acorn and trust Me.

Or to quote a line of a Jon Foreman song,

For these seeds to come to life
First they must die.

spiritual short-term memory

Among other books, I am currently reading through the Gospel of Mark. And one passage in particular caught my attention the other day.

To give some context, Jesus recently fed and satisfied 5,000 hungry men with five loaves of bread and two fish, before the disciples' very eyes. Not only were they satisfied, but twelve basketfuls of leftovers were picked up afterward.  Among other healings and discussions with and about the hypocritical Pharisees, he gave hearing to a deaf man.  And the people were "astonished beyond measure, saying, 'He has done all things well.  He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.'" (7:37)
Next thing Mark tells us, a great crowd has gathered around Jesus, and these people have followed him for three days and have nothing to eat.  Being who he is, Jesus is filled with compassion, and from seven loaves of bread and "a few small fish", he feeds about 4,000 people.  And not one goes hungry—in fact, this time there are seven basketfuls of leftovers.

I know, I know, you've probably heard this before. But bear with me because these little beforehand-details are important.

So Jesus has fed another crowd of people.  And the Pharisees approach him and ask him for a sign from heaven.  "Sorry, mister; these miracles aren't good enough for us. Healing the sick, casting out demons, multiplying food?? Give us a real sign!"  Jesus is saddened by their lack of faith and hard hearts and gets back in the boat, and he and his disciples travel to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.

Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat.  And [Jesus] cautioned them, saying, "Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod."  And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread.  And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, "Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread?  Do you not yet perceive or understand?  Are your hearts hardened?  Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?  And do you not remember?  When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up? "  They said to him, "Twelve."  "And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?"  And they said to him, "Seven."  And he said to them, "Do you not yet understand?"  [Mark 8.14-21]

There are a couple of things going on in this passage, but what struck me is what seems to be the disciples' seemingly incredible short-term memory!  Within a fairly short period of time, with the disciples to help with distribution, Jesus has fed about 9,000 people.  He started with next to nothing, blessed, fed the people, and there was extra left over.  A couple more incidents, and next thing we know the disciples are complaining about being hungry again!  They come across on the thick-headed side, don't they?

I thought so.

Then I realized I do the same thing.  How many times has God called me to a certain place and proved his greatness, his power, his sovereignty and love by providing for all my needs?
Of course, sometimes I get needs confused with wants, but he has always been faithful! And he has always provided.

Yet I sit here and struggle with trusting him to provide for the future. Right now I'm trusting that if he wants me to continue at school, he'll provide a way, and so far I have been able to work just enough to stay on top of the bill, one semester at a time.  But when he put before me the opportunity to go on a short-term mission trip overseas this winter, one of my greatest concerns and hesitations is the knowledge that I have no way to get there on my own.

But he's always provided.  Every time.  Just counting mission trips, that makes six separate occasions.  And that doesn't even include the rest of my life, in which I've definitely seen God provide in large and small ways.

He has always provided.  And I still doubt.

Time to take some lessons from Hudson Taylor and start trusting God in more uncomfortable ways. For as Christians I think we often ask God to reveal his greatness to us, but it's hard for us to let go of our own self-relience--just like the Pharisees.  Jesus gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf, but like the disciples, I have no excuse.  Having eyes, I still have difficulty seeing; having ears, I manage not to hear.

As the father of the demon-possessed boy cried, "I believe; help my unbelief!" [Mark 9:24]

God grant me grace and strength to have greater faith and to live by this faith day by day and month by month!