Category Archives: Prayer

The Dance of Suffering and Joy

Posted on September 14, 2010 | Leave a comment

The leaves of the pear tree are glossy and thick on the branches. The pears, a bit larger than walnuts, blush rose near their stems. On my window frame hangs the icon of a skinny naked Jesus. It is the crucifix of San Damiano from which St. Francis heard Jesus tell him to repair His church. This Jesus will not meet my gaze, but looks down some hellish tunnel of sorrow that hallows the space between us. His face is grey, mouth turned down. He is wearing a sheer loin cloth that looks like it came from Frederick’s of Hollywood. I am embarrassed for him in his poverty, his utter abasement. Cheer up Jesus!  You look terrible. The pear tree is laden with fruit this year!

He doesn’t seem to notice the fruit, though he must see it – his eyes are wide open. Pinned like a specimen to the cross where under his arms are gathered stately mourners, he bleeds in tiny spurts from hands and feet. Angels hover over his head in neat rows. One appears to be performing a liturgical dance. No – that’s no angel. It must be Christ on his way to heaven, ascending in a crimson mandala.

The crucified Jesus just hangs there. Has he no shame? It is I who squirm, not he.  For his eyes pin me at the intersection of poverty and abundance where I hang ripening in the Kansas sun in mid September. O Jesus, how long must you hang there suspended in misery, wearing us out with that sorrowful stare?

With an introit of barking dogs, the squirrels soon will come to pluck the half-ripe pears with their agile paws, taking one bite from each, and then carelessly tossing them to the ground to rot. Pray God to preserve us from squirrels that raid at dawn, chattering and chasing up and down the branches, tempting us into thinking that we have been made to be consumed by squirrels. Pray God that we may be left hanging, suspended by the heart’s stem, hidden in the leaves until we’ve ripened properly. And then, at the sharp insistent teeth of need open our flesh sweet and tender to one another.

Then maybe that sad Jesus will get off that rugged cross and come eat the fruit of summer with us.

____________________

We went to Koger’s Variety Store for back to school specials the other day and painstakingly put names on new back packs, glue bottles, scissors, and Big Chief Tablets.  We watched Dad’s jaw drop as he wrote the check for new clothes at the mall.  Then last evening we noted it was getting dark so early.

The air is uneasy, a mix of the eager hope of a brand new lunch box and the painful regret that summer is over and we never got around to making those doll clothes or camping out in the back yard to watch the stars all night.

Jeremiah laments with us, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended and we are not saved.”(8:20)  And we find ourselves at the  intersection of poverty and abundance where the kingdom of God is conceived. Christians seem to perpetually stand on the threshold of a new school year clutching our shiny lunch boxes in one hand and the forsaken dreams of summer in the other. Holy ground is the paradoxical place where we simultaneously live in the Pentecost fullness of the gifts of the Spirit and the power of the Risen One; and in the crucifixion emptiness and cry for redemption of the Suffering One.

Jesus tells us that of God’s own will we have been brought forth to be a kind of first fruits of God’s creatures.  Like the firstborn child or the firstborn of livestock, the first fruits to come ripe in a season were sacred to God.  “When the grain is ripe, ready to be given up, at once the farmer puts in the sickle because the harvest has come,”(Mark 4:29) says Jesus. When one is ready to die, then harvest is come. How odd to be ripening for death, to be growing in Christ only to be handed over.


Just as the cross is the joining of two opposite directions, we live in the creative tension of the union of poverty and abundance.  The tension is great, and it is hard for us to stay in the center of the cross for very long. We want resolution. We are tempted to heave ourselves down one polarity or the other.  But if we can hold both the pear tree laden with fruit and our ongoing need to be nourished, if we can accommodate both the Risen Christ and the Crucified Savior, then we may discover, out of the union of these opposites, new fruit conceived in us which will heal and sustain the earth.

The barrage of demands and the voracious appetite of a culture that seeks to devour, rather than savor its sustenance undermine a quiet patient trust in God’s seasons of growth and harvest.  What is it that finally brings us to fruition? Is it not the sharp insistent teeth of need, our own poverty and the poverty of one another, that finally allows us to fall sweet and tender into each other’s embrace?

At Toys R Us — Oh my, toys are us! In Proverbs Wisdom tells us, “At the beginning I was playing beside him like a little child and I was daily his delight.”(8:29),  I listened to a tinkling recording of “It’s a Small World, Isn’t It?” while watching a lion and a lamb, a giraffe, a hopping kangaroo, and a waving bear shimmer across a plastic screen. Nearby Cicelia plinked a xylophone in plunking delight.

Then in the department store she asked, “Are shoes alive?”

Her elder sister exclaimed, “No!”

But she persisted, “I saw one talking on TV.”

“Let’s see,” I said, and leaning over a cordovan Bass loafer inquired, “Are you alive?”

“Oh mom,” Diana sighed.

We tried on grown-up perfume. When the saleslady offered to help, we told her we were searching for a fragrance that was really “us.” A spray, and Cicelia, pressing her hands to her cheeks, giggled, “Oh mom, I know this one is me!”

Before boarding the escalator we tried on hats. Cicelia, in a large brimmed red felt with ribbons, and Diana, in a small black veiled cloche, gazed at their images in the narrow mirror on the best day of my life.

We took six dresses from a rack for Diana to choose. Cicelia was her handmaiden, letting it be according to sister’s word, carrying, doing buttons and zippers, and holding up the blue satin fabric like a swatch of heaven against each dress.

Jesus, I thought you were suffering, but I saw streams of light pouring from your head like a fountain, spraying colors – blue, azure, hues of red, green, yellow – shimmering rainbows irradiating in spurts and gushes and rivers from a still small body sagging on a tree. All day I played plinking magic while you spun streams of green leaves, jungles, hay fields in spring, purple hyacinths, beets, cerulean seas, dolphins, berries, mountain mist, and a single red rose flame out of the chaste and tender aureole of your pain.

There in the dance of creation and dissolution, there where our need is met with the abundance of another and our abundance fills another’s lack,

there where it is a small world after all,

there is our joy made complete.


This post is excerpted from the author’s book, Letters from the Holy Ground – Seeing God Where You Are

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Yielding to Grace

Posted on September 7, 2010 | 3 comments

Maybe you have taken on a very difficult and demanding task. Maybe you have been engaged in a burst of creative activity. Or perhaps, you have been involved in the long, slow, steady, outpouring of yourself for family, friends, or your job.

You may have noticed the signs: an anxious, sleepless night here or there; drinking too much caffeine or alcohol; not enough time to get to the grocery store; a sudden attraction to playing solitaire, and a rush of those Please-Lord-give-me-the-strength-to-do-this prayers.

In my case I was following my own devices again, rushing ahead of the Spirit, plowing my own path. Finally I was stopped by a sharp, shard of sorrow in my heart, a sense of restless unease, and the accompanying guilt and self-recrimination about my lack of motivation. I did not miss God’s irony that this should assail me over the Labor Day holiday.

After thirty years of devoting myself to prayer, I am amazed at how hard it still is to expose myself to the direct presence of Christ. I really think I would be the one in the back of the crowd, wanting desperately to push through to touch his robe, but fearful and cautious, and resigned to making the best of things on my own.

Many of us find it easy to read about faith and prayer. Books on these topics are best sellers. Countless people read the Bible. Most of us do not have much trouble telling God what we need. We may even write out a list of our needs and longings and hand it to the person in front of us, asking, “Would you pass this on up to Jesus, for me?”

What I hadn’t done was the simple, radical exposure of myself and my need to God. What I hadn’t done for several weeks was a sustained, still, silent offering of my being to the being of God. This is what I believe truly heals and redeems: contact with Holiness, that mysterious communion and co-mingling of my spirit with the Spirit, a dance of love beyond my understanding or control.

I know why I avoid it and why I, suppose, that I have to write about it. The reason is that this communion may hurt at first. The exposure of a raw, chaffed heart to the burning brightness of Grace can be excruciating. (Yes, that is the word for it: ex- crucifix, from the cross.) It may be the last thing we want to do. So we often just tell God about it, then get up and go on fretting, and look about for something to do, anything other than just sitting there in that fear and pain.

Now think for a moment. If you were sick, would you not pay attention to your symptoms, maybe check them out on the internet, and go to a physician and describe what you are feeling? And then, would you get up from your chair and go home, before the doctor had a chance to ask questions, to examine you, run tests, and prescribe your treatment?

Surely you would you wait for the examination. You would answer questions. You would you lie down on the table, bare your chest to the stethoscope, your arm to the blood pressure cuff, and take whatever tests the doctor advised. You would take your medicine and follow a treatment plan.

I had been making drive-by visits to God, where I would drop off my laundry or tell God what I need for today. I was sipping those devotions for busy people, spouting sound bite prayers on the run. I was not coming before God and disrobing. I was not holding still for God to search my heart and probe my mind.  I would not wait for his grace to move into me, to absorb the pain, to refresh and heal me. Further, it was all about me. I was all about me. I had nary a thought of what God might desire or need from me.

We fool ourselves if we think a quick shot of God, a pithy quote, or Bible verse alone will do it. God desires a relationship with us, not a power lunch, and depth relationships require leisure, attention, vulnerability, and mutuality.

Part of us really does desire this. However, another part of us is just not that interested. I hear about this internal conflict over and over in my practice of spiritual direction. People are sincere and have good intentions. Yet nearly everyone I know finds him or herself facing obstacles to a sustained presence to God.

Try it. Find a quiet place where you will not be interrupted. Set a timer. Twenty minutes is good. Ten minutes will do. Even five minutes can hold a miracle. Breathe a while. Just be there and allow yourself to be open to Christ, the patient physician, who has been waiting for you for an eternity. Now right off, you may notice all sorts of responses in yourself: a sudden urge to get up and tend to some task; some buried pain rising up, burning and stinging like really bad heart burn. You will take little sorties into the past and into future. You will write fiction, little novellas, about your life. You will discover some hurt or slight or worry to gnaw on.

Just stay there. Hold still. You are getting a CT scan. Don’t move. This time is for God’s examination of you. What you think and how you feel about this isn’t all that important. The physician is at work. Trust that. You may feel panic or anger or despair. You may feel deep peace and joy. Whatever you feel, just stay there opening yourself to the one who loves and cares for you beyond your wildest dreams.

When the timer rings, give thanks as honestly as you can. Then do the same thing the next day and the day after and the day after. Don’t look for “results,” just be obedient in allowing the doctor to heal you. Thomas Keating calls this form of centering prayer “divine therapy.” You, of course, may also read the Bible, pray in other ways that you are drawn to, do acts of love and service, and whatever else that seems right for you.

Sometimes this prayer is like detox, a weaning from some addiction, and we go through the painful withdrawal of whatever we may have been substituting for God in our lives. Other times this prayer is like the surrendered offering of Mary to the angel, Let it be to me according to thy word.

Always such yielded prayer is an act of faith in the mystery of God’s love and purposeful activity in the human heart and soul.


Hold your eyes on God and leave the doing to him.
That is all the doing you need to worry about.  St. Jeanne de Chantal

Have Thine Own Way – Organ Improvisation

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Prayer: Taking the Long View

Posted on August 24, 2010 | 2 comments
The contemplative who can stand back from a situation and see it for what it is, is more threatening to an unjust social system than the frenzied activist who is so involved in the situation that he cannot see clearly at all.  ~Protestant theologian, Karl Barth

Look always at the whole. ~ Marcus Aurelius

In the photo my hair is in braids and I am about six years old. I am wearing sunglasses and standing next to my father, who smiles proudly. My three year old brother is perched on our old Chevy next to a dark cloth spread over the hood. He wears a sun suit and is squinting into the sun. On the cloth are the day’s find, a cache of Indian relics. Dad had spent the day walking the plowed fields in the special places known to him, where Indians and, before them, prehistoric dwellers had camped.

He often handed me an ancient tool to hold, showing me how the flint had been worked and chipped to form something useful. “Just think, a little boy or girl long ago held this rock and played with it. This one was used to shoot birds,” he’d say, putting a tiny arrow point in my palm.  He would gesture to the creek saying, “You have to learn to read the signs. They camped here, because there was water and wild life for food. The ground is up high, so they could see a long ways.”  He spoke of the people who made the tools with reverence and a kind of wonder.

When he showed me where a glacier had moved through Iowa and left a particular kind of rock that had come from a place in Canada, and told me how that happened way before the Indians lived here, I realized that I was a tiny being in the sweep of the universe. So many things had happened before I was born and would continue after I died. The notion filled me with awe.

I grew up with rocks and so many arrowheads that Dad once cemented the chipped and broken ones to the edge of the steps leading to our front door. He carefully numbered and cataloged every piece he found with precise location, date, and field notes. He did not confine himself to stone relics, but also found the vertebra of a mammoth and  teeth of a mastodon and a saber tooth tiger. Now that seemed amazing to me… these animals actually once lived where I lived. Dad could point out the creek bank where he found the relics. I loved to gaze at the reproductions of these creatures in the fold out color plates in Life Magazine. I would look at the huge, shaggy, mammoth beast surrounded by the spear wielding, ancient men in the magazine and then up at that tooth, bigger than my fist on the shelf in our dining room.

My father’s interest in history, geology, and archeology expanded my awareness of the world to encompass more than what I could immediately see. His respect for what had come before him and curiosity to keep looking, digging, and learning his entire life taught me that there was always more to see, to understand, and know.

I was not very good at finding artifacts myself. A rock was a rock to me. I would fix my eyes on the ground determined to find one, but rarely did. I think my father’s success was a convergence of understanding the effect, the heave and thrust of rain, ice, and plow on the land, a willingness to put himself in the skin of those early people, and an ability to use his peripheral vision. While focused on the goal, he, at the same time, took in the whole, aware of the plowed rows he had covered, the rows ahead, and those on each side of him.

Lately I have thought often of my father’s way of seeing and how he lived from a big, broad view of the world and his place in it. We as a culture seem in some places to have lost that sense. It is as though we have forgotten how to use our peripheral vision. We spend our time focused on televisions computer screens, cell phones, calendars, and our to do lists. We travel, shut up in vehicles, with the air conditioner on, and radio and ipod babble filling our ears. Many of us, living in cities, have fewer opportunities to rest our eyes on the soothing, panoramic sweep of mountains, plains, forests, and oceans.

We make decisions, express opinions, and live our lives from a constricted field of vision. We obsess and worry. We blow things out of proportion. We lose perspective and a sense of humor. We become rigid, self-righteous, defensive, and dull. (Please forgive me, if you do not do this. I know not all of you are like me).

Specific focus is incredibly useful. To hone in on a project, a piece of art, an idea, or another person brings precision and clarity to our thinking and our actions. However, we can get stuck in that narrow focus and fail to dial back to the bigger picture.

Try it. Focus on a point across the room. Narrow down your vision to look very intently at that single point. Then allow your peripheral vision to come into play. Slowly become aware of what you can see on either side of that point, then on either side of yourself, then behind yourself, and above and below yourself. Of course, you cannot actually see completely behind yourself (unless you have eyes in the back of your head like my mother). Imagine your vision and awareness radiating out from you in 360 degrees for miles and miles. At this point you may want to close your eyes. Go ahead. I will wait for you, while you enjoy the spaciousness.

Now notice what is happening to you. If you keep at this for a while, you will find yourself relaxing, The tension will go out of your neck, your jaw. Your shoulders will release. Your breathing will slow.  A physiological shift occurs in your body and perception as you expand your awareness, taking in more and more. You may feel more peaceful. Some people experience an expansion and freedom in their attitude and approach to problem solving.

Jesus viewed others and himself from the broad perspective of eternity. In his self understanding as the Son of God was the awareness of all that was, all that is, and all that will be. I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end. He saw the specific need of the individual before him in the context of a much bigger picture and this sweeping view impacted what he said and did. While on this earth, Jesus never shook off that telltale scent of heaven, and the vision of the Kingdom of God in his union with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

As we offer ourselves, our world, our troubles, and our conflicts to God in prayer, we step into the sweeping majesty of eternity. We become part of something greater than ourselves. Our vision expands to include the whole. We find gifts we didn’t see before. We discover evidence of life we had no idea was right before us. We are connected to a woolly mammoth, whose 16,000 year old molar we hold in the palm of our hand. We are joined to all that teems and dances in the mind of Christ. I am no longer a “single interest group” rigidly focused on my particular agenda, but have entered the stream of creativity, grace, and vitality that is the Realm of God.

No telling what you might find then!


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Rx for a Crisis

Posted on August 9, 2010 | Leave a comment
The man, unemployed for two years now, leans his elbows on the kitchen table, puts his face in his hands and weeps.
Be still and know that I am God.

The family, numb with shock and grief, stare into the abyss the sudden death of their child has opened before them.

Be still and know that I am God.

The couple – run ragged with work, child care, and keeping up with the Joneses – gaze across the room at each other and wonder how their love turned to resentment and anger.

Be still and know that I am God.

All the while the nation’s public discourse rages on with the clamor and clang of opinions, self righteous indignation, and attack.
Be still and know that I am God.
So much of our lives seems to be fueled by fear and hyperbole, or hype, as the word has morphed into. The fear and anxiety tend to compress our perception into narrow tunnel vision and demand that we act immediately, often at the expense of reasoned consideration, and gathering all the facts. Hyperbole, the fetching sister of fear, exaggerates, escalates, and glamorizes her brother. We feed on sensationalism, scandal, and worst case scenarios.
In the context of this culture of fear and hype, when we encounter the pain and loss of being human, in whatever form it shows up in our life, we may feel overwhelmed, isolated, or ashamed.
Our times are difficult. We face as individuals, as a nation, and as global citizens immense challenges. People are suffering. The planet is suffering. We must act and act wisely. Will our action, our response to the crises we face, rise from our faith or our fear? Will the choices we make be fueled by hysteria, anger, discouragement, or the wisdom and grace of something greater and mightier than we?
Be still and know that I am God. Well, what good will that do? Is that going to improve the job opportunities in my town? Is that going to bring back our son from the grave? Is that going to bring back the love and joy we used to know as a couple?
No. It may or may not change the crisis you are facing. However, it will change you. Absolutely. Being still and knowing that God is God and you are God’s creation will shift how you perceive yourself in the midst of your crisis, and how you perceive the crisis itself.
Being still and knowing that God is God will establish you in the depths of God’s Being within you. Here you will discover a strange peace that doesn’t make sense, that passes all understanding as St. Paul wrote (Philippians 4:7). You will begin to live and act and make decisions from that deep well of peace, rather than your fear and anxiety.
The New English Bible translates this verse from Psalm 46 in this way: Let be then: learn that I am God. Let things be as they are, stop strategizing, blaming, figuring out solutions, or how to get even. Stop your action and thinking. Be in that energetic stillness that is God’s presence within you.
In doing this you will learn that God dwells within you, speaks within you, and is moving in your life and world. You are not in charge, never have been. You do not have to figure this all out and get it right somehow. Relax. Trust.
God is our shelter and our refuge,
a timely help in trouble;
so we are not afraid when the earth heaves
and the mountains are hurled into the sea,
when its waters seethe in tumult
and the mountains quake before his majesty.
There is a river whose streams gladden the city of God
which the Most High has made his holy dwelling;
God is in that city; she will not be overthrown,
And he will help her at the break of day.
The Lord of hosts is with us,
the God of Jacob is our refuge.    from Psalm 46


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My Own Devices

Posted on July 19, 2010 | 2 comments
You don’t have time for this. Who can afford to dally about in the woods and meadows at the start of a busy day? So much to do, tasks to complete, bills to pay. The little dimwitted tyrant in the basement of your soul has already been up for hours, pacing and shoveling coal on your furnace of anxiety.
Here, right now, is the crux, the moment on which everything turns. Here is your choice.
That quiet place within is always there – the woods, the mountains, the meadow, the shore – where the waters of life perpetually flow and splash.
Likewise, the summons never ends. Each day is an engraved invitation, each moment, an extended hand.
Here is what I want you to do: find a quiet secluded place so that you won’t be tempted to role play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace. Matthew 6:6 (The Message)
Will you calm the little bully in the basement, who doesn’t know much more than how to push, grab, worry, and pout? Will you find that place where you can be fully yourself and just be there simply and honestly?
Can you feel yourself relaxing, your tunnel vision widening, and grace softening your rough edges? Do you notice how your perception changes, how something is reordered or realigned within?
It’s your choice. You are endowed with an immense and crucial freedom. You can leave peace and beauty on the mountain, in the woods, or up in the attic in a box next to the Christmas decorations, or you can take the hand of Love in this moment and be led into delight.
As you offer yourself to God and enter into communion, this interpenetration of your being and the being of God heals, transforms, and mutually satisfies you and Holiness. Here is what amazes me. God desires, even longs to be with us in conscious relationship.
Ours is a God who, yearning for our companionship, plaintively asks his people,
Why was there no one when I came? Why did no one answer when I called? … I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask, to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, “Here I am, here I am,” to a nation that did not call on my name. I held out my hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices… Isaiah 50: 2; 65: 1-2
Up at dawn, checking my calendar on my hand held device, I am stopped in my tracks by these words of Isaiah.
St. Therese of Liseaux put it like this:

God has no need of our works. God has need of our love.

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How the Light Gets In

Posted on July 12, 2010 | 2 comments
Weeping before the box, she lifts out the pieces and places them on the counter. All but one or two are broken.
Two weeks before when the boxes arrived, I had carried, heartsick, this one filled with the chink and clatter of broken pottery to the basement. Then I forgot all about the box of broken dreams, until I heard her carrying it up the stairs, shards rattling like a chest of huge coins.
She moves the pieces on the counter, sorting and fitting parts together.
In a distant city another young woman also picks out the ruins of herself from the broken jar of illusion.
So much is broken – plans, relationships, jobs, dreams – and rattles around inside us. We take out the pieces, hold them to the light, and try to fit them together. This confrontation with our fallibility and that nothing earthly lasts forever brings deep suffering. Loss is always more painful than the books can say, the scriptures convey, or the prophets of prosperity preach. We need a picture.
A man at the end of his own dance with mortality, hunched over on his knees in a dark garden, tears rolling down his face. He says to his father, the Heaven Dweller, “Take this cup from me.” And to his friends, “Can you not stay with me one hour in this agony?”
There may be something harder than watching one’s children suffer, but on this day I do not know what it is. The hardest thing I do in this work of ministry, prayer, and listening to souls in their journey to God is staying awake with others in their pain. This is to say, that the hardest thing is staying awake with Jesus as he suffers in others.
Some days I fail. I numb out. I fall asleep. I deny the suffering, blame the sufferer, quibble and become annoyed and irritated with how the person expresses her pain. The other day I thought of one family, “Always lots of drama in this family system.” I suppose, applying the same cynical criteria, one would have to say that Jesus was the all time drama queen.
Can’t you just stay with me in this torment? Can we just be there, trusting God and the soul to figure things out? Respecting the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in the awesome autonomy of an individual life, while lifting up the candles of faith, hope, and love seem to be my task.
I fidget. I want to fix things, pass out band aids. Leaning over her shattered treasures, she tries to wire one sculpture back together, fashioning a frame of cardboard.
“We need some glue. I’ll get some glue,” I say. “Let’s go to the store and get some good glue.”
She refuses.
Finally I stop.
Several days later I ask about the box of jumbled shards on the porch. “Oh, I don’t care what you do with it,” she tells me, as she heads off with her eyes on new heights.
To love, to know passion, and bliss is also to have our hearts broken. I know of no way to get around this and anyone who tries to tell you different is a liar. To live, we must die. To touch transcendence and eternity is also to gaze upon and weep over the box of our own finitude, our broken handiwork, our illusions, and limited understanding. “Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in,” sings Leonard Cohen.
The man in the dark garden gets up. It is time, he says, to be broken.
It is time
for us to be made whole.

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.

Ah the wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again
the dove is never free.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
 Leonard Cohen
Dear Hearts: Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up. For fun – A couple of video versions of Cohen’s Anthem.
You Tube: Cohen in concert singing Anthem
You Tube: Photo interpretation of Anthem
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Dying for Love

Posted on March 29, 2010 | 6 comments
The moral revival that certain people wish to impose will be much worse than the condition it is meant to cure. If our present suffering ever leads to revival, this will not be brought about through slogans, but in silence and moral loneliness, through pain, misery and terror, in the profoundest depths of each man’s spirit.             Simone Weil

To accept defeat, to accept suffering for love of God and in obedience to God’s will is extraordinarily difficult. Yet such surrender is what saves us. The purification of our intention, the corrections in our thinking, the deepening compassion, and the redemptive power released from the profoundest depths of a person’s spirit transforms, heals, and frees. The church, as the place which could most clearly articulate and live out how to die to oneself, personally and corporately, seems to avoid any direct attention to such a notion. More often we find ourselves caught up in the push and glamour of success, the tasks of survival, and pumping up egos, rather than teaching them how to die.

That I must die to myself and suffer loss and pain and that such a death might be participation with Christ in a redemptive mystery goes against the grain of the independent self reliant spirit and the “me first” character of our times. However, when we settle for slogans, consultants, and committees, we circumvent the opportunity to discover strength in weakness and victory in failure. We build our case on ideology and successful practices, rather than a witness to God and faith. We succumb to a simplistic understanding of God’s saving action in history as winners or losers, and do not know ourselves as active participants in the redeeming of a broken world.

I am not sure why we don’t get this. Christians are a people who bow before a man dying on a cross, for heaven’s sake.

Christians the world over are about celebrate that dying man. They will tell again the ancient story of their God and how he came to be betrayed, humiliated, beaten and nailed to a tree. They will recall how this God, who was supposed to bring an end to their sorrow and oppression, failed miserably.

They will remember, too, how they failed miserably. How they betrayed, abandoned, and killed their God. They will see again how they had got things all wrong, how they had so horribly misperceived the truth with their narrow minds, jealous hearts, and faithless souls.

And they will be astonished by the Grace, which rolled away the stone of their rigidity and fear, and defied their wildest imaginations. What they thought was ruined and dead now stood before them in the bright morning sun and spoke, “Go and tell the others to go to Galilee. They will see me there.”

This was an old story. Calling something names, beating up something, and killing it to take away our pain and anger and sin wasn’t new. For thousands of years, we had been killing things and one another and offering them up to God as a way to set things right, get what we want, and make up for the messes we made.

But this time was different. In their fury and fear, this time they killed God, divinity itself. And Holiness let them. God wore their spit upon his face, their rage upon his back. He opened wide his arms to be penetrated by their malice.

This time God said, “OK. I will show you. This is what it looks like to kill God. This is what it means to see the truth about yourselves. This is how to love.

I am willing to bear the pain of your sins against me and against yourselves. This is what forgiveness looks like. This is what peace costs.”

With that willingness and love their God sucked the poison out of sin. He defused the power and grip of evil on the human heart. He took the hell out of everlasting damnation and gave them eternal life.

And he told his followers to do the same with the suffering in their lives.

Today many Christians wear little replicas of that cross of execution like tiny gold electric chairs or lethal injection needles. They wear death on a string and carry life in their hearts.

For having died with their God, they rise with him. And from the profoundest depths of their spirits flow rivers of living water.  This is what a moral revival looks like.

Everyone who is thirsty, come.

Read more about prayer at www.fromholyground.org
Tracking Holiness – Newsletter
Contact Loretta at lross@fromholyground.org, www.fbook.me/sanctuary
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A Pure Heart and the Maple Tree

Posted on March 19, 2010 | 2 comments
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Matthew 5: 3, 8
The slender branch of the maple tree outside my window extends itself in a graceful arc. Along its slim fingers it sports rust colored jewels, intricately cut opening buds, bursting with light. When did this happen? Last time I looked, barren twigs jutted stiffly into the cold air.
Here in Kansas, held captive for weeks under heavy overcast skies, we have plodded through our days with only basketball to get our blood pumping. Meanwhile, spring is quietly sneaking up on us.
Dare I say this? I am not ready. With only a few weeks of lent remaining, I have fallen off my wagon of simple living and over indulged in complexity, excess, and that ancient tempter, anxiety.
I need a little austerity, some ordered calm, and spaciousness, not a riotous burst of color luring me into getting anxious about gardening and yard work. I am looking for a paring down of tasks, and to tethering my heart to what is most important, not pecking mindlessly after every crumb I see.
I need a spare, bare mind, swept clear of clutter and fuss, rather  than the cramped, narrow, over stuffed rat’s nest I have created. These gray days are revealing to me more clearly the contours of my addiction to my agenda. How will I ever be ready for Easter splendor and the enchanting dance of spring with so much of me running the show, asserting itself and its way?
I am Peter, pulling Jesus’ coattails, saying, “No Lord, no cross! No death! We can win this on our own!”  My spirit has not been poor, aware of its total dependence on the mercy of God. My heart has not been pure, willing only one thing, but rather, adulterated with conflicting desires.
My fetching maple beckons with her pretty fingers. “Come, you fool,” she whispers. “Let go. Dwell with me in the pure driven snow of grace.”

Prayer for Lent

Make me lean, Lord.
Teach me the quiet asceticism of winter trees
whose bare branches articulate space
in spare
thrusting
syllables
of praise.
Set me down before the bowl of emptiness
where you swirl, swell, steam,
brimming at the brink of nothing.
Feast me from the platter of want,
where need of anything but you is indigestible.
Cut away the obesity of pride,
the folds of selfishness.
Make me meager,
a mere thin thing flapping its limbs
composing snow angels
across the pristine sweep of your celestial substance,
an anonymous indentation pressed in desolation
telling your glory.
My sustenance: your Word.
And my life: glad graffiti splashed
across some time’s wall:
God goes here.
For a good time,
call.
Read more about prayer at  www.fromholyground.org
Tracking Holiness – Newsletter
Contact Loretta at  lross@fromholyground.org, www.fbook.me/sanctuary
Follow at http://twitter.com/lfross
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Smartphone Downgrade

Posted on March 13, 2010 | Leave a comment

A Cautionary Tale of Lust and Regret

Last November I upgraded my mobile phone. I was two years overdue for the money saving upgrade and I was envious. I lusted after a fancy smartphone, one with which I could check email and surf the web. My brother, sister-in-law, and one daughter all sported iphones. Other friends had BlackBerries. I felt dumpy with my unimpressive phone which only made calls and took photos. I envied my friends and colleagues, pulling out their phones to check their calendars and show them off. I wanted to be smart, “digitally literate,” and able to communicate with “millennials.”

So I picked up Eris Droid at my carrier store. Eris was a fetching beauty, slim, and full of apps. He was young and lively, sensitive and eagerly responsive to the warmth of my touch. And when he flexed his hefty rebate, I nearly swooned.

It took Eris and me a while to get acquainted. He didn’t like that I choose not to use Google for my email. He put up a little fuss and went into a pout about that. His gizmos and whiz bangs were fun and impressive. Yet as young lovers often do, he raised my cost of living with his taste for the internet.

But boy did I fit in!  I could pull him out and watch heads turn. “Oh, a droid!” Eris and I spent a lot of time trying to understand each other, when he wasn’t recharging. Funny how he wore out faster than I did. Then after a few months, I realized I wasn’t actually using most of Eris’ impressive attributes. But I was still cool. And he was in my pocket.

Then in a dumb move I laundered my smartphone along with my jeans. Pulling out the wet clothes, I saw him sitting forlornly on a little ridge in the back my new front loader.

Oh no. And I hadn’t bought the insurance.

I pulled out his battery and buried it alongside Eris in a bowl of rice to dry out. After 24 hours, still no pulse. It was over. No matter what I did, I could no longer turn him on.

Last week I went back to the store, figuring I would just have to go ahead and purchase a new phone. I figured this might cost me a couple hundred dollars. Oh naïve dreamer that I was! To replace my phone would cost five times what I paid when I purchased it, $589. If I choose to cancel my contract and go sign up with a different carrier, that would cost me $300. If I was willing to downgrade (horrors!), I could get a phone like the four year old one I had upgraded from for between $200 and $300. I used a bad word at this point.

To his credit my young salesman, every bit as good looking as Eris and much more alive, was almost as grief stricken as I. He kept telling me, “I am so sorry. I feel so bad about this.” I do believe there was even a tear in his eye. You see we had already compared notes on dogs and learned we both have labs, he a yellow lab named Coach, me a black one named Elijah.

Coach’s master, new on the job I think, had accidentally given me some misinformation. He initially quoted a replacement price of much less than $589 and I had agreed to it. It was, as he was writing up the sale, that he discovered he had read from the wrong column. That would be the column headed, Cost of New Phone for Stupid People Who Launder Them and Do Not Have Insurance.

At this point, between a rock and hard place, inspiration struck. Driving over to the store, I had prayed. At the end of the day, tired and frustrated with Eris conking out on me, my landline not working either, and feeling stressed with finances, I just surrendered the whole sordid affair to God. “Whatever you say, Lord. Let it be to me according to your will.”

Standing before the cheap dull phones, which people normally get for free when they upgrade, but which were going to cost me $200.00, while Coach’s master gamely tried to console me, I thought, “Wait. Why not use my old phone?” I had brought along the pitiful, clunky thing in order to transfer contacts, since they would not be able to get the contacts off my laundered phone. “Can I just use my old phone?” Well, duh, yes. Dumb woman gets smart!

So here I am after a three month fling with Eris, back with my old phone with lowered rates. On July 11, 2011 I can upgrade to an Eris or whatever new phone catches my fancy, maybe even an iphone by then. Or not.

Epilogue

A day or two later I picked up the card my salesman had given me. Turning it over I learned that I can receive a $25.00 credit for every person I refer to the Wanamaker Road Verizon Wireless store in Topeka, Kansas, who signs up with Verizon. Advanced appointment is required. Tell them Elijah and I sent you. Trust me. They will see you get what you need. But be sure to buy the insurance.

Read more about prayer at www.fromholyground.org
Contact Loretta at lross@fromholyground.org www.fbook.me/sanctuary
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Being Trued

Posted on February 5, 2010 | Leave a comment

The dog is gnawing his bone, snorting and snuffling. I am curled on the couch at the end of a long day. The furnace fan shuts off. The house is quiet. I am tired. My throat is scratchy. I feel like I am coming down with a cold.

I think of you – your life, your sorrows and burdens. I wonder what you had to deal with today, and if you are at peace. When I write, I want more than anything that what I say is  true, is real. This means that I want to be trued, made straight, conformed to Truth. I don’t mean that what I write has to be perfect or factually correct (though I want to do my best on that score). I just want it to be aligned with a larger true Reality I know as God. I want what I write to have integrity in that sense.

Do I have a Word for you? Is there a Word from on high for us this evening?

The dog rests his muzzle against my foot, then plops down beside me. He sighs. Then we grow silent and still. I stop grasping for words and thoughts. I wait.

“Tell them that I love them.”

Oh rats. This fills me with a kind of frustration and sadness. The phrase God loves you has become so clichéd. I could just as well write, You are in good hands with Allstate. Ok I will try anyway. Do you get that, really know, that the Creator and Sustainer of the deepest Truth and Reality loves and cares about you? Do I?

Then: “Stop living your life as though I did not exist. Stop behaving as if I am not real.”

Ah, here is the being true part. Does your life, as you live it, reflect your prayer, as you pray it? How about today, Loretta, and this weary stressed out self you are bringing to God? How much of what you did and said and thought and felt denied the reality of Christ and cut you off from the source of life and strength?

I grin, recalling something that came to me a few weeks ago while I was praying with John 14: 1-9.  In this passage Jesus tells his disciples not to worry, but to trust in God and in himself. He tells them in his Father’s house there are many rooms, and he wouldn’t be telling them this, if it wasn’t true. He promises that he is going to his Father’s house and will prepare a place for them. And he will come back and take them with him to his Father. Then he says that they know the way to where he is going.

But Thomas responds, “Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

Then Philip pipes up with, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

And Jesus, shaking his head, maybe even rolling his eyes, says, “Philip, have I been with you this long and you still do not understand?”

Good grief – how many miracles, healings, parables, and sermons on the mount is it going to take?

As I pondered this text, what I heard was, “Quit acting like you are confused. You know the Father. You know me.”

I laughed out loud. It was a call to grow up, to maturity. Stop the confusion act, sweetie. Get congruent. Be true. Line up what you believe and know in your heart with how you live your life. Stop fussing around worrying and fretting like you do not know me and do not have a home on high. Have I been with you this long and you still do not get it?

It makes me sad, carrying on like Jesus is not here, like God didn’t love us so much that he died and rose for us. Me – like some self indulgent, disingenuous little twit saying with Philip, “Just show us the Father, then we will all believe. Meanwhile we’ll put our trust in Allstate.”

Oh, long suffering Savior, have mercy on us sinners, one and all.


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Contact Loretta at
lross@fromholyground.org, www.fbook.me/sanctuary

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