Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace. — Frederick Buechner
"We have been brought up with the absurd prejudice that only what we can reduce to a rational, conscious formula is really understood and experienced in our life. When we can say what a thing is, or what we are doing, we think we fully grasp and experience it. In point of fact this verbalization - very often it is nothing more than verbalization - tends to cut us off from genuine experience and to obscure our understanding instead of increasing it.
Faith does not simply account for the unknown, tag it with a theological tag and file it away in a safe place where we do not have to worry about it. This is a falsification of the whole idea of faith. On the contrary, faith incorporates the unknown into our everyday life in a loving, dynamic and actual manner. The unknown remains unknown. It is still a mystery, for it cannot cease to be one. The function of faith is not to reduce mystery to rational clarity, but to integrate the unknown and the known together in a living whole, in which we are more and more able to transcend the limitations of our external self."
- New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton, pg. 136
"Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. A glib saying. When the time comes to you at which you will be forced to utter the speech which has lain at the centre of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over again, you'll not talk about joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, not let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?" - C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Echoes of Joy
Joy is the serious business of heaven - in a better country it is the End of ends! - C.S. Lewis
Joy, that light and airy song that flashes in
the twinkling stars and
dances lightly on the wind
Joy, that melodious song that bursts forth
in spring
from tongue of bird and beast
and that explodes its brilliance in the foliage of creation
Joy, that deepness of brass and drum
that thunders in the heart of rivers
or in the voice of leviathan
Joy, that mighty rushing wind which blows in the
heart of all things
Joy flows at the center of the universe
Joy was there in Eden - echoing in history
Joy has filled the ages since
The angels sang joy at Incarnation - there was
Joy in His life and echoes of joy even at
His death - reverberating until joy resounded in the Resurrection
For two thousand years the echoes of joy have continued -
sometimes loud, sometimes soft,
sometimes far away and difficult to hear,
yet there nonetheless
And still we wait for joy in the triumph of His coming
in that finality of all things
Joy will burst forth again - forever
and the whole universe will echo its song -
For joy runs at the heart of all things.
Joy, that light and airy song that flashes in
the twinkling stars and
dances lightly on the wind
Joy, that melodious song that bursts forth
in spring
from tongue of bird and beast
and that explodes its brilliance in the foliage of creation
Joy, that deepness of brass and drum
that thunders in the heart of rivers
or in the voice of leviathan
Joy, that mighty rushing wind which blows in the
heart of all things
Joy flows at the center of the universe
Joy was there in Eden - echoing in history
Joy has filled the ages since
The angels sang joy at Incarnation - there was
Joy in His life and echoes of joy even at
His death - reverberating until joy resounded in the Resurrection
For two thousand years the echoes of joy have continued -
sometimes loud, sometimes soft,
sometimes far away and difficult to hear,
yet there nonetheless
And still we wait for joy in the triumph of His coming
in that finality of all things
Joy will burst forth again - forever
and the whole universe will echo its song -
For joy runs at the heart of all things.
Credo
"As I sit in the study on a beautiful, cool August afternoon, I look back with many thanks.
It has been a great run. I wouldn't have missed it for anything. Much could and should have been better, and I have by no means, done what I should have done with all that I have been given. But the over-all experience of being alive has been a thrilling experience. I believe that death is a doorway to more of it; cleaner, clearer, better, with more of the secret opened than locked. I do not feel much confidence in myself as regards all this, for very few have ever 'deserved' eternal life. But with Christ's atonement and Him gone on before, I have neither doubt nor fear whether I am left here a brief time or a long one. I believe that I shall see Him and know Him, and that eternity will be an endless opportunity to consort with the great souls and the lesser ones who have entered into the freedom of the heavenly city. It is His forgiveness and grace that give confidence and not merits of our own. But again I say, it's been a great run. I'm thankful for it and for all the people who have helped to make it so, and especially those closest and dearest to me."
-by Samuel Moor Shoemaker (written two months before his death)
It has been a great run. I wouldn't have missed it for anything. Much could and should have been better, and I have by no means, done what I should have done with all that I have been given. But the over-all experience of being alive has been a thrilling experience. I believe that death is a doorway to more of it; cleaner, clearer, better, with more of the secret opened than locked. I do not feel much confidence in myself as regards all this, for very few have ever 'deserved' eternal life. But with Christ's atonement and Him gone on before, I have neither doubt nor fear whether I am left here a brief time or a long one. I believe that I shall see Him and know Him, and that eternity will be an endless opportunity to consort with the great souls and the lesser ones who have entered into the freedom of the heavenly city. It is His forgiveness and grace that give confidence and not merits of our own. But again I say, it's been a great run. I'm thankful for it and for all the people who have helped to make it so, and especially those closest and dearest to me."
-by Samuel Moor Shoemaker (written two months before his death)
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
A Terrible Prayer
I have always been terrible at praying.
I forget.
My mind wanders.
I don't pray enough.
I don't understand what prayer is
Or what prayer does.
If prayers were school...
I would flunk praying.
But prayer isn't school...
It is mystery.
Maybe the mystery is...
Jesus loves terrible prayers.
Maybe...
When I can't think of anything to say, He says what I can't say.
When I talk too much, He cherishes my too-many words.
When I fall asleep, He holds me in His lap and caresses my weary soul.
When I am overwhelmed with guilt at my inconsistent, inadequate praying
He whispers, "Your name is always on my lips."
I am filled with gratitude, my soul overflows with thankfulness and I...
I...find myself saying over and over again, "Thank You."
Praying the mystery.
-Mike Yaconelli
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Thoughts for a Dead Pigeon
And you say that the battle is over
And you say that the war is all done
Go tell it to those
With the wind in their nose
Who run from the sound of the gun.
And write it on the side of the great whaling ships
Or on ice floes where conscience is tossed
With the wild in their eyes
It is they who must die
And it's we who must measure the cost.
And you say that the battle is over
And finally the world is at peace
You mean no one is dying
And mothers don't weep
Or it's not in the papers at least.
There are those who would deal
In the darkness of life
There are those who would tear down the sun
And most men are ruthless
But some will still weep
When the gifts we were given are gone.
Now the blame cannot fall on the heads of a few
It's become such a part of the race
It's eternally tragic
That that which is magic
Be killed at the end of the glorious chase.
From young seals to great whales
From waters to wood
They will fall just like weeds in the wind
With fur coats and perfumes
And trophies on walls
What a hell of a race to call men.
And you say that the battle is over
And you say that the war is all donje
Go tell it to those
With the wind in their nose
Who run from the sound of the gun.
And write it on the sides
Of the great whaling ships
Or on ice floes where conscience is tossed
With the wild in their eyes
It is they who must die
And it's we who must measure the loss,
With the wild in their eyes
It is they who must die
And it's we who must measure the cost.
You Say That the Battle is Over, by David Mallet, 1978 Cherry Lane Music Company
(ASCAP)
I saw a dead pigeon at church today.
It was not
flying, or
eating, or
walking, or
roosting.
It was dead.
They said
it was a nuisance.
They said
what they fed it
wouldn't harm it -
it would only affect its legs -
making it unable to roost.
Sounded innocent enough -
then.
But no one explained
that when pigeons can't use their legs,
they can't land.
And when they can't land,
they can't rest.
And they fly, and
fly, and
fly until
exhaustion and hunger set in.
And they fall to the ground,
struggling,
and die.
A nuisance?
No more sunlit Sunday mornings,
with courtyard full of
dappled white and
mottled grey.
No more peaceful background noise of
soft cooing and
rustle of feathered wings.
No more shadows
in sunlight
on stained glass windows.
All must end for -
nuisance.
O God, make us aware
of living things around us.
Make us reevaluate ourselves
and look for beauty.
Make us truly see
wind, and
water, and
wood.
Make us friend to
whales, and
harp seals, and
hares, and
pigeons.
Friends of life -
That's what we ask You to make us.
So that when you return
and demand of us an -
accounting,
we will have a world with
pigeons.
And you say that the war is all done
Go tell it to those
With the wind in their nose
Who run from the sound of the gun.
And write it on the side of the great whaling ships
Or on ice floes where conscience is tossed
With the wild in their eyes
It is they who must die
And it's we who must measure the cost.
And you say that the battle is over
And finally the world is at peace
You mean no one is dying
And mothers don't weep
Or it's not in the papers at least.
There are those who would deal
In the darkness of life
There are those who would tear down the sun
And most men are ruthless
But some will still weep
When the gifts we were given are gone.
Now the blame cannot fall on the heads of a few
It's become such a part of the race
It's eternally tragic
That that which is magic
Be killed at the end of the glorious chase.
From young seals to great whales
From waters to wood
They will fall just like weeds in the wind
With fur coats and perfumes
And trophies on walls
What a hell of a race to call men.
And you say that the battle is over
And you say that the war is all donje
Go tell it to those
With the wind in their nose
Who run from the sound of the gun.
And write it on the sides
Of the great whaling ships
Or on ice floes where conscience is tossed
With the wild in their eyes
It is they who must die
And it's we who must measure the loss,
With the wild in their eyes
It is they who must die
And it's we who must measure the cost.
You Say That the Battle is Over, by David Mallet, 1978 Cherry Lane Music Company
(ASCAP)
I saw a dead pigeon at church today.
It was not
flying, or
eating, or
walking, or
roosting.
It was dead.
They said
it was a nuisance.
They said
what they fed it
wouldn't harm it -
it would only affect its legs -
making it unable to roost.
Sounded innocent enough -
then.
But no one explained
that when pigeons can't use their legs,
they can't land.
And when they can't land,
they can't rest.
And they fly, and
fly, and
fly until
exhaustion and hunger set in.
And they fall to the ground,
struggling,
and die.
A nuisance?
No more sunlit Sunday mornings,
with courtyard full of
dappled white and
mottled grey.
No more peaceful background noise of
soft cooing and
rustle of feathered wings.
No more shadows
in sunlight
on stained glass windows.
All must end for -
nuisance.
O God, make us aware
of living things around us.
Make us reevaluate ourselves
and look for beauty.
Make us truly see
wind, and
water, and
wood.
Make us friend to
whales, and
harp seals, and
hares, and
pigeons.
Friends of life -
That's what we ask You to make us.
So that when you return
and demand of us an -
accounting,
we will have a world with
pigeons.
A Life of Steadfast Love
"Nothing must interfere with proclaiming the Good News of eternal life and helping people to a way of life that would enable them to grow toward eternity - a way of peace and justice, with room for human dignity to be recognized and for love to blossom."
- "His Steadfast Love," (pg. 5) Reflections for Ragamuffins, by Brennan Manning (HarperSanFrancisco, 1998)
After twenty years of studying ethics, struggling with issues, trying to find the Good and to do the Right thing...to be a virtuous person...all of those struggles and suddenly it is clear to me in Brennan Manning's words. A simple, yet profound statement of the Christian life and ethic. We are first and foremost called to the proclamation of the Good News of eternal life in Jesus Christ. That is the Gospel...and we must always remember that is our task. But the Good News calls people in the direction of abundant life. ..the way of life that leads to God's New Kingdom that has come and is coming. And that life to which we are called and to which we call others is a life of individual peace and justice and one in which we work toward corporate peace and justice in a fallen world. Working for peace and justice grants human dignity and seeks the central virtue of the Kingdom of God...self giving, other affirming, community building love. In this all the ethical issues that are tossed about in conversation...family, government, economics, sexual issues of all sorts, biomedical issues, the life of virtue...all of these are derived from this simple statement. We must take the language of the peace and justice of the Gospel and apply it to all of these issues and that will require a Christological hermeneutic applied to the authority of scripture. Here is a simple statement of my theology and ethics...found in a simple statement, but profoundly life changing when understood by the heart.
"Christ is not a principle according to which the whole world must be formed. Christ does not proclaim a system of that which would be good today, here, and at all times. Christ does not teach an abstract ethic, that must be carried out, cost what it may. Christ was not essentially a teacher, a lawgiver, but a human being, a real human being like us. Accordingly, Christ does not want us to be first of all pupils, representatives, and advocates of a particular doctrine, but human beings, real human beings before God. Christ did not, like an ethicist, love s theory about the good; he loved real people. Christ was not interested, like a philosopher, in what is 'generally valid,' but in that which serves real concrete human beings. Christ was not concerned about whether 'the maxim of an action' could become 'a principle of universal law,' but whether my action now helps my neighbor to be a human being before God. God did not become an idea, a principle, a program, a universally valid belief, or a law; God became human....Formation according to the form of Christ includes, therefore, two things: that the form of Christ remains one and the same, not as a general idea but as the one who Christ uniquely is, the God who became human, was crucified, and is risen; and that precisely because of the form of Christ the form of the real human being is preserved, so that the real human being receives the form of Christ,"
- from Ethics, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pgs. 98-99.
"Mere morality is not the end of life....The people who keep on asking if they can't lead a decent life without Christ, don't know what life is about; if they did they would know that a 'decent life' is mere machinery compared with the thing we men are really made for. Morality is indispensable: but the Divine Life, which gives itself to us and which calls us to be gods, intends for us something in which morality will be swallowed up. We are to be re-made. All the rabbit in us is to disappear - the worried, conscientious, ethical rabbit as well as the cowardly and sensual rabbit. We shall bleed and squeal as the handfuls of fur come out; and then, surprisingly, we shall find underneath it all a thing we have never yet imagined: a real Man, an ageless god, a son of God, strong, radiant, wise, beautiful, and drenched in joy." - C.S. Lewis
- "His Steadfast Love," (pg. 5) Reflections for Ragamuffins, by Brennan Manning (HarperSanFrancisco, 1998)
After twenty years of studying ethics, struggling with issues, trying to find the Good and to do the Right thing...to be a virtuous person...all of those struggles and suddenly it is clear to me in Brennan Manning's words. A simple, yet profound statement of the Christian life and ethic. We are first and foremost called to the proclamation of the Good News of eternal life in Jesus Christ. That is the Gospel...and we must always remember that is our task. But the Good News calls people in the direction of abundant life. ..the way of life that leads to God's New Kingdom that has come and is coming. And that life to which we are called and to which we call others is a life of individual peace and justice and one in which we work toward corporate peace and justice in a fallen world. Working for peace and justice grants human dignity and seeks the central virtue of the Kingdom of God...self giving, other affirming, community building love. In this all the ethical issues that are tossed about in conversation...family, government, economics, sexual issues of all sorts, biomedical issues, the life of virtue...all of these are derived from this simple statement. We must take the language of the peace and justice of the Gospel and apply it to all of these issues and that will require a Christological hermeneutic applied to the authority of scripture. Here is a simple statement of my theology and ethics...found in a simple statement, but profoundly life changing when understood by the heart.
"Christ is not a principle according to which the whole world must be formed. Christ does not proclaim a system of that which would be good today, here, and at all times. Christ does not teach an abstract ethic, that must be carried out, cost what it may. Christ was not essentially a teacher, a lawgiver, but a human being, a real human being like us. Accordingly, Christ does not want us to be first of all pupils, representatives, and advocates of a particular doctrine, but human beings, real human beings before God. Christ did not, like an ethicist, love s theory about the good; he loved real people. Christ was not interested, like a philosopher, in what is 'generally valid,' but in that which serves real concrete human beings. Christ was not concerned about whether 'the maxim of an action' could become 'a principle of universal law,' but whether my action now helps my neighbor to be a human being before God. God did not become an idea, a principle, a program, a universally valid belief, or a law; God became human....Formation according to the form of Christ includes, therefore, two things: that the form of Christ remains one and the same, not as a general idea but as the one who Christ uniquely is, the God who became human, was crucified, and is risen; and that precisely because of the form of Christ the form of the real human being is preserved, so that the real human being receives the form of Christ,"
- from Ethics, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pgs. 98-99.
"Mere morality is not the end of life....The people who keep on asking if they can't lead a decent life without Christ, don't know what life is about; if they did they would know that a 'decent life' is mere machinery compared with the thing we men are really made for. Morality is indispensable: but the Divine Life, which gives itself to us and which calls us to be gods, intends for us something in which morality will be swallowed up. We are to be re-made. All the rabbit in us is to disappear - the worried, conscientious, ethical rabbit as well as the cowardly and sensual rabbit. We shall bleed and squeal as the handfuls of fur come out; and then, surprisingly, we shall find underneath it all a thing we have never yet imagined: a real Man, an ageless god, a son of God, strong, radiant, wise, beautiful, and drenched in joy." - C.S. Lewis
Monday, November 22, 2010
Real Worship...the ordinary and extraordinary aspects in the movement of God's grace
"Mass had already begun, and the priest was reading the epistle. Then a brother in a brown robe came out, and you could see he was going to lead the children in singing a hymn. High up behind the altar St. Francis raised his arms up to God, showing the stigmata in his hands; the children began to sing. Their voices were very clear, they sang loud, their song soared straight up into the roof with a strong and direct flight and filled the whole church with its clarity. Then when the song was done, and the warning bell for consecration chimed in with the last notes of the hymn and the church filled with the vast rumour of people going down on their knees everywhere in it: and then the priest seemed to be standing in the exact center of the universe. Then the bell rang again, three times.
Before any head was raised again the clear cry of the brother in the brown robe cut through the silence with the words: 'Yo creo...' 'I believe' which immediately all the children took up after him with such loud and strong and clear voices, and such unanimity and such meaning and such fervor that something went off inside of me like a thunderclap and without seeing anything or apprehending anything extraordinary through any of my senses (my eyes were open on precisely what was there, the church), I knew with the most absolute and unquestionable certainty that before me, between me and the altar, somewhere in the center of the church, up in the air (or any other place because in no place), but directly before my eyes, or directly present in some apprehension or other of mine which was above that of the senses, was at the same time God in all His essence, all His power, all His glory, and God in Himself and God surrounded by the radiant faces of the uncountable thousands upon thousands of saints contemplating His glory and praising His Holy Name. And so the unshakable certainty, the clear and immediate knowledge that heaven was right in front of me, struck me like a thunderbolt and went through me like a flash of lightning and seemed to lift me clean up off the earth."
Thomas Merton quoted on pg. 151 of The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton, by Michael Mott
I love my church, Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas and I am grateful to have had moments like Merton describes in the serious work of worship that goes on each Sunday there.
Before any head was raised again the clear cry of the brother in the brown robe cut through the silence with the words: 'Yo creo...' 'I believe' which immediately all the children took up after him with such loud and strong and clear voices, and such unanimity and such meaning and such fervor that something went off inside of me like a thunderclap and without seeing anything or apprehending anything extraordinary through any of my senses (my eyes were open on precisely what was there, the church), I knew with the most absolute and unquestionable certainty that before me, between me and the altar, somewhere in the center of the church, up in the air (or any other place because in no place), but directly before my eyes, or directly present in some apprehension or other of mine which was above that of the senses, was at the same time God in all His essence, all His power, all His glory, and God in Himself and God surrounded by the radiant faces of the uncountable thousands upon thousands of saints contemplating His glory and praising His Holy Name. And so the unshakable certainty, the clear and immediate knowledge that heaven was right in front of me, struck me like a thunderbolt and went through me like a flash of lightning and seemed to lift me clean up off the earth."
Thomas Merton quoted on pg. 151 of The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton, by Michael Mott
I love my church, Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas and I am grateful to have had moments like Merton describes in the serious work of worship that goes on each Sunday there.
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