Monthly Archives: May 2014

Daily Riches: Hitting the Ultimate Bottom (Richard Rohr)

Posted on by under Death Daily, Desolation's Gift, Embracing Losses and Limits, Suffering and Grace

“Death is not just physical dying, but going to full depth, hitting the bottom, going the distance, beyond where I am in control, fully beyond where I am now. We all die eventually; we have no choice in the matter. But there are degrees of death before the final physical one. If we are honest, we acknowledge that we are dying throughout our life, and this is what we learn if we are attentive: grace is found at the depths and in the death of everything. After these smaller deaths, we know that the only ‘deadly sin’ is to swim on the surface of things, where we never see, find, or desire God and love. This includes even the surface of religion, which might be the worst danger of all. Thus, we must not be afraid of falling, failing, going ‘down.’ It is at the bottom where we find grace; for like water, grace seeks the lowest place and there it pools up.”   Richard Rohr

“Our of the depths I cry to you Yahweh,
Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy. …
I wait for Yahweh
my whole being waits,
and in his word I put my hope.”
Psalm 130:1,2,5

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  •  None of us want to “hit the bottom” where we lose all control and “have no choice” in what is happening to us. And there are certainly many lesser “deaths” along the way to that ultimate one. And yet, much of what needs to happen in us will occur no other way. When life takes you into these painful places, can you remember to allow God to do in you what he probably couldn’t do any other way?
  • Knowing this about “falling” and about “grace pooling up at the bottom”, can you remember not to be afraid?

Abba, your love definitely takes me places I never wanted to go. I’ve found life there though, and pooled up grace, so I will trust you as the two of us go on together.

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For More: Immortal Diamond by Richard Rohr

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Speaking Prophetically to America (Brennan Manning)

Posted on by under Nationalism and Patriotism, Social Justice

“A critique of our culture in the light of the gospel is imperative if the church of Jesus Christ is to preserve a coherent sense of itself in a world that is torn and tearing. …A chastened patriotism is indispensable for the survival of the nation as well as of the church. …I see three areas where the American Dream is counter-evangelical – that is, in direct opposition to the message of Jesus and a life endorsed with the signature of Jesus. Our culture, as John Kavanaugh observed, ‘fosters and sustains a functional trinitarian god of consumerism, hedonism, and nationalism. Made in the image and likeness of such a god, we are committed to lives of possessiveness, pleasure, and domination.'” Brennan Manning

“Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.” James 5:1-6

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • How much pull does the “trinitarian god of consumerism, hedonism, and nationalism” have in your life? Do any of these forces dull your desire to see justice for others? Take a moment to think about each one.
  • Are you sensitive to our national “need” for domination? Does you faith ever cause you to demur? Is it even imaginable that you would ever hear a loving but negative critique of our nation’s “trinitarian god” in your church? If not, how do you feel about that?
  • We’re considerably more gentle towards the rich than the Bible is (cf. James, the Psalms, etc.) Are you rich? (Don’t answer too quickly.) Are your riches the result of God’s blessing? (Again, don’t answer too quickly.) Can you see how riches are negatively impacting others you know? your church? your family?

Abba, I confess with dismay my regular, explicit and subtle, allegiance to the trinitarian god of my nation. Please help me to sort out my allegiances in a way that justice will be a bigger part of my life.

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For More: The Signature of Jesus by Brennan Manning

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I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: The “Comedy of Grace” (Kathleen Norris, Henri Bergson and John Keats)

Posted on by under Desolation's Gift, Embracing Losses and Limits, Suffering and Grace

“The comedy of grace is that it so often comes to us as loss, sorrow, and foul-smelling waste…. It is easy to be attracted to the idea of grace–which one dictionary defines as ‘divine love and protection bestowed freely on people’–but much harder to recognize this grace when it comes as pain and unwelcome change…. For grace to be grace, it must give us things we didn’t know we needed and take us to places where we didn’t want to go.”  Kathleen Norris

“Call the world if you please, the ‘vale of soul-making.’ Then you will find out the use of the world.” John Keats

“The mystics simply open their souls to the oncoming wave.” Henri Bergson

“Very truly I tell you, when you were younger
you dressed yourself and went where you wanted;
but when you are old you will stretch out your hands,
and someone else will dress you
and lead you where you do not want to go.”
Jesus, to Peter about his death, in John 21:18

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • We often romanticize lofty terms like “love”, “grace” or “hope.” Have you sanitized these words so they represent only pleasant, satisfying experiences?
  • Have you realized that grace can come to you “as loss, sorrow, and foul-smelling waste?” Are you willing to accept that kind of grace?
  • Can you “simply open your soul to the oncoming wave” as you trust God to use this sometimes foul-smelling world at the “vale of soul-making” for you?

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For More: Acedia and Me by Kathleen Norris

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These “Daily Riches are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. Please follow my blog and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Death and the Great Physician (John Donne and Philip Yancey)

Posted on by under Death Daily, Embracing Losses and Limits

“Our last day is our first day; our Saturday is our Sunday; our eve is our holy day; our sunsetting is our morning; the day of our death is the first day of our eternal life. The next day after that … comes that day that shall show me to myself. Here I never saw myself but in disguises; there, then, I shall see myself, but I shall see God too…. Here I have one faculty enlightened, and another left in darkness; mine understanding sometimes cleared, my will at the same time perverted. There I shall be all light, no shadow upon me; my soul invested in the light of joy, and my body in the light of glory. … That voice, that I must die now, is not the voice of a judge that speaks by the way of condemnation, but of a physician that presents health.” John Donne

“A turning point came for Donne as he began to view death not as the disease that permanently spoils life, rather as the only cure to the disease of life, the final stage in the journey that brings us to God. Evil infects all of life on this fallen planet, and only through death–Christ’s death and our own–can we realize a cured state.”  Philip Yancey

“Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.
Remind me that my days are numbered—
how fleeting my life is.
You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand.
My entire lifetime is just a moment to you;
at best, each of us is but a breath.”
Psalm 39:4,5

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • St. Benedict says to “keep death daily before your eyes.” How often do you consider your approaching death? How could doing that benefit you?
  • John Donne suggests we shall only really know God, ourselves – and true health, on the day that we die – that death is “… the final stage in the journey that brings us to God.”  Can you think about your death that way? If so, how does that make you feel?
  • If your life is “a moment … a breath”, what does that mean for how you want to live?

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For More: Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church by Philip Yancey

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These “Daily Riches are for your encouragement as you seek after God. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: The Divine Gaze (Kathleen Norris)

Posted on by under Being the Beloved, Contemplation, The Divine Gaze

Jacob’s theophany, his dream of angels on a stairway to heaven, strikes me as an appealing tale of unmerited grace. Here’s a man who has just deceived his father and cheated his brother out of an inheritance. But God’s response to finding Jacob vulnerable, sleeping all alone in open country, is not to strike him down for his sins but to give him a blessing. …Jacob’s exclamation is … a reminder that God can choose to dwell everywhere and anywhere we go. One morning this past spring I noticed a young couple with an infant at an airport departure gate. The baby was staring intently at other people, and as soon as he recognized a human face, no matter whose it was, no matter if it was young or old, pretty or ugly, bored or happy or worried-looking he would respond with absolute delight. It was beautiful to see. Our drab departure gate had become the gate of heaven. And as I watched that baby play with any adult who would allow it, I felt awe-struck as Jacob, because I realized that this is how God looks at us, staring into our faces in order to be delighted, to see the creature he made and called good, along with the rest of creation. And, as Psalm 139 puts it, darkness is as nothing to God, who can look right through whatever evil we’ve done in our lives to the creature made in the diving image.” Kathleen Norris

“Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said,
‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.
…How awesome is this place!
This is none other than the house of God,
and this is the gate of heaven.”
Genesis 28:16-17

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • The “God of Jacob” is, of necessity, a God of grace. What feelings arise when you consider that “the God of Jacob” is your God? (Psalm 46)
  • God gazes “into our faces in order to be delighted.” What feelings does God intend for you as you ponder this?
  • Imagine how an infant gazes at you, or your child going off to war, or your spouse as you’re taken into surgery. Now imagine God gazing at you. Feel it, don’t analyse it.

Abba, please never hide from me the light of your face.

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For More:  Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris

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Thanks for your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

 

Daily Riches: Always In Trouble, Always Praying (Singer, Moody, Spurgeon, MacDonald, Lloyd-Jones, Gesswein)

Posted on by under Daily Office, devotions, Prayer

“I pray only when I am in trouble; but I am in trouble all the time so I pray all the time.”  Isaac Bashevis Singer

“I have had more trouble with myself than with any other man I have ever met!”  D. L. Moody

“We should pray when we are in a praying mood, for it would be sinful to neglect so fair an opportunity. We should pray when we are not in a proper mood, for it would be dangerous to remain in so unhealthy a condition.” Charles Spurgeon

“What if the main object in God’s idea of prayer be the supplying of our great, our endless need–the need of himself? What if the good of all our smaller and lower needs lies in this, that they help drive us to God? Communion with God is the one need of the soul beyond all other needs; prayer is the beginning of that communion.” George MacDonald

“I am convinced that nothing can avail except churches and ministers on their knees in total dependence on God. As long as you go on organizing, people will not fall on their knees and implore God to come and heal them.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“To this day the prayer level is the power level of the church.” Armin Gesswein

“Devote yourselves to prayer.”
Colossians 4:2

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you pray all the time because “you are in trouble all the time?” How big a part does your mood play in whether or not you pray? Think about the significance of your answer.
  • Can you imagine God allowing “smaller needs” in your life to “drive you to Him?” …because the greatest need of your soul is “communion with God?” …because his greatest desire is communion with you?
  • When you minister to others, what is your most important preparation? It is planning, researching, studying, strategizing – or praying? What does your answer say about what you really believe?
  • Have you established a daily routine, for instance, of praying “evening, morning and noon” like David and Daniel did (Psalm 55:17, Dan. 6:10)? If not, are you praying faithfully without one?

Abba, thank you for desiring intimacy with me, and for how you listen when I pray.

 For More: Prayer Powerpoints by Randall D. Roth

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These “Daily Riches” are meant to give you something of uncommon value each day. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

 

Daily Riches: If You Had to Choose: To Speak or To Listen? (Eugene Peterson)

Posted on by under approval addiction, Busyness, Hurry Sickness, Loving Listening

“Listening is in short supply in the world today; people aren’t used to being listened to. I know how easy it is to avoid the tough, intense work of listening by being busy as when I let a hospital patient know there are ten more people I have to see.  …Too much of pastoral visitation is punching the clock, assuring people we’re on the job, being busy, earning our pay. Pastoral listening requires unhurried leisure, even if it’s only for five minutes. Leisure is a quality of spirit, not a quantity of time. Only in that ambiance of leisure do persons know they are listened to with absolute seriousness, treated with dignity and importance. Speaking to people does not have the same personal intensity as listening to them. The question I put to myself is not “How many people have you spoken to about Christ this week?” but “How many people have you listened to in Christ this week?” The number of persons listened to must necessarily be less than the number spoken to. Listening to a story always takes more time than delivering a message, so I must discard my compulsion to count, to compile the statistics that will justify my existence.” Eugene Peterson

“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this:
Everyone should be quick to listen
[and] slow to speak….”
James 1:19

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you more intense when you speak, or when you listen?
  • Do you ever feel regret after a conversation that you have spoken too much and listened too little?
  • Do you have a technique to subtly let someone know that at the moment you’re too busy to listen to them?
  • Listening that ministers requires “unhurried leisure”, where the person feels “treated with dignity.” In your listening, do you treat others “with dignity?”

Abba, help me to love by listening well. By my listening may others sense their importance to me – and to you.

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For More: The Contemplative Pastor by Eugene Peterson

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These “Daily Riches are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. Please follow my blog and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Seeking God in Silence (Dallas Willard, Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton and Daniel Wolpert)

Posted on by under Awareness, devotions, Silence, Solitude

“… silence is frightening because it strips us as nothing else does, throwing us upon the stark realities of our life. It reminds us of death, which will cut us off from this world and leave only us and God. And in that quiet, what if there turns out to be very little to ‘just us and God’? Think what it says about the inward emptiness of our lives if we must always turn on the tape player or radio to make sure something is happening around us.” Dallas Willard

“Solitude, silence, and prayer are often the best ways to self-knowledge. Not because they offer solutions for the complexity of our lives but because they bring us in touch with our sacred center, where God dwells.” Henri Nouwen

“Gradually, after deliberately choosing quiet times with God, our heart begins to sharpen its perception of God’s presence. The quiet of God begins to speak and direct us, and our heart becomes more finely tuned to the frequency that God uses to speak to us.” Thomas Merton

“Silentio [is] preparing to be read by God. When we go and sit in silence, when we turn our minds to our Creator, we begin the process of allowing God to be the center of our world.” Daniel Wolpert

“Let all that I am wait quietly before God”
Psalm 62:5 

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Do you need to have the television or music playing constantly in the background? Does silence make you feel like nothing “is happening?”
  • Has regularly sitting in silence before God helped you to “sharpen your perception of God’s presence” over time? to feel more “in touch with your sacred center?”
  • Wolpert says that in practicing silence “we begin the process of allowing God to be the center of our world.” If you haven’t already, are you willing to begin to seek God that way? If not, what is stopping you?

Abba, may embracing solitude and silence alert me to that new voice sounding from beyond all human chatter.

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For More: The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard

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These “Daily Riches”are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. Thanks!.  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

 

Daily Riches: The Subtle Violence of Hurry (Thomas Merton, Peter Scazzero and Catherine of Siena)

Posted on by under Busyness, Hurry Sickness, Waiting on God

“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence, and that is activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of this innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone and everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.” Thomas Merton

“Overfunctioning (doing for others what they can and should do for themselves) is a manifestation of anxiety.” Peter Scazzero

“No longer will violence be heard in your land,
nor ruin or destruction within your borders,
but you will call your walls Salvation
and your gates Praise.”
Isaiah 60:18

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you allow yourself to be “carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, or to surrender to too many demands?” Do you “commit yourself to too many projects [or attempt] to help everyone and everything?” What does your answer say about you?
  • Have you ever thought of overwork as a “form of violence?” Does that seem overstated? Why does Merton use the word “violence?”
  • Does frenzy in your life kill your inner life, steal your peace, undercut your inner wisdom and make your work unfruitful? If so, what can you change?
  • Have you been on the receiving end of such violence – asking for love and finding the other person, though well-intentioned, had no time for you?

You, O Eternal Trinity, are a deep sea into which, the more I enter, the more I find, and the more I find, the more I seek. O abyss, O eternal Godhead, O sea profound, what more could you give me than yourself.  Catherine of Siena

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For More: Confessions of a Guilty Bystander by Thomas Merton

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Measuring a Day’s Success (Dallas Willard, Brennan Manning and John Ortberg)

Posted on by under Loving Well, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation

“The aim and substance of spiritual life is not fasting, prayer, hymn singing, frugal living, and so forth. Rather, it is the effective and full enjoyment of active love of God and humankind in all the daily rounds of normal existence where we are placed. …People who think that they are spiritually superior because they make practice of a discipline such as fasting or silence or frugality are entirely missing the point. The need for extensive practice of a given discipline is an indication of our weakness, not our strength.” Dallas Willard

“The Rabbi [Jesus] implores, ‘Don’t you understand that discipleship is not about being right or being perfect or being efficient? It’s all about the way you live with each other.’ In every encounter we either give life or we drain it. There is no neutral exchange. We enhance human dignity, or we diminish it. The success or failure of a given day is measured by the quality of our interest and compassion toward those around us. We define ourselves by our response to human need. The question is not how we feel about our neighbor but what we have done for him or her. We reveal our heart in the way we listen to a child, speak to the person who delivers mail, bear an injury, and share our resources with the indignant.” Brennan Manning

“…love is the fulfillment of the law.” Romans 13:10

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  •  Are you aware of weaknesses in your life and your need for “help to do what you cannot do now by willpower alone?” (John Ortberg’s definition of spiritual disciplines) Are you practicing some disciplines for that reason?
  • Do you measure the success of your day by “compassion [demonstrated] toward those around you” rather than by faithfulness in the disciplines?
  • Rejecting the practice of spiritual disciplines could be evidence of pride, and serious practice of them could be a source of pride. In the next days, take some time to consider this before the Lord.

Abba, help me to do what I cannot do by willpower alone as I embrace life-giving rhythms and practices.

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For More: The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: The Limitations of Knowledge (Donald McCullough, Thomas Aquinas and G. K. Chesterton)

Posted on by under Embracing Losses and Limits, Humility

“Some things–perhaps the most important–cannot be grasped, regardless of the reach of one’s intellectual prowess. They can only be received. There is a knowledge that cannot be gained by thinking or reasoning or deducing or inducing or experimenting or theorizing; it comes to us, not from us, and it can only be acknowledged, with gratitude and surprise, when it appears in an open heart. We can prepare for this knowledge, paradoxical as it sounds, by encountering the limitations of knowledge. These limitations, by reminding us of our humanity and our relative ignorance, help create the awe and wonder necessary for encountering the deepest, most soul-shaping truths.” Donald McCullough

Thomas Aquinas (c 1225-74) was the greatest of the medieval Doctors of the Church. His life was devoted to prayer, teaching, writing and travel. Although Aquinas had little knowledge of Greek or Hebrew, as a theologian he was unrivalled in intellectual power, capable of dictating to four secretaries at the same time. Yet he showed absolute single-mindedness in pursuing his fundamental aim: to use Aristotelian methods of scientific rationalism to support the doctrines of Christian faith. His Summa Theologica on the person of God was twenty volumes. Near the end of his life Aquinas had a divine revelation in the Chapel of St. Nicholas in Naples. Afterwards he said, “I can no longer write, for God has given me such glorious knowledge that all contained in my works are as straw – barely fit to absorb the holy wonders that fall in a stable.” …In 1274 Aquinas died at Fossa Nuova, south of Rome. “He confessed his sins and he received his God; and we may be sure that the great philosopher had entirely forgotten philosophy. The confessor ran forth as if in fear, and whispered that [Thomas’] confession had been that of a child of five.” G. K. Chesterton

“the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom” 1 Corinthians 1:24

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Have you experienced the limits of knowledge?
  • Has it led to greater humility before God and others?
  • Are you able to stand before God in faith like “a child of five?”

Abba, in the end I know so little, but I know this, that you love me and that you alone suffice.

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For More: Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox by G. K. Chesterton

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God. – Bill (Psalm 90:14)