Category Archives: Contemplative Prayer

Life Skill #11: “Being the Beloved”

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, approval addiction, Being the Beloved, Class Notes, Contemplative Prayer, Loving Union with God, Patience with Yourself, The Divine Gaze, The Love of God, thirsting and longing for God

.WFTM**, 2-23, 3-13, 3-26, 4-9

(1) The Experience of Being the Beloved

Take each passage below separately. If you can, mark phrases you want to talk about–words that touch you or amaze you. Do the first passage then the second.

“You are . . . God’s special possession . . . .” 1 Peter 2:9

“What we need is a knowing that is deeper than belief. It must be based on experience. Only knowing love is sufficiently strong to cast out fear. Only knowing love is sufficiently strong to resist doubt. The reason that [Gerald] May calls such knowing ‘contemplative’ is that it results from meeting God in a contemplative state. It comes from sitting at the feet of Jesus, gazing into his face and listening to his assurances of love for me. It comes from letting God’s love wash over me, not simply trying to believe it. It comes from soaking in the scriptural assurances of such love, not simply reading them and trying to remember them or believe them. It comes from spending time with God, observing how [God] looks at me. It comes from watching [God’s] watchfulness over me and listening to [God’s] protestations of love for me. . . . Contemplative or existential knowing may be supported by belief, but it is never reducible to it. It is based in experience, the direct personal encounter with divine love. The goal is, as stated by Paul, that we might know the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowledge, and so be filled with the utter fullness of God (Ephesians 3:16-19).” David Benner

“Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). He comes to you from within, where you may encounter the mystery of Christ’s presence in and through your own thoughts, feelings, hopes, imagination, dreams, and love—as well as your shame, your secrets, your rage and jealousy, and all the many ways you resist love. Because God is love, Christ in you represents the coming of love into the totality of your being, but this is not a sentimental, ‘feel-good’ love. The love of Christ is a force for healing, an agent of transformation, and a challenge to metanoia . . . .” Carl McColman

*Talk about something from above that encouraged you when you think about being God’s beloved. Share from the heart.

(2) Hindrances to Being (Feeling like) the Beloved

What are some hindrances to you actually feeling that you are God’s beloved? See if any of them show up below. Note thought you want to talk about.

“Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one–for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one–for God himself has given us right standing with himself.” Romans 8:33f.

“God is asking me, the unworthy, to forget my unworthiness and that of my brothers, and dare to advance in the love which has redeemed and renewed us all in God’s likeness. And to laugh, after all at the preposterous idea of ‘worthi-ness’.” Thomas Merton

“Faith is the courage to accept acceptance, to accept that God loves me as I am and not as should be, because I’m never going to be as I should be.” Paul Tillich

“If I make anything out of the fact that I am Thomas Merton, I am dead. And if you make anything out of the fact that you are in charge of the pig barn, you are dead. Quit keeping score altogether and surrender yourself with all your sinfulness to God who sees neither the score nor the scorekeeper but only his child redeemed by Christ.” Thomas Merton

“To please God . . . to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness . . . to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son–it seems impossible . . . but so it is.” C. S. Lewis

(3) More Possible Hindrances

Each writer below is trying to make a point. Do you need to hear any of these specific messages? Discuss these one at a time.

“I get so tired of beholding my brokenness. But the deeper I go into the depths of it, the deeper I experience my belovedness too.” Jonathan Martin

Oh, night that guided me,

Oh, night more lovely than the dawn,

Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover,

Lover Transformed in the Beloved!

John of the Cross

“I focus on doing more for God

when I should focus more on being with God.

I open my hands to receive from God

when I ought to open my hands to release what blocks God.

I seek to find God, for God to bless me

when I ought to consider how God

has already found me

has already blessed me

how near God is

how real, how true

how fully, ever present.

What wonder is this then, that

in every moment,

in every circumstance,

in every gift or loss,

when God is at work

I am more likely thinking about

my next meal

my next deadline

that driver who cut me off?”

William Britton

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For Further Consideration (before or after our next meeting/maybe during)

*These are additional warnings of “hindrances.” Is there anything here you need to watch out for?

“As long as I keep running about asking: ‘Do you love me? Do you really love me?’ I give all power to the voices of the world and put myself in bondage because the world is filled with ‘ifs.’” Henri Nouwen

“Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life, because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the ‘Beloved.’ Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.” Henri Nouwen

“The sequence of events is quite predictable. The farther I run away from the place where God dwells, the less I am able to hear the voice that calls me the Beloved, and the less I hear that voice, the more entangled I become in the manipulations and power games of the world.” Henri Nouwen

“All of these mental games reveal to me the fragility of my faith that I am the Beloved One on whom God’s favor rests. I am so afraid of being disliked, blamed, put aside, passed over, ignored, persecuted, and killed, that I am constantly developing strategies to defend myself and thereby assure myself of the love I think I need and deserve. And in so doing I move far away from my father’s home and choose to dwell in a ‘distant country.’” Henri Nouwen

Further Questions to Ask of Yourself

*Is it true that in this life you’re “never going to be as you should be?” Do you hate yourself for that? Should you? Does God hate you for that?

*Do you think that fear of judgment will keep you in line better than unconditional love? Can you trace that idea to its source and critique it?

*Can you quit keeping score? Do you laugh at the preposterous idea of ‘worthiness’?

Closing Prayers

“Thinking about Jesus is not the same as being with Jesus.

God help us all to be with Him.”

Geri Scazzero

“Beloved silence: Thank you for listening to my confessions and failures.

Under the shadow of your light, my darkness is no more.”

Peter Traben Hass

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**Wisdom From the Margins (the book we’re using)

Life Skills – Silence and Stillness (week 10)

Posted on by under approval addiction, Being and Doing, Busyness, Class Notes, Contemplative Prayer, contemplative virtues, Silence, Simplicity, Spiritual Formation

WFTM*: 1-8, 1-11, 2-25, 3-27, 3-29, 2-1, 3-7, 4-3


“Tremble and do not sin;
when you are on your beds,
search your hearts and be silent.”
Psalm 4:4 NIV

Introduction: What We Expect of God
And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 10 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”11 The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind [like the wind that withered the grain and brought the locusts in Ex. 20] tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake [like Saul’s deliverance from the Philistines in 1 Sam 14], but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire [like Moses experienced at the burning bush], but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a [lit. “sheer silence.”] 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 1 Kings 19:b–13 NLT


Observation: God did not make himself known in a dramatic or anticipated (previously experienced) manner, so as to say to Elijah, “Don’t limit me or what I can do with your expectations.” Perhaps we too still expect God to “appear” only in the spectacular.


*How do you expect God to come to you? Have you ruled that out? Have you been looking in the wrong places? (Selah.)

(1) Beginning the Conversation (Notice what “grabs” you.)
“When we can stand aside from the usual and perceive the fundamental, change begins to happen. . . . Silence brings us to back to basics, to our senses, to our selves.” Gunilla Norris


“Unless I am silent I shall not hear God, and until I hear [God] I shall not come to know [God]. Silence asks me to watch and wait and listen, to be like Mary in readiness to receive the Word. If I have any respect for God I shall try to find a time, however short, for silence. Without it I have not much hope of establishing that relationship with God . . . which is going to help me root the whole of my life in prayer.” Esther de Wall


[having compared contemplative prayer to water poured into a basin] “It takes time for the water to settle. Coming to interior stillness requires waiting. . . . In solitary silence we listen with great attentiveness to the voice that calls us the beloved. God speaks to the deepest strata of our souls, into our self-hatred and shame, our narcissism, and takes us through the night into the daylight of His truth . . . .” Brennan Manning


Susan Cain’s book Quiet “ . . . focuses on introverts, making the case that they have a kind of intellectual advantage. And their edge stems largely from greater amounts of solitude, from the degree to which they’ve swapped motion for stillness, chatter for calm. They’ve carved out space for reflection that’s sustained and deep. This isn’t necessarily a matter of being unplugged, of ditching the hyper-connectedness of our digital lives. It’s a matter of ditching and silencing the crowd.” Frank Bruni


*Did some phrase or idea from above catch your attention? Why did it?
*How could you more effectively “ditch and silence” the crowd?


(2) “The Evangelical Problem” (Pay attention to your emotional response.)
“I believe silence is the most challenging, the most needed and the least experienced spiritual discipline among evangelical Christians today. It is much easier to talk about it and read about it than to actually become quiet. We are a very busy, wordy and heady faith tradition. Yet we are desperate to find ways to open ourselves to our God who is, in the end, beyond all of our human constructs and human agendas. With all of our emphasis on theology and Word, cognition and service–and as important as these are–we are starved for mystery, to know this God as one who is totally other and to experience reverence in his presence. We are starved for intimacy, to see and feel and know God in the very cells of our being. We are starved for rest, to know God beyond what we can do for him. We are starved for quiet, to hear the sound of sheer silence that is the presence of God himself.” Ruth Haley Barton


*What emotions arise as you hover over these words?
*What here seems particularly for you? . . . related to your story or experience?


(4) “The Human Problem” (Look for what applies to you.)
“It’s not enough to believe in silence, solitude and stillness. These things must be experienced and practiced, and practiced often enough to be routine, to create new habits. And so I come to a full stop. I sit quietly. I don’t petition God, give thanks, or meditate on some divine attribute. I don’t look out the window in wonder. Good things to do, but not first–not yet. Because unless I can first remember that it doesn’t depend on me, that I can’t do what needs to be done, then all is lost. And until I do this numerous times a day, every day, there’s a slim chance I’ll ever remember that. Everything argues against stopping–against remembering: the to-do list, the desire to be productive, the expectations of others, ego, habit. And therefore, ruthlessness is required in establishing this essential practice. I have the potential to be used by God in important ways–but I squander that by flitting from one thing to the next without stopping to ‘recollect’ myself. These are the most important moments of my day. Nothing else I do will be so informative–and formative. Nothing else will save me from myself. Nothing else will prepare me to attend to God and others, and to what’s going on with me. Would it be more important to take these moments to love my spouse, feed a homeless child, memorize Scripture, or engage in worship? No, for unless I first submit to utter inactivity–unless my activity flows from my practiced inactivity before God, I cannot trust that my activity will be anything but smoke and noise. No one needs my hurried self–the one that to me seems so indispensable–the one in such a rush to help. Something must be done, but first–only stopping will do.” William Britton


*Does naming this (what’s described above) a “human problem” seem fair? What would your diagnosis of yourself be in this regard, if you were to write it out?
*If you were going to work on experiencing silence and practicing stillness in the weeks to come, what would that look like? (What would the RX be for your diagnosis?)

CLOSING PRAYER

“Heavenly Father, you do not lead us all by the same path. Here in your presence, take our yearning to speak with you and what words we have, and make of them a prayer worthy of your love for us. Lord you’ve heard the cry of our hearts and seen our deepest needs. Before we leave this gathering, we want to ask you . . . to commit each person here into your loving hands. If you have us . . . if we have you, God, we will want for nothing. You alone suffice.”

*Each week’s quotes usually come from Wisdom From the Margins. This is the book we will use for this discussion. If you can, try to read one reading daily in the book (perhaps the reading for that calendar day). Sometimes specific readings are recommended. In that case, 2-16 refers to the reading in the book for February 16th, etc..


If this discussion sounds like something you might be interested in, please contact me for more details. (Bill at wm_britton@mac.com) Also, if you’re in a completely different time zone and you’re interested, please let me know, since a second gathering time, designed for people in the Eastern hemisphere may be possible.

Life Skills: Contemplation

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Being the Beloved, Contemplation and Activism, Contemplative Prayer, contemplative virtues, Prayer, Silence, Social Justice, Spiritual Formation, thirsting and longing for God

“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.”
Isaiah 30:15 NIV

(1) The “Why” of Contemplation

“In all the historic formulations of the Perennial Philosophy it is axiomatic that the end of human life is contemplation . . . that a society is good to the extent that it renders contemplation possible for its members; and that the existence of at least a minority of contemplatives is necessary for the well-being of any society.” Aldous Huxley


“Contemplation is very far from being just one kind of thing that Christians do: it is the key to prayer, liturgy, art and ethics, the key to the essence of a renewed humanity that is capable of seeing the world and other subjects in the world with freedom–freedom from self-oriented, acquisitive habits and the distorted understanding that comes from them. To put it boldly, contemplation is the only ultimate answer to the unreal and insane world that our financial systems and our advertising culture and our chaotic and unexamined emotions encourage us to inhabit. To learn contemplative practice is to learn what we need so as to live truthfully and honestly and lovingly. It is a deeply revolutionary matter.” Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury


“Action without contemplation leads to hyperactive, frantic and frayed lives disconnected from their inner source that promotes peace, creativity and healing. A life of contemplative activism embraces rhythms and practices that affirm and nurture love of God, self and neighbor in a way that leads to enduring peace and social change.” Red Letter Christians blog

“Contemplation carves the posture of surrender into the fabric of our being, making us most receptive to the transformation that we cannot obtain for ourselves.” Phileena Heuertz

*Is practicing contemplation something you heard encouraged in church?
*At this early point in our discussion, what would you say is the need for, or “the promise” of contemplation?

(2) The “Way” of Contemplation

“Therefore, banish from your heart the distractions of earth. Turn your eyes to spiritual joys so that you may learn at last to rest in the light of the contemplation of God. Indeed, the soul’s true life and repose are to abide in God, held fast by love and refreshed by divine consolations. . . . little by little as you abandon baser things to rest in the one true and unchangeable Good, you will dwell there, held fast by the bonds of love.” Albert the Great


“Contemplation is simply the mind’s loving, unmixed, permanent attention to the things of God.” Francis de Sales (“Attentiveness is the heart’s stillness, unbroken by any thought.” St. Hesychios)

[contemplative prayer as the experience of being] “quiet enough to feel held, to feel the embrace of the divine, to realize that I am a part of something vaster than vast; and to feel that, to recognize that, to feel thankful for it, and to hope that by opening myself to that awareness, that I am allowing some of that to come through me.” Marilyn Nelson

“Contemplation . . . not only brings us face to face with God. It brings us, as well, face to face with the world, face to face with the self. And then, of course, something must be done. Nothing stays the same once we have found the God within. We carry the world in our hearts: the oppression of all peoples, the suffering of our friends, the burdens of our enemies, the raping of the Earth, the hunger of the starving, the joy of every laughing child.” Joan Chittister

“This combination of observation along with love—without resistance, judgment, analysis, or labeling—is probably the best description of contemplation I can give. You simply participate in ‘a long, loving look at the Real.'” Richard Rohr

“Bring yourself back to the point quite gently. And even if you do nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back a thousand times, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed.” Francis de Sales

*What is your emotional response to these ideas?

*What is a behavioral response you would aspire to in response to these ideas?

(3) The “End” of Contemplation

“Contemplation, at its highest intensity, becomes a reservoir of spiritual vitality that pours itself out in the most telling social action.” Thomas Merton

“There are two doors in the next life, someone once suggested–one is labeled ‘heaven’ and the other ‘lecture on heaven.’ Everyone from the West is lined up outside the second door.” Belden Lane

*What is your emotional response to these ideas?

*What is a behavioral response you would aspire to in response to these ideas?

________________________________________


For further consideration (before or after our discussion):

(4) The “How Am I Doing?” of Contemplation

“The opposite of contemplation is not action, it is reaction. We must wait for pure action, which always proceeds from a contemplative silence.” Richard Rohr

“Our practice of contemplation is not the avoiding of distractions,’ as was foolishly taught, but instead we use them ‘to look over their shoulder’ for God! This was the brilliant insight of the author of the fourteenth-century book, The Cloud of Unknowing. . . . The persistence of the distraction can actually have the effect of steadying your gaze, deepening your decision, increasing your freedom, your choice, and your desire for God and for grace—over this or that passing phenomenon. The same can be true with any persistent temptation. The ‘shoulders’ of the distraction almost become your necessary vantage point, and they create the crosshairs of your seeing. Who would have thought? It is an ideal example of how God uses everything to bring us to God. I wasted years on trying to deny, repress, or avoid distractions and ‘dirty’ thoughts—which never worked very well. Many gave up on prayer and the spiritual life because of it.” Thomas Merton

“It is unwise to judge a prayer period on the basis of your psychological experience. Sometimes you may be bombarded with thought all during the time of prayer; yet it could be a very useful period of prayer. Your attention might have been much deeper than it seemed. In any case, you cannot make a valid judgment about how things are going on the basis of a single period of prayer. Instead, you must look for the fruit in your ordinary daily life, after a month or two. If you are becoming more patient with others, more at ease with yourself, if you shout less often or less loudly at the children, feel less hurt if the family complains about your cooking–all these are signs that another set of values is beginning to operate in you.” Thomas Keating

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Each week’s quotes usually come from Wisdom From the Margins. This is the book we will use for this discussion. If you can, try to read one reading daily in the book (perhaps the reading for that calendar day). Alternatively, this week you could read January 9, March 1, and/or March 20.)


If this discussion sounds like something you might be interested in, please contact me for more details. (Bill at wm_britton@mac.com) Also, if you’re in a completely different time zone and you’re interested, also please let me know, since a second gathering time, designed for people in the Eastern hemisphere may be possible.

Daily Riches: . . . And Nothing Changes (David Benner)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Being the Beloved, Contemplative Prayer, Loving Well, The Love of God

“The conversion of the heart that lies at the core of Christian spiritual transformation begins at the cross. It involves meeting God’s love in the cross, not simply encountering some judicial solution for the problem of human sin. It must also involve surrender to that love, not simply being warmed by it as a comforting spiritual truth.” David Benner

“Love is the acid test of Christian spirituality. . . . If we are not becoming more loving, something is seriously wrong. But how do we become more loving and what has gone wrong if we are on the Christian spiritual journey but our heart is not more and more the heart of the Father? How do we move beyond self-interest as our number one priority? How do we get from envy, criticalness or competitiveness to compassion? . . . When I am confronted with my frequent failure in love, my first instinct has always been to try harder. I recognize the poverty of my love. . . . I feel regret and discouragement. I pray for help in being more loving. I try harder. And nothing changes. . . . My own struggles to become more loving have been the most discouraging aspect of my Christian spiritual journey. But as I have begun to learn to come back through the cross to the extravagant love of God for me, slowly my hard heart is beginning to thaw. Ever so slowly my heart is becoming God’s heart–larger and more tender than anything I could have ever expected or experienced as a result of my most persistent effort. . . . Allowing myself to deeply experience his love–taking time to soak in it and allow it to infuse me–has begun to effect changes that I had given up hope of ever experiencing. Coming back to God in my failure at love, throwing myself into his arms and asking him to remind me of how much he loves me as I am–here I begin to experience new levels of love to give to others.” Benner

“If you love your neighbor,
you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law.”
Romans 13:8b NLT

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you ever feel like “nothing changes?”
  • In those moments, is your solution “try harder?”
  • Is God’s love for sinners something you actually experience?

Abba, let me soak in, and be infused with, your love for me–and be motivated and empowered to love others.

For More: Surrender to Love by David Benner

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Sources:

Benner, David G. Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality. Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity, 2003.

Daily Riches: Becoming A New Person In Jesus Christ (Rowan Williams and Augustine)

Posted on by under Being and Doing, Being the Beloved, Change Yourself First, Contemplation, Contemplation and Activism, Contemplative Prayer, Jesus the Savior, Loving Well

“… contemplation is very far from being just one kind of thing that Christians do: it is the key to prayer, liturgy, art and ethics, the key to the essence of a renewed humanity that is capable of seeing the world and other subjects in the world with freedom—freedom from self-oriented, acquisitive habits and the distorted understanding that come from them. To put it boldly, contemplation is the only ultimate answer to the unreal and insane world that our financial systems and our advertising culture and our chaotic and unexamined emotions encourage us to inhabit. To learn contemplative prayer is to learn what we need so as to live truthfully and honestly and lovingly. It is a deeply revolutionary matter. …To be converted to the faith does not mean simply acquiring a new set of beliefs, but becoming a new person, a person in communion with God and others through Jesus Christ. Contemplation is an intrinsic element in this transforming process. To learn to look to God without regard to my own instant satisfaction, to learn to scrutinize and to relativise the cravings and fantasies that arise in me—this is to allow God to be God, and thus to allow the prayer of Christ, God’s own relation to God, to come alive in me. Invoking the Holy Spirit is a matter of asking the third person of the Trinity to enter my spirit and bring the clarity I need to see where I am in slavery to cravings and fantasies and to give me patience and stillness as God’s light and love penetrate my inner life. …And as this process unfolds, I become more free—to borrow a phrase of St. Augustine—to ‘love human beings in a human way,’ to love them not for what they may promise me, to love them not as if they were there to provide me with lasting safety and comfort, but as fragile fellow-creatures held in the love of God. I discover … how to see other persons and things for what they are in relation to God, not to me. And it is here that true justice as well as true love has its roots.“

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love …”
Ephesians 3:17

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • If you can, please read this again. Can you see why contemplation is so important and powerful?
  • Do you regularly practice contemplation?
  • If not, do you have another practice that promises the same results?

Abba, let me be rooted and held in your love for me.

For More: “The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Address…” by Rowan Williams

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Thank you for following and sharing my blog. I really appreciate it! Please leave a question or comment. – Bill

Daily Riches: Our Illusions When Serving Others (Belden Lane, Meister Eckhart and Oswald Chambers)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, approval addiction, Asceticism, Change Yourself First, Contemplation and Activism, Contemplative Prayer, Detachment and Attachment, Ego Issues, Loving Well, Silence, Social Justice, Striving and drivenness, truth and illusion

“A Christian servant is one who perpetually looks into the face of God and then goes forth to talk to others.” Oswald Chambers

“Meister Eckhart insisted that ‘if a person were in a rapture as great as St. Paul once experienced and learned that his neighbor were in need of a cup of soup, it would be best to withdraw from the rapture and give the person the soup he needs.’ The contemplative returns to the ordinary, not in spite of her detachment from it, but because of that detachment. No longer driven by fear of rejection and loss, she is able now to love others without anxiously needing anything in return. …The author of The Cloud of Unknowing argued that the person steeped in apophatic [wordless] prayer is able to love everyone, without ‘special regard for any individual, whether he is kinsman or stranger, friend or foe.’ Where one is free from the need to impress the one or to fear the other, all can be loved. Eckhart said that people who, through prayer, have become dead to all things and in touch with nothingness, become powerfully and perhaps even dangerously free. They are able to ‘aim at nothing in their works, to intend nothing in their minds, seeking neither reward nor blessedness.’ They move through the world with a compassionate indifference to all its threats and promises. …The truest impulse toward work for social justice, therefore, grows not out of an anxious sense of pity for others or a grandly noble desire to serve, but out of the abandonment of the self in God. A love that works for justice is wholly uncalculating and indifferent, able to accomplish much because it seeks nothing for itself. …In the apophatic way, love is not directed toward an attractive, lovable object. Indeed, it is drawn to that which appears as nothing, to that which is least in this world…. It flourishes in receiving no response, expecting nothing in return. …One’s work for social change, when rooted in such a truth becomes altogether free–released from all the illusions and expectations we usually bring to our service to others.” Belden Lane

“I was caught up to paradise and heard things so astounding
that they cannot be expressed in words”
2 Corinthians 12:4

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you love “expecting nothing in return?”
  • Do you “move through the world with a compassionate indifference to all its threats and promises?”
  • How could you perpetually “look into the face of God” before attempting to care for others?

Abba, teach me this often unfamiliar, always counterintuitive love.

For More: The Solace of Fierce Landscapes by Belden Lane

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Thank you for sharing/following my blog! Please leave a question or comment. I appreciate your interest! – Bill

 

Daily Riches: The Surprising Nearness of God (James Finley and John Ortberg)

Posted on by under Awareness, Being the Beloved, Contemplative Prayer, Meditation, Mysticism, The Sacrament of the Present Moment

“God is still in the business of coming down to earth: to this cubicle, this email, this room, this house, this job, this hospital room, this car, this bed, this vacation. Any place can become Bethel, the house of God. Cleveland, maybe. Or the chair you’re sitting in as you read these words.” John Ortberg

“We begin in ego consciousness, imagining that the union with God we seek is far off. After all, ego consciousness is the subjective perception of being a separate self that has to find God, who is perceived as being other than one’s self. But as ego consciousness yields and gives way to meditative awareness, we begin to recognize the surprising nearness of God. God is already here, all about us and within us—the very source, ground, and fulfillment of our being. But subject to the limitations of ego, we tend not to experience the divine mystery of who we are, created in the image and likeness of God. We do not directly realize the God-given Godly nature of ourselves in our nothingness without God. This is why we meditate: that we might awaken to God’s presence all about us and within, as Saint Augustine phrased it, closer to us than we are to ourselves. To practice meditation as an act of faith is to open ourselves to the endlessly reassuring realization that our very being and the very being of everyone and everything around us is the generosity of God. God is creating us in the present moment, loving us into being, such that our very presence is the manifested presence of God. We meditate that we might awaken to this unitive mystery, not just in meditation, but in every moment of our lives.” James Finley

“in Him we live and move and exist”
Acts 17:28

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you often fall into thinking of God as “far off”, as Someone hard to find? (God is infinitely above us and decisively Other–but is that the whole story?)
  • Have you given serious consideration to the possibility of the “surprising nearness of God?” …that you bear God’s image? …that in God you “live and move and exist?” …that as a believer, God has chosen you as his preferred dwelling place?
  • Consider that each moment God is “loving us into being.” What would that entail?

Abba, daily may I awaken anew to your presence, lovingly at work in me and others–the source, ground, and fulfillment of our being.

For More: Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God by James Finley

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and God seeks you. I hope you’ll follow/share my blog. I appreciate your interest! Please leave a comment or question. – Bill

Daily Riches: Experiencing God’s Experience of Me (Alan Jones, Jürgen Moltmann and Abraham Heschel)

Posted on by under Being the Beloved, Contemplative Prayer, The Divine Gaze, The Love of God

[Jürgen Moltmann encourages us to ask] ‘How do I experience God? What does God mean for me? How am I determined by him?’; but also ask these questions in reverse. ‘How does God experience me? What do I mean for God? How is God determined by me?’ This is not to say that the relationship between God and us is a reciprocal one between equals; rather that for a relationship to be a relationship at all, it much be a two-way affair.’ The question, ‘How does God experience me?’ Suggests a fresh way to look at ourselves and our way of being in the world. What is God’s experience of me? God’s experience of me must seem strange, disappointing, amusing, hurtful, and occasionally delightful. Once the initial question has been entertained by the believer, its effects go on reverberating in the soul. Because I am capable of reflection and self-transcendence (I can go beyond myself), I can also experience God’s experience of me. I can ‘see’ what I am like from God’s point of view. I can learn to know myself in the mirror of God’s love, suffering, and joy. When I reflect on how God experiences me I begin to learn more about myself; and the more I understand God’s experience of me and my world, the more deeply the mystery of God’s passion comes home to me.” Alan Jones

“The pages of the prophetic writings are filled with echoes of divine love and disappointment, mercy and indignation. The God of Israel is never impersonal This divine pathos is the key to inspired prophecy.” Abraham Heschel

“I led them with cords of human kindness,
with ties of love.
To them I was like one who lifts
a little child to the cheek,
and I bent down to feed them.”
Hosea 11:4

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • If you had to put it into words, how would you describe God’s experience of you?
  • Can you attempt to look at yourself from God’s eyes? Can you allow yourself to see yourself “in the mirror of God’s love?”
  • Do you think of what you do as either bringing joy or pain to the heart of God?

Abba, only one with your heart could love me as you do.

For More: Soul Making: The Desert Way of Spirituality by Alan Jones

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest! Please leave a comment or question. –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Attention For the Sake of Love (Alan Jones, Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen)

Posted on by under Awareness, Being and Doing, Change Yourself First, Contemplation and Activism, Contemplative Prayer, Loving Well, truth and illusion, Wholeness and Brokenness
“In the Divine Comedy, Beatrice uncompromisingly ordered Dante to look and to look well. I too need someone who will relentlessly draw my attention to those parts of my life that remain hidden even from myself, and yet which hold me in their power. The psychoanalyst does this for some people; the holy man or woman for others. …This is how one analyst describes his work:
…all I could do was every now and then direct the patient’s attention to what she was doing in her attempts to keep that stuff from spewing out–something she preferred not to watch. …The right way is just to point out to the patient how he keeps himself from thinking certain things, so that he becomes self-conscious and the evasion doesn’t work so automatically. That’s all. That’s the analyst’s scalpel. He can’t open up his patient’s mind and start tinkering. The only thing he can do is tell the patient, ‘Look there,’ and most of the time the patient doesn’t look. But sometimes he does, and then his automatic behavior becomes less automatic.’
Most of us, however find the command ‘Look!’ hard to obey. This way of naked attention for the sake of love seems impossible to maintain. We prefer to love others by interfering with them. We enjoy tinkering with others in the name of love. We enjoy, above all, being demonstrably useful. All in all, we need rescuing.” Alan Jones
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“He who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity, and capacity to love, will not have anything to give to others. He will communicate to them nothing but the contagion of his own obsessions, his aggressiveness, his ego-centered ambition, his delusions about ends and means.” Thomas Merton
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“Here lies the center of Merton’s critique of our activism …Activism ultimately places our own unmet longings at the center of our efforts. It therefore does not help others in a wholesome way.” Henri Nouwen

“The truth will set you free.”
John 8:32

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Have you adopted a practice (e.g., contemplation, therapy) that allows for God to reveal those parts of your life to you that remain hidden even from you?
  • Are you aware of how ambition and unmet longings sabotage your attempts at loving well?
  • Who helps you to “look well?” …to become aware of your unconscious life?

Abba, help me understand what’s happening beneath the surface of my life.

For More: Soul Making by Alan Jones

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. I hope you’ll follow and share my blog. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. Thanks! – Bill

Daily Riches: A Silent Conversation of the Soul with God (Brother Lawrence, Pete Scazzero)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Awareness, Being the Beloved, Contemplative Prayer, Loving Union with God, Mysticism, Prayer, Silence, The Sacrament of the Present Moment

“God invites us to practice the presence of people within an awareness of His presence. That is no small task, especially at this time of year.
How then can we do this? By intentionally practicing His presence first. No greater teacher can offer us insight on how to do this better than Brother Lawrence, a 16th century Carmelite from Paris. I reread The Practice of the Presence of God every couple of years to remind myself of his simple, timeless wisdom. Here are a few of his gems for you to prayerfully consider this Christmas:

  • I make it my business only to persevere in His holy presence…or, to speak better, a habitual, silent, and secret conversation of the soul with God.
  • The time of business does not differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of the kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees.
  • His prayer was nothing else but a sense of the presence of God.
  • As for set hours of prayer, they are only a continuation of the same exercise…simple attention and passionate regard to God.
  • (He) resolved to use his utmost endeavor to live in a continual sense of His presence, and, if possible never to forget Him.

Jesus said it simply: If we remain in Him, we will bear abundant fruit (i.e. not so much us holding a position, but allowing ourselves to be held). If we don’t, we won’t give anything lasting or substantial. May we practice His presence this Christmas and, in so doing, offer our presence to those around us.” Pete Scazzero

“Be still in the presence of the Lord”
Psalm 37:7

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • To what degree is your life “a habitual, silent, and secret conversation of your soul with God?”
  • Can you “possess God in great tranquility” in the midst of something like the “noise and clatter of the kitchen?”
  • Perhaps instead of asking whether we can do what Brother Lawrence did, we would do well to see that we are “practicing” as he did–regularly giving God our “simple attention and passionate regard.”

Abba, teach me to practice never forgetting you through the hours of my day–always giving you my loving attention.

For More: Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence

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

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Practicing the Presence … Vertical and Horizontal (J. I. Packer, Pete Scazzero, Jean Vanier)

Posted on by under Contemplation and Activism, Contemplative Prayer, Emotions and Spirituality, Loving Well

“We only honor God as we honor his image in the other person by practical love to that person, whoever he or she may be: rich or poor, strong or weak, red or yellow, black or white, conventional or wild, respectable or rough, significant or unimportant in the community. To put it the other way round, honoring and loving God means refusing one’s natural inclination to withhold love and honor from people whom one finds awkward, repellent, and inconvenient.” J. I. Packer

“As emotionally mature Christian adults, we recognize that loving well is the essence of true spirituality. This requires that we experience connection with God, with ourselves, and with other people. God invites us to practice his presence in our daily lives. At the same time, he invites us to ‘practice the presence of people,’ within an awareness of his presence, in our daily relationships. Sadly, the two are rarely brought together. Jesus’ profound, contemplative prayer life with his Father resulted in a contemplative presence with people. Love is ‘to reveal the beauty of another person to themselves,’ wrote Jean Vanier. Jesus did that with each person he met. We see this in his interaction with the woman suffering from a twelve-year bleeding problem (Mark 5). This ability to really listen and pay attention to people was at the very heart of Jesus’ mission, and it could not help but move him to compassion. In the same way, out of our contemplative time with God, we too are invited to be prayerfully present to people, revealing their beauty to them.” Pete Scazzero

“… the one who does not love his brother
whom he has seen,
cannot love God
whom he has not seen.”
1 John 4:20

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you find that you are naturally included “to withhold love and honor from people whom you find awkward, repellent, and inconvenient?” Yeah, me too.
  • Loving well requires being “present” to God and people, yet “sadly, the two are rarely brought together.” Do you work at both?
  • Do you see loving well in this way as the “essence of true spirituality?” Have you perhaps put something else first?

Abba, most of all, let me love.

For More: Christianity the True Humanism by J. I. Packer

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

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Emotions as Sirens (Richard Rohr)

Posted on by under Awareness, Change Yourself First, Contemplative Prayer, Death Daily, Detachment and Attachment, Ego Issues, Emotions and Spirituality, Loving Union with God, Mysticism, Suffering and Grace, Wholeness and Brokenness
“Bill Wilson saw ’emotional sobriety’ as the final culmination of the Twelve Steps. Full sobriety is not just to stop drinking, but to become a spiritually awakened person who has found some degree of detachment from your own narcissistic emotional responses. The word emotion comes from the Latin for movement. It’s a body-based reaction that snags you quickly and urgently. The body holds shame, guilt, hurts, memories, and childhood conditioning. Emotions feel like truth. So it’s very hard to ‘unhook’ from our feelings. This is true for all of us. Emotions in and of themselves have no moral value; they are neither good nor bad. They are just sirens alerting us of something we should pay attention to. If we learn to listen to them instead of always obeying them, they can be very good teachers. We need to be aware that our emotions can mislead us because we often misread the situation. Emotions are far too self-referential and based in … what some call our defense mechanisms. Our basic ‘programs for survival,’ which are the source of most emotions … we falsely assume will give us happiness. The problem is, these programs will not work in the long haul. They are almost entirely dependent on outside events and other people conforming to our needs. They are inherently unstable because your happiness moment by moment is based outside of yourself. All the great religions of the world at the highest levels would say God alone–something stable, inside us, and reliable–is the source of all sustained happiness. Once you encounter a Loving God … you have found both your Ground and your Goal. John of the Cross, Teresa of Ávila, and many other mystics believed the experience of absolute union between God and the soul is essential to transformation. Then happiness is an ‘inside job’ and not dependent on outer circumstances or other peoples’ response to you. Of course, you will still have ups and downs and emotions of all kinds, but they don’t have you. You don’t identify with them; you let them come and you let them go.” Richard Rohr

“Fools vent their anger.”
Proverbs 29:11

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Are you aware that emotions “feel like truth” but aren’t?
  • How can you learn to listen to your emotions rather than obeying them?
  • Do your emotions “have you” or can you feel them and then “let them go?”

Abba, help me learn from, rather than be mastered by, my emotions.

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For More: Breathing Under Water by Richard Rohr

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others! My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. – Bill

Daily Riches: Learning From Quaker Silence (Anyushka)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Contemplative Prayer, Mysticism, Silence, Simplicity, Stillness, Waiting on God, Worship

“For a number of years, the thought of attending a Quaker meeting crossed my mind from time to time … yet, I hesitated, imagining how uncomfortable I could end up being, sitting quietly for an hour in a group of quiet people. …I walked into the presence of God in a way I could never have imagined. I sat there stunned by the realisation that, in Quaker meetings, silence is worship and worship is silent. I found myself in the silence of people for whom feeling the need to worship is their common ground, who know that God is present and that there is nothing that could possibly have to be said by anyone else but him. This silence felt like the most honest and right worship I had ever experienced–no liturgy to get between me and God, no distractions, no words trying to describe a reality beyond the limits of language and imagination. …[Quakers] honour ‘that of God’ within themselves and in everyone else. …There is no ‘method’ setting out what the experience should be like for everyone. Quaker silence feels neither like silence for the sake of silence, nor like a discipline to bend the Self into. This silence is a place beyond our Selves. My whole being is in tune with God who I listen to, and with everyone who listens with me. God is here, and has calmed the storm in my mind. God is here, and creates order and clarity and peace. God becomes so spacious in this silence that I know again how small I am–and that I do not have to pretend to be anything else but small.  …I am welcome to speak, as a woman, as a lay person, as a visitor. This is a place as free of judgment or prejudice as it can get between people…. We all left our egos at the door for an hour, and I was glad to get a break from mine. …When I left after the meeting, I knew that everything I needed had been given to me. I had experienced Communion, in the most direct and uncomplicated way. This kind of silence is hard to describe and, I find, hard to forget.” Anyuska

“Listen in silence before me.” Isaiah 41:1

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Could you sit quietly for an hour?
  • Can you imagine worship with no need for human speech? …no liturgy between you and God? …no words trying to explain the inexplicable?
  • When was the last time you left church feeling that “everything you needed” was given to you?

Abba, envelop me in deep silence.

For More: Invitation to Solitude and Silence by Ruth Haley Barton

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If you benefited in some way from this, please share it with others! – Bill

Daily Riches: Your Intuitive Prejudice In Favor of Self (Thomas Merton, A. D. Sertillanges)

Posted on by under Awareness, Change Yourself First, Contemplative Prayer, devotions, Ego Issues, Embracing Losses and Limits, Humility, truth and illusion, Wholeness and Brokenness

“To proportion one’s task to one’s powers, to undertake to speak only when one knows, not to force oneself to think what one does not think, or to understand what one does not understand – to avoid the danger of missing the substance of things and disguising its absence under big words: all that is great wisdom. Pride rebels against it; but pride is the enemy.” A. D. Sertillanges

“We ought to have the humility to admit we do not know all about ourselves, that we are not experts at running our own lives. We ought to stop taking our conscious plans and decisions with such infinite seriousness. It may well be that we are not the martyrs or the mystics or the apostles or the leaders or the lovers of God that we imagine ourselves to be. Our subconscious mind may be trying to tell us this in many ways and we have trained ourselves with the most egregious self-righteousness to turn a deaf ear. …One of the effects of original sin is an intuitive prejudice in favor of our own selfish desires. We see things as they are not, because we see them centered on ourselves. Fear, anxiety, greed, ambition, and our hopeless need for pleasure all distort the image of reality that is reflected in our minds. Grace does not completely correct this distortion all at once: but it gives us a means of recognizing and allowing for it. And it tells us what we must do to correct it. Sincerity must be bought at a price: the humility to recognize our innumerable errors, and fidelity in tirelessly setting them right. The sincere man, therefore, is one who has the grace to know that he may be instinctively insincere, and that even his natural sincerity may become a camouflage for irresponsibility and moral cowardice: as if it were enough to recognize the truth, and do nothing about it!” Thomas Merton

“with humility comes wisdom.
Proverbs 11:2

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you aware of your “intuitive prejudice in favor of your own selfish desires?”
  • Do you listen, in the voice of God, others, or your self-conscious such that your “infinite seriousness” about your spirituality could be questioned?
  • How can you refuse to be “instinctively insincere” before God, and thereby learn to practice truthfulness with others about your weaknesses and limitations?

Self-humbling God, help me humbly receive truth about myself.

For More: No Man Is An Island by Thomas Merton

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

Daily Riches: The Furious Love of God (Brennan Manning, John Chrysostom and Edwina Gateley)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Being and Doing, Being the Beloved, Contemplative Prayer, devotions, Loving Union with God, The Love of God

“Many Christians have never have grabbed ahold of God. They do not know, really know, that God dearly and passionately loves them. Many accept it theoretically; others in a shadowy sort of way. While their belief system is invulnerable, their faith in God’s love for them is remote and abstract. They would be hard-pressed to say that the essence of their faith-commitment is a love affair between God and themselves. Not just a simple love affair but a furious love affair. How do we grab ahold of God? How do we overcome our sadness and isolation? …How, how, how? The answer comes irresistibly and unmistakably: prayer. …The task of contemplative prayer is to help me achieve the conscious awareness of the unconditionally loving God dwelling within me.” Brennan Manning

“God loves us more than a father, mother, friend, or any else could love, and even more than we’re able to love ourselves.” John Chrysostom

Be silent.
Be still.
Alone.
Empty
Before your God.
Say nothing.
Ask nothing.
Be silent.
Be still.
Let your God look upon you.
That is all.
God knows.
God understands.
God loves you
With an enormous love,
And only wants
To look upon you
With that love.
Quiet.
Still.
Be.”
“Let Your God Love You” by Edwina Gateley

“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me.”
Jesus, to his disciples in John 15:9

  • Year’s ago a Christian friend embarrassed me by asking, “So, do you love the Lord?” I wanted to talk about my “invulnerable belief system.” Is your relationship with God “a furious love affair?”
  • Manning makes it clear that many of us struggle with this. We know God’s love for us in a “shadowy way” or “theoretically.” It’s difficult for us to overcome “our sadness and isolation” from God. Are you able to be still and quiet, just “letting God look upon you” with the same love he has for Jesus his son – soaking in it, soaking it in? Why not do that now?
  • Is the way you practice prayer likely to lead you into a growing sense of God’s love for you? If not, what needs to change?

Abba, help me want you and seek you as much as you want me and seek me. Dissatisfy me with theory. Move me past theology. Unnerve me with your furious unfailing love for me.

For More: The Signature of Jesus by Brennan Manning

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

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

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