Category Archives: Spiritual Formation

“Life Stages: Conservative and Liberal” Ron Rolheiser

Posted on by under Awareness, Loving Well, Spiritual Formation, the importance of stability, The Love of God

“A friend of mine likes to explain his religious background this way: ‘I have powerful conservative roots. I was raised in a very strong conservative, Roman Catholic, immigrant, German, farming family, with all the inhibitions, protectiveness, exclusivity, and reticence that this entailed. It would be hard to find a more strongly conservative religious background than mine. And I’m grateful for that. It’s one of the greatest gift you can be given. Now I’m free for the rest of my life!’ There is something both healthily conservative and healthily liberal in that assessment. The instinct within the liberal wants to push edges, to widen the circle, to move away from narrowness, to be more inclusive, to not always see the other as threat, and to protect the ineffability of God and God’s universal salvific will. Whereas the conservative intuits the necessity of being rooted in truth, in grounding yourself in the essentials, in having proper boundaries, and in not being naive to the fact that everything that’s precious and true will invariably be under attack. Both protect the soul. . . . The liberal instinct is mostly about the fire, the conservative instinct is mostly about the glue. The story of the man who was raised in such a strong conservative background and who now feels rooted enough to be more liberal illustrates that both are necessary. There is a time to be liberal and there is a time to be conservative and it is important that we know which time is right both as regards to our own growth and as regards to the growth of others. Malcolm X once said something to this effect: I have a strong allegiance to both Christ and Muhammad because we need them both. Right now, so many of the men to whom I am trying to minister need the discipline of Allah. Their lives are in such disrepair that they need clear, hard rules of discipline that are spelled out for them without ambiguity. Later on, once they have their lives more in order, they can turn more to the liberal love of Jesus. First we need the discipline of Allah, later the freedom of Jesus. He understood that there are stages to the spiritual life and that what is needed in one stage will sometimes be very different than what is needed in another.”


“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Jesus


Moving From Head to Heart


*Are you a conservative in some ways? How does that make you a better human? . . . a better neighbor, leader, person of faith?
*Are you a liberal in some ways? How does that make you a better human? . . . a better neighbor, leader, person of faith?
*Have you moved beyond being rooted in truth, and grounded in the essentials as a focus, towards pushing the edges, and being more inclusive? Have you become more inclined to show compassion than to set someone straight?


God, help me to know what needs defending and what needs changing in my world–and in me.

________________________________

Thanks for reading my blog! Please extend my reach by reposting on your social media platforms. If you like these topics and this approach, you’ll like my book Wisdom From the Margins.

Life Skills #12 – Transformational Suffering (Discussion Notes)

Posted on by under Class Notes, Desolation's Gift, Embracing Losses and Limits, Emotions and Spirituality, Spiritual Formation, Success, Suffering and Grace, the dark night of the soul, Wholeness and Brokenness

.WFTM – Jan 14, 21, 22, March 18, May 3, June 5, 24

(1) Beginning to Talk About Suffering

*Read over these quotes. What seems new, even perhaps confusing? What sounds familiar, but something you need to remember? What emotions are you feeling?

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.” James Baldwin


“In the middle of the pain there is some hidden gift. I, more and more in my life, have discovered that other gifts of life are often hidden in the places that hurt most.” Henri Nouwen


“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching . . . . I have been bent and broken, but–I hope–into a better shape.” Charles Dickens


“I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the rock of ages.” Charles Haddon Spurgeon


“We never know the wine we are becoming while we are being crushed like grapes.” Henri Nouwen


“Just as bread needs to be broken in order to be given, so, too, do our lives.” Henri Nouwen


“Pain is knowledge rushing in to fill a gap.” Jerry Seinfeld


“Spirituality is about what we do with our pain.” Richard Rohr

(2) Longer Quotes with Wisdom to Hear

*Can you talk about what you’re hearing in these words?


“I’m not surprised by the fact that inexplicable and terrible things happen in a cosmos as complicated as ours, with sentient beings like us running the show. But I am emboldened by the fact that surprise is the only constant. We are never really running the show, never really in control, and nothing will go quite as we imagined it. Our highest ambitions will be off, but so will our worst prognostications. I am emboldened by the puzzling, redemptive truth to which each and every one of my conversations has added nuance, that we are made by what would break us. Birth itself is a triumph through a bloody, treacherous process.We only learn to walk when we risk falling down, and this equation holds–with commensurately more complex dynamics–our whole lives long. I have heard endless variations on this theme–the battle with illness that saves the life that follows; the childhood pain that leads to vocation; the disability that opens into wholeness and a presence to the hidden wholeness of others. You have your own stories, the dramatic and more ordinary moments where what has gone wrong becomes an opening to more of yourself and part of your gift to the world. This is the beginning of wisdom.” Krista Tippett

*How do these quotes reinforce, or add to, what we’ve seen in the first one? If you talk about that, talk about it in terms of your own experience, not just thoughts or beliefs.

“We are faced here with a phenomenon which has been widely attested by countless Christians who have lived out their Christian and human existence without looking for any cheap consolation. Countless incurably sick who discovered through their sickness a new awareness of themselves. Countless individuals for whom a new dimension in their life was opened up through their own misfortune, through the loss or even the treachery of someone they had loved. Countless people who, through all disappointments, separations, mis-hits, failures, humiliations, setbacks and disregard, transformed their lives and acquired a new personal quality; through suffering becoming more mature, more experienced, more modest, more genuinely humble, more open for others–in a word, more human.” Hans Küng


“By trying to handle all suffering through willpower denial, medication, or even therapy, we have forgotten something that should be obvious: we do not handle suffering; suffering handles us–in deep and mysterious ways that become the very matrix of life and especially new life. Only suffering and certain kinds of awe lead us into genuinely new experiences.all the rest is merely the confirmation of old experience.” Richard Rohr

For Further Consideration (either before or after our conversation)


“For in grief nothing ‘stays put.’ One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. round and round. Everything repeats. . . . How often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say,‘I never realized my loss till this moment’? The same leg is cut off time after time.” C. S. Lewis


*To what kind of loss do you think Lewis’ words might apply? Have you ever experienced that kind of loss? What was it like? How were you changed?

Closing Prayer
“And I saw the river over which every soul must pass to reach the kingdom of heaven and the name of that river was suffering–and I saw the boat which carries souls across the river and the name of the boat was love.” [Abba, thank you for the boat of your love that carries me across the river of suffering.] Saint John of the Cross

Daily Riches: A Modern Lord’s Prayer – “extended dance mix” (Nadia Bolz-Weber)

Posted on by under Being the Beloved, Change Yourself First, Daily Office, devotions, Faith and Doubt, fixed-time prayers, Jesus the Savior, Prayer, Social Justice, Spiritual Formation, thirsting and longing for God, Wholeness and Brokenness

“Our Father, Our Mother, Our Holy Parent, The Source of All Being from whom we came and to whom we return, You who knows us better than we know ourselves. Jesus called you Abba and so shall we, even as we may have an ambiguous relationship with parenthood – Be to us our Holy Parent, the one who loves without condition.

“Who art in heaven, Our Father who art in everything. Our Father who art in orphanages and neonatal units, and jail cells and luxury high-rises, who art in law offices and adult book stores, and who art in rooms alone with suicidal people. Our Father who art in the halls of Congress and the halls of tenements.

“Hallowed be thy name. Holy is your name.  Ever since the beginning we have attributed our own ego and wishful thinking and greed and malice and racism and ambition and manipulations of others to you and to your name – and yet your name remains holy. We print “In God we trust” on the US dollar and then worship that dollar and the power that dollar brings us, and yet still, your name remains holy.

“Thy kingdom come, God, right now we beg you to bring more than just a small measure of heaven to earth because, if you haven’t noticed, we are in a global pandemic, and there are unjust wars waged on innocent people in Yemen, Ethiopia and Ukraine –  not to mention, the Earth is on fire. It’s a mess down here, Lord, So, we need your Kingdom to speed the hell up. We need wise leaders, and just systems and an extra dose of compassion for all of us.

“Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Thy will and not ours be done. Forgive us when we use prayer as a self-help technique by which we can get all the cash and prizes we want out of your divine vending machine if we just kind of bug you to death through ceaseless prayer, because when it comes down to it, we know better. You are our Father whose name is holy and whose love is boundless and who – as our holy Parent – wants to hear our prayers.

“Give us today our daily bread. Give us today our daily bread, our daily naan, our daily tortillas, our daily rice. Lord, give us real bread, even when we keep reaching for those literal and metaphorical Krispy Kremes. Give us the gift of enough-ness. May our response to perceived scarcity always be increased generosity for we are your children and from you we receive everything. Give us today our desire for the neighbor to be fed. Give us today a desire for a good that is held in common.

“And forgive us our sins. As we forgive those who sin against us. Forgive us when we hate what you love. Forgive us when we would rather anesthetize ourselves than feel anything. Forgive us for how much we resent in others the same things we hate in ourselves. Forgive us for the terrible things we think about our own bodies, bodies you have made in your image. And this one is hard, but please forgive us for thinking we know the hearts of our enemies.

“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Deliver us from the inclination that we too do not have evil in our hearts. Deliver us from religious and national exceptionalism. Deliver us from addiction and depression. Deliver us from self-loathing. Deliver us from self-righteousness. Deliver us from high fructose corn syrup. Deliver us from a complete lack of imagination about where you are in our lives and how you might already be showing up. Deliver us from complacency. Deliver us from Complicity.

“As Jesus taught us, we are throwing this bag of prayers at your door. We are not asking nicely, Lord. We are your children and we are claiming your promises as our own today. Some of us are holding your feet to the fire, some of us don’t know if we believe in you, some of us are distracted and just going through the motions, some are desperately in love with you . . . but all of us are your children. Use these prayers to hammer us all into vessels that can accept the answer when it comes. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. And the children of God say, AMEN.” Nadia Bolz-Weber

Moving From Head to Heart

*Can you pray this prayer “as is?” What does it do to you?

*What does that response say about you?

Abba, grant us a world of people whose prayers these are.

________________________________

Thanks for reading my blog! Please extend my reach by reposting on your social media platforms. If you like these topics and this approach, you’ll like my book Wisdom From the Margins. (Special thanks this week to Nadia, just for being your awesome self.)

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: “Spiritual Reading” (week 8 notes)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Class Notes, devotions, Meditation, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation, thirsting and longing for God, truth and illusion


(1) “Lectio” – Reading as Praying, Praying as Listening
“This is a special and unique way of reading. It is a slow, reflective reading, reading with a longing to be touched, healed, and transformed by the Word. It is not at all, then, a hurried reading. It is quality reading rather than quantity. Just as when you sit down at the dinner table, you do not necessarily eat everything on the table, so too, when you approach the table of the Scriptures, you are not there to cover territory. Nutritionists tell us that to get full benefit from the food we eat, we should chew slowly. In other words, eat contemplatively. The same is true of the food of the Scriptures. To be fully nourished by the richness hidden in these words you must hover over them slowly and reverently as one who is certain of finding a treasure. . . . It will penetrate us, heal us, and open our eyes to the truth. . . . We are information seekers. We love to cover territory. It is not easy for us to stop reading when the heart is touched; we are a people who like to get finished. Lectio offers us a new way to read. Read with a vulnerable heart. Expect to be blessed in the reading. Read as one awake, one waiting for the beloved. Read with reverence. . . . “[This] is reading with the desire to be totally transformed by the Word of God, rather than just to acquire facts about God. . . . The disciple [is] encouraged to hover over the Word of God in the Scriptures as the Spirit once hovered over the birthing world. . . . Always read the Scriptures with a heart ready to repent.” Macrina Wiederkehr


“Meditation begins when your heart is touched.” David Benner


“I strain toward God; God strains toward me.
I ache for God; God aches for me.
Prayer is mutual yearning,
mutual straining,
mutual aching.”
Macrina Wiederkehr

*Let’s take the first reading above apart together. What phrases jumped out at you? What do you want to say about it? How did it affect you?

(2) Reading as Imaginative Guided Meditation
“In another approach you attempt to employ all of your senses. You place yourself in the story as one of the characters. As much as you can, listen to the sounds, smell the smells, feel the surroundings, etc. Imagine expressions and tones of voice–maybe gestures. Try to imagine what your character might have been thinking or feeling. Open your heart to hear how God may be speaking to you. Can you identify with your character? . . . or perhaps with another character now that you see through your character’s eyes? Read slowly, multiple times, with expectation, and as much longing for God as you can. Ask God to meet you, and don’t force anything.” wgb

*Can you mention a character in a Bible story where one could practice this method of devotional reading? (e.g., Peter when Jesus called him to walk on the water)

(3) Reading Without Any Fireworks
“I know that I need to be very quiet. “Be still and know that I am God.” (Ps. 46:10. RSV) God also speaks in silence and darkness. So when nothing comes, when darkness prevails, then too, I lay my Bible down. My word is silent darkness. I carry the dryness, the emptiness, the silent darkness with me through the day. It is only in darkness that one can see the stars. I have seen too many stars to let the darkness overwhelm me. Even though You are silent, still I will trust You.” Macrina Wiederkehr

*This happens.

(4) Reading Gone Wrong
“Bonhoeffer said that beyond reading the Bible as God’s word to us, the time had come to begin reading it ‘against ourselves as well,’ accepting the word’s power to implicate us as well as to redeem us.” Charles Marsh

“Most of the Bible is a history told by people living in lands occupied by conquering superpowers. . . . This can make the Bible a very difficult book to understand, if you are reading it as a citizen of one of the most powerful empires the world has ever seen.” Rob Bell

“Reading the Bible with the eyes of the poor is a different thing from reading it with a full belly. If it is read in the light of the experience and hopes of the oppressed, the Bible’s revolutionary themes–promise, exodus, resurrection and spirit–come alive.” Jürgen Moltmann

*Did it ever occur to you to let the Bible critique you or implicate you? Is that hard to do? Does your social position complicate that?

“We are all interpreting the text to some degree. We are all privileging–deferring to–certain values, doctrines, creedal commitments, traditions, or biblical texts. Something somewhere is trumping something else. . . . The only question is whether you are consciously vs. unconsciously using a hermeneutic . . . . When your hermeneutic is operating unconsciously it causes you to say things like ‘this is the clear teaching of Scripture.’ . . . What is interesting to me in this phenomenon is not that we are all engaging in hermeneutics, acts of interpretation. That is a given. What is interesting to me is how self-awareness, or the lack thereof, is implicated in all this. . . . Denying that you are engaged in hermeneutics–betrays a shocking lack of self-awareness, an inability to notice the way your mind and emotions are working in the background and beneath the surface. I think statements like ‘this is the clear teaching of Scripture’ are psychologically diagnostic. Statements like these reveal something about yourself. Namely, that you lack a certain degree of self-awareness. For example, saying something like ‘This is the clear teaching of Scripture.’ is similar to saying ‘I’m not a racist.’ . . . Self-aware people would say things like ‘I don’t want to be a racist.’ or ‘I try not to be racist.’ or ‘I condemn racism.’ But they would never say ‘I’m not a racist.’ because self-aware people know that they have blind spots. . . . They have unconscious baggage that is hard to notice or overcome. And it’s the same with how self-aware people approach reading the Bible. Self-aware people know that they are trying to read the Bible in an unbiased fashion. . . . [and] to let the Bible speak clearly and in its own voice. But self-aware people know they have blind spots. They know that there is unconscious baggage affecting how they are reading the Bible, baggage that they know must be biasing their readings and conclusions.” Richard Beck (WFTM, 2-6)

“What you think is a natural or an obvious reading of the text is actually not natural or obvious. You just haven’t questioned your own perspective or the perspective of the church that you’ve been raised in.” Chris Hoklotubbe

“White Christianity suffers from a bad case of Disney Princess theology. As each individual reads Scripture, they see themselves as the princess in every story. They are Esther, never Xerxes or Haman. They are Peter, but never Judas. They are the woman anointing Jesus, never the Pharisees. They are the Jews escaping slavery, never Egypt. For citizens of the most powerful country in the world, who enslaved both Native and Black people, to see itself as Israel and not Egypt when studying Scripture is a perfect example of Disney princess theology. And it means that as people in power, they have no lens for locating themselves rightly in Scripture or society — and it has made them blind and utterly ill-equipped to engage issues of power and injustice. It is some very weak Bible work.” Erna Kim Hackett


*What are you feeling after a couple careful readings of Beck’s argument?

____________________________________

For Further Consideration (for before or after our discussion)

“We usually see only the things we are looking for–so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not.” Eric Hoffer

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? . . . A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.” Franz Kafka

“Here’s my point: academic theology can be like the bars of the lion’s cage—it keeps our experience of God objective, prosaic, safe, undemanding. I say this as a person who deeply appreciates academic theology. I’ve read hundreds of academic theological works, and, occasionally, I give theological lectures in academic settings. I view these as valuable endeavors. But none of it is to be confused with the experience of encountering God subjectively. Subjective experience with the divine is a phenomenon that occurs within a heart that is open to God: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God’ (Mt 5:8). But the intellect can be employed as the steel bars that keep us a safe distance from the lion. . . . If you honestly want to encounter Jesus, here’s what I recommend: read the Gospels on your knees for six months, asking Jesus before each chapter to reveal himself to you. Seriously, try it. Don’t be surprised if you eventually find yourself inside the cage face-to-face with the Lion of Judah. Then you’ll have to decide what to do with your life now that you’ve gone through the wardrobe, entered Narnia, and encountered the real Aslan.” [If you have bad knees, it also works if you just sit in a chair. wgb] Brian Zahnd

“Christians too often read events through a hermeneutic of decline. That is, we often interpret changes in societies negatively. Whether those changes are political, economic, or social, we fall into despairing conservatism, imagining a better past and a decaying future. We must read the events of the world, not in eagerness to discern decay or decline, but with a view toward God’s presence in the world. Reading skills honed by a sense of divine presence enable us to interpret the signs of the times in light of the Savior of the world, a world he never ceases to love. Such reading draws us away from being mere spectators or speculators and toward concrete involvement in history.” Feasting on the Gospels

*Do you have a tendency to read our changing world in a solely negatively or dystopian (or an “Omega generation” – assuming the soon coming end of the world) manner? Is there a possible alternative? How could a different reading affect how you live?

Recommended: How to Read Slowly by James Sire

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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).


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.

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.

Life Skills: Walking

Posted on by under Busyness, Class Notes, dissent and resistance, Hurry Sickness, Mindfulness, neighbors & neighborhoods, Self-care, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation, The Divine Gaze

Solvitur ambulando
(“It is solved by walking.”)
St. Augustine

One nineteenth-century observer quipped that the average New Yorker “. . . always walks as if he had a good dinner before him, and a bailiff behind him.”


Walking and Nature
“All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.” Friedrich Nietzche


“I come to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home. . . . It is as if I always met in those places some grand, serene, immortal, infinitely encouraging, though invisible, companion, and walked with him.” Henry David Thoreau

Walking and Science

“The physical movement of walking activates the subcortical region of the brain, including the limbic system with its sensitivity to emotional states. Clearly, something far deeper and older than culture goes with me into wilderness.” Belden Lane


“The American psychologist William James knew this from his own experience of depression. He learned that in choosing to walk (as if he were alert and alive), he could generate the very intentionality he lacked. Going through the outward motions, even in a cold-blooded way, made possible the inner disposition.” Belden Lane

“Build pockets of stillness into your life. Meditate. God for walks. Ride your bike going nowhere in particular. There is a creative purpose to daydreaming, even to boredom. The best ideas come to us when we stop actively trying to coax the muse into manifesting and let the fragments of experience last around our unconscious mind in order to click into new combinations. Without this essential state of unconscious processing, the entire flow of the creative process is broken.” Maria Popova

Walking and Mindfulness

“We are men who live in tension, we are also contradictory and inconsistent men, sinners all. But men who want to walk under the gaze of Jesus.” Pope Francis

“Learning to walk slowly with conscious awareness is a first step toward mindfulness.” Belden Lane

“I walk as though my feet were kissing the earth.”

“Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. We need hours of aimless wandering or spates of time sitting on park benches, observing the mysterious world of ants and the canopy of treetops.” Maya Angelou

“You either walk toward love or away from it with every breath you take.” Brian Doyle

“At its heart, the journey of each life is a pilgrimage, through unforeseen sacred places that enlarge and enrich the soul.” John O’Donohue


“I reach out my hand to God that [God] may carry me along as a feather is borne weightlessly by the wind.” Hildegard of Bingen

*Does one of these quotes especially appeal to you? Can you say why?

Extended Quotations to Discuss

(1) On “Walking Well”

“Walking well is a mental state as much as a physical one. How to walk? . . . To walk out of your front door as if you’ve just arrived from a foreign country; to discover the world in which you already live; to begin the day as if you’ve just gotten off the boat from Singapore and have never seen your own doormat or the people on the landing . . . it is this that reveals the humanity before you, unknown until now.” Walter Benjamin quoted by Tom Hodgkinson


(2) “Eyes and No-Eyes”

The old story of “Eyes” and “No-Eyes” is really the story of the mystical and unmystical types. “No-Eyes” has fixed his attention on the fact that he is obliged to take a walk. For him the chief factor of existence is his own movement along the road; a movement which he intends to accomplish as efficiently and comfortably as he can. He asks not to know what may be on either side of the hedges. He ignores the caress of the wind until it threatens to remove his hat. He trudges along, steadily, diligently; avoiding the muddy pools, but oblivious of the light which they reflect. “Eyes” takes the walk too: and for him it is a perpetual revelation of beauty and wonder. The sunlight inebriates him, the winds delight him, the very effort of the journey is a joy. Magic presences throng the roadside, or cry salutations to him from the hidden fields. The rich world through which he moves lies in the fore-ground of his consciousness; and it gives up new secrets to him at every step. “No-Eyes,” when told of his adventures, usually refuses to believe that both have gone by the same road. He fancies that his companion has been floating about in the air, or beset by agreeable hallucinations.”


*What effect do these quotations have on you (insight, conviction, excitement, encouragement, shame, regret, etc.)?


(3) Bonhoeffer in Barcelona

“At the same time, the year in Barcelona inevitably broadened his social awareness. Covetous of finery though he may have remained, he judged himself ‘ever more sensitive to the plight of those who really are in need and cannot be adequately supported.’ It angered him to see Olbricht speak gruffly to an indigent who’d stopped by the church asking for help. Beyond the comfortable sphere of the German colony, in neighborhoods to the south and directly east, on his daily walks or in the cafés or in the course of some pastoral effort, Bonhoeffer discovered a different cast of characters. He would describe them vividly and with tenderness of heart, these men and women with whom, at one time, he likely would have never ‘exchanged even a single word.’ In this way he met ‘vagabonds and vagrants, escaped convicts and foreign legionnaires.’ He met ‘German dancers from the musical revues,’ ‘lion tamers,’ and ‘other animal trainers who have run off from the Krone Circus during its Spanish tour.’ There were ‘German-speaking misfits,’ among them ‘contract killers wanted by the police. All of them had heard of the sympathetic Berliner and sought him out for counsel. Bonhoeffer grew to enjoy their company, too: the ‘criminal types,’ the ‘little people with modest goals and modest drives, who committed petty crimes,’ and those driven by wild, wayward passions—the ‘real people’! And the stories they told, vivid and honest ‘to the last detail,’ gripped him with a blunt force, as of the gospel’s concern for the least of these his brethren. These people labored ‘more under grace than under wrath,’ Bonhoeffer was sure; and they were ‘a lot more interesting than the average church member.’ In a letter to Helmut Rößler, a former classmate in Berlin, Bonhoeffer described himself as learning to accept people ‘the way they are, far from the masquerade of the ‘Christian world.’ ” Charles Marsh


*Do you think this quotation is relevant to our discussion? If so, how? Have you ever had this kind of experience? Is there a lesson here for you?


(4) Cultural Ideas about Leisure


“More and more, work enlists all good conscience on its side; the desire for joy already calls itself a ‘need to recuperate’ and is beginning to be ashamed of itself. ‘One owes it to one’s health’— that is what people say when they are caught on an excursion into the country. Soon we may well reach the point where people can no longer give into the desire for a vita contemplativa (that is, taking a walk with ideas and friends) without self-contempt and a bad conscience. Well, formerly, it was the other way around, it was work that was afflicted with the bad conscience. A person of good family used to conceal the fact that he was working if need compelled him to work. Slaves used to work, oppressed by the feeling that they were doing something contemptible. ‘Nobility and honour are attached solely to otium and bellum [war],’ that was the ancient prejudice. Nietzsche’s point is: if we managed to remove our collective guilt about enjoying ourselves, then the culture of only taking time off when we are allowed by some outside force or by some inner self-controller might be damaged. The word leisure, incidentally, comes from the Latin licere, meaning ‘to be permitted.’ We have given responsibility for our free time to others, and we only have ourselves to blame.” Tom Hodgkinson

“In Buddhism the beggar, the tramp, the vagabond is not a subject for reform or liberal hand-wringing, but, on the contrary, he represents an ideal of living, of pure living in the moment, of wandering without destination, of freedom from worldly care. In Hindu culture, too, we find the figure of the Sadhu, a middle-aged man who, having performed his worldly responsibilities in the form of service to employer and family, decides that he will wander off with a begging bowl. He abandons all possessions (‘Imagine!’) and takes to the road. He is a holy figure, admired.” Tom Hodgkinson


“This [very negative] attitude to vagabondage was enthusiastically taken up by Nazi Germany in the mid 1930s. A list of ‘anti-social elements,’ issued by the Bavarian Political Police in August 1936, included beggars, vagabonds, gypsies and vagrants. Such freedom-seekers could, if necessary, be taken into ‘protective custody’ (i.e. concentration camps) where they would be forcibly taught the values of hard work and discipline. “Arbeit Macht Frei” ran the legend above the gates of Auschwitz, ‘Work Makes Us Free.'” Tom Hodgkinson


*Do you think these quotations are relevant to our discussion? If so, how? Do you wrestle with the idea of “leisure?”


(5) St. Teresa’s Famous Poem
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes with which he looks with
compassion on this world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
with compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

*How would you restate Teresa’s words in just one sentence–relating it to our topic of walking well?


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.”

Supplementary Readings (for before or after the group time)

Set aside at least 5-10 minutes of quiet, take some deep breaths, and ask God to touch what needs to be touched in you by one of these readings.

From Mary Oliver “When I Am Among the Trees”

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
   but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, 'It’s simple,' they say,
and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled."

Thomas Merton’s famous prayer

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.

               Nor do I really know myself, 
               and the fact that I think that I am following
               your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. 

               But I believe that the desire to please you does in
                fact please you.

               And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. 
               I hope that I will never do anything apart from that
               desire. 

              And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the
              right road though I may know nothing about it.

              Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem
              to be lost and in the shadow of death." 

              I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will
              never leave me to face my perils alone."

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).


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.

Class Notes for Life Skills #4 – Waiting

Posted on by under Busyness, Class Notes, Emotions and Spirituality, Hurry Sickness, liminal space, Patience with Yourself, Spiritual Formation, Striving and drivenness, Waiting on God

Quotations to Prime the Pump

“I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.” Psalm 130:5 NLT
“Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken.” Psalm 62:5, 6 NLT


“Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.” Simone Weil


“A waiting person is a patient person. The word ‘patience’ implies the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us. Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there. Impatient people expect the real thing to happen somewhere else, and therefore they want to get away from the present situation and go elsewhere. For them the moment is empty. But patient people dare to stay where they are.” Henri Nouwen


“We don’t like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast. But what we find . . . is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. Even if we run a hundred miles an hour to the other side of the continent, we find the very same problem awaiting us when we arrive. it keeps returning with new names, forms, and manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us: Where are we separating ourselves from reality? How are we pulling back instead of opening up? How are we closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter?” Pema Chödrön


“We dare not get rid of the pain before we have learned what it has to teach us. . . . Fixing something doesn’t usually transform us. We try to change events in order to avoid changing ourselves. We avoid God, who works in the darkness–where we are not in control! Maybe that is the secret: relinquishing control. We must learn to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions, and some days without meaning.” Richard Rohr


“Waiting for clarity of call, waiting until God shows us the next right step, waiting for the Spirit to go ahead of us to light the way. When it’s not clear to us what is invited, we wait, watch and pray. And we trust that sometimes the Spirit is working just fine without us, as much as we’d like to help. There’s an art to the waiting, I’ve learned. Wait expectantly without expectations. Watch for what wants to unfold now, not for what I want to unfold. Pray that I may see what is being invited without imposing what I think would be the best solution. Waiting is not passive and disinterested. Waiting is not turning away. Waiting is an active, prayerful stance, a time of alert openness, a space of listening from mind-in-heart. . . . ” Leah Rampy


“Another will is greater, wiser and more intelligent than my own. So I wait. Waiting means that there is another whom I trust and from whom I receive. My will, important and essential as it is, finds a Will that is more important, more essential. . . . in prayer we are aware that God is in action and that when the circumstances are ready, when others are in the right place and when my heart is prepared, I will be called into action. Waiting in prayer is a disciplined refusal to act before God acts.” Eugene Peterson

Questions for Discussion

  1. Which quote really affected you (convicted, provoked, challenged, etc.)? Talk about that.
  2. Do you “hate to wait?” Why is that?
  3. How do you know when you’ve waited long enough?

  • REMEMBERING APPLICATION:
  • Moving From Head to Heart,
  • Moving From Words to Deeds,
  • Moving from Self-love to Love of God and Others

  1. After this discussion, is there something specific, measurable, and realistic that you are going to practice in order to develop “waiting” as a new skill?
  2. How does the practice of waiting, as you understand it, make you more able to be a person who loves well (who practices compassion and justice)?

The quotes from this week come from Wisdom From the Margins*: 2-25, 3-4, 4-7, 4-14, 6-3, & 6-14 *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, or the ones here in italics).

For further consideration (to do before or after the session)

Three possible ways to go deeper:

(1) Set aside at least 10 minutes, find a quiet place, settle yourself with some deep breathing, and read through these words slowly, phrase by phrase, asking God to make clear to you what you need to hear most. (Maybe write that down on a 3.5 card.)

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some states of instability–and that it may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you; your ideas mature gradually–let them grow, let them shape themselves without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you. And accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin


(2) If you’re looking for a specific way to practice waiting, this is something you could start to work on–waiting for the other person to continue talking instead of jumping in to take your turn! Oy! FOTFL.


“When a pro interviewer feels a subject is holding something back on a particular topic, they’ll often use the power of silence at the end of the answer to draw out more information. Here’s how journalist Jim Lehrer describes it: ‘If you resist the temptation to respond too quickly to the answer, you’ll discover something almost magical. The other person will either expand on what he’s already said or he’ll go in a different direction.’ try counting to three–or five if you can stand it–after your subject answers a tough or thoughtful question. This method can seem agonizing at first, but–used with empathy–it works wonders to develop a deeper rapport between two people. . . . of course we’d all like to think of ourselves as attentive, curious students of the world, but one little thing gets in the way: our own egos. it’s not our fault–we’re hardwired that way. After all, talking about ourselves feels as good to our brains as money or sex. That’s why ego suspension is so essential to cultivating the kind of curiosity that lets you connect with others. Robin Dreeke . . . explains: ‘Most times, when two individuals engage in a conversation, each patiently waits for the other person to be done with whatever story he or she is telling. Then, the other person tells his or her own story, usually on a related topic and often times in an attempt to have a better and more interesting story. Individuals practicing good ego suspension would continue to encourage the other individual to talk about his or her story, neglecting their own need to share what they think is a great story.” Courtney Siete


(3) If these prayers resonate, try praying either or both of them through the week:

Abba, help me walk rather than race, receive rather than grasp, and relax rather than strive. Help me step into the flow of your divine life rather than living a frenzied version of my very human life. Help me focus on being with you and leave the results to you.

Abba, keep me from moving on before what you’re doing manifests itself. Cure me of impatience (my hurried self), impulsivity (my thoughtless self), and anxiety (my fearful self).

If this discussion sounds like something you might be interested in, please contact me for more details. (Bill @ 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. (If you know of someone for this, please let me know.)

Life Skills Course Philosophy & List of Topics

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Class Notes, contemplative virtues, Loving Well, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation, The Love of God

This post might be characterized as something akin to “inside baseball.” If you’re participating in the Life Skills discussion, don’t feel compelled to read it. This is just FYI IYI (if you’re interested.) This is the context that shapes what we’re doing, and how, and why.

The overarching and suggested goal in our weeks together is that group members become aware of, informed about, and sympathetic to a list of traditional “spiritual practices” or disciplines–especially those practices that most of us have never been taught–or are learning only recently. Learning and doing a practice to the point where it becomes a skill is the penultimate goal. The ultimate goal of learning such skills is growth in living a life of compassion and justice (“loving well”). (Mt. 22:38-40)

The mastery of these practices (disciplines, habits, routines, rhythms) will create certain corresponding life “skills.” Developing even one of the skills will be liberating and transformative. Each group member is encouraged, over the course of our weeks together, to chose one new practice (a potential new life skill) to be employed long after the class is completed. (Really developing one skill will be much better than dabbling in 5-10 different practices.)

These life skills (disciplines, practices, habits, routines), when ultimately adopted and integrated into a person’s life will lead to a life characterized (1) by more often “being with God”–not just “doing for God” or “doing it without God”–(2) by personal flourishing, (3) by growing in love for God and others (compassion and justice), and ultimately, (4) by making God’s loving, redemptive presence known on the earth.

To these ends, each group member is encouraged (1) to attend and participate in the weekly meetings whenever possible, and (2) in any case, to make a habit of reading one reading from Wisdom from the Margins on a daily basis. (This could involve the corresponding calendar day’s reading, or one of the readings that will be provided from the book for background to the weekly lesson. Doing this will become a sort of healthy daily practice in itself, and will greatly supplement everything that is explored in our discussion times. My suggestion is that you pick a time and place, and begin to make this a habit. Another suggested practice is (3) to do what’s called an “Examen” at the very end of the day. A simple version simply involves looking back over your day, and asking yourself what brought you life, and what drained you of life. These few moments of mindful listening to your emotions, when practiced regularly, create an opening for God to guide you. It’s very simple. Very revealing. Very brief. Even so, it can become another anchor in your day when you purposely, if briefly, create space for being with God.

An individual who adopts the daily reading habit, the Examen habit, and just one other skill during our 16 weeks together, will be on the way to measurable life-change, and will have achieved my dream for those who join in these discussions!

Bill

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Life Skills Discussion Weekly Plan

Here is the most recent (reordered and tweaked) weekly plan for our Life Skills discussions, which began February 1, 2022. (If you’re not involved and would perhaps like to be, please contact me at wm_britton@mac.com.)

Practices (Overview)
Solitude
Silence
Slowing Down
Waiting
Sabbath
Stability
Contemplative Prayer
Fixed-time prayers
Spiritual Reading
Embracing limits
Releasing Control
Abstinence
Transformational suffering
Appropriate Smallness
Loving well (private & public)

___________________________

Here are examples of what the classes are like:

Week one: https://richerbyfar.com/2022/01/30/life-skills-week-one/

Week two: https://richerbyfar.com/2022/02/02/solitude-class-notes-week-2/

Daily Riches: The Indispensable Anguish to Becoming My Astonishingly Exquisite Self (Phileena Heuertz, Carl Jung, Scott Peck, and Viktor Frankl)

Posted on by under Desolation's Gift, disorientation, Embracing Losses and Limits, Emotions and Spirituality, Faith and Doubt, liminal space, Spiritual Formation, Suffering and Grace

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain.” Carl Jung

“The attempt to avoid legitimate suffering lies at the root of all emotional illness.” M. Scott Peck

“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” Viktor Frankl

“Immediately after my niece Claire was born she began to quietly moan–continuously. The doctors and nurses looked her over, put her under a lamp and examined her. After several moments when she would not stop moaning and whimpering, the nurse said, ‘She’s lamenting.’ They actually have a medical term that explains this phenomenon–’lamenting.’ Clair was in mild distress. She was mourning. Exiting the body of her mother was no easy thing for this little one. She was mourning the familiarity and comfort of the womb. But leaving existence in the womb was absolutely critical to living the life of baby Claire. It’s absurd to imagine a baby never leaving the womb. To live and grow into the fullness of who we are, we must move on no matter how painful and distressing it may seem at the moment. Death in varied forms is necessary. . . . witnessing the birth of a baby! There’s nothing like it! It’s magnificent! But like Claire reminded me, the beauty of her birth required lamentation. . . . And the caterpillar–can you imagine its experience in the chrysalis? The throngs of people visiting the Butterfly pavilion at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo demonstrate our fascination and intrigue with the process of distress these creatures go through–and indispensable anguish to becoming their astonishingly exquisite self.” Phileena Heuertz

“I would rather be strangled—
rather die than suffer like this.”
Job 7:15 NLT

Moving From The Head to The Heart

  • Waiting in limbo for a future that is neither known nor understood will involve anguish. Are you in limbo now? . . . suffering anguish (fear, confusion, disorientation)?
  • Can you give yourself permission to lament what you have lost (what was, what might have been) instead of forcing yourself to be “strong?” . . . rather than attempting “to avoid legitimate suffering?”
  • Can you trust your anguish to be “indispensable” (necessary, and full of purpose and meaning)? . . . used by God to create your “astonishingly exquisite self?”

Abba, like with Job, sometimes the suffering seems unbearable. Help me experience it as inevitable–as necessary, and choose it as useful–and even as a divine gift in disguise.

For More: Pilgrimage Of a Soul by Phileena Heuertz

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Thanks for reading my blog. Please extend my reach by reposting on your social media platforms. If you like these topics and this approach, you’ll like my book Wisdom From the Margins.

Daily Riches: The Lens Through Which We View the World (Thomas Moore and Chris Hedges)

Posted on by under Awareness, dissent and resistance, Insiders and Outsiders, Loving Listening, Social Justice, Spiritual Formation, The Poor and Disenfranchised, truth and illusion

“If we could all feel the suffering of humanity we would become the persons we are destined to be. But we typically protect ourselves from this transformative knowledge. We pretend to be children in a nursery kept at a distance from the real world.” Thomas Moore

“Those who fail to exhibit positive attitudes, no matter the external reality, are seen as maladjusted and in need of assistance. [We’re told that] Their attitudes need correction. Once we adopt an upbeat vision of reality, positive things will happen. This belief encourages us to flee from reality when reality does not elicit positive feelings. . . . It argues that we attract those things in life, whether it is money, relationships or employment, which we focus on. Suddenly, abused and battered wives or children, the unemployed, the depressed and mentally ill, the illiterate, the lonely, those grieving for lost loved ones, those crushed by poverty, the terminally ill, those fighting with addictions, those suffering from trauma, those trapped in menial and poorly paid jobs, those whose homes are in foreclosure or who are filing for bankruptcy because they cannot pay their medical bills, are to blame for their negativity. The ideology justifies the cruelty of unfettered capitalism, shifting the blame from the power elite to those they oppress. And many of us have internalized this pernicious message, which in times of difficulty leads to personal despair, passivity and disillusionment. . . . This is the twisted ideological lens through which we view the world. ” Chris Hedges

“But if your eyes are unhealthy,
your whole body will be full of darkness.
If then the light within you is darkness,
how great is that darkness!”
Jesus in Mt. 6:23 NIV

Moving From The Head to The Heart

  • Does Hodges’ strident language and biting critique turn you away? . . . prevent you from hearing the argument? If so, what does that say about you?
  • Do you tend to blame people for their problems (homelessness, poverty, addiction, bankruptcy, divorce, abuse, unemployment, foreclosure, etc.)? Could that be subtle “cruelty” on your part that lets powerful oppressors off the hook?
  • Might it also let you off the hook–absolving you from the need to care, to help, to intervene?

Abba, help me to see through the hype, the spin, the propaganda, the disinformation, the misleading reporting–the lies–and past the verdict of “It is what it is.”

For More: “Happiness Consultants Won’t Stop a Depression” by Chris Hedges

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Thanks for reading my blog. Please extend my reach by reposting on your social media platforms. If you like these topics and this approach, you’ll like my book Wisdom From the Margins.

 

 

Daily Riches (CV Era): A Wilderness With No Visible Sign of Relief (David Richo, John of the Cross)

Posted on by under coronavirus, darkness and doubt, Desolation's Gift, dissent and resistance, Embracing Losses and Limits, Faith and Doubt, liminal space, Mindfulness, mystery and unknowing, Spiritual Formation, the dark night of the soul, The Sacrament of the Present Moment

“I entered I knew not where,
and there I stood not knowing:
nothing left to know.”
John of the Cross

“Nature is a metaphor of our inner life. Thus in our psyches we can expect a tormenting desertlike time in which nothing seems to be moving or growing in us. Such a torturous void is the unlit era in life when exuberance is gone, when nothing seems to succeed in reviving or renewing us, when things do not improve no matter how much effort we expend, when our spiritual practices become flat and uncomforting. This is the ruthless shadow side of our psychic world, a wilderness with no visible horizon of relief. . . . It must be legitimate and even useful to be fully clear and happy at times and at other times to be unhappy and in the dark. . . . We are nourished by light and dark. The spiritual style is to find a way to say yes mindfully to both. Distressing voids are thus challenges to stay with ourselves. . . . Mindfulness is a practice of attending and staying. Mindful presence in the void happens when (1) we pay attention to what is with no attempt to understand it and (2) when we stay in it with no attempt to end it. If we simply stay with the experience of the void, something eventually opens in it and us. What is born from our yes to the void is not emptiness but spaciousness . . . (3) We say yes to the silent dark and it reveals itself as a necessary—even kindly—oasis in our inner landscape. (4) We no longer seek things or people to rescue us. Eventually the space becomes as significant and as supportive as the things or persons who were supposed to fill it.” David Richo **

“May the day of my birth perish,
and the night that said, ‘A boy is conceived!’
That day—may it turn to darkness;
may God above not care about it;
may no light shine on it.
May gloom and utter darkness claim it once more;
may a cloud settle over it;
may blackness overwhelm it.
That night—may thick darkness seize it;
may it not be included among the days of the year
nor be entered in any of the months.
May that night be barren;
may no shout of joy be heard in it.”
Job 3:3-7 NIV

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Do you have a spiritual technology for desperately dark times between a past “normal” and some painfully elusive “new normal”?
  • Will you insist on having understanding and exerting control in that space?
  • Can you imagine simply “accepting the things you cannot change” – and trusting that the confusing darkness and disorientation can be a “necessary–even kindly”, unexpected path to a better place? . . . even as a nation?

Help Yahweh! In the unbearable Pain! In the Distress! The Confusion! The Despair!

For more: The Five Things We Cannot Change . . . by David Richo

** Numbers in the text [e.g. (1) ] are my glosses.

Daily Riches (CV Era): Managing Anxiety (Gregory Hills, Kathleen Deignan, Thomas Merton)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Asceticism, Busyness, coronavirus, Desolation's Gift, Embracing Losses and Limits, monasticism, Solitude, Spiritual Formation, Striving and drivenness

“Because of Covid-19, many of us are living, in a way, like monks, enclosed and isolated in our homes. But unlike the monks, we did not ask for or want this situation, nor it is one for which many of us were spiritually prepared. [Even so] we can use this moment to live into and be freed by the realization that there is much we cannot control. So much of our anxiety revolves around wanting to control the uncontrollable, and the pandemic can teach us the futility of this. . . . we need to be attentive to the present moment and so focus on that which we can control: ‘If I can concentrate on being in control of that very small circle of reality that is entrusted to me and in some sense depends on me—how I use my time, how I take care of myself, how I care for my family and friends, how I daily and hourly turn my concerns over to God—then my anxiety diminishes.’ This is ‘a great opportunity to yield control of our lives, to let ourselves truly trust in the goodness and providence of God amidst all that is happening.’ Whether we are aware of it or not, ‘we are living in the presence of a living, caring and loving God,’ . . . and we can use this time of quarantine to develop, alone or with those with whom we live, a sense of this divine presence.” Gregory Hills, quoting several monks he interviewed

“Merton sought refuge in the Trappist monastery . . . ‘in revolt against the meaningless confusion of a life in which there was so much activity, so much movement, so much useless talk, so much superficial and needless stimulation’ that he could not remember who he was. For the next half of his life he learned a new way of being . . . and [made the] discovery of a new self, his true self, drawn up like a jewel from seas of confusion, restlessness, and banality.” Kathleen Deignan, quoting Thomas Merton

“Cast all your anxiety on him
because he cares for you.”
1 Peter 5:7

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Was your pre-covid life characterized by too much activity, useless talk, superficial stimulation?
  • Have you quit trying to control the uncontrollable? Can you focus instead on what has been “entrusted” to you?
  • Might God be calling to you in this time of pain–inviting you to be drawn up “like a jewel from seas of confusion, restlessness, and banality?”

Abba, may my seemingly unmanageable anxiety force me to cast myself upon you.

For More: Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours by Kathleen Deignan

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Riches (CV Era): Seeing Solitude as a Gift (Jennifer Stitt, Hannah Arendt, Pythagoras, and Frederich Nietzsche)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, coronavirus, Desolation's Gift, Embracing Losses and Limits, loneliness, Solitude, Spiritual Formation

“In the morning–solitude; . . . that nature may speak to the imagination,
as she does never in company.” Pythagoras

“In the 20th century, the idea of solitude formed the centre of Hannah Arendt’s thought. A German-Jewish émigré who fled Nazism and found refuge in the United States, Arendt spent much of her life studying the relationship between the individual and the polis. . . . She understood that freedom entailed more than the human capacity to act spontaneously and creatively in public. It also entailed the capacity to think and to judge in private, where solitude empowers the individual to contemplate her actions and develop her conscience, to escape the cacophony of the crowd—to finally hear herself think. . . . In our hyper-connected world, a world in which we can communicate constantly and instantly over the internet, we rarely remember to carve out spaces for solitary contemplation. We check our email hundreds of times per day; we shoot off thousands of text messages per month; we obsessively thumb through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, aching to connect at all hours with close and casual acquaintances alike.  . . . We crave constant companionship. But, Arendt reminds us, if we lose our capacity for solitude, our ability to be alone with ourselves, then we lose our very ability to think. We risk getting caught up in the crowd. We risk being ‘swept away,’ as she put it, ‘by what everybody else does and believes in’—no longer able, in the cage of thoughtless conformity, to distinguish ‘right from wrong, beautiful from ugly.’ Solitude is not only a state of mind essential to the development of an individual’s consciousness—and conscience—but also a practice that prepares one for participation in social and political life. Before we can keep company with others, we must learn to keep company with ourselves.” Jennifer Stitt

“Flee, my friend, into your solitude! I see you dazed by the noise of men . . . .” Frederich Nietzsche

“A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home.
You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.”
Jesus, in John 16:32 NIV

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Many of us are confined at home with others. If that’s you, how can you make a plan “to escape the cacophony of the crowd?”
  • Others are home by ourselves but with lots of distractions. Instead of constantly seeking connection, can you try to learn from Jesus, to be “not alone” even when friends are unavailable?
  • Some important things never happen “in company.” Can you imagine some important changes in your life that could happen simply because of enforced solitude?  . . . values rediscovered? . . . “normalcy” redefined? . . . new intimacy with the God who is present in the stillness?

Abba, I choose the solitude that is forced upon me, and want to welcome it’s priceless gifts.

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

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Daily Riches (CV Era) – We’re Never Really In Control (Krista Tippett)

Posted on by under coronavirus, Desolation's Gift, Embracing Losses and Limits, Mystery, Spiritual Formation, Suffering and Grace, Wholeness and Brokenness

“I’m not surprised by the fact that inexplicable and terrible things happen in a cosmos as complicated as ours, with sentient beings like us running the show. But I am emboldened by the fact that surprise is the only constant. We are never really running the show, never really in control, and nothing will go quite as we imagined it. Our highest ambitions will be off, but so will our worst prognostications. I am emboldened by the puzzling, redemptive truth to which each and every one of my conversations has added nuance, that we are made by what would break us. Birth itself is a triumph through a bloody, treacherous process. We only learn to walk when we risk falling down, and this equation holds—with commensurately more complex dynamics—our whole lives long. I have heard endless variations on this theme—the battle with illness that saves the life that follows; the childhood pain that leads to vocation; the disability that opens into wholeness and a presence to the hidden wholeness of others. You have your own stories, the dramatic and more ordinary moments where what has gone wrong becomes an opening to more of yourself and part of your gift to the world. This is the beginning of wisdom.” Krista Tippett

“For sure, I tell you, unless a seed falls into the ground and dies,
it will only be a seed. If it dies, it will give much grain.” Jesus (John 12:24 NLB)
‘

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • How are you affected by seemingly new chaos almost every day?
  • Has what has gone wrong in the past made you a better you?
  • Can you respond to the coronavirus crisis to allow for that to happen again? . . . so that you become a needed gift to your world?
  • We’re not automatically made better by difficulties and tragedy. What can you do to become stronger and more useful, rather than more fearful or embittered?

Abba, when it comes to the chaos all around me, all I can really control is me. Help me do that today.

For More: Becoming Wise: An Inquiry Into the Mystery and Art of Living by Krista Tippett

Song for the Day: Be Still My Soul by Abigail Zsiga

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