Feeling the love

Have you been there, where you don’t feel the emotions?  I think that is where we live most of our relationships. It’s not like I go through every moment of every day overcome with love for my wife, but I love her all the same. So the feeling is a consolation.  It is wonderful when it is there, but it doesn’t have to be for love to be a reality. 

The Great Commandment is Love the Lord your God with all…. And love your neighbor as yourself.  The love of self entails soul-care and psychology – delving into ourselves on the road of imperfection to wholeness.  The love of God implies theology and prayer and the love of neighbor service and ministry.  All three are bound up in our spirituality.  They all inform and change each other. Growth in one area will aid growth in another.

There is also an aspect of love that has been impressed on me since my silent retreat in October when I spent time experimenting with centering prayer.  Love can be exercised.  I felt something new in focusing my love on God. I felt like my love, my heart wasn’t big enough – that love would have to be exercised.  I have since noticed the same thing toward others: my wife, children, and neighbors. There is hope in the darkness when the sense of love is absent.  Like any atrophied muscle it can be exercised.  I think Nouwen offers essential ways to grow in love.  In Reaching Out, he talks about movement from illusion to prayer, loneliness to solitude, and hostility to hospitality.

Disciplines like prayer where I can meet with God and my subconscious and find healing, or solitude where I can shed my false isolation from loving community, build me up. They integrate into a whole life that effervesces with ministry.

Michael Ford talks about how ministry followed Nouwen.  He didn’t go off looking for ministry, but people were drawn to him. When immersed in ministry when he should have been resting, Nouwen claims:

Ministry happens.  I have done nothing here while on sabbatical to do ministry.   I didn’t come here to get people who mostly don’t go to church to join me in prayer and the Eucharist.  I just started to pray and invited one person to join me, and these others—neighbors and friends—simply came (198).

I long for that - for ministry to be the natural overflow of my integrated life.  I long to see God’s love spiraling out of control around me because of who God is in me. 

Ode to The Knowledge of the Holy

I like the significance Nouwen finds in the fact that “theologia” was first used in reference to prayer. I was first struck by the personal and practical power of theology when reading The Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer. As he explored attribute after attribute of the Divine Nature, I sensed the Presence of God all around me. I couldn’t get through a chapter with out weeping.

Theology for me has become synonymous with worship. I have little patience for any study of theology that doesn’t lead me to awe, worship and prayer. This means that my reading of theology must be Lectio Divina, spiritual reading into the reality of God. Often lately I have explored how the mystical encounters I have inform my theology. Nouwen encourages me to once again study theology with an eye to the reality of Christ.

The first time I read the Knowledge of the Holy, I thought, “How sad, with all the books out there that call to be read, I may never be able to return to this gem.” I have gone back to read it again, my ancient paperback falling apart. I think maybe this summer I’ll have to find another copy!

Writing

I look at Henri Nouwen's huge body of work and compulsion to write and I think "Now here is a writer. Perhaps I am not built to be a writer after all. After all I often feel a reluctance to write, and lack ideas."  Today I read these words from Henri, and am encouraged:

Writing, however, is often the source of great pain and anxiety. It is remarkable how hard it is for many students to sit down quietly and trust their own creativity. There seems to be a deep-seated resistance to writing. I have experienced this resistance myself over and over again. Even after many years of wnung, I experience real fear when I face the empty page. Why am I so afraid? Sometimes I have an imaginary reader in mind who is looking over my shoulder and rejecting every word I write down. Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the countless books and articles that already have been written, and I cannot imagine that I have anything to say that has not already been said better by someone else. Sometimes, it seems that every sentence fails to express what I really want to say, and that written words simply cannot hold what goes on in my mind and heart. These fears not seldom paralyze me and make me delay or even abandon my writing plans.

And still every time I overcome these fears and trust not only my own unique way of being in the world, but also my ability to give words to it, I experience a deep spiritual satisfaction. I have been trying to understand the nature of this satisfaction. What I am gradually discovering is that in the writing I come in touch with the Spirit of God within me and experience how I am led to new places. 

Most students of theology think that writing means writing down ideas, insights, or visions. They are of the opinion that they first must have something to say before they can put it on paper. For them, writing is little more than recording preexistent thoughts. But with this approach: true writing is impossible. Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals to us what is alive in us. The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write: To write is to embark on a journey of which we do not know the final destination. Thus writing requires a great act of trust. We have to say to ourselves: "I do not yet know what I carry in my heart, but I trust that it will emerge as I write."

Nouwen encourages me to make a daily practice of writing - regardless as to whether I feel I have anything to say. I can simply make a start of it and see what comes from the hidden parts of me.

Oratory of the heart

Nouwen cites a quote by Brother Lawrence that was familiar to me. In fact I have oft quoted it.

It is not necessary for being with God to be always at church. We may make an oratory of our heart wherein to retire from time to time to converse with Him in meekness, humility, and love. Every one is capable of such familiar conversation with God, some more, some less. He knows what we can do. Let us begin then (Genesee Diary 174).

Last January we spent our residency at Malvern retreat center near Philadelphia that had these great rooms called oratories. They were a beautiful place to pray. When I first read this quote, the only reference I had for the word oratory was a speech. Reading it again, with the experience of the oratories at the retreat center, I felt my heart enlarge. There, inside my heart was a place where I could meet with God, all day.

I find that this kind of prayer is aided by a habit of prayer throughout the day. I use the Liturgy of the Hours to offer a rhythm to my day, at least on the good days. This week I have been experimenting with using the Jesus Prayer as a breath prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” It feels like the space in my soul expands with each breath.

From Illusion to prayer

In his Genesee Diary, Henri Nouwen relates the story of a man who was a prisoner of war and was tortured.

“He was a very simple, down-to-earth man with little political or ideological sophistication. But no pressure was able to force him to any kind of confession. John Eudes explained this by pointing to the man’s sense of identity. No self-doubt, no insecurities, no false guilt feelings that could be exploited by his enemies” (181).

In Reaching Out, Nouwen talks about the illusion of immortality leading to sentimentality or violence. I can’t identify places in my life or the life of my community where this particular illusion comes in play. I identify with the kinds of illusions that the prisoner of war lacked. I struggle with illusions as to who I am, and where I fit. At my core I doubt God’s ability to use me, in spite of myself. I fall for the lies that my wounds and the enemy would tell me. This is delusion. My community struggles with illusions of scarcity, and of lack of worth.

It is comforting, Nouwen’s assertion, that prayer dispels delusion. He says that prayer encompasses the conscious and unconscious self. He comingles his psychology with his spirituality here. The wounds hidden in the unconscious self can be healed in prayer, the illusions dealt with.

Aloneness

In Joseph Conrad’s story The Secret Sharer, a new ship captain tells how he took on board and concealed a murderer. The man, a mate on another ship, had swum to escape, and the captain found him, naked, clinging to the rope ladder. The captain was so affected by the picture of this man dressed in his pajamas that he came to think of him as his double. He identified so closely with him, that he couldn’t give him up and became distracted by concealing him until he could put him ashore. When he finally parted with this false self, he felt his focus return.

Already the ship was drawing ahead. And I was alone with her. Nothing! no one in the world should stand now between us, throwing a shadow on the way of silent knowledge and mute affection, the perfect communion of a seaman with his first command.

These words forged a connection in my mind with what Nouwen has been saying to me about solitude. We live a disjointed life, trying to protect our false self. All the while we are called to solitude. My friend Jerrell said, “Recently, I’ve come to discover that solitude isn’t always a byproduct of isolation, but aloneness.” We come face to face with who we are apart from the perceptions of others and the “scaffolding” we erect to prop up our false selves in the midst of solitude. When we find ourselves truly alone, we can, with the captain, enjoy perfect communion.

Trust in emptiness

This week I can greatly identify with Nouwen’s assertion that solitude is not immediately satisfying. My experiences with solitude Monday initiated a week of wrestling with myself.

Yesterday I went with my friend Rich to a retreat center in Dewitt. He has been leading a group of us in exploring the implications of centering prayer for ministry the last few months. We get together once a month for several hours, talking, reading the Cloud of Unknowing, and spending about an hour in silent centering prayer.

I was looking forward to this time, hoping that the time with God would resolve the feelings from Monday. There were moments of connection when I felt the presence, but, by and large, there was nothing. Here lies the tension. I have to trust that God is in fact doing something in that time, even when I don’t see it. I learn from the tension something about fruitfulness, the center of my struggle, as well. Even when I am not feeling like I am bearing fruit, that my six years of preaching and living example aren’t making a difference in my present context, I can still trust that God is still moving, that God’s vital sap is producing the fruit.

Doing battle with myself

Yesterday I descended the steps to my basement office to do battle with demons. I did not know when I entered into undistracted solitude that I would be coming to grips with the darkness within me, though I knew no such endeavor is ever safe. The time since my experience has been avoiding solitude and silence, unwilling to engage the unfinished business I left in the basement of my heart.

I love solitude. Often it is a place for me to embrace and be embraced by Mystery. I touch eternity in those moments. This time, however, the Spirit of Christ was content to prod me, and poke at some uncomfortable places. In fact, I would call it a wrestling between us.

Strange Dream of Nouwen

In his Genesee Diary, Henri Nouwen records a dream about Thomas Merton that he found significant.  I had a dream last night that is perhaps insignificant, about Henri Nouwen.

It seems we (fellow students and I) were at a campground for one of our yearly residencies for our Masters program. Henri was our teacher. The dream opens in the cafeteria where I was having a conversation over lunch with my former youth pastor, Nancy.  She has her PhD and has been teaching at the university level.  She apparently was teaching for Spring Arbor, as she was at our residency.    She was challenging me about the rigor of our program. It seemed that my thoughts in our discussion were unenlightened because I hadn't been around academia at one of the top schools. She seemed to think I was more cut out for Yale and was disappointed that I was in this program.  I defended my decision telling the story about how and why I came to the Masters in Spiritual Formation and Leadership.  I touted some lofty goal that SAU had for becoming a top tier regional center for learning.  She just gave me this quizzical look.

Reflections on In the Name of Jesus by Henri Nouwen

The central question facing Christian leaders today, I think, is: Are we going to be led? Nouwen rightly points out that the cure to the temptation to relevance is mysticism. The Christian leader must be a mystic rooted in the reality of the living Christ to navigate the waters infested with sharks of ego, power, efficiency and world-success.

The central question for me as I face leadership in the coming future is how can I lead people into a desire for the mystic reality of Christ in the intimacy of the Lover. How can I be a part of the Spirits drawing them to the depths? Year after year, as a pastor, I feel like I am treading water. People seem to make little movement toward desperation and hunger for the transformed life. If they so successfully resist the wooing of the Spirit, what does my leadership stand to offer?

Loneliness and Family

Today I took advantage of my week between classes to learn something not on the curriculum (though I also took some time to get familiar with the text for the next course – go me:P). I listened to a tape by Henri Nouwen called Spirituality of Marriage and the Family. Fred lent it to me a couple weeks back. It was nice to hear what Henri Nouwed sounded like. I didn't imagine he had the accent that he did!

The thing that struck me most is that he saw the primary vocation in marriage being to solitude and intimacy. The idea of a vocation to solitude and of the ministry of honoring and protecting loneliness in each other really grabbed me. Nouwen suggests we should not expect marriage to end our loneliness, as it is our seal of being destined for a greater communion to come. The ministry of marriage is to protect and honor that feeling and minister to it the comfort of intimacy. When intimacy and solitude work together, we give space to each other – we bind up the pain of loneliness through intimacy and give generous space in solitude. The ministry of spacious generosity is hospitality and we offer it to our children and to all who pass through our door that we may bind up their wounds of loneliness while they are with us.

Contemplating the poor.

Christ is in the poor. Even when we recognize that the poor are not in the least Christ-like He is there in their suffering. If God stands in profound solidarity with the poor as the scriptures affirm shouldn’t we as well?

“Solidarity is the social meaning of humility,” writes Dean Brackley. He applies the ancient rules of St. Ignatius to social justice today. “Just as humility leads individuals to all other virtues, humility as solidarity is the foundation of a just society.”

Henri Nouwen wrote of Christ’s “way of downward mobility.” To follow Him we must reject the council of yuppie culture to climb the ladder of success. The witness of Christ and the challenge offered by Nouwen and Brackley lead us to ask questions. “How much should we have? Better to reframe the question,” writes Brackley, “Do we feel at home among the poor? Do they feel comfortable in our homes? Or do our furnishings and possessions make them feel like unimportant people?” (100)

The solution to our global social crisis is not that the poor become rich, which is neither feasible nor desirable, but that the rich join with the poor. The only solution is communities of equals, resisting pyramids of inequity (see Luke 22:25-26). While some economic differences are legitimate, discrimination and misery are not. In communities of equals, personal talents, instead of advancing some at others’ expense, are stewarded for the benefit of all. Authority is a service for the common good (101).

In my graduate work I have been studying spiritual direction. The director meets with people desiring spiritual direction in an attitude of contemplation. He contemplates God and at the same time the directee, and the directee’s relationship with God. One book, The Practice of Spiritual Direction concludes with an observation of where direction and social action meet.

We need to know how God is experienced by the very poor and destitute. A few directors have begun to work with the destitute. The work is still in its very early stages, but where the director’s contemplative attitude is well developed, it seems promising (196).

I dream of one day studying as a cultural anthropologist the ways faith is formed and transmitted from one generation to the next across culture. I imagine joining with the poor working in the world’s coffee plantations and doing the work of contemplation with them, while also finding ways to get them living wages for their crops.

What is God dreaming for the poor? What is he dreaming for you and I to do with Him about poverty?

The Name of Jesus

This week I am experimenting with using Jesus as a mantra. A mantra is a short prayer repeated over and over until it “settles into your soul like a nest (Henri Nouwen’s image).” Nouwen goes on to say,

“The quiet repetition of a single word can help us to descend with the mind into the heart. This repetition has nothing to do with magic. It is not meant to throw a spell on God or to force him into hearing us. On the contrary, a word of sentence repeated frequently can help us to concentrate, to move to the center, to create an inner stillness and thus to listen to the voice of God.”

I’ve chosen “Jesus” as my prayer partly because I am strangely uncomfortable with his name. For some reason speaking it, hearing it, sounds tinny, shallow and devoid of the intimacy I desire and know with him. I hear others say it, or sing it and it sounds flaky. Perhaps I am jealous. I mean do they really have the kind of intimacy with him that I have, that I long for? I like to use pet names for him, like savior, master, lover, or my Jesus. I wish I could call him Josh. “Jesus” just seems so Christiany. I mean it’s not even how his parents would have said his name, Yeshua. I know, I’m pretty messed up. I guess I feel the same way about my wife’s name. It is rare I ever call her Elaine. That is for people who don’t know her as honey, or lover. It sounds funny and uncomfortable coming out of my mouth, like I am angry or something. Though I have also known how hearing your name on loving lips can be a powerful thing.

My experiment began Sunday in service, inviting everyone to focus on his name for a few moments. Then yesterday I prayed Jesus over and over as I walked the labyrinth, all the way into the heart of God and all the way back out to the world. I thought of the song, "Take the name of Jesus with you." I'd have sung it, but I don't know how it goes! Then last night as I went to bed, I counted his name on rosary beads, twice around. On the beads that separate each decade I prayed "Protect us Lord, as we stay awake, watch over us as we sleep, that awake we may keep watch with Christ, and asleep rest in his peace." All in all a great way to fall asleep!

My hope is that in praying Jesus as a mantra, I will become comfortable with his name, and more than that, there will be a sweetness, a fullness divested to it.

Transparency and vulnerability

What discipline is required for the future leader to overcome the temptation of individual heroism? I would like to propose the discipline of confession and forgiveness. Just as the future leaders must be mystics deeply steeped in contemplative prayer, so also they must be persons always willing to confess their own brokenness and ask for forgiveness from those to whom they minister.

Vulnerability and transparency can help keep me from the temptation to be spectacular. I need to take my journaling in the form of this blog more seriously. It is a discipline that puts myself out there for comment. That isn't always easy but it is humbling.

Henri Nouwen - "In The Name of Jesus"

Yesterday I received some materials for my master's course. One was this amazing little book. I read it in one sitting, so the truths about Christian leadership are resonating in me right now with a multitude of harmonics. It will take some time for me to fully appreciate the melody. There is one note, perhaps a chord, that is really sticking with me tonight.

Nouwen cites one temptation to Christian leaders as being relevance. Relevance is certainly a word we hear a lot about these days, so my interest was piqued. He takes relevance out of its buzz context and talks about our personal desire to feel relevant - to feel that we have something to offer.

I recognize how I often feel small when my perceived relevance isn't having any real impact (that's not really very relevant is it.) Nouwen declares that I can give up this worry. To the world, I am completely irrelevant. That is how it should be. That is not to say that the Church or the gospel should be irrelevant. But I am irrelevant. Anything I have in myself in no way useful to the world. I must rely on God. Nouwen give a powerful weapon to dismantle our habit to seek relevance: contemplative prayer. O how I love this! This is why I long to identify with the Christian Mystics of old. O to only love Christ, and focus all through that lens!

I have been dealing a lot lately with discussions of politics, both church and state. I am trying to hold on to my Love in all these. In that spirit I keep longing for a less pragmatic stance by my brothers in Christ. I feel affirmed and challenged by these words:

"Christian leaders cannot simply be persons who have well-informed opinions about the burning issues of our time. Their leadership must be rooted in the permanent, intimate relationship with the incarnate Word, Jesus, and they need to find there the source for all their words, advice, and guidance. Through the discipline of contemplative prayer, Christian leaders have to learn to listen again and again to the voice of love to find there the wisdom and courage to address whatever issue presents itself to them. Dealing with burning issues without being rooted in a deep personal relationship with God easily leads to divisiveness because, before we know it, our sense of self is caught up in our opinion about a given subject. But when we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses with out being manipulative.

"For Christian leadership to be truly fruitful in the future, a movement from the moral to the mystical is required."