De Mello to Br. Roger - What a transition

A week or so ago I finished the volume of the Modern Spiritual Masters on Anthony de Mello and now I'm reading the volume on Brother Roger of Taize.

What a change!

• De Mello is full of humor and spiritual "shock and awe" with short stories and exercises packed like dynamite to jar a new insight.  Br. Roger is like a smoldering fire or a deep pool.  The insights are profound and invite the reader to the depths of the heart.
• De Mello invites the head to new understanding, Br. Roger invites the heart to new feelings.
• De Mello's writings are never about himself or his own experience.  They invite the reader to experience something new for themselves.  Br. Roger lays out the way his own heart sees the world and invites the reader to see the world with his eyes.
• De Mello focuses on the individual.  Br. Roger focuses on the person in community.
• De Mello is a thinker.  Br. Roger is a feeler.
• De Mello invites laughter.  Br. Roger invites tears.
• I'm reminded of the saying "life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel."
• De Mello seems light.  Br. Roger, heavy and profound.

Both of these men are spiritual masters, but their approaches could not be more different.  They each have come to know and communicate the God of Jesus Christ in powerful, life-giving ways.  I thank God for each of them.  I can imagine myself being healed through laughing with De Mello and weeping with Br. Roger.  Both men offer a way to God in freedom and love.

ZENIT - On St. Matilda, God's Nightingale

This address by Benedict XVI was recommended by my friend Dwayne.  It points out the power of the liturgy to make saints.  The formative power of the liturgy is incredible and I am struggling, as a Parish Director in a parish without a resident priest as Pastor to unleash that power.  How does one unleash the formative power of the liturgy in a community which gathers only once a week?

ZENIT - On St. Matilda, God's Nightingale

Nostalgia

This morning as I was shoveling snow, I was thinking about my class reunion coming up this summer and wondering what I would say to my classmates.

One phrase kept coming to my mind.

At one point in our lives, it seemed that "the future's so bright I gotta wear shades." It seemed like we were on top of the world. Now, at least for me, it feels like the world is on top of me. What happened?

I don't know what happened. Is growing up all about losing optimism or is it about gaining wisdom? What does hope look like after, or in the midst of, a mid-life crisis?

Hope is the key virtue of our time. The poster of Obama with the single word, HOPE on it has captured the imagination of many people. Hope.

I titled this post nostalgia and maybe nostalgia is an attempt to find hope in the past. It was good then, or at least the way we remember it was good - so it will be good again. Goodness is possible.

I don't know. I thought I had more insight while shoveling snow. It seemed wise at the time but now it seems trite.

Hope.

The Call of Samuel

Today's reading recounting the call of Samuel got me thinking. Our call comes from what wakes us up. Samuel is asleep, and is awakened by something. He doesn't know what it is that awakens him and mistakes it for Eli.

My own experience of call is one of awakening but also a similar confusion. What is it that is waking me up. I've mistaken it several times, like Samuel. Fortunately, Eli doesn't have a choice. My heart has realized some of the false things that I thought had awakened me. I know there are more. My career is one thing that I think should awaken to, but it is becoming clearer that it is only God that will satisfy.

Yesterday I was reading Nouwen's, The Inner Voice of Love and he writes:

There is a deep hole in your being, like an abyss. You will never succeed in filling that hole, because your needs are inexhaustible. You have to work around it so that gradually the abyss closes.
Since the hole is so enormous and your anguis so deep, you will always be temped to flee from it. There are two extremes to avoid: being completely absorbed in your pain [I have been experiencing that far to much lately], and being distracted by so many things that you stay far away from the wound you want to heal.

The call is to engage the pain of life. The pain awakens us, like Samuel was awakened. However, the challenge is to let that pain speak. Let the pain teach us and call us to God and not to avoidance (Eli). Eventually all Eli's will fail and we will be confronted with the pain of life that we have been avoiding. Maybe this is purgatory? Anyway, I'm rambling. I am glad this is a private blog and no one else will see this.

1-18-09 Reflections on Snow Shoveling and Prayer

I've always wanted to write an article on snow shoveling and prayer. OK, not always, just since I moved to WI and started to try to find meaning in snow shoveling (there is certainly a lot of it to do).

Teresa of Avila has the classic analogy of prayer as going through stages similar to watering a garden. First, one begins by hauling the water from a nearby stream. Then a pump is put in and the water is pumped. Third, the garden is irragated and comes with little or no effort. Finally, rain pours down from above. Prayer works the same way. At first it takes a lot effort. After some time prayer rains down with no effort from the one praying.

Snow shoveling.... When we first moved to WI we just had a shovel. It was a lot of work to shovel just a little snow. Now we have a "snow scoop" which makes it a lot easier. It still takes effort, but not quite as much. Eventually, we may move on to a snowblower and eventually the sun will come out and melt the snow.

Abhishiktananda chapters 8-9

 

Well, I finished the book, Swami Abhishiktananda:  Essential Writings.  I don't know what held me up but I'm done now.  It's strange, I vacilate back and forth between the contemplative approach to prayer, and the charismatic approach (which I actually know very little about).  One night this week I had insomnia and felt drawn to Francis MacNutt's book, Healing.  Strange...

 

Anyway, back to the book.  These two chapters really are a nice way to bring the book to a conclusion.  The chapter on prayer is excellent.  I can see the connections with John Main's teaching very clearly.  I may even want to get A's book, Prayer.

 

Some key passages from Chapter 8 on prayer:

The mystery of God is first of all the eternal call of the Father to the Son -- the call in which the Father and the Son essentially are:  'You are my Son' (Ps. 2:7; see also Mark 1:1-11).  It is also the response to this call, the eternal cry of the Son; "Abba, Father!" -- the ceaseless prayer of Jesus both on earth and in heaven, a prayer which expresses both the source and the fullness of his love, his sacrifice, and his unending intercession (182).

This passage reveals the deep Trinitarian understanding of prayer that A has.  We are swept up into the conversation of the Trinity.

The very reason for the coming on earth of Jesus the Son of God was to share with mankind that divine experience which was eternally his (181).

I share this foundational understanding of prayer.  A also stresses God's omnipresence.  God is everywhere:  beyond form, present in Creation...

A has an interesting comparison between the Jesus prayer and the prayer of namajapa as it is called in India (184-187).  He suggests that the Christian prayer has an emphasis on forgiveness, while the Hindu prayer focus on adoration.  The Christian Jesus prayer isn't about a morbid focus on sin but

it is one way of expressing a deeply personal experience of the love of God and the realization that in forgiving us he reveals most fully his love and almighty power.

While the Hindu focus on adoration

is rather a sign of total self-forgetfulness and of lack of concern for all that affects them personally -- in Christian terms, the complete trust of a child who knows that his father is caring for his needs and whose only personal wish is to continue gazing at him (186).

The chapter ends with an excellent discussion of the prayer of silence.

the main thrust of spiritual discipline and ascetic life should be to prepare man for the stillness of his faculties where he can be at the full disposal fo the Spirit (192).

Chapter 9:  "Awakening" was much more challenging.  It is apparent that his heart attack in July 1973 was a powerful spiritual experience for A.

I lived my heart attack in the first place as a marvelous spiritual adventure (199).

A returns again and again to the limitations, even the hinderances of concepts, ideas, and notions.

All notions are burned in the fire of experience (198).

There is only one awakening.  A doubts whether or not he is truly a Christian any more because for him doctrine has become completely relativized.  It is the experience of awakening that matters.  The freedom from self, from all situations, reveals an indwelling Trinity.

The Trinity is the ultimate mystery of oneself.  But in the very depth of this discovery of the Self-Trinity there lies the paradox:  in the mystery of the non-source, who still speaks of the Source?  It is only at the level of the Source, of the trickle of water springing up, that we speak of what is beyond.  In the beyond there is not beyond.  It simply is, etad vai tad!  That, just that! (203).

The symbol of the Grail is also introduces in the chapter.  It would be interesting to hear more of how this symbol played in A's thought.  He was obviously a seeker after the Grail and it seems that he found it at the end of his life.

The final selection in the book is a nice summary:

One who knows several mental (or religious or spiritual) languages is incapable of absolutizing any formulations whatever -- of the gospel, of the Upanishads, of Buddhism, etc.  He can only bear witness to an experience -- about which he can only stammer (205).

A does more than stammer.  He bears witness to a powerful experience of God and speaks the language of both Christianity and Hinduism well.  However, it is the experience, not the formulations, that are important for him.

Turning a Maze into a Labyrinth

I think that one of the things going on in my life is that I am starting to see my life more as a labyrinth than a maze. A maze is full of choices that are made. Some choices are "right" and others are "wrong." Some lead to dead ends, others take you closer to the goal.

Labyrinths, on the other hand, don't have wrong turns (or right turns for that matter). They are simply paths that twist and turn. You do arrive at your destination in spite of (or better because of) the twists and turns. The only choice in a labyrinth is to keep going, to stop, or to turn around. There is no other path.

The moral life, with its focus on freedom and choice, depicts life as a maze.

Spirituality depicts life as a labyrinth.

This decision to move to WI has made me rely much more on the image of the labyrinth. I am simply following a path that God has set out for me. This is a big turn in the road, but it is a turn in the road, not a turn I am choosing to make (other than to stay on the road).

Maybe that is why the labyrinth is speaking to me these days.