Wise Words for Today

Image from the Book of Kells, a 1200 year old book. Category:Illuminated manuscript images (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

To seriously follow the spiritual journey, particularly amid our world’s busyness, one must learn to guard the preciousness of time by savoring the beauty of our periods for prayer or meditation, reflection, reading, work, study, and relaxation. Awareness of time’s value and a commitment to live one’s spiritual journey in this consciousness is a test of the maturity of a person’s spirituality. Only by guarding one’s time against the onslaught of distraction can we advance in our commitment to the mystical dimension of our existence. Only when we regard time’s precious relationship to our inner life, only if we understand its necessity for spiritual growth, can we begin to use time more wisely.

Wayne Teasdale

(from A Monk in the World)

God as Spirit and Transformative Presence

Cover via Amazon

Mick Turner

In his various writings, Marcus Borg has consistently espoused the notion that the church’s tendency to view God through the lens of “Supernatural Theism” has caused many problems and is also one of the chief culprits behind the mass exodus from the church today. As an alternative, Borg puts forth the notions of “panentheism” and also of “viewing God as Spirit.” Panentheism, which views all things as being “within God” is a logical and valuable model. Here, however, I want to reflect a bit on several implications inherent in the Spirit model. Borg covers this theme in considerable detail in his book, The God We Never Knew.

Borg begins by stating that the Spirit model leads to an image of the Christian life that stresses three vital things: relationship, intimacy and belonging.

In addition, Borg states:

As a root metaphor for the sacred, Spirit images God as a nonmaterial reality pervading the universe as well as being more than the universe. As used in the Bible…..its meaning is broader than the specific Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit,” which sees it as one aspect of God. But in the Bible, Spirit is used comprehensively to refer to God’s presence in creation, in the history of Israel, and in the life of Jesus and the early church. ……Some of its resonances of meaning are suggested by the Hebrew word for Spirit. “Ruach” also minds wind and breath. The associations of both are suggestive. Both are invisible yet manifestly real. We cannot see the wind, though its presence and effects are felt; it moves without being seen. When it blows, it is all around us. Breath is like wind inside the body. For the ancient Hebrews (as for us), it was associated with life. Metaphorically, God as Spirit is both wind and breath, a non material reality outside of us and within us. Our breath is God breathing us, and God is as near to us as our own breath. Speaking o f God as Spirit, as both wind and breath, evokes both transcendence and nearness.

Borg goes on to point out how the Spirit model of God allows for the inclusion of feminine images of God, specifically images of God as:

Wisdom

Lover

Journey Companion

It is as a Journey Companion – or Good Shepherd – that I think Christ has the most direct impact and relevance for Christians today. Jesus described himself as the Good Shepherd. Borg elaborates on this role of Jesus:

 Rather than a single image, this is a category of images pointing to God as a companion who travels with us. It includes the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day that led the Israelites through the wilderness, as well as the presence of God that tented among them in a mobile home (the tabernacle). God as shepherd is another such image, but with the added dimension of nourishment and protection. The shepherd not only travels with the sheep but leads them to water and food, finds shelter, protects them, and seeks them when they go astray. In the New Testament, journey companion imagery is associated especially with Jesus. A disciple is one who journeys with Jesus (who also provides bread for the journey, indeed, “companion” literally means somebody with whom one breaks bread). In the Emmaus Road story, the risen Christ journeys with his disciples, even though they do not recognize him. And in John’s gospel, the image of God as shepherd is applied to Jesus: the Johannine Jesus is “the good shepherd.

I especially feel a vital connection with Jesus as “journey companion” when I reflect on the realties inherent in Paul’s brief statement in Ephesians 4:10. This is where Paul describes Jesus as the “one who ascended higher than the highest heaven so that he might fill all things with himself.” The implications of this one small comment are literally staggering. With the Ascension of Jesus, all things underwent a tremendous change – all things became a home for the Risen Lord.

Once we understand and accept this reality – the infusion of Christ into all things – our priority should be to deepen our conscious contact with the Indwelling Light. In my mind, I believe the best way to facilitate this deepening is through the practice of the classic spiritual disciplines. Borg speaks of these practices, what he calls “sacred practices,” which are means by which the sacred is mediated with daily living. With the infusion of Christ into all things, almost all activities have the potential to be considered “sacred acts” if performed with the proper reverence and mindfulness.

Returning to the theme of what I call “divine infusion,” as described in Ephesians 4:10, the implications of this act are staggering. In my own spiritual journey, when I first discovered this sublime biblical truth it was as if a flood gate of spiritual understanding had been opened. I could fill pages with the new insights brought about by this one small, often overlooked verse. Space does not allow for that, but let me explore just one minor implication of this profound biblical reality.

We know from Old Testament accounts that God accompanied the Israelites on their journey in the Wilderness as both the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day. As mentioned in the above quotation from Borg, we also are reminded that the Great I Am then took up temporary residence in the Tabernacle. Eventually requiring a more permanent home in the Promised Land, the Lord had Solomon construct the first Temple in Jerusalem and, deep within the Temple in what was called the Holy of Holies, God made his earthly home. And it was in this innermost sanctuary of the Temple in Jerusalem that the Father resided when John the Baptist and Jesus appeared on the scene.

With the Resurrection and subsequent Ascension of Christ, along with the advent of the Holy Spirit, a most remarkable thing occurred. The Great I Am took up residence within every person. And if that was not miracle enough, with the “infusion” the Lord “filled all things with himself” (Eph. 4:10).

We can see in this pattern a sort of “progressive intimacy” orchestrated by God, culminating in the essence of Christ permeating all things, great and small. It is this all-encompassing Christ filling and animating all things that fits so well the “God as Spirit” model as described by Marcus Borg. This image of God as Spirit is, at the same time, highly personal and transpersonal. As an all-pervading Spirit resident in all of creation and especially in the hearts of his followers, Christ engages in a depth of intimacy that was not possible prior to his ascension and infusion. This divine indwelling fosters a deeply intimate and personal relationship between the individual and the animating Spirit in which he or she “lives, moves, and has their being.” At the same time, the all-pervasive Spirit is transpersonal, going beyond the individual and, by the very nature of His being, unites all creation in a interdependent and interrelated whole.

In Borg’s view, this expansive view of God as Spirit, as opposed to “Divine Monarch,” gives rise to a number of useful metaphors which makes the personal/transpersonal Spirit more accessible and pragmatic in daily life. Borg discusses several of these positive metaphors including God as: fire, light, breath, wisdom, mother and father, lover, and journey companion. I find all of these metaphors useful in terms of making the incomprehensible power, creativity, and intelligence of God more accessible.

All of these metaphors are carried over from the Old Testament into the New Testament. On a personal note, I have found the analogy of Christ as “journey companion” to be highly pertinent and impactful. We especially see this in the imagery of “Christ as Shepherd” in the 23^rd Psalm and in the gospels as well, especially the writings of John.  Personal experience has also shown me how each of these biblical metaphors can be beneficial in ways both practical and meaningful. Borg goes on to describe a trio of more obvious ways the metaphor of God as Spirit impacts our experience of God:

The biblical metaphors for the Spirit model affect our root image of God in three quite obvious ways. First, these metaphors emphasize the nearness of God rather than the distance implied by the monarchical model. They evoke closeness, relationship, and connection. God as Spirit is near, at hand; indeed, we live within Spirit. Nearness also involves concern: God as Spirit is compassionate. God is the womblike one who gave birth to us, who nurtures us, cares for us, yearns for us. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Second, both male and female metaphors (as well as some that are neither) are used, rather than exclusively male images of the monarchical model. God is like a woman giving birth, like a mother raising her children, like Sophia the wisdom woman; God is like an intimate father. Moreover, some images go equally well with either gender: God as lover, as companion or friend, even as shepherd. . . . . . . . . . .Third, rather than the essentially anthropomorphic image of God as king, lord and patriarchal father, the metaphors for God as Spirit include both non-anthropomorphic and anthropomorphic images. . . . . . . . . . .The presence of both is suggestive. . . . . . . .That is, they suggest that there is a personal dimension to the relationship to God. Yet non-anthropomorphic images suggest that God is not simply a person. Combining the two suggests that the relationship to God is personal, even as God is more than a person. The sacred is not simply a non-animate mystery but a presence.

Although it is hard to contain in the limited nature of words, it is this sense of God as Spirit in general and God as presence in particular that I have found most transformational. Christ, a unique, pre-existent being who, at the very same time, is an all-pervasive, deeply penetrating, and fully indwelling force, becomes a life-enhancing, life-changing force – an ever-present presence that is indeed an indispensable and welcomed companion for my journey.

© L.D. Turner 2012/ All Rights Reserved

Wise Words for Today

Rapture (Photo credit: bill barber)

The closer one comes to the center of things, the better able he is to observe the connections. Everything created is connected, for everything is produced by the same mind, the same love, and is dependent on the same Creator. He who masterminded the universe, the Lord God Omnipotent, is the One who called the stars into being, commanded light, spoke the Word that brought about the existence of time and space and every form of matter: salt and stone, rose and redwood, feather and fur and fin and flesh. The titmouse and the turkey answer to Him. The sheep, the pig, and the finch are His, at His disposal, possessed and known by Him…We too are created, owned, possessed, known.

Elizabeth Elliot

Wise Words for Today

Early Christian ichthys sign carved into marble in the ruins of Ephesus, Turkey (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Christianity is now so fundamentally associated with the formula of fall and redemption, so focused on beliefs about Jesus instead of invitations to follow Jesus, that a new Reformation is needed. It will deal not with matters of doctrine and church order but with a recovery of the concept of transformation through the imitative wisdom of discipleship. It will reject once and for all the illusion that knowledge alone is redemptive and seek to restore the ancient truth that creation is blessed, not fallen…..The new Reformation will be about the very life and death of Christianity itself. We must first recover the original message and then be willing to interpret it for a new age. It will be a return to faith as praxis, grounded in trust, not intellectual assent, grounded in doctrine. Christianity was once, and must be again, about following Jesus, not worshiping Christ.

Robin Meyers

(from Saving Jesus from the Church)

The Divine Whisper: Come, Follow Me

Mick Turner

I am convinced that one of the most critical tasks facing humankind in this age of rapid-fire change and shifting cultural landscapes is the rebirth of what I like to call cosmic mysticism – a way of looking at the world through eyes of wonder, awe, pristine innocence, and above all, an innate sense of the interconnectivity of all that is, all that ever was, and yes, all that ever will be. Some may call it an exaggeration but I think otherwise. Unless we rediscover this vital sense of cosmic mysticism, an increasing number of species, and we humans are not excepted from this prognosis, are headed for extinction.

This cosmic mysticism I am speaking of is a natural mysticism, built upon the experiential foundation of the existence of a divine presence that permeates and suffuses all of creation. Known by countless names by myriad cultures across the span of the ages, this sublime presence is that which animates and gives life to all things.  Nature is imbued with this power, this divine energy, and all that exists owes its being to this force.

Throughout history this force has been called by many names. The name, however, is not important. What is important is that we learn how to contact, harness, and direct this divine energy for the development of ourselves, our brothers and sisters, all sentient beings, and our world. This is the essence of the meaning and purpose of life at its most fundamental level. We are here to grow and in order to grow we must learn to use divine energy efficiently and purposefully. Just as a plant needs the sun to develop and reach maturity, we need this celestial energy in order to truly become what we were intended to be.

What is the origin of this energy? What is its purpose? Is it intelligent and purposeful? Or, is it random and impersonal? Humankind has answered these questions in myriad ways, some more accurate than others, since the dawn of time. For our present purpose, it is unnecessary to speculate on these issues. In fact, such speculation may pose an obstacle to the task at hand, which is to deal with this flowing, vibrant, and vital energy in terms of its practical application to living each day with personal excellence.

Further, it is through the kinship of this universal divine energy that all humankind, in fact, all creation is related in one giant organized family.

Although many things in the modern world conspire to deafen us to the subtle voice of the Father, rest assured that his voice is indeed there. God calls to us continually, asking us to put down our nets and, like the fishermen disciples of old, come and follow. Jesus tells us in John 6:44 that no one comes to him unless the Father first draws him. What this means in highly practical terms is that we not only have a God, we have a proactive God that seeks relationship with us. Our end of the bargain is to put ourselves into a position of deepening receptivity, so that we might hear his voice more clearly and experience his love more intensely.

There are others who hear God’s voice and respond, accepting his offer of grace, forgiveness, and acceptance into his blessed family. These are generally sincere disciples and are often quite active in their local church fellowship. They also involve themselves in service work and serve the Master to the best of their ability. Yet it is these very people – these sincere followers of the Lord – who, in their heart of hearts, often find themselves asking, “Isn’t there something more to the Christian life? I feel like something is missing. I can’t put my finger on it, but there is a vague emptiness…”

 It is to these genuine disciples that the still, small voice comes beckoning in the silence of a sleepless night, or drifting in on the golden leaves of an autumn wind. That irresistible, persistent voice that repeatedly whispers:

 Come, follow me….

(c) L.D. Turner 2011/All Rights Reserved

Deep Calling Deep: A Sublime Encounter

Cover via Amazon

Mick Turner

Come, follow me….

 John Eldredge and the late Brent Curtis, in their book entitled The Sacred Romance, describe the various ways, both vivid and subtle, that the Divine calls to us in his relentless pursuit of relationship:

  Someone or something has romanced us from the beginning with creek-side singers and pastel sunsets, with the austere majesty of snowcapped mountains and the poignant flames of autumn colors telling us of something – or someone – leaving, with a promise to return. These things can, in an unguarded moment, bring us to our knees with longing for this something or someone who is lost; someone or something only our heart recognizes.

 When we find ourselves in earshot of such a calling, we need to recognize that we are both blessed and vulnerable. We are blessed in that the divine source, the creative power that put this awe-inspiring universe together, seeks relationship with us. The incomprehensible intelligence that maintains all that we see and even more remarkably, the mysterious quantum realm that we don’t see, together in harmonious balance desires intimacy with us – intimacy beyond anything we have ever known.

 Yes, friend, God calls to us in a gentle voice that only the mystic can truly hear. And in that persistent calling, the Creator invites us to join in the mysterious dance of spiritual transformation. Unfortunately, far too few of us truly comprehend the critical importance of this divine calling, which often rides in softly on the fragrant breeze of an early summer evening or conversely, in the absolute silence of moonlit midnight in the depth of January. Of those who do hear the sublime calling, even fewer respond and this a tragedy beyond measure, as it often leaves those desperate souls with an incessant pondering of what might have been. C.S. Lewis speaks of this holy pursuit and its profound significance:

 Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of – something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat’s side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been hints of it – tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest – if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself – you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say, “Here at last is the thing I was made for.” We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.

 Lewis is describing that universal “something,” that existential empty spot that Augustine said could only be filled by God. It is, indeed, the call of the sublime lover, the Creator himself, beckoning us to turn and face our true home. It is the baying call of the Hound of Heaven, which is paradoxically both a blessing and an irritant.

 Most amazingly, he is not calling us to go into a monastic hideaway or a hermit’s cave, but to stay put right where we are. And if we stay and we become open and discerning, he will use the mundane events of our daily round as his methodology of instruction. More often than not, God’s classroom is characterized by the pedagogy of the ordinary and it is precisely in the realm of the unremarkable that true divine alchemy occurs. Sue Monk Kidd, a woman who knows this process through personal experience, describes it this way:

 It seems to me that Christ continually calls us through the daily events of our lives…In moments like these God stirs the waters of our lives and beckons us beyond where we are to a new dimension of closeness with Him…God desires to transform certain experiences of ours into awakening events. These may be our most common moments, but if we let them they can become doorways to a deeper encounter with Him. Who knows at what moment we may begin to wake up to the astonishing fact that Emmanuel (God with us) is still God’s name, that every moment the Word of God, Jesus Christ, is coming to us.

 I know that in my experience, God calls me in ways I never expected. I have discerned his voice in the sacred silence of meditative stillness and his message has often slapped me to my senses as it spoke from the pages of Holy Scripture. I have also learned to be increasingly sensitive to his call as manifest in the choreographic harmony of the natural world and especially when it dances in the eyes of a child.

© L.D. Turner 2011/All Rights Reserved

(Excerpted from Sacred Sanctuaries; L.D. Turner; 2010)

Related articles

• The Divine Whisper: Come, Follow Me (lifebrook.wordpress.com)
• A Franciscan Benediction (With Addendum) (lifebrook.wordpress.com)

Wise Words for Today

Image via Wikipedia

…..our whole universe is profoundly permeated with the presence of Christ. He surrounds, fills, holds together from top to bottom this human sphere in which we dwell. The entire cosmos has become his body, so to speak, and the blood flowing through it is his love…..mystical visionaries have tended to claim that this “pan-cosmic” saturation of his being into the deepest marrow of this created world was the cosmic cornerstone turned in his passage through death. Without in any way denying or overriding the conditions of this earth plane, he has interpenetrated them fully, infused them with his own interior spaciousness, and invited us all into the invisible but profoundly coherent energetic field so that we may live as one body – the “Mystical Body of Christ,” as it’s known in Christian tradition – manifesting the Kingdom of Heaven here and now. Jesus in his ascended state is not farther removed from human beings but more intimately connected with them. He is the integral ground, the ambient wholeness within which our contingent human lives are always rooted and from which we are always receiving the help we need to keep moving ahead on the difficult walk we have to walk here. When the eye of our own heart is open and aligned with this field of perception, we recognize whom we’re walking with.

Cynthia Bourgeault

(from Wisdom Jesus)

Related articles

• The Cosmic Christ (stillwaterrunsdeepsometimes.wordpress.com)
• Life’s Beattitudes (foodforthespiritualsoul.wordpress.com)

Wise Words for Today

It seems to me that Christ continually calls us through the daily events of our lives…In moments like these God stirs the waters of our lives and beckons us beyond where we are to a new dimension of closeness with Him…God desires to transform certain experiences of ours into awakening events. These may be our most common moments, but if we let them they can become doorways to a deeper encounter with Him. Who knows at what moment we may begin to wake up to the astonishing fact that Emmanuel (God with us) is still God’s name, that every moment the Word of God, Jesus Christ, is coming to us.

Sue Monk Kidd

(from God’s Joyful Surprise)

Wise Words for Today

Image via Wikipedia

Be silent and listen to God. Let your heart be in such a state of preparation that His Spirit may impress upon you such virtues that will please Him. Let all within you listen to Him……………

Don’t spend your time making plans that are just cobwebs – a breath of wind will come and blow them away. You have withdrawn from God and now you find that God has withdrawn the sense of His presence from you. Return to Him and give Him everything without reservation. There will be no peace otherwise. Let go of all you plans – God will do what He sees best for you.

Francis Fenelon

Wise Words for Today

Image via Wikipedia

A man does not commence to truly live until he finds an immovable center within himself on which to regulate his life, and from which to draw his peace. If he trusts to that which fluctuates, he also will fluctuate; if he leans upon that which may be withdrawn he will fall and be bruised; if he looks for satisfaction in perishable accumulations he will starve for happiness in the midst of plenty…Be contented that others shall manage or mismanage their own little kingdom, and see to it that you reign strongly over your own. Your entire well-being and the well-being of the whole world lies there. You have a conscience, follow it; you have a mind, clarify it; you have a judgment, use and improve it; you have a will, employ and strengthen it; you have knowledge, increase it; there is a light within your soul, watch it, tend it, encourage it, shield it from the winds of passion, and help it to burn with a steadier and ever steadier radiance. Leave the world and come back to yourself. Think as a man, live as a man. Be rich in yourself, be complete in yourself. Find the abiding center within you and obey it.

James Allen

(from Byways to Blessedness)

Related articles

• More Than Reading (thoughtfulbeliever.wordpress.com)