Kenosis

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all-knowing, Christianity, God, Incarnation, Jesus, kenosis, kingdom of God, Paul, Philippians, Redeemer, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I’ve just spent a bit of time reading internet information about the Greek word kenosis. After plowing through much theological language seeking something different – since I know I have written about this before – I decided ( at the risk of repeating myself) just to say a few words about the concept as it appears in Paul’s letter to the Philippians (ch. 2:6-11) and as I have come to appreciate it in my life.

In many religious traditions, including Christianity, God is seen as all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful, as well as abiding in ” the kingdom of heaven” which is viewed as far from us and from our earthly dwelling place. As we progress in holiness of life, we come closer to God and hopefully, in the end, abide in heaven for eternity. Theological and spiritual traditions often refer to these concepts as The Master Story.

With the doctrine of the Incarnation, i.e. Jesus, “who was by nature God, but who did not cling to Godliness, rather taking on human form,” put a new spin on thinking about God and us. Because the one we know as Christ, the Redeemer, entered human existence as “one like us in all things but sin,” the distance between us and God is collapsed and we can know the kingdom of God within us through the teachings and example of Jesus. Just as Jesus “emptied himself” so must we do the same – letting go of self-interest in favor of love for others. In doing so, living every day in love and actions that reflect the life of Christ more and more deeply, we will truly become the image and likeness of God that we were created to be.

This sounds so simple on paper but in reality is the most profound message – for me, at least – that I have found as a goal for life. I am happy to be reminded of it again today and every day in the simple word “kenosis.”

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A Bit of Myself

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A Deep Breath of Life, Acts of the Apostles, Alan Cohen, aloud, Christianity, energy, essence, flavor, humility, piece of good, preaching, shining, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, unique dimension, whole

When I stumbled into the kitchen this morning for my coffee, everyone was there and all three were wide awake. Someone commented that “the early bird catches the worm” to which another replied, “Ah, yes, but the later one gets the filet mignon!” (Cheery repartee for 6:30AM!)

Back in my room, I felt as if St. Paul would have fit quite well in our kitchen today with his usual high energy. As often in the Acts of the Apostles, Paul was vigorously preaching to anyone who would listen – today in Antioch with a history lesson of the Hebrew people – from Egypt, through judges and kings, all the way to John the Baptist and Jesus. With each lectionary cycle I grow in admiration for Paul whose gifts and willingness certainly rank among the most influential for the spread of Christianity.

Then I need to remind myself that each of us has our piece to add to the good of the whole. At a recent reflection day, I asked the participants to name one of their personal gifts or talents. It took a bit of coaxing for a few but I was gratified that we seem to be owning our unique ways of shining in the world better these days than when some of us were taught that self-deprecation was a synonym for humility.

Alan Cohen has a nice reminder about this point today in his book, A Deep Breath of Life. On a page entitled “A Bit of Myself” he writes the following:

Everything we do has our flavor in it. To do anything without your essence would be as impossible as the sun shining without heat. Your essence is the unique dimension you add to any act you express, from walking your dog to building a skyscraper. It is the special energy that you came to deliver to the world. Just as no two fingerprints are alike, every individual has a uniquely beautiful contribution to offer. 

Why not stop – right now – and dig deep for that special essence, then find a mirror and speak it aloud for all the world to hear!

Holy Week

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Christianity, devotion, Easter, Holy Week, prayer, solemn, spiritual practices, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Well, it seems that best-laid plans only work if the planner follows through. The set of quotes I promised you is sitting in my computer at my sister’s house, ready and willing to be sent to Mary Pat – had I but remembered to send them on their way!

So now we are in Holy Week, the most solemn week of the year in Christianity. I am so aware of diversity these days and edified by the spiritual practices of devoted individuals and groups that my hope is to widen the lens of my own devotion in the days leading to Easter. Won’t you join me in seeking some new thought or prayer at least once this week – as you also rest in the practices that you hold dear?

Holy Innocents

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Aleppo, Barbara Abdeni Massaad, children, Christianity, disease, holy innocents, Soup For Syria, starvation, Syria, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, violence, war

Today in Western Christianity (and tomorrow in the East) we celebrate the feast of The Holy Innocents. Herod the Great, an insecure king of Judea, was fearful of any threat to his throne. When astrologers from the East who had come to pay homage to the “newborn king” Jesus and eluded him upon their departure without giving up his whereabouts to Herod, the king became furious and ordered all boys under the age of two years to be killed. This slaughter puts one in mind of children in war-torn countries today who, though innocent in every way, die each day from violence, starvation or disease.

I have rarely, if ever, been as distressed about the plight of the world’s children as I have been in the past year seeing newsfeed of the children who are attempting to flee tyranny and danger. Especially moving to me are the pictures from Syria, recently and most dramatically, those from Aleppo. I carry the images with me everywhere, lamenting my inability to effect any tiny change to the situation.

Miraculously, I saw on the news some days ago, the story of a woman – a Lebanese American photographer and chef – who has been taking soup to a refugee camp on the Lebanese-Syrian border. Her name is Barbara Abdeni Massaad and over the past year she had created a project called Soup For Syria. Garnering recipes from 80 famous chefs for soups from different cultures, she wrote a 208-page book in less than one year which includes the recipes and wonderful food photography as well as photographs of the refugees. One of the celebrity chefs, Roden, “hopes the book helps to keep the plight of Syrian refugees in peoples’ minds and that it will raise funds to alleviate their awful living conditions until their future is settled.”  (www.theguardian.com)

The wonderful thing about this for me is knowing that the Interlink Publishing Group has pledged that 100% of the proceeds from the book sold in the United States will go to fund the food relief efforts of the United Nations High Command on Refugees for Syria. There is a movement to get people involved in this project, found on the website soupforsyria.com. My hope is to organize a soup supper in my town – maybe many! – where the price of admission is the cost of the book that will be available at the event. I read this morning that the book is temporarily out of stock because of the great demand – which makes me happy and gives me time to get organized. A reprint is underway and new orders will be ready to ship in February, so I need to get busy.

I know that my efforts will not change the face of the refugee crisis in the world. But I will at least add my small piece to the solution, knowing that some of the Holy Innocents in our world will be fed!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early Returns

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anger, Christianity, Cynthia Bourgeault, election, hope, Luke, purify, risk taking, stillness, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, weep, wisdom, wisdom words

Over the last eleven years I have become part of an ever- expanding community of seekers under the tutelage of Cynthia Bourgeault, author of groundbreaking books and leader of retreats and “schools” offering insights into the deep stream of wisdom that exists as the bedrock of Christianity and, one could add, of all the world’s major faith traditions. This past week there has been a steady stream of e-mail messages among us – mostly brief but meaningful – as a result of the outcome of our national elections. This morning, I re-visited the 29 of those received that I have saved for further pondering. It seems to me that they echo the last line of this morning’s gospel reading which says, By perseverance you will secure your lives. (LK 21:19). Here are just a few of their “wisdom words” for your consideration:

Jane: I am holding hope and stillness along with sadness.

Bob: Business as usual is over. Time to dig deep and find ways to connect our lives more fully with what is broken in the world. Time for risk-taking in our own lives.

Lisa: …time to be still, quiet and receive…time to re-member.

Bill: Today, maybe even for just a short while, we weep. The tears can purify the heart and keep us from acting with too much anger and/or reactivity…

Power in Simplicity

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Augeries of Innocence, celebrate, chants, Christianity, cross, crucifixion, eternity, Good Friday, Great Vigil of Easter, Jesus, resolve, Sacred Scripture, silence, suffering, surrender, taize, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, transformation, William Blake, willingness

I had never read the entirety of William Blake’s poem, Augeries of Innocence, until just now but the first lines, so familiar, came to me as I sat to write about my experience of last evening – the second step on my Triduum journey. I chose to participate in a service that comes from the monks of Taize, an ecumenical community in a tiny village in France. The prayer is steeped in silence, punctuated by repetitive chants and occasional readings from Sacred Scripture or the writings of early Christianity. Having experienced and led many services in the manner of Taize, it was an easy decision for me to make that my formal prayer for Good Friday.

Blake’s poem begins: To see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower   Hold infinity in your hand and eternity in an hour. Entering into a darkened church with two Sisters from my community, having greeted the music director at the door, was a fitting beginning to this hour of prayer. When I see Jan, the organist, I am always thrown back to images of him, a seven-year-old boy, practicing at the piano in his home while a group of us rolled meatballs with his Italian mother for a school fundraiser. How has he become such a virtuoso, now a man with his own grown children, in the proverbial “blink of an eye?”

We sing a repeated refrain: All you who pass this way, look at me, while Jan describes in verse the sufferings of Jesus on the cross. The music rises and falls while I alternately close my eyes and open to the images of the large wooden cross at the foot of the sanctuary and the painting of the crucifixion scene over the altar, the only lighted spot in the church. After more emotionally stunning music and a long period of silence, I watch my 82-year old friend of 45 years pull herself up out of her seat next to me to join the procession of people on their way to kiss or touch the cross. Seeing it as holy, they bend in gratitude for the willingness of Jesus to take on the sins of the world. Watching my friend struggle up the aisle, I see that same willingness. After falling three times over the past year, sustaining permanent injury to her back, she is now a witness to the power of her resolve not to give up on life. I weep for the loss of her younger self, all the while knowing that now is her inner reward.

All of the elements of this service come together in reflection on the power of what is happening to Jesus as we sing the hymn that recognizes the transformation that is afoot. O Christe Domine Jesu, O Christe Domine Jesu…we chant. My eyes travel up to the archway above the crucifixion scene where the Christ is seated in the glory of heaven, having passed through death to resurrection. “He was known to be of human estate,” Paul writes, “and it was thus that he humbled himself, obediently accepting even death, death on a cross. Because of this, God highly exalted him…”  As that quotation flashed into my mind, I knew something that I had never seen as clearly, something I can only describe as the efficacy and transforming power of willingness to surrender everything for the life of the world. And in that moment, that surrender, the Jesus of history – the suffering servant – was also the Christ of my faith. Time was erased. Jan was both that young boy struggling with his musical scales and this accomplished musician, playing for God. Florence was both the dynamic high school biology teacher loved by her students and the struggling octogenarian determined to live as fully as possible in praise of God’s goodness to her.

Today is the waiting day, a day to hold the eternity of last night in my hand, reflecting on how willing I am to be transformed in response to what I now know, so that when I go tonight to re-enact the Great Vigil of Easter, I will truly be able to celebrate – with all my companion travelers – the joy and mystery of resurrection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conversion

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Acts of the Apostles, Christianity, conversion, Corinthians, endures, kind, love, patient, St. Paul, the slow work of God, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, truth, walk with God

St. Paul was, by all accounts, a passionate and zealous man, both before and after his conversion to Christ. That dramatic moment, chronicled in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 9, seems fitting and perhaps necessary for one so focused on his mission in life. His whole life journey changed in a blinding (literally) flash of light and a voice that he recognized as divine. Interestingly, the story goes that his companions saw the light but did not hear the voice. For that reason, perhaps, and for all that followed that coincided with the instructions given to Paul, it was easier for the witnesses to comprehend the total turnaround in his behavior. The comment that concludes the short biography of Paul on the americancatholic.org website this morning speaks of Paul’s style of writing as “rabbinical” and sometimes difficult to understand at its depth, but that in it we find so many beautiful jewels that have become part of the everyday coin in our Christian language. The quote they chose to illustrate this fact is certainly one of the most familiar and bears repeating as we consider the contribution of Paul to the spread of Christianity.

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interest, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things…(1COR 13:4-7)

For most of us conversion is a daily thing, perhaps punctuated with brief moments of insight that keep us moving along our spiritual path. While we sometimes long for  more visible and dramatic events to transform us, the value of a steady, day-to-day walk with God cannot be underestimated. Moreover, the example of those who live Paul’s defining words of love in all they do can remind us of the beauty of each life and can help us to humbly embrace our own as “the slow work of God.”

Christmas Blessings Abound!

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blessings, Christianity, Christmas story, Cynthia Bourgeault, hope, joy, pageant, Shristmas, Sisters of St. Joseph, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Wisdom School

I had the rare privilege as evening came yesterday of participating in a Christmas liturgy that began with a brief “pageant” starring the youngest members of the parish. Although they performed their designated tasks with just a bit of prompting from the faith formation director, virtually unseen in the front pew, they were totally themselves, not concerned with being “perfect” but rather being part of something important. And why should they have worried? We all know the Christmas story, after all! Later in the evening, I followed Santa (thanks to the NORAD site) in his progress around the globe, from the Ukraine through Peru and Ecuador to Colombia, praying as I watched for the children in those countries who believe in possibility and keep hope alive for a full and joyful life. This morning as I checked that Santa was safely back at the North Pole, I scanned the globe and saw the statistic that announced Santa’s delivery of 7,281,439,471 gifts! I was hoping that many of the gifts contained a measure of joy not only for the children but for families as well.

As I reflect on all of this I am very aware of how wide my world has become because of the internet, membership in the Sisters of St. Joseph, participation in the web of Wisdom seekers who share in the “lineage” of Cynthia Bourgeault and Christianity. I am grateful for relationships of family and friends and for the reminder of all these connections because of the event that is commemorated on this holiday (holy day). May we all drink deeply of the well of love that is the reason we gather to celebrate today. Christmas Blessings to all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diving Deep

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article of faith, Christianity, Ephesians, Eucharist, Jesus, John, one, Paul, Proverbs, psalm 34, remain, Taste and See, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, the will of God, wisdom, wisdom of knowing

Having just seen the ocean from a distance and longing to dive right in – one of my favorite metaphors for going deeper into mystery – I was drawn by the first line of the first reading to the topic of Wisdom this morning. Staying on the surface, taking things literally, does not allow us to understand the depths of things, perhaps especially when we are speaking of faith.

When Proverbs (9:1-6) tells us that Wisdom has built herself a house, we know that it would be impossible for a concept, an abstract characteristic, to accomplish such an architectural feat. So the author reminds us to forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding, and in this case that is easily done. Not so easy with the psalm refrain that sings (for the second time recently): Taste and see the goodness of the Lord. (PS 34) Paul is right there with advice about how to deal with that one as he says to the Ephesians (5:15-20) Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise…Do not continue in ignorance, but try to understand what is the will of God.

All of that is preamble to the crux of the message in this morning’s Scripture readings. It is John’s gospel that contains more of the “hard sayings” than the others, and the hardest of all is perhaps what we hear this morning (JN 6:51-58). Jesus says that whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life…whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in them. Theologians have wrestled with this “article of faith” throughout the history of Christianity and belief in interpretation varies, but I’m thinking this morning of how shocking it must have been for those crowds of people who were listening to those words spoken for the first time by Jesus – probably most of them having no concept of metaphor or any way to understand what is obviously a deeper truth than the surface meaning.

It is the word remain that is the touchstone for me as I participate in Eucharistic liturgies and trust that something of Christ’s life remains in my spirit as the Eucharistic species are assimilated into my body. The more conscious I become about that truth, the more I will understand what Jesus was talking about on that shocking, long ago day. Then, and only then, will I be transformed, forsaking the foolishness that says I am separated from others and coming to trust the wisdom of knowing that we are all one, as Jesus knew and lived, and lives still in us.

Collaboration

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Acts of the Apostles, Christianity, discernment, ecumenical, mosaic law, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

As a result of missionary work by St. Paul and his companions, there were many non-Jews who embraced the message of Christianity. Inevitably, as in any growing organization, questions of correct practice began to emerge. In today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles (15:1-6) we see the serious question: Must the Gentiles first become Jewish (i.e. follow Jewish law/practice) in order to become Christian? The questions were about the necessity of circumcision and other tenets of Mosaic Law. This moment in history was a crucial one and occasioned the first “ecumenical” (or “whole church”) council – the 23rd of which was the monumental Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965 that transformed the Roman Catholic Church in many ways.

Today’s reading stops short of the decisions of the Council of Jerusalem (stay tuned) but the important line for me was the last of today’s text: The Apostles and the presbyters met together to see about this matter. In times of confusion or disagreement about serious issues, whether in family, church or in any organization, we can do no better than to come together in a stance of discernment to find the best direction in which to proceed. Discernment is not about the strongest person or group prevailing. It is about deep listening to one another in trust that all have the good of the whole in view, allowing a solution to emerge from the silence that accompanies the conversation. It is, if allowed to be so, a holy thing to experience, as the result may be something that no one in the group has foreseen that arises from the common spirit existing deep within each and all of the participants. It is the way of the heart.