Everything Speaks

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desert, God's Word, listen, Moses, tell, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, word of life

I went out ten minutes ago (6:10 a.m.) to get my morning coffee and was greeted with the clearest sky possible, darkly shining in the moonlight with the morning star as brilliant as a huge diamond. I thought of a quote learned long ago: “The morning star shines clear in the sky, offering it the word of life.” After a glorious display, the light spreads quickly and the day begins again. I must not dawdle if I am to catch the show.

Yesterday, our “desert day” confirmed the truth of the desert Abba Moses in the following “word.”

“A certain brother went to Abba Moses in Scete and asked him for a good word. And the elder said to him: Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will tell you everything.”

I now know that if my cell is the night sky, or the glory of a rising sun, or just my morning coffee time on my bed, the word will be heard if, of course, I am listening well.

Thomas Merton, from the Desert

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abbas, ammas, desert, prayers, retreat, spiritual liberty, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, The Wisdom of the Desert, Thomas Merton, true self

It is 6:52 a.m. in Tucson, Arizona, and I am here to learn about those intrepid men and women known as the desert fathers and mothers (or Abbas and Ammas) of early Christianity (4th century), who left the cities to find their “true selves” in the  silence and solitude of the deserts of the Near East.

Later this morning I will set out and find a space in this desert place where I will be alone for just an hour without anything to distract me but my own thoughts. The rules are: no cellphone, no journal, no watch to tell when we should come back. “Watch the sky,” our teacher answered when that question came up. Just walk out, find a place and sit down. Simple? Not so much, since we are 21st century Americans.

Here’s what Thomas Merton said on the subject in his book, The Wisdom of the Desert:

“We cannot do exactly what they did. But we must be as thorough and as ruthless in our determination to break all spiritual chains, and cast off the domination of alien compulsions, to find out true selves, to discover and develop our inalienable spiritual liberty and use it to build, on earth, the Kingdom of God. This is not the place in which to speculate what our great and mysterious vocation might involve. That is still unknown. Let it suffice for me to say that we need to learn from these men [and women] of the fourth century how to ignore prejudice, defy compulsion and strike out fearlessly into the unknown.” (p.24)

This will obviously not be achieved any time soon but making a start seems important today. Prayers, please!

Temptation

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40 days, demands, desert, evil, fully divine, fully human, good, Jesus, Lenten gospels, Luke, sin, struggle, suffering, temptation., The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today in churches all over the world Christians hear about Jesus being tempted mightily by the devil. He is in the desert, a dangerous place to be even if one is just thinking about the weather which can include wild variations in temperature. Add the possibility of dust storms and no access to water if you’re stranded with the sun beating down and it is no wonder that, after forty days, Jesus was severely put to the tests described by Luke’s gospel. The last sentence in that account surprised me though, and had me wondering this morning if I had ever heard it – I mean really heard it – before. Rather than just saying that after Jesus withstood all the temptations “the devil left him,” Luke says, “When the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him for a time.” (LK 4:13)

No matter how one perceives the account of the temptations in the desert (different in each of the synoptic gospels) especially regarding the devil as a personification of evil and/or struggle to choose the good, we still have 2,000 years of hindsight to intuit the outcome of such an experience for Jesus, the Christ. However, modern Scripture scholars have brought us back to a more balanced view of Jesus as “fully human, fully divine.” After centuries of theological study focused on the divinity of Jesus, we have been called in recent history to remember that Jesus was “like us in all things but sin” – a very comforting thought for those of us who struggle with small and larger temptations on a regular basis. Perhaps that’s the great majority of us.

Just that small prepositional phrase – “for a time” – set me on a path of reflecting this morning on a way to reframe the difficulties Jesus experienced on his journey to Jerusalem. How did he deal with the demands of the increasingly large crowds that he encountered? We have examples of his need to escape for some quiet, but do we ever think of him saying to himself something like: “I’ve got to get out of here! They’re driving me crazy!” before he “went up the mountain alone?” What was the depth of his disappointment with the people he chose for his disciples when they failed to understand what he was trying to say? Did the loneliness of that reality ever threaten his determination to continue the mission he so clearly understood? Was he similarly distressed by the way people treated each other sometimes? Was he ever tempted to give in to despair?

Thus, although I have been aware of the difficulties that Jesus encountered in his public life and how he must have suffered as he moved toward his final destiny, I’m not sure I have ever given serious consideration to the part “temptation” played in that suffering. I think I considered that his battle with that was taken care of and once he exited the desert his struggles never caused him to question or falter. Now I wonder. And I will continue, as I read the Lenten gospels, to think in new ways about the path of Jesus and perhaps find new comfort for my own encounters with temptation.

Waiting and Watching

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crucifix, Cynthia Bourgeault, desert, Easter Vigil, entombment service, fidelity to Jesus, Good Friday, live in the present moment, Mark, Mary Magdalene, The Passion of Jesus Christ, the Resurrection of Christ, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, waiting

Today feels like “the day the earth stood still” (which I believe was a movie many years ago that I have no memory of except the title). I sensed that as I awoke to rain and darkness this morning, still holding the events of yesterday and last evening in my heart. I am on retreat and our Good Friday “Entombment Service” was a stark example of the kind of experience I was describing here yesterday.  The reading of the Passion from Mark’s gospel in sections of the day (6AM-9AM, 9AM-Noon, etc.), the  mournful chanting and the wrapping of the crucifix in the linen cloths as it lay on a table in the middle of the room brought the experience of Jesus’ death present in a most vivid way. It was clear in the slow, personal moments of each one of us moving to venerate the cross that we were grieving. And we will hold that attitude as we move through this last day together.

The mood will change in tonight’s first celebration of The Great Feast of Easter, the Vigil service recounting the movement from death to life. The first psalm of the service cries out: Lord, send out your Spirit and renew the face of the earth! What follows is the narration of our salvation history during which the sense of the light grows and hope returns until the bells ring out and we know Resurrection! Alleluia!

Living in the present moment is especially hard today. It would be much easier to focus on the future as we often do in the times when we would rather be there than in the moment where we find ourselves. But today gives us an opportunity to join ourselves to those people who are waiting for a good outcome of suffering, those who have no assurance that “all will be well” – nothing except their faith to keep them from despair. Here we will explore today the experience of “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary” whom the gospel tells us stayed at the tomb, without hope or reason to do so – just holding the space in reverence and fidelity to Jesus – as love calls us to do in times of great sorrow. We will wait in that “desert” with them, a time that will make all the more joyful our experience of the Resurrection of Christ and perhaps our own rising to fuller life as well.

May it be so with you!

PS: I leave early tomorrow morning for a week-long Wisdom School experience with Cynthia Bourgeault in the mountains of North Carolina. I can’t be sure of internet service there but will connect as I am able, definitely back by Monday 4/13.

Achilles’ Heels

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40 days, desert, Jesus, Matthew, resist, strength, temptation., The Sophia Center for Spirituality

This morning’s reading from Matthew’s gospel (4:1-11) is the familiar story that takes place as Jesus concludes his forty-day retreat in the desert in preparation for his public ministry. Having spent such a long period of time alone with no supports Jesus was, as the gospel says, rather understatedly, hungry. I would imagine he was also tired, dirty and lonely in a “fully human” way. Often it is when we are at our weakest, most vulnerable – which sometimes may come even during an extended retreat alone with God – that we are tempted with the illusions that will take us off our spiritual path. This is what happened to Jesus when the devil appeared offering Jesus power, pleasure and riches. We tend to think the outcome of this scenario was a “no-brainer”; Jesus was the Messiah, after all. I think it behooves us to take another look at what is portrayed as a short encounter but perhaps took place over an extended period of cajoling and threatening. (Keep in mind our belief that Jesus “was like us in all things but sin” which doesn’t mean resisting temptation was easy but rather that he succeeded in doing so in the end.) My gratitude this morning is that – at whatever cost – Jesus was able to resist changing some of those stones into bread (the simplest of the devil’s taunting suggestions). I can use that example of strength when I encounter similar temptations – or any others – along the way.

Today then I hope to inventory what I know are temptations to be less than I can be and look to the strength of Jesus for ways to be aware of slippage in my thoughts and actions, remembering always that the one I serve is God.