Think On These Things

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daily practice, gracious, honorable, just, life, mindfulness, Philippians, pure, qualities, spiritual growth, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, true, wisdom

I’m interested this morning in the lectionary text of St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians (4:6-9) as he is ready to conclude his message to them. He exhorts them to keep in mind certain qualities that will help them remain steady on the path of spiritual growth. He calls them to what is true, honorable, just, pure and gracious. I think that is a noble bundle of traits for the spiritual person. Living from that list, I can see myself acting in ways that will assure deeper wisdom and the peace that Paul promises them today.

So what will be required to develop those qualities for consistency in practice? Just that: practice! And in addition, I will need to stay awake when I begin to fall away from truth-saying or graciousness, etc. so that I can call myself back to mindfulness without delay. A big order. A plan for life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What’s Fair?

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fair, fairness, generosity, generous, God's way, Gospel, Jesus, justice, Philippians, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, vineyard, worker

The parables of Jesus often find us scratching our heads or grumbling about the outcome of the stories. This weekend’s gospel is one of the more familiar distressing examples. It’s that perplexing story of the workers in the vineyard who were paid what had been agreed upon at the beginning of the day. Fine, right? No, not really, since those who had been hired just an hour before the end of the workday, because no one had offered them work until then, got the same pay as those who had worked all day.

How are we able to make this a story of justice? It’s impossible really, but here’s where the reading from Isaiah comes in: “My thoughts are not your thoughts”, God says, “nor are my ways your ways.” We think everything should be fair. The person who cuts the pie must do so judiciously so that no one gets a bigger piece than anyone else. But sometimes some of the people don’t even get a bite, never mind a smaller piece! The workers who had been hired for the last hour were also probably standing out in the hot sun, hoping for someone to come and hire them so they could feed their family that day. And so God’s way prevailed.

So what is fair? Does it always mean everyone gets the exact same treatment or remuneration for the same circumstance? Or could it be that each person, being a unique reflection of the divine, should be considered individually according to need? We have been amazingly generous as a country over the past several weeks, reaching out to those affected by hurricanes or fires. People have given their time, their talent and their treasure to assure that anyone in need can receive as much help as can be given.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, all the time, we might be willing to fling open our hearts to those in need without stinting – as if everyone had a right to as much as everyone else? Isn’t that how we would always want God to treat us? Paul’s last line to the Philippians today calls them to “conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the gospel.” Perhaps we ought to try to remember that challenge ourselves as we listen to Jesus in the gospel today asking us, “Are you envious because I am generous?”

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.”

The Margin of Greatness

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A Deep Breath of Life, Alan Cohen, effort, faith formation, hope, kindness, lights, lights in the world, patience, Philippians, shine, simple practices, St. Paul, success, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

The verse before the gospel today was encouraging. From Paul’s letter to the Philippians, it urges us to shine like lights in the world as you hold on to the word of life. (2:15D, 16A) Thinking about my day yesterday with a group of parish faith formation leaders, some of whom who are wrapping up a challenging year in their churches, I was happy to reflect on their willingness to live in the reality of their experiences while still fanning the flame of hope in their hearts. The day was not an intensive, content-heavy experience but rather offered them some simple practices for everyday life that also included a brief nature walk and some poetry. The important element, as I saw it, was simply their presence together in community with no expectations except the support of one another. It was clear to me that they are, indeed, “lights in the world.”

I found the same spirit in Alan Cohen’s thought for June 16th in his book, A Deep Breath of Life. He was talking about baseball and how a batting average of .250 was a good predictor of a solid career if the player was also a decent fielder. In contrast, a player with a .300 batting average is a star. He pointed out that the difference between these two was one hit out of 20 times at bat. His reflection on that “margin of greatness” was the following.

Sometimes just a little effort is all we need to put us over the edge to huge success. In your career, family, or spiritual path try to stretch beyond your perceived limits. A little extra patience with a customer could make her a lifetime client and bring you her friends’ business. A seminar participant told me that she signed up for an intensive workshop simply because I had responded to a letter she had written me. An extra kind touch, one more deep breath, or a willingness to listen could make the difference between a modest salary and a million-dollar contract, or a life of mere survival and a glorious adventure.

I doubt that any of the people sitting in front of me yesterday will ever be a multi-millionaire, but I have a hunch that, in the end, they all have a good chance of looking back on their lives as a blessing – and maybe even a great and glorious adventure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If Only…

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Christ, encouragement, God, heart, humble, love, others, Peace, Philippians, psalm 131, quiet, Scripture, selfishness, solace, spirit, St. Paul, stillness, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, vainglory

Reading today’s assigned Scripture texts for liturgy made me wish everyone – from the famous to the infamous – would pay attention to the messages. First we have Paul pleading with the Philippians to be united and then in what we actually call the psalm response the psalmist takes a humble tone that might actually turn things around if all were to act out of it. I imagine it as a conversation between God and us today. See if that makes sense and what might be the result if everyone took it to heart.

GOD: Brothers and sisters, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love united in heart, thinking one thing. Do nothing out of selfishness or vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for your own interests but also everyone for those of others. (PHIL 2: 1-4)

US: O Lord, my heart is not proud, nor are my eyes haughty; I busy not myself with great things, nor with things too sublime for me. Nay rather, I have stilled and quieted my soul like a weaned child. Like a weaned child on its mother’s lap, so is my soul within me. In you, O Lord, I have found my peace. (Ps 131: 1-2)

Of Gnats and Camels

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camels, fidelity, fully human, gnats, hypocrites, injustice, Jesus, judgment, love, Matthew, mercy, Pharisees, Philippians, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, tithes

Sometimes in reading the gospels I am really convinced that Jesus was, as St. Paul tells us in the letter to the Philippians, fully human. On some occasions, Jesus gets really frustrated, as today in Matthew 23:23-26, when he takes the “Pharisees and hypocrites” to task for their behavior. No one could miss his point, but some of the images he uses to make those points are downright funny! I can just see him gathering steam as he goes into his condemnatory statement. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, he says. You pay tithes of mint and dill and cumin (really lightweight spices) and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. But these you should have done, without neglecting the others. Sounds like a reasonable speech so far, but wait for it…Here comes the punch line in case they missed the point: Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!

Just picture trying to take that sentence literally. Imagine the exasperation that caused Jesus to resort to such an extreme. It was the injustice of the powerful toward the “lowly ones” that he saw, not unlike some of what is going on today in many quarters. Some days, when the weather is so muggy that bugs abound, I need to remind myself to keep my mouth closed when I’m outside so I don’t inadvertently swallow a bug. It’s more of a mentally unpleasant experience than a difficult physical one but always distasteful nevertheless. Multiply it maybe a thousand times or more to get the size of a camel and it’s easy to see the extent of injustice of which Jesus speaks. No one should be allowed that level of power over another, and Jesus knew it.

May we call out injustice wherever we see it in our society. May we also beware of swallowing camels in our dealings with each other and even try to avoid the gnats of everyday living as we choose to walk the path where the constant measure of things is love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gain and Loss

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attitude, declutter, gain, Jesus, life, losing, loss, Matthew, Philippians, posessions, profit, soul, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, truth

In today’s gospel we find a paradoxical statement in which Jesus gives his followers the pattern of living that he, himself, has espoused and in the following of which they will find the fullness of life. (MT 16: 24-28) He says: Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. To clarify, he asks the following question: What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his [her] soul?

St. Paul speaks in the Letter to the Philippians of the great willingness of Jesus to surrender everything to teach us what is important, that is, the primacy of love. He writes: Have among yourselves the same attitude that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at. Rather he emptied himself…(Phil. 2:6-11) Later in that letter, Paul affirms that teaching/example of Christ in his own life by saying: I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Jesus Christ, my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things…(3:17)

So how might we interpret these words in today’s world? Especially in the cultures of the developed nations of our time it is difficult to let go of striving and of possessions to find interior peace – even when we assent intellectually to the value of such surrender. But more and more frequently I hear people speak of their need to “de-clutter” not only their closets (as I am doing with some success!) but also their lives which are so busy that there is little or no room for silence and communion with the Divine.

The point of Jesus and Paul was made simply and clearly for us at the end of the 20th century by Jesuit spiritual teacher, Anthony De Mello, who wrote: “How would spirituality help a man of the world like me?” asked the businessman. “It will help you to have more,” said the master. “How?” “By teaching you to desire less.” A paradox surely but one that can be proven truthful by those who have removed themselves from the “race to the top” in search of deeper meaning. We have many examples of how this works – from billionaires like Warren Buffett, whose countenance shines with the happiness of one who understands the value of “sharing the wealth” to people like the man in the news yesterday who walks the streets with his hair-cutting tools serving the homeless by shaving and cutting their hair for free.

It is the freedom that comes from this “losing” that is the “gain.” Not tied to riches or status or anything at all, we are free to serve whenever and wherever we are called. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to know this truth – but we can all start somewhere to “let go and let God” work in us. Every day is a new beginning and, for me, this one has just begun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Palm Sunday

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bad news, betrayal, crucifixion, death, faithfulness, Good News, Holy Week, Isaiah, Jerusalem, Luke, Palm Sunday, Philippians, praise, psalm 22, surrender, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, torture, trust

We have often heard the adage: “Good news, bad news – who knows!” The caution in this statement is about holding out until the end, when the final conclusion allows an informed assessment of whether the situation under consideration is, in fact, good or bad news.

Palm Sunday is the epitome of a good news/bad news story. We begin with Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem to jubilant chants of “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” (LK 19: 28-40) and end with the crucifixion, death and burial of Jesus as Luke tells the story (LK 22:14-23:56). Admittedly there is some telescoping of the time frame as we know the incidents happened over several days rather than all at once, but it is nevertheless a stunning example of the vicissitudes of crowd mentality.

Reflecting on this Sunday’s readings one realizes that the need for the faithful to wait for “the rest of the story” is implicit at each step. Isaiah’s words (IS 50: 4-7) paint a fearful picture of what the servant suffers in trying to speak God’s word to the weary: beatings, plucking of his beard, buffets and spitting. The message to us, however, is in the last verse where the prophet witnesses to God’s faithfulness in all the violence he has endured. The Lord God is my help, he says, therefore I am not disgraced. I have set my face like flint, knowing I shall not be put to shame.

The refrain of the responsorial psalm (PS 22): My God, my God, why have you abandoned me could be interpreted as despair of the crucified Jesus. Not so! Jesus, who likely knew all 150 psalms by heart, knew the ending. Like Isaiah, he trusted that whatever happened, God was faithful and worthy of praise: I will proclaim your name to my brethren, the psalmist sings; in the midst of the assembly I will praise him. (vs.23)

Even as we focus on reciprocal fidelity as the linchpin of relationship between God and Jesus, we know that the suffering endured in the Paschal Mystery was monumental. From betrayal of friends to physical torture and death, Luke’s gospel reminds us that Jesus trusted God and poured himself out in love for our sake. It would behoove us to spend time with this text seeing anew each compassionate encounter on his path from the Last Supper to the cross.

Only the Letter to the Philippians speaks from a post-resurrection perspective today (PHIL 2:6-11). It is the willingness of Jesus to surrender everything that leads to his exaltation as Lord. But let us not be too hasty to reach the finish line. Let us rather take every step of this Holy Week with Jesus, trusting as he did that the Lord God is our help.

Prepare the Way!

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Advent, blessings, Godspell, heart, Jesus Christ Superstar, music, Paul, Philippians, praise, prepare ye the way of the Lord, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Wisdom School

On this second Sunday of Advent, I am filled with the gospel acclamation: Prepare ye the way of the Lord! sung with drums and loud music in the score from either Godspell or Jesus Christ Superstar. (It’s been a long time since I have heard either but I can still feel the music – impossible to listen to sitting down!) I generally sense the days of Advent in a state of quiet anticipation but occasionally the magnitude of the promise breaks through and things get a little wild inside my heart.

I have that feeling this morning as we prepare to close another introductory wisdom school, this one very different from our experience of two weeks ago with 240 people. Here we have only eight participants but the time together has been similarly filled with grace. I often stop to marvel at the blessing that is mine to have such rare and yet frequent opportunities to gather with extraordinary people in order to deepen my consciousness of God working in the world and in my life.

So today I pray with Paul in his message to the Philippians that you may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that you may be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God. (Phil 1:8-11)

Synchronicity

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awareness, conscious, David Keller, death, gain Christ, God's presence, good, monk, Oasis of Wisdom, open heart, Paul, Philippians, presence, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

At a funeral this week and again in the gospel verse this morning, I read Paul’s declaration to the Philippians that I consider all things as loss (some translations say “rubbish”) that I may gain Christ and be found in him. (PHIL 3:8-9) While life in Christ is certainly my goal, I can’t say that everything else – and everyone – is that easy to discount. As I was pondering this, my eye fell on David Keller’s book, Oasis of Wisdom, about the world and words of the Desert Fathers and Mothers in the early days of Christianity. I opened the book at random (if such a thing exists) to page 72 where the heading read “Daily Awareness of One’s Death”. Instead of closing the book in distress I read the words of Abba Antony and Keller’s commentary that followed and found there a way to live into Paul’s words.

Abba Antony said: Therefore, my children, let us hold to the discipline and not be careless. For we have the Lord for our co-worker in this, as it is written. God works for good with everyone who chooses the good. And in order that we not become negligent, it is good to carefully consider the Apostle’s statement: I die daily.

David Keller comments: Abba Antony taught that a monk must live in such a way that the presence of God is always before him and, likewise, that God’s presence should become a reality in his manner of life. This manner of life is made possible by an open heart, an inner place that is always watchful and receptive to the presence of God.

What follows from all this for me is the necessity of always remaining conscious of the reality that all things are not to be despised but rather seen through the lens of God’s presence. In that way they become vehicles for deepening our life in God. Oh yes, and our willingness to let go of anything that impedes that deepening or clouds that lens is essential; thus, “dying every day” becomes a pattern for life. May it be so!