Christian Women Are Aborting Their Daughter's...

Many Roman Catholic and Christian woman are guilty of abortion. That’s right. Abortion.
They have been aborting some of the brightest intellects and some of the greatest artists, writers, musicians, some of the finest teachers, preachers and pray-ers.  On the other hand, Christian women are excellent consumers.  I have found the best handwringers in Christian circles.  We're great accusers, get high scores in "circling the wagons" when necessary.  But I have been sickened by what I call the princess-syndrome: this is where we guard young girls from exercising their minds in difficult situations (do we expect their prince to spring to their side?).  Still, there are times we encourage their intellectual growth--but only to a point--once they're grown they seem to have no more need for their brain: just exchange recipes, sweet deals, and travel/mission experiences. Singing and playing piano or organ is a thumbs-up.
Serious theology, preaching, and serious talk is frowned upon; if you are serious about prayer and "deeper work within" -- well, those are akin to "extra credit" and not a norm for every able-minded Christian. The most common excuse is our lack of time--then spend 2 hours watching a feel-good movie that makes us feel-good about our own mediocrity. We do have the time-we're just copping out. Hard words? Perhaps. True words? Yes, I am certain that the only thing we are to be baby-like in is in regard to evil (doing evil).
I will admit I was in denial about the Barbie-like attitude towards life Christian women were encouraged to live in. But once the fog cleared from my brain, I stopped attending women's conferences and buying women's books at Christian book stores. Dumbing down a book or sermon might have broad appeal, but is it necessary? Doubly insulting is that both the writing and the content are dumbed down.
Some of you don't believe me: well, here is a sample of something for “Christian women:”
"One of my favorite foods on earth is fresh, hot, homemade apple muffins. I make them occasionally when I have time and enjoy one with a fresh brewed pot of coffee. I take the muffin, the coffee, and the newspaper, and sit on my patio (sometimes with the neighborhood cats) relishing the beginning of a new day. All my senses are pleased. Complete satisfaction. " - Luci Swindoll, I Married Adventure
If this were merely the beginning of a great book I wouldn't include it, but it's not. I would never recommend it for a Christian--or nonChristian, it's like a chat with a nice, but slightly shallow friend (I am sure Ms Swindoll's a lovely person). But my point remains: we do harm to ourselves by publishing, buying and recommending books. What's the harm? Christian books of this type don't sharpen my mind, they flatten it. I still have a spirit of inquiry, I desire discussion and exchange with the author. Our interests ought to be piqued not squelched nor distracted.
How does this connect with practical theology? Many Christian women go through the motions of missions, social justice, and fellowship. But, is it missing something: that is, do we do it with understanding? Have we read, reflected, and grasped our piece in the global setting, historical landscape of time, and the Spiritual Body of Christ?
Or, do we roll along, struggling, to be nice, hoping to please our neighbor most of the time now, and God in the end when our "good works" balance out our bad? If so, we don't understand what it is to be a Christian.
I believe in, but also like the weightiness and succinctness of The Apostles Creed--and it ends this way: "I believe in the Holy Spirit; the holy catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. In our life the Holy Spirit at work now, and our life is in His Kingdom here and now; the church is universal--and let me skip to the point--what do you think you will be doing in your resurrected body? Eating fresh, hot muffins on your front porch?
Our Christian calling is for progress: for ourselves, each other and the world: Christ's redemption in this world does not end in me: no, it begins. And each thing I do (or chose not to do), hidden or open, in private or in public, here and now, counts in eternity. Jesus said, "Go make disciples...," not mere converts.  Be a disciple, let's do more--and demand more--from our Christian authors, screen writers and artists of all sorts.
On The Image of God:
"Those things which are said of God and other things are predicated neither univocally nor equivocally, but analogically... Accordingly, since we arrive at the knowledge of God from other things, the reality of the names predicated of God and other things is first in God according to His mode, but the meaning of the name is in Him afterwards. Wherefore He is said to be named from His effects."
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles

Not Feeling Spiritual? Take Heart!

“The emotions of the interior life have been the focus of much counsel…the Abbe de Tourville (1842-1903) is confident of the presence and transcendence of God and also that self-giving is the essence of spiritual life. ‘The best thing is not to see your Lord do away our difficulties,’ he writes, ‘as to see Him sustain us through them…[and] do not be distressed by lack of fervor [on your part] and consolations [from others]. These will come in their own way...
Our Lord wants you to become mature, and maturity needs these periods of obscurity, of disillusionment and boredom. Maturity comes when we have at last realized that we must love our Lord simply and freely in spite of our horrible unworthiness and of the unworthiness of nearly everything around us. Then a new and lasting Incarnation of our Lord takes place in our souls as it were. He begins to live a new life within us in the very midst of the misery of the world. That is why the greatest saints have always shown the perfect combination of nearness to our Lord on the one hand, and a deep sense of their own unworthiness and weakness on the other.’”

• From: The Disciple: Following The True Mentor by James M Houston
  davidcook.com, publisher

Martha Re-Examined

If you've been a Christian for a while, you likely know what the "Martha Syndrome" is. Succinctly, it's falling into the trap of worry and distractions which steal from recognizing God and giving Him due place in life.
I'd like to re-examine Martha later in the gospels - in John 11- because if we examine her here, I wonder if Martha made more progress towards faith than is normally assigned to her. Look at her encounter with Jesus after Lazarus died in John 11, beginning at verse 1:
John 11:1-44
Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick." When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it."
Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days. Then he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea." "But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?" Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world's light. It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light." After he had said this, he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up." His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better." Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him." ... On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother.
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
"Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."
Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."
Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
"Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."

It seems outstanding that Martha responds not only to Jesus' question of her understanding of his mission, but that she connects his mission with his being.
By contrast, look at other places where Jesus is affirmed as the Son of God-pay attention to the circumstance surrounding the affirmations:

John 1:32-34 - John saw the sign of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus' baptism and he declared: "Then John gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God."
Matt 14:25-33 - when Peter walked on the water, the disciples were afraid and thought he was a ghost. And, the worshipped him.
14:28 "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water." "Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God." (Matt 14:8-33)
John 1:47-50 - Nathanael - "When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, "Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false." "How do you know me?" Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, "I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you." Then Nathanael declared, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel." Jesus said, "You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that."
John 20:30-32 - The end of the book of John-a summary of the purpose of the gospel of John. "Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."

In John 11 we read that Martha believed 1) Jesus was the Life, 2) Jesus was the Son of God.
In the passages listed right above, of all the people who were recorded as stating Jesus is the "Son of God, " Martha is the only one who stated this without having seen a 'sign' or miraculous event.
I causes me to at least wonder why it is that Martha undestood who Christ was without the benefit of a miraculous event. ? In this respect she is similar to those believers of whom Jesus said, "Blessed rather are those who believe but have not seen." In this respect, Martha is the anti-thesis to (doubting but honest) Thomas.
It seems that faith, that attribute so highly esteemed in the Bible, was hers. No, she was  not perfect (as we can see from the previous mention of her in Luke and from the rest of this chapter)-but she was believing. "Be not weak in faith, but be strong in believing."
So I wonder from the passage in John 11 and because Martha, Mary and Lazarus were called  "loved of Jesus," if we are misinterpreting her progress from being a distracted person to a strong disciple? I wonder if  she merits a different reputation.
Goodness, we all know disciples is not always right. But we also know that progress in faith makes for growth as a disciple. 

Count Me But Dung (Philippians 3:8 and 9)

I came of age in the 1960’s-someone in that era introduced me to the magazine “Psychology Today.” I don’t know what it looks like in 2010, but my guess is that they could recycle the content of most of the editions I read back then today without much change. Though I had never taken a psychology course, it was an easy read. It was appealing, because it mirrored me-and as any young person-I enjoyed the view.
That was fine when I was young, the magazine was new to me, and I was not a Christian.
But I am grown now. I would like to believe that there should be a time when Christians put away the self-absorption that goes on in non-Christian circles.
But it is troubling to find out that this is often not the case. When I sit in a group of Christians, I find them addressing their problems, not with God, in prayer, or in confidence but with the fellow Christians: as if we were to have the magic pill to swallow so they would no longer have fear, anxiety or worry. Most often the answers they are seeking are not from God—but from within.
Worse than that, I find that narcissism has so taken root in our Christian communities that “sharing” is done as a venue for expressing our own “concerns.” God doesn’t seem to be sufficient (wow!) Jesus Christ becomes is a platform and a springboard to discussing me, not the Alpha and Omega, Beginning and the End. With apologies to the lyricist, the song "It's All About You, Jesus" comes to mind. Notice the wandering of the lyrics:
"It's all about You, Jesus
And all this is for You
For Your glory and your fame
It's not about me
As if You should do things my way
You alone are God
And I surrender to your ways
Jesus lover of my soul
All consuming fire is in Your gaze
Jesus, I want you to know
I will follow you all my days"
(Italics added)
The lyrics start off in the right direction, turn around to the first-person (me), then wander back to God, veering off again to speak of the "wants" of the first person. There is more to that song, but the content is clearly on the first person. Unfortunately, the lyrics to the song exemplify the thinking patterns of many Christians.  Why is it that we couch our self-obsession with spiritual language? Is it because we are so lonely or because we know we will have an audience that way-or is it both? Is it because we have not lost our first love—since our first love is ourself, we’ve never fully relinquished self-love, and so cannot dream of relinquishing navel-gazing?
Richard Lovelace writes: “Many Evangelicals today lose interest rapidly in preaching [if] … it fails to home in immediately on ‘spiritual’ issues in their lives. [Or]…are so tied up in programs of spiritual self-improvement that they have no time to care about anything but the throbbing self-concern at the center of their consciousness.” “[In contrast]…a[n] appropriation of primary elements of spiritual dynamics settles personal problems and sets the individual Christian free from self-concern to care for others and for society. It clears the way for the Holy Spirit to fill the horizon of consciousness with the love for God and mankind and causes self-concern to dwindle to a small, steady awareness of self-affirmation grounded on the love of God.” (“Dynamics of Spiritual Life, p 383)
Long ago I settled the fact that my feelings have little to do with my Christian growth. Feelings are an unwieldy by nature. Feelings are apt to be so palpable one hour, and the next to be seem so distant, if the memory of those feelings are still there, they are as a mist seen from a parallel universe. As a result, to use feelings as a gauge of my “spirituality” or “growth” is pretty well an empty well. To plum the depths of my spirituality by taking my emotional pulse is using a broken standard, much like using a thermometer that is inaccurate or a clock that is too fast or too slow.
However, to be fair, I will admit that there can be a great deal of religious activity can and is done without an informed mind, an enlightened conscience, and a loving heart. That does not mean that is good, either. Yet I still have hope that one can become a balanced (though not 100 percent of the time), Christian.
I have this hope when I look at people I know who (despite their flaws) are balanced. I also realize that there are many, many believers who preceded me who were the same. One example are John and Charles Wesley.  The Wesleys (were Anglican, so were orthodox) struck a strong chord with the truly Christian believers because they combined private practice, an informed Christianity and social action. Charles Wesley, who wrote so many hymns avoided making God into a psychological crutch because he had a solid biblical understanding of God. Wesley was able to put into lyrics the cry of human longings for the ineffable God. Here is one example:

I want a principle within of watchful, godly fear,
A sensibility of sin, a pain to feel it near.
I want the first approach to feel of pride or wrong desire,
To catch the wandering of my will, and quench the kindling fire.

From Thee that I no more may stray, no more Thy goodness grieve,
Grant me the filial awe, I pray, the tender conscience give.
Quick as the apple of an eye, O God, my conscience make;
Awake my soul when sin is nigh, and keep it still awake.

Almighty God of truth and love, to me Thy power impart;
The mountain from my soul remove, the hardness from my heart.
O may the least omission pain my reawakened soul,
And drive me to that blood again, which makes the wounded whole.
- By Charles Wesley

I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. – Jesus Christ, John 10:10b

Serving Humanity Since Adam (figuring it all out... or not)

Irreducible Christianity:
I've been a Christian for decades and yet every week, at least once a week, I am struck by how one tends to reduce life, Christianity and God till they are mere shadowy outlines, if that, barely resembling (and sometimes not) what actually exists. Simply put, have you ever tried to describe yourself to someone? I think the younger you are, the easier it is. Once you pass a certain age, you likely have left off with the herd mentality and realize how difficult it is to describe your preferences and talents in a few sentences. Presumption is pretty much always a dangerous thing.
Struggle, knowledge, feelings and self-knowledge:
I know I don't know much about God but as a learner (which is what a disciple of Christ is), there is much trial and error involved. Trial-and-error means I will be wrong, come up empty-handed and actually fail. How do you feel when you fail? I feel frustrated, angry and sometimes disappointed.
But-and this is important-when God's truth and my pure human passion (for God) meet, it is at this juncture where "the trees of knowledge and of life grow together" - each containing "some blood and sap."
And when there is this co-mingling of God's gracious truth and my sincere desire, my entire appetite, that something happens. It seems that this is the place where the Spirit of Christ works in a person's life. God's truth is no longer inert; its catalyst is my appetite. No, that's not entirely accurate, for my appetite is unstimulated in a mere brush with God's Truth. Likewise mere doctrinal truth – which is in a sense information – can never transform a person.
Yet, in these learning moments as a Christian, something has happened. It has not happened purely by an act of my will nor as a result of my feeling something (emotion). In these learning moments God has in His way created and is creating life. Upon reflection, I am, in a sense, living history which is uninterpretable by myself.
Uninterpretable because I am the subject, and so I can communicate, but I cannot interpret properly since I have no basis for objectivity. At the same time, I cannot afford luxury of subjectivity (since subjectivity is being interpreting ones feelings back to oneself).

So, what do I know about transformation? Like I said, it takes Him, and my willingness to move forward meekly. God's stock-in-trade is people. I am happy that He's been in the People-Creation Business since Adam.
: )

The Realtor Was Wrong; It's "Motivation, Motivation, Motivation"

Don’t ask me to talk to your teenager about the state of his soul, please don’t. I will end up asking him questions about himself rather than presenting him with this very serious theological topic. My goal will probably not be the same as yours--to get him 'born again.'
If I recall properly, your teenager takes nothing more seriously than his “owning” his “identity.” And though "scaring" a teen towards God might work in the shortrun, it seems that God’s timetable is a lifetime.  With regards to the teen,  we would do well to pay attention to the state of the "patient" rather than rushing directly to the goal.
This me to the topic of motivation and how people come to faith.
I reflect on my childhood mind and my spiritual development. I grew up in the 1950’s, attending Mass every Sunday (and the Holy Days). My spiritual life was self-contained (therefore arrogant and blissful) ignorance. I thought I had it sewn up, for I knew about prayer-I knew the Lord’s prayer and had begun the “Hail Mary.” I felt I was doing pretty well—you might say I was on a casual first-name basis with God. I knew him less well than I might know a mailman or doctor, of course, but there was a sense of easy acquaintance.
Then around 6 years old, I attended catechism class and I ran into the concept of sin, and hell. I was horrified-and terrified. How could such a thing have happened to my benign concept of God? My mind went immediately  to the practical: I raised my hand to ask the nun a question so we could remedy our problem Straightfacedly, as only children can do, using the illustration the nun gave (as an analogy), I took it literally. I asked her why couldn’t the doctor perform “an operation to remove the stain on our soul” put there by sin. (This illustration shows not only how literal my mind was but how urgent a situation it was to me.)
It was a shock, for up until then, I had a vague and subjective idea of how to be acceptable to God, and I had not even a suspicion that you could love God, nor what loving God would appear to resemble.
For a long period of my youth I carried correct theological information, but I had no sense of appetite for God: it wasn't a dull appetite, it was a dead appetite. It is because of this experience (I confess) that I do not normally recommend preaching about hell and sin to nonbelievers. First, it seems to be the least effective way to make a convert. Second, (and I think more importantly) the impetus for faith does not come from a desire to stay away from damnation, but from an internal compulsion for only what God can give.
Faith built on fear is no faith at all: it is avoidance. Since Jesus asked his apostles to make disciples, and not mere converts, we need to follow His direction.
When I reflect on the pre-catechism child, I see that little child patterns that resemble patterns of thought found in most areligious people, i.e., a vague sense of who God is, what His role might be, but He’s mostly irrelevant. And when I reflect on the post-catechism child, I recognize a more informed person, but merely an informed person. In this way I resembled many religious, well-intentioned people.
But in that child, there resided no desire to be a Christian that came from reverential love, but it stemmed mostly from fear, and a desire to avoid bad consequences. She did not have even the beginning of a transformed heart, I was not a disciple.

A disciple will want to do the right things - and be conjoined with God because he loves:
“Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” (John 14:22,23)
The Spirit of Christ works in transforming a person, and for that is a co-operative venture between the person, and the Spirit.

So, when I was a youth the spiritual landscape was only beginning to be “mapped out.” I was like someone who had the directions to New York City, but not the tickets, or reservations. Later, when I committed to knowing who this God was, that I boarded the airplane and actually took the trip and experienced New York City.

CS Lewis has a section in which he reflects on people’s reasons to believe, a detour he makes after remarking on a period wherein the Old Testament is silent on eternal destiny of the Jews:
“Is it possible for men to be too much concerned with their eternal destiny? In one sense, paradoxical as it sounds, I should reply, Yes.
For the truth seems to me to be that happiness or misery beyond death, simply in themselves, are not even religious subjects at all. A man who believes in them will of course be prudent to seek the one and avoid the other. But that seems to have no more to do with religion than looking after one’s health or saving money for one’s old age. The only difference here is that the stakes are so very much higher.
And this means that, granted a real and steady conviction, the hopes and anxieties aroused are overwhelming. But they are not on that account the more religious. They are hopes for oneself, anxieties for oneself. God is not in the centre. He is still important only for the sake of something else. Indeed such a belief can exist without a belief in God at all. Buddhists are much concerned with what will happen to them after death, but are not, in any true sense, Theists.
It is surely, therefore, very possible when God began to reveal Himself to men, to show them that He and nothing else is their true goal and the satisfaction of their needs, and that He has a claim upon them simply by being what He is, quite apart from anything that He can bestow or deny, it may have been absolutely that this revelation should not begin with any hint of future Beatitude [supreme blessedness] or Perdition [eternal damnation]. These are not the right point to begin at. A…belief in them, coming too soon, may even render impossible the development of (so to call it) the appetite for God; personal hopes and fears, too obviously exciting, have got in first.
Later…men have learned to desire and adore God, to pant after Him ‘as pants the hart,’ it is another matter. For then those who love God will desire not only to enjoy Him but ‘to enjoy Him forever,’ and will fear to lose Him. And it is by that door that a tru[e] hope of Heaven and fear of Hell can enter; as corollaries to a faith already centered upon God, not as things of any independent or intrinsic weight. It is even arguable that the moment “Heaven” cease to mean union with God and “Hell” to mean separation from Him, the belief in either is a mischievous superstition; for then we have, on the one hand, a merely ‘compensatory’ belief (a ‘sequel’ to life’s sad story, in which ‘everything will come [out] all right’) and, on the other, a nightmare which drives men into asylums or makes them persecutors.

Fortunately, by God’s good providence, a strong and steady belief of that self-seeking and sub-religious kinds is extremely difficult to maintain, and is perhaps possible only to those who are slightly neurotic. Most of us find that our belief in the future life is strong only when God is in the centre of our thoughts; that if we try to use the hope of “Heaven” as a compensation (even..for…bereavement) it crumbles away. It can, on those terms, be maintained only by arduous efforts of controlled imagination; and we know in our hearts that the imagination is our own.
________________________
All this is only one man’s opinion. And it may be unduly influenced by my own experience. For I was allowed for a whole year to believe in God and try—in some stumbling fashion—to obey Him before any belief in the future life was given me. And that year always seems to me to have been of very great value. It is therefore…natural that I should suspect similar value in the centuries which the Jews [in the Old Testament] were in the same position.”

• CS Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms
  

The Jogging Monk and Exegesis Of The Heart

Being a disciple is simple, but not necessarily easy since the heart needs to be supple. Reflecting on this, here is an article from a man who was in seminary and his struggle:

The Jogging Monk And Exegesis Of The Heart

How to go beyond simple understanding to hearing Scripture speak

By James Brian Smith

During my second year of seminary, the spiritual moorings of my life came loose. I decided to go on a five-day silent retreat at a northeastern Episcopalian monastery to try to reclaim the spiritual warmth I had somehow lost.
Upon arrival I was assigned a monk who would be my spiritual director. He walked into our meeting room with jogging clothes underneath his cowl. I was disappointed. I had been expecting an elderly man, bearded to his knees, who would penetrate my soul with searing blue eyes. Instead, I got "the jogging monk."
My director gave me only one task for the day: meditate on the story of the Annunciation in the first chapter of Luke's gospel. I walked back to my cell, wondering how I would occupy my time with only this one assignment. After all, I thought to myself, I could exegete this entire text in a few hours. What was I to do for the rest of the day-in silence?
Back at my cell I opened my Bible to the passage and began reading. For the next hour I spliced and diced the verses as any good exegete would do, ending up with a few hypotheses and several hours to sit in silence. As the hours passed, the room seemed to get smaller. There was no view to the outside through the window of my room. Without any view to the outer world, I was forced to look within. Despite my hopes of finding spiritual bliss, I had never felt more alone.


What else is there?
The next day I met with the monk again to discuss my spiritual life. He asked what had happened with the assigned text. I told him that I had come up with a few exegetical insights. I thought my discoveries might impress him.
They didn't.
"What was your aim in reading this passages" he asked.
"My aim? To arrive at an understanding of the meaning of the text, I suppose."
"Anything else?"
I paused. "No. What else is there?"
"Well, there's more than just finding out what it says and what it means. There are also questions like, 'What did it teach you? What did it say to you? Were you struck by anything?' And most importantly, 'Did you experience God in your reading?'"
He assigned the same text for the day, asking me to begin reading it not so much with my head but more with my heart.
I had no idea how to do this. For the first three hours I tried and failed repeatedly. I practically had the passage memorized and still it was lifeless, and I was bored. The room seemed even smaller, and by nightfall 1 thought I would go deaf from the silence.
The next day we met again. In despair I told him that I simply could not do what he was asking. It was then that the wisdom beneath the jogging clothes became evident: "You're trying too hard, Jim. You're trying to control God. You're running the show. Go back and read this passage again. But this time, be open to receive whatever God has for you. Don't manipulate God; just receive. Communion with Him isn't something you institute. It's like sleep. You can't make yourself sleep, but you can create the conditions that allow sleep to happen. All I want you to do is create the conditions: open your Bible, read it slowly, listen to it, and reflect on it."


I went back to my cell (it had a prison-like feel by now) and began to read. I found utter silence. After an hour I finally shouted, "I give up! You win!" I slumped over in my chair and began to weep. I suspect it was for my failure that God had been waiting.


Let it be to me.
A short time later 1 picked up the Bible and read the passage again. The words looked different despite their familiarity. My mind and heart were supple as I read. I was no longer trying to figure out the meaning or the main point of the passage. 1 was simply hearing it.
My eyes fell upon the famous words of Mary: "Let it be to me according to your word," her response to God's stunning promise that she would give both to His Son. Let it be to me. The words rang in my head. And then God spoke to me.
It was as if a window had been thrown open and God was suddenly present, like a friend who wanted to talk. What followed was a dialogue about the story in Luke, about God, about Mary, and about me. I wondered about Mary-her feelings, her doubts, her fears, and her incredible willingness to respond to God's request.
This prompted me to ask (or the Spirit moved me to ask) about the limits of my obedience, which seemed meager in comparison to Mary's. "Do not be afraid," said the angel to Mary. We talked about fear. What was I afraid of? What held me back?
"You have found favor with God," the angel told Mary. Had I found favor with God? 1 sensed that I had, but not because of anything 1 had done (humility had become my companion in that room). I had found favor because 1 was His child.
I wondered, too, about the future, about my calling. What was God wanting of me? Mary had just been informed of her destiny. What was mine? We talked about what might be-what, in fact, could be, if I were willing.
I had reached the end of my rope and was, for the first time in a long time, in a position to hear. Desperation led me to begin praying. My prayer was really a plea: help me. After an hour of reflecting and listening, Mary's "Let it be to me according to your word" eventually became my prayer. The struggle had ended.
The room that had seemed small now seemed spacious. The silence no longer mattered, no longer made me anxious, but rather, seemed peaceful. And the terrible feeling of being alone was replaced by a sense of closeness with a God who was "nearer to me than I was to myself."


The Word exposed in the Words.
Before my retreat, I would have laughed if someone had tried to tell me that my real problem was not prayer or meditation or personal discipline, but that it was my inability to read the Bible. After all, to me, an evangelical with a touch of Wesleyan pietism, the Bible was sacred. I had memorized 2 Timothy 3:16 early on as a Christian.
I had studied under brilliant Bible scholars and maintained a high view of authority and inspiration. Even my Bible could attest to the hours I labored to understand it, covered as it was with marginal notes and multicolored "highlighter" markings. Like Paul, I list my achievements to point a finger not at me but at the God who redirected my ways.
Quite simply, I had forgotten that there is much more to reading the Bible than merely understanding the words on the pages. Learning how to study the Bible was an important and essential skill. However, I had lost "the ears to hear" anything beyond that kind of study.


What I relearned in my room was how the Bible should be read, namely, with an ear to what the text might be saying to me. Simply doing responsible exegesis is not enough, as enlightening as it often is. The next steps are listening to the text, reflecting on it, and asking not merely what it means, but what it is asking of me, what it is asking me to hear.
What I had been unable to understand was what Søren Kierkegaard called the "contemporaneity" of the Bible. The past does not merely parallel but actually intersects the present. The Christ who called His disciples to follow Him is calling each of us at this moment. I had been reading the Bible as if it were describing a world in which I might find parallels. I now came to understand that when I read the Bible, I am reading about a world that in some sense also now is.
For example, I had been prone to read the story of God's call to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac by saying, "Boy, Abraham sure had a tough decision. I am glad I am not in his shoes." Now I see that I cannot read it only that way. Why? Because I am in Abraham's shoes. God sometimes calls me to sacrifice my most precious possession. The story has much to say to the present.
I had to relearn that the Bible is a book aimed primarily at the will of the reader. I was afraid to hear what the Bible might say because I suspected it might ask me to change my life. It did. When I was "running the show," as the monk observed, I could sidestep the contemporaneity of the Bible. Mary was Mary, and I could observe her dilemma and even write a good sermon about it. But now it was my dilemma. Could I-will I-say, "let it be to me"?
Finally, I relearned that reading the Bible requires what the saints of old called "contemplation." It was in solitude and silence that the noise and hurry of the world finally ceased long enough for me to hear. There was not enough silence in my life for me to hear the Word within the words, and I knew that deep down, which is why I went on a silent retreat in the first place. Now I have learned that silence is possible outside the haven of a monastery, but I still have to work to find it.
I also learned that contemplation is more than just silence. The monk's insistence that I stay with the same passage for three days unnerved me. Now I understand what he was trying to do. Contemplation requires deep reflection, repetition, patience, and persistence. The veil that covered my heart would not be removed by a single reading. I needed then, and still need, to read it slowly, until the words strike a chord within me. Once they strike, I am able to let them resonate.


A new world opens up.
The end of the retreat was much better than the beginning. My "jogging monk" was pleased to see that I had relearned how to read the Bible. He gave me different passages to meditate on for the remainder of the retreat, and, like Mary, I was able to "ponder" them in my heart. I felt what an illiterate person must feel on learning how to read. A new world opened up.
Seminary, too, became more of a joy. I finished that year and my final year with a new way of looking at the Bible. I found that there can be a happy marriage between textual study and contemplation, viewing them not as competing but complementary. One without the other feels incomplete. Now, five years later, I feel that any day on which I do not open the Bible and let the words descend from my head into my heart, letting them mold my thoughts and shape my prayers, is wasted.
Unlike the room at the monastery, I now have a beautiful view outside my window. Now and then I close the shades.

• James Bryan Smith (M.Div., Yale University Divinity School, Ph.D., Fuller Seminary) is a theology professor at Friends University in Wichita, KS and a writer and speaker in the area of Christian spiritual formation. A founding member of Richard J. Foster's spiritual renewal ministry, Renovaré, Smith is an ordained United Methodist Church minister and has served in various capacities in local churches. Smith is the author of A Spiritual Formation Workbook, Devotional Classics (with Richard Foster), Embracing the Love of God, Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing to Heaven and Room of Marvels.

The Irrepressible Effect of Being Alive to the Kingdom of God

Too often in my well-intentioned desire for Christian formation, I am simply seeking to find a balance between extremes: more like a “middle ground.” Unfortunately, "middle ground" is that imaginary place between “spiritual” and “carnal” living. And, as such, as a friend once said, “That middle ground is that place I wave to as I swing by on my way from one end of the pendulum to the opposite end.”
The truth is, Christian formation is Christ-formed-in-me, in the here and now. Most importantly, and most often and easily forgotten, it is God's desire to have me grow is greater and more urgent than my desire is.

Michael J. Wilkins talks about the extremes we often find ourselves in as we strive to have a “good” Christian life:
“For example:
- the contemplative who forgets the needs of the world
- the moralist who focuses on sin and neglects compassion
- the charismatic who seeks the gifts and neglects the Giver
- the social activist who forgets to listen to God
- the Bible-study enthusiast who feels no need for the Holy Spirit
- the ascetic who disallows the joy of life in Christ
- the community participant who loses his/her individual identity
- the Christian leader who forgets that she/he is still simply one of the flock…”

He adds: “ ‘Spirituality,’ then, is the overall goal of becoming like Jesus. ‘Spiritual formation’ points to the process of training, shaping, and being shaped in every area of our lives by the Spirit into the image of Christ.”
(Michael J. Wilkins, from: In His Image: Reflecting Christ in Everyday Life, NavPress, 1997.)

Dallas Willard clarifies,

“Spirituality in human beings is not an extra or ‘superior’ mode of existence. It’s not a hidden stream of separate reality, a separate life running parallel to our bodily existence. It does not consist of special ‘inward’ acts even though it has an inner aspect.

It is, rather, a relationship of our embodied selves to God that has the natural and irrepressible effect of making us alive to the Kingdom of God – here and now in the material world.”

(Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988, p. 31.)

It's A Short Winter...

IV.

The night is damp and warm and still,
And full of summer-dreams;
The buds are bursting at their will,
And soft the half moon gleams.

My soul is cool, as bathed within
By dews that silent weep;
Like child that has confessed his sin,
And now will go to sleep.

A childhood new, Lord, thou dost set,
Each season for a sign;
Lest, old in this world, we forget
That we are young in thine.

A child, Lord, make me ever more;
Let years fresh sonship bring,
Till, out of age's winter sore,
I pass into thy spring.

• George MacDonald, Section IV of "Songs of the Days and Nights" in The Disciple and Other Poems

Christ: True North

Approaches

When thou turn’st away from ill,
Christ is this side of thy hill.

When thou turnest toward good,
Christ is walking in thy wood.

When thy heart says, ‘Father, pardon!’
Then the Lord is in thy garden.

When stern Duty wakes to watch,
Then His hand is on the latch.

But when Hope thy song doth rouse,
Then the Lord is in the house.

When to love is all thy wit,
Christ doth at thy table sit.

When God’s will is thy heart’s pole,
Then is Christ thy very soul.

• George Mac Donald (1824–1905)

No Safety In Numbers

“If you aim at a fervent spiritual life, then you too must turn your back on the crowds as Jesus did. The only man who can safely appear in public is the one who wishes he were at home. He alone can safely speak who prefers to be silent. Only he can safely govern who prefers to living in submission, and only he can safely command who prefers to obey.”

• Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ

Ex-Centric People

"She was unabashedly eccentric in the admirable and literal sense of the word-not in an easy disdain for the masses, but in candid recognition that Christians are necessarily ex-centric, pivoting about another Center than the world's hub or their own ego.
O'Connor's recognition that she was called to be a writer was linked with her simultaneous discovery that there is nothing larger than the Gospel and the Church, since they reenact the drama of the entire cosmos. In order to be catholic (universal), she had first to be Catholic, ordering everything-however imperfectly-to the goodness of the triune God."

• Ralph C. Wood on author, Flannery O'Connor (National Review, March 9, 2009)

No Shorcuts To Progress

"Redemption is participatory, not imitative. It is grounded on grace appropriated through faith, not merely on obedience. Spiritual life flows out of union with Christ not merely imitation of Christ."

Richard Lovelace in Dynamics of Spiritual Life

One's Christian well-being and growth is both emotional and volitional (deliberative self-will).