Rob Des Cotes

Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an elder desires a noble task.
1Tim. 3:1

The Dene (pronounced Den-nay) are a Northern Canadian aboriginal tribe who govern themselves by a council of wise men.  As is typical in many aboriginal societies, the male elders are chosen by the women.  I once had the occasion to speak with a Dene woman about the process of selecting elders in their communities.  I asked what I assumed was an intelligent question, “On what basis do you decide who’s an elder among you?”  She answered me with a puzzled look,  “You just know.  Some people are elders while others are just old people.”  It struck me as an important distinction to make for my own life, as I too grow older.  Will others see me as an elder in God’s kingdom, or as just another old person?

In a recent publication by Regent College* a number of students and faculty were asked to reflect on the topic of aging well.  In one article, professor Maxine Hancock speaks of the characteristics she has observed in people who age well, especially in debilitating circumstances.  She writes,

I have had the privilege of watching people whose long habits of spiritual discipline and personal devotion taught them to accept infirmity with patience, and care with gratitude.  Even those who experienced dementia retained a core identity grounded in Christ; they met death at peace and unafraid.

Often, when I meet with younger people for spiritual direction, I will ask them what type of old person they want to be.  I try to encourage them to start preparing now for the characteristics they wish to see in their future selves.  As Eugene Peterson notes, it is a “long obedience in the same direction” that ultimately forms the character of old age.

What are the character traits that God is presently investing in you for your old age?  What is it that you are being obedient to today that will bear fruit for the person you will soon enough be? How, in your old age, might all that you have learned from a life of seeking and finding God contribute to the fabric of the Christian community around you?  In other words, what type of elder will you be?  Or will you be just another old person?

In the same publication, Dr. James Houston reflects on the life-long relational qualities that contribute to the making of an elder.  He writes,

An elder is someone who, all his or her life, has been committed to relational values such as friendship and family.  As elders grow old, they continue to foster communal values and strong relationships.  In the Old Testament, the elder is the one who facilitates the maturing of personal relationships within the community

This relational emphasis is also echoed by Regent graduate Linda Seale who sees mentoring as one the chief tasks we should anticipate and equip ourselves for as we age.  She writes,

Mentoring involves wisdom.  In a world overwhelmed with information, we are sadly lacking in wisdom.  Wisdom develops over a lifetime of pondering and integrating the experiences given by our Lord.  We need to pass this on to the next generations to help them mature, to stand there with encouragement, and to provide that fertile soil in which new leaders can develop.

The prophet Hosea counsels us to “sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground” (Hos. 10:12).  In other words, the making of an elder is a seasoned work that begins long before we reach old age.  As Linda Seale wisely concludes, “Aging well is a process that begins by doing any stage of life well.”

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith “A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”

Rabbi Ben Ezra, by Robert Browning

*see http://www.regent-college.edu/pdf/regentworld/RegentWorldSummer2011.pdf for a pdf of this publication.

God has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them we may participate in the divine nature.   2Pet 1:4

Makarios the Great was a Syrian spiritual director who ministered in the fourth century near the border area of Cappadocia (Turkey) and Syria.  He was a disciple of St. Antony, the first of the desert fathers.  In his teachings, Makarios often stressed the importance of a felt experience of God.  He saw this as an indicator of the Holy Spirit, through whom we come to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8).  Such experiences of God cause us to grow in our desire to be united with God as the object of our love.

For most early theologians, the highest expression and purpose of faith was the union of the soul with God.  It is why God became man through Jesus—to unite Himself to our humanity so that our humanity would be united with His divinity.   As Makarios taught, “The infinite God diminished Himself in order to be united with His creatures, so they can be made participators of divine life.”

The apostle Peter, as well, teaches that God’s promises in Christ—in whom the fullness of both humanity and divinity are joined—represent an invitation to “participate in the divine nature” (2Pet 1:4).  And we do so by submitting our lives to the Holy Spirit.  This is why theologians often refer to the third person of the Trinity as “the agent of our participation.”   Spiritual maturity then is the fruit of our ongoing response to the Spirit’s invitation which we participate in through the yielding of our hearts.

One of Makarios’ most memorable metaphors for the passive way we make ourselves available to the Holy Spirit is that of the heart serving as a “resonating chamber.”  In the same way that the body of a guitar or a violin serves to amplify the sound of the plucked or bowed string, so our bodies become a place where the song of the Spirit re-sonates within.  He writes,

As breath sounds when passed through a flute, so does the Holy Spirit make music in the holy and God-bearing saints who, from a pure heart, become hymns and psalms to God.

Echoing the insight of other desert saints, Makarios recognizes the resulting “music” as that of the Holy Spirit lifting us up in the praise of God.  It is the Spirit within us—the “Word” which does not come back empty—who returns praise to Christ through the instrument of our yielded hearts.  As Makarios expreses,

The Spirit, taking possession of the soul, now sings a new song to the Lord with the timbrel of the body and so it sends up praises, through the believer, to the life-giving Christ.

If such be the case, all the more should our desire be to make room for the Holy Spirit’s resonance in our souls.  Let us heed the Psalmist’s call to worship when he says: “Awake my soul!  Sing and make music to your God.”   As we offer our hearts as instruments of His praise, we will discover what it means to truly worship in Spirit and truth (Jn 4:24).

I will sing and make music.

Awake, my soul!
Awake, harp and lyre!
I will awaken the dawn.

Psalm 57:7-8

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.

1John 1:1

The testimony of a first-hand experience of God is what is most needed in our witness to the world today.  Without the conviction that comes from a direct knowledge of God the most we can offer in the marketplace of spiritual ideas is one more belief system among many others.  What makes Christianity unique though, is that it is much more than a theory about the spiritual life.  It is a living relationship with the very Creator of that spiritual life.

Father Matta El-Meskeen, also known as Matthew the Poor, lived his life in the prayer-birthed experience of God.  Recognizing the importance of such a witness for the world, he moved as a young man to the Tunisian desert in order to more profoundly seek God for himself.  He believed that what he learned of God in the experience of his own life could become a light that testifies to the reality of this same possibility in others.  In his book The Orthodox Prayer Life, he speaks of his motivation he had for becoming a hermit.

So many books tell about Christ; so many preachers speak about Christ; but so few people live and speak with Christ.  What had attracted me to the solitary life and absorbed my mind was the idea that once I had found Christ this knowledge would be turned into prayer for the whole world.

More than a theology to believe in, the gospel is an action of the Holy Spirit that we observe from the vantage point of our own lives.  Prayer introduces us to the immediacy of God which then becomes the certainty from which we bear witness that such an experience is also possible for others.  It also becomes the motivation for our own continued pursuit of God.

There is a story of the desert fathers that wonderfully illustrates the tenacity that this first-hand experience produces in us.  One of Abba Hilarion’s disciples asked him a question about monks who give up on the spiritual quest.  The Abba replied with a story,

Consider the hunting dogs which chase after hares.  Imagine one of these dogs sees a hare in the distance and immediately gives chase.  The other dogs that are with him see this dog run off and take off after him, even though they have not seen the hare. They will continue running with him, but only for a time.  When at length the effort and struggle exhaust them, they give up the chase and turn back.  However the dog that saw the hare continues chasing it by himself. He does not allow the effort or struggle to hinder him from completing his long course. Nor does he allow the turning aside of the other dogs behind him to put him off. He goes on running until he has caught the hare he saw.

The way this story applies to the value of first-hand knowledge is obvious.  It also suggests the strong motivation that the experience of God provides for us to remain in the chase.  Because we are certain of what we have seen, even when we have lost sight of our target, we do not lose hope that it actually exists.

 

The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.

1John 1:2

If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers;

John 15:6

“Without prayer, we lose sight of the meaning of our existence and the purpose of life.” So writes the desert hermit, Father Matta El-Meskeen. “We also risk losing the glory of our image,” he adds, “so that we no longer resemble God in the same way as when we pray.” The unknown author of The Cloud of Unknowing teaches similarly that, “If we neglect prayerful contemplation we will sink ever deeper into unawareness.” And Jesus also warns us, in His parable of the vine and branches, of the loss we will suffer if we do not remain attached to His love.

We all stray at times from the practice of prayer and there are many reasons why we do. But they all stem from a misplaced confidence in our own sufficiency. As Father Matta observes, “a person who does not pray is one who is content with their own condition.” Paradoxically, the withering that results from neglecting our prayerful dependence on God is what serves most to reveal the true poverty of our God-less existence. Concerning those who willfully or inadvertently stray from the vine, Father Matta writes,

Without their awareness, the ties that bind them to the earth and the flesh increase. Their ego remains the principle source of all their desires and ambitions. As for their relationship with Christ, it remains only superficial and outward. It has no real power to change or amend things.

Without the light of daily prayer we no longer grow in truth as we should, but are left unpruned and uncultured, like a wild olive branch. Since we are not turning the soil of our lives through prayer, our ground becomes fallow, and the progress of conversion stalls. As Father Matta writes,

The inward light of prayer exposes the blemishes and defects of our daily conduct. If a man does not pray, he can never be changed or renewed. And he who is not changed or renewed can have no genuine or effective relationship with Christ.

Jesus could not have made it easier for us to understand the dynamics of spiritual life. It is quite simple—if we do not remain in the vine we will wither. But the Lord also gave us hope that the opposite is equally true, “If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit” (Jn. 15:5). Through prayer, the meaning of our existence and purpose in life will be renewed daily. It will restore the imago dei within us so that our lives will more truthfully reflect the grace of God. And it will keep us in fruitful relationship with the love of Christ so that we will continue to be transformed in our conversion.

(Noah) sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark.  He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark.  When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth.

Gen. 8:8-12

We don’t have to read very far in the Bible to see how the use of “go-betweens” in our relationship with God is an acceptable practice that the Lord Himself often seems to encourage.  By “go-betweens” I mean tangible aids in discerning God’s will through the interpretation of our circumstances, where these are offered as vocabulary for divine communication.

We read, for example, the famous story of Gideon’s fleece.  Gideon, in seeking assurance of God’s will, discerns according to whether the dew falls on his fleece or not that a certain action is what God would have him do (Judges 6).  We see this also in the book of Acts where the casting of lots is used as a means of choosing a new apostle to replace Judas.  Perhaps we’ve all set up similar transactions with God at times.  “If you do this Lord, I will take it as a sign that You are confirming Your will with me.”

Noah, as well, is versed in this language.  In the story of the deluge, Noah has been drifting for several weeks on an endless sea.  He has no way of knowing how much longer he will be confined to the ark.  Perhaps he is running out of food, space, or patience so he sends out a “fleece” in the form of a dove to see if there is any hope for change.  Is there land out there?  Is this journey nearing an end?  The dove, having found no place to rest, returns to the ark and Noah must accept that the answer is no.

Though the dove’s return is, undoubtedly, a disappointment, Noah sees it as only a temporary setback in his discernment process.  A week later, he sends the dove out again to search for land.  Such fleeces are a form of prayerful inquiry—a means of exploring, with God, possible alternatives to our present life.  As it was for Noah, they represent prayers of reconnaissance through which we seek clarity in the discernment of God’s will.  They are “soundings,” from which we await an echo of confirmation or assurance from God.

In querying his circumstance as he does, Noah models for us a valid form of prayerful inquiry whenever we are uncertain about the shape of our lives.  We too, at times, might consider putting “feelers” out in a certain direction just to see what the Lord might do (1Sam 14:6).   In what areas of your life do you find yourself longing for change—for the waters of your circumstances to recede and reveal new land to you?  What are the “doves” that you have sent out in search of possible places to land?  How do these serve as a vocabulary of hope in your relationship with God?  And what happens to your disposition when they return empty, or not at all?

Noah’s resolute faith serves as a helpful model for us when we too face disappointing yields.  It validates our persistent inquiries regarding God’s will for our lives.  It also models the hope we are encouraged to maintain until the waters of our unwanted circumstances have receded.  Our gentle, but persistent, probing into God’s purposes will feel much more empowering to us than sitting below deck and waiting for the ark to ground itself.