Weekly Meditations

In him (Christ) it has always been “Yes.”                2Cor. 1:19

Throughout history, the spiritual path for many Christians has been largely defined in terms of renunciation of the world or of anything deemed unspiritual.  It is called the via negativa.  Through mortification of the flesh, self denial and abstinence, the spiritual life is understood as primarily against something.  But others have walked a different path that is based much more on attraction than rejection.  It is the via positiva, and St. Francis of Assisi is perhaps the best known example of this disposition.

Francis was motivated in his conversion not so much by what he stood against, but by what he sought.  He fell in love, for instance, with the virtue of humility, welcoming opportunities for relationship with whatever might diminish him.  Instead of suppressing pride he simply exalted humility.  His approach to wealth was similar.  Rather than condemn riches, he cherished the precious pearl of poverty.  He embraced what he called Lady Poverty as one would cleave to a lover.  In all this Francis exemplified the via positiva.   Rather than curse the darkness of his sins, he simply lit the candles of their opposites.  The via positiva affirms in us our desire for the things of God, and asserts our faith that “in Christ, all things are yes.”

Our motivation for the spiritual life should always be a positive one.   It should appeal to our desire for virtue rather than our abhorrence, asking us who we want to be more than who we don’t want to be.  Love for something is a much more positive catalyst for change than the energy spent building up an aversion to the things we wish were different.  This applies both to personal conversion as well as to social change.  When we pursue something we love rather than counter something we hate, our vision is much more sustained in a spirit of hope.  That is why gratitude also plays a key role in helping maintain a positive spiritual direction.  Gratitude focuses our attention on what we affirm rather than what we disdain in our lives.

Francis did not see life as a problem to be solved but more as a hope to be attained.  Humility, in his case, was not simply a way to counter his pride.  He loved it for its own sake.  What difference might it make for you to explore the Franciscan way in your own life—to pursue peace rather than flee turmoil, to seek gentleness and humility rather than rail against your anger and pride, to cherish holiness rather than try to solve the problems of sin in your life?  In other words, how much more fruit would our spiritual lives bear if we let the positive vision of what we desire be our incentive for change more than the negative vision of what we don’t want.  It is easy to see how such an approach to faith would be much more attractive to us, and to others as well.

In Him we live, move and have our being.   Acts 17:28

“Dr. Doctrine” is a wonderful comic book series that can be found on the shelves of many theological libraries right alongside the classic tomes.  The series sets up dialogues on complex theological issues in the idiom of a comic strip, a form that suggests that it’s geared to a much more fun-loving audience than a classroom lecture.

The issue dealing with the theology of the Trinity for instance begins with a patient who comes into Dr. Doctrine’s Theology Clinic  and asks for a Trinidectomy.  He wants to have his Trinity removed from his doctrine because he doesn’t really use it that much.  Dr. Doctrine throws his hands up saying, “What!  That’s the most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard.  The doctrine of the Trinity is vital to your whole spiritual well-being!  To cut it out would be like removing your heart!”  The patient confesses that he really doesn’t understand how his Trinity works in such a vital way so the doctor writes out a prescription to help him.  He instructs him to simply read the gospels while paying close attention to the life of Jesus, and watching for signs of the Trinity.

It doesn’t take very long for anyone reading the New Testament to see that Jesus’ self-understanding is as someone who lives in divine community, in close relationship to the Father, as well as to the Holy Spirit.  This relationship is also revealed as one of perfect unity when, for instance, Jesus says, “The Father and I are one,” (Jn 10:30) or when He speaks of the Holy Spirit saying, “He will not speak on his own…He will take what is mine and make it known to you” (Jn 16:13).  We also see how oneness in the Godhead is articulated in terms of shared purpose and presence in relationship to us.  Our subjective relationship to the Trinity might actually be the best perspective from which to gaze into the mystery of the “Three in One.”

In our experience of God we are related in three distinct ways.  We relate to God as “above us,” “with us,” and “within us.”  In the gospels, the Father is often referred to as God “above us.”  Jesus, on the other hand, is called Emmanuel—God “with us.”  And the Spirit is identified as God “within us.”  Growing in the knowledge of God then means coming to know God through three particular expressions of our interaction with the Trinity—how, in God we live, move, and have our being.  Of course we must also keep in mind that we are not talking about a separateness in God, but only in the ways we experience God.

People who lack a Trinitarian theology often end up over-emphasizing one aspect of God over others.   Many people, for instance, experience God mostly as  “God above us”—as a principle or overarching truth of life.  They believe in God but don’t have much of a personal relationship with what they believe God to be.  Others might know God mostly in terms of Jesus’ purposes on earth.  They are actively involved with serving those purposes, but often without a strong need for submissive prayer or worship in their faith.  And others know God more exclusively from the perspective of their own inner sense of the divine.  They might have a growing relationship to God within them, but are not very aware of Christ in the world, nor of God as Other, with whom they are also related through objective prayer and worship.

Growing in our knowledge and experience of the Trinity then is not a matter of getting the algebra right or the correct grammar as much as knowing the fullness of our experience of God in these three expressions.  As “God above us,” our Father stands apart from us.  He is the Transcendence under which we live.  In this relationship we pray and relate to the Father just as Jesus did—as Divine Other.

As the Son, we experience God as “with us.”  Jesus, Emmanuel, is incarnate in our fleshly experience of life, in the very circumstances and human history in which we move.  He is the Lover of our souls who accompanies us, shepherds us and is with us to the end of ages.  It is Jesus’ saving mission that we seek to serve on earth.  And it is the Church, as the bride of Christ, that we gather to become in order to be with Him forever.

And finally, in our experience of the Holy Spirit, we recognize God as “within us.” As the immanent ground from which we have our being, the Holy Spirit purifies us in our relationship with the Father and moves us to love and serve the purposes of Jesus in this world.

Paul’s prayer for the Christians in Ephesus was that they would be able to grasp how wide and long and high and deep our God really is.  He desired that they would be “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:18-19).  May we too receive the apostle’s prayer.  As the fullness of the knowledge of God matures in our lives may we too grow in our appreciation of how wide and long, high and deep our God really is.

“Ye shall be as gods.”’  Gen. 3:5 (KJV)

“You shall be as gods.” This was the deception that so appealed to Adam and Eve that they were willing to confuse their humanity in favour of what seemed to be a better deal for their lives.  How are we similarly tempted by such flattery in our lives?  How do we fall prey to the deceptive spirit that says to us, “You should be as gods?”

We all carry images of ourselves that can be said to be divine projections of who we wish we were.  Maybe you call it your ideal self—a projection of the person you think you ought to be.  Maybe it applies to your ideal body, your ideal status, your ideal of how you should act, or how people should relate to you.  Sometimes this is a good thing.  But more often than not it involves a blanket rejection of our humanity, a denial of the very God-given earthiness of who we truly are.

We all have difficulty accepting aspects of our humanity that fall short of the ideals we carry for ourselves.  There is of course nothing wrong with bettering yourself in life.  But if this comes from a spirit of guilt, or from anxieties we feel over the inadequacies of being human, it is certainly not the spirit by which God leads us.  It is more likely the voice of the accuser appealing to an inordinate sense of God-envy.  Tempted with its allure we risk succumbing to the very same suggestion that trapped our first parents:  “You really should be more like gods.”

Our idealized images of ourselves diminish us.  And then we wonder why we lack inner peace. The opposite of self-acceptance is to be anxious about the self that we are.  This might seem like basic pop psychology but, at its core, lies a fundamental theological error regarding our true sense of self.  And such errors always bear bad fruit in us.

There are two ways that the rejection of our humanity do so.  On the one hand, projections of our perfect self often puff us up.  We all know people who are “legends in their own minds.”  Perhaps we too at times overly relate to our ideal self in ways that appeal to our vanity.  Refusing to accept ourselves as anything less than we think we should be, we also project our idealized self onto others.  We are afraid of letting them see us in our unfinished state.  Because we reject our own poverty of spirit, we assume that others too will likely reject it. All this because we have believed the original lie that  “you should be more than what God made you to be.”

The other way that the ideal self erodes our soul is by the sense of failure and guilt we feel when we are so painfully aware of how we fall short of that ideal.  We end up loathing our poverty of spirit in the false belief that we should really be more divine than we are. We reject ourselves as we are, and this sets us up for a life of conditional love. Whenever we live up to our ideal persona we love ourselves, but we loathe who we are when we fall short of it.  And that’s clearly not how God loves you—God, whose heart is most moved by compassion precisely because of our poverty of spirit. And so should we also be moved to accept with compassion the very poverty that Jesus calls a blessed state.

What do you wrestle with in your sense of self that prevents you from fully accepting of your humanity?  What would it mean for you to embrace your poverty of spirit?  What would help you to accept the humus of who you are with the same compassion that God does?

Embracing the reality of our creaturehood sets us free from the lies of the imaginary, ideal self.   Let us welcome the earthiness of our lives as something that God has not only created, but also loves.

“Reverence stands in awe of something—something that dwarfs the self, that allows human beings to sense the full extent of our limits.  When we stop trying to act like gods ourselves, we will be led to the proper reverence of the creature for its Creator.”

Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World

Just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”                                                                     1Pet. 1:15-16

The vocation of holiness is not something we often hear discussed among Christians in our day.  For some reason it seems to be a value that we have relegated to a past age, a quality that we no longer expect from ourselves in the same way our forebears did.  And yet the call to a sanctified life is no less imperative today than it was in past generations.  The Lord still commands that we be holy for the simple reason that He, in whose image we are made, is holy.

Among contemporary advocates of holiness Mother Teresa perhaps most readily comes to mind as this is a theme that repeatedly shows up in her writings.  In Come Be My Light, a compilation of letters written to her spiritual directors and various convents, the “saint of Calcutta” defines holiness in the most simple terms as she encourages her sisters saying, “Let us try to come as close as the human heart can come to the Heart of Jesus.” This is the essence of holiness—to be as close as possible, in identity and in action, to the heart and person of Christ.  In this we seek to reflect the sanctity that belongs to Him alone.

Biblically speaking, to be holy is to be consecrated, set aside for God.  It is an act of self-offering in which we invite the holiness of God to express itself in our lives.  Our motivation towards holiness comes from our love of God, but we can also be motivated by our love for others, as well as for the integrity of the Church.  Mother Teresa writes of her own response to this vocation,

I am determined to show my love for the Church by becoming very holy. I ask you as well—please, for the love of God and the love of others take the trouble to be holy.

Mother Teresa lists three offerings on our part that contribute to the consecration of our lives to God: the offering of time, of will, and of our submission to others. She speaks of time set aside for prayer as a first priority, more important even than our ministry or our relationship with others.  Of her own experience she writes, “I always make my holy hour with Jesus straight after Mass, so that I get the first two hours of each day with Jesus.  Before people and the sisters start using me, I let Him use me first.”

Her motivation for holiness comes from her deep love for the integrity of the Church.  She also finds motivation in her love for others and from her desire to give as much as she can to those she ministers to.   As she plainly states, “people are hungry for God. What a terrible meeting it would be with our neighbour if we give them only ourselves.”  Elsewhere she writes,

The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life. We need silence to be able to touch souls.

The second offering that she encourages from her sisters is that of the will.  In submission to God, Mother Teresa sees all circumstances in her life as coming from the freedom she has given to God’s will.  She encourages this same disposition in her sisters when she writes, “I pray for you that you let Jesus use you without consulting you.”  In her own experience of submission she revels saying, “Today I have made a new prayer—Jesus I accept whatever You give—and I give whatever You take.”

The third offering she encourages finally that of our submission to others.  In this Mother Teresa sees an action that is synonymous with submitting to God.  She exhorts her sisters saying,  “I only ask you to love one another as Jesus loves each one of you—for in loving one another you only love Jesus.”

Such offerings, placed on the altar of consecration, express our desire that God would make of our lives a sacred place for His activity.  Our own actions are then able to reflect something of the holiness of the Spirit to whom we are submitted.  Because God is holy, we can realistically hope to see this holiness mirrored in ourselves.

He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.

Jeremiah 17:8

Like the proverbial dust in the wind that inspired so many of my generation, much of my young adult life was spent wandering.  Hitchhiking back and forth across North America, backpacking in Europe, moving from one communal house to another, at one point I calculated that the longest I had stayed in one place over the course of five years was six months.  My life was like a ball bouncing on the pins of a roulette wheel as it spins around.  Eventually the wheel slows down and the ball falls into a slot, and I too finally settled down, got married, raised a family and established a career.  In other words, after years of unsettledness, my life finally became “rooted and established.”

I see a similar process happening in our relationship to prayer.  For many people, prayer is a destination that attracts them from a distance.  They might circle this attraction for years, keeping it topical, reading books to kindle the heart.  As we move in and out of relationship to this hope it’s easy to wonder if we will ever take this invitation seriously.  Will it ever become established in us as we sense it desires to be?

Fortunately, by God’s grace, people do eventually become rooted in the life-discipline of prayer.  Something finally quickens their conviction that this is a call they must respond to more seriously than they have.  Like the ball bouncing on the roulette wheel, they finally fall into its slot.  Prayer then becomes non-negotiable—the most precious pearl of their lives.  Only at this point can it be said that the person is “rooted and established” in the life of prayer.

In the meantime, it is fair to accept that it takes a long time for a sustained discipline of prayer to take root in a person’s life.  Like seed on stony ground, our enthusiasm rises for a season only to disappear again.  Or the seed of prayer simply gets choked in the thorns and thistles of our busy lives.  We should not be discouraged nor surprised by such glaring evidence of our fickle hearts.  God is not deterred.  Slowly and steadily, He is wooing each one of us from a casual to a more committed relationship.  Heaven’s final objective, as Scripture so often depicts, is a relationship more akin to marriage than to dating.

Eventually, through what Jesus calls “the perseverance of noble hearts” (Luke 8:15) the seed of prayer does take root in us and starts to bear its promised fruit.  It shifts from the periphery to become the central focus of our relationship with God.  To it we more consistently return for restoration, and from it we now draw the articulation of our lives.  In other words, by God’s grace, we find ourselves finally established (lit. “made stable”) in a committed relationship to that which our hearts have so long desired.

All true prayer promotes its own progress and increases our power to pray.

P.T. Forsyth