May 16, 2012 in
COUNSELING, GODSTUFF with
I preach and write a lot about looking at your own flaws and leaving other people alone. Nearly every time I do someone says to me, “But there comes a time when you have to stand up for yourself. You don’t want to be a wimp and let people walk all over you.”
Of course there’s a point to that somewhere. But perhaps the reason I lean so far the other direction is because the easiest thing in the world for me to do is “stand up for myself.” When I’m upset or offended, the first thing I want to do is lash out, verbally, and sometimes even physically. I find it takes far more guts to keep quiet than it does to speak out. Continue Reading…
May 15, 2012 in
GODSTUFF with
3:39 pm. Tired, but sleep is not coming. The noise of my fan seems like a violent insult over the thick blanket of silence in this place. Right now I cannot imagine three days of this. I just want something – anything – to do. I want to go home.
4:08 pm. Feels like detox. Finally gave in and cued up Rich Mullins’ A Liturgy, A Legacy, and A Ragamuffin Band. Am I praying now? Right here, in these thoughts of dread and burden? What could/does God want me to know right now? According to Rich, at this instant, “Peace of Christ to you.”
I’ve been here less than five hours, but consumed already by thoughts of my family. Starting to feel very hungry, as I ate a light lunch because I grabbed food on my way here.
Why do I tire of this God thing? Others can worship for countless hours, but I get bored and sick of it. I think I can’t maintain anything very long that isn’t hopelessly cerebral.
I want to go home. I’d rather be anywhere than here. If I were to get in the car and drive home, I know what I’d be driving to. But what would I be running from? That is what I have to stay to find out.
4:28 pm. Some people’s biggest problem is that no one loves them. Most people’s biggest problem is that, though deeply loved, we often act as though we are alone and unloved. That is me. In my work with teenage girls, I have often found myself saying to them, “You are sitting now next to your father – the man who already loves you like no man on this earth will ever love you. Why won’t you let him?” The answer – deep wounds and hurts that prevent it. Anger and resentment toward him for not being who she thought he was, and who she thinks she needs him to be. These girls need to let go of their pain and disappointment, learn to let daddy be who he is, and accept the love he freely offers. This is where they will find joy.
I am at this moment (and all moments) in the presence of the one who loves me more than anyone will ever love me. But usually I can’t let him. Why? Because of deep wounds in me that prevent it. I carry anger and resentment that God is not who I thought he was – who I think I need him to be. I need to let go of my pain and disappointment, learn to let God be who he is, and accept the love he freely offers. I know this is where I will find joy. God, I am here this weekend praying for the healing of wounds that keep me from taking what you freely offer, and what I most need.
May 11, 2012 in
GODSTUFF with
People should be extremely careful before using “but the Bible says” as a way to defend their own behaviors or condemn those of others. Here are some hilarious questions that taking the Bible literally could raise.
1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine says that applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?
2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
3. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
4. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 31:14 clearly states that he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police do it?
5. Lev. 21:20 says that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?
6. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev 19:27. How should they die?
7. I know from Lev 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?
8. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary to go through all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them (Lev 24: 10-16)? Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws (Lev 20:14)?
–Source unknown
This, by the way, applies as much to atheists as it does to Christians. Many atheists have a terrible habit of trying to use the Bible to disprove or invalidate the beliefs of Christians. This is like trying to tell the resident of a certain city what the vibe of that city is, even though you don’t live there. The resident may or may not agree with you, but as a non-resident, you are hardly qualified to make that judgment.
“But the Bible says,” rarely furthers conversation in a productive way and people on both sides of the debate should avoid it.
May 9, 2012 in
GODSTUFF with
I think Richard Rohr is one of the best writers and teachers of Christian spirituality on the scene at this time. He sent out a meditation today which, in my opinion, is his best encapsulation of the endless schemes and machinations of ego. Spirituality is never more dangerous than when it is used to furnish the cavernous mansion of ego. Rohr writes,
CONTEMPLATION IN ACTION
We don’t teach meditation to the young monks. They are not ready for it until they stop slamming doors.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh to Thomas Merton in 1966
The piercing truth of this statement struck me as a perfect way to communicate the endless disguises and devices of the false self. There is no more clever way for the false self to hide than behind the mask of spirituality. The human ego will always try to name, categorize, fix, control, and insure all its experiences. For the ego everything is a commodity. It lives inside of self-manufactured boundaries instead of inside the boundaries of the God-self. It lives out of its own superior image instead of mirroring the image of God. The ego is constantly searching for any solid and superior identity. A spiritual self-image gives us status, stability, and security. There is no better way to remain unconscious than to baptize and bless the forms of religion, even prayer itself, instead of surrendering to the Substance Itself. First stop slamming doors, and then you can begin in the kindergarten of spirituality. Too many priests, bishops, and ministers are still slamming doors.
In the name of seeking God, the ego pads and protects itself from self-discovery, which is an almost perfect cover for its inherent narcissism. I know this because I have done it all myself.
I have been a pastor for 18 years. During most of that time I was a teacher of religion. A few years ago I decided I needed to teach Christian spirituality, which is to depart from merely teaching the mechanics and beliefs of a religious system (however good and important and valuable they may be) and move towards teaching time-tested ways of experiencing God personally. Rohr’s words above should be read and studied and contemplated until their meaning becomes perfectly clear because he is right. To slam doors is to continue to fortify the ego. Slamming doors can be understood as all the manifestations of ego — anger that we excuse as justifiable; attempts to force our opinions, ideas and perspectives on others; attempts to force others to change; verbal, emotional, and physical manipulation; endless clamoring for attention and validation from others, along with the depression and discouragement we wallow in when those attempts fail; constant cravings for recognition; comparing ourselves against others; feeling superior to and inferior to others; turning to things like food, substances, and pornography to comfort ourselves — the list is endless. All of these come out of the machinations of ego, and of all these religion is the most dangerous.
Religion is the best possible cover for ego because it hides itself in the things of God. Under the guise of religion I can try to force you to do what I want to because what I want and what God wants are synonymous. I can manipulate you into changing because the change might well be good and necessary and so I can justify any means of getting you to do it. I can whine and complain about whatever I wish and then simply claim I’m not yet spiritual enough to be able to control myself. This is especially dangerous because it looks like humility but it is simply ego finding one more way of justifying itself.
All of this is the endless scheming and machinations of ego. It is garbage. Shit, as Paul called it. Ego simply has to be faced down or it will continue to be the controlling factor behind everything we do and say. Like Rohr, I know this because I have spent most of my life — even my life in ministry — hiding behind it. Not intentionally. Ego depends on us never seeing it for what it is because as soon as we do we realize it is a shadow — a sham — a falsehood. It is only when we get a glimpse of the ego that we realize for the first time we have lived our entire lives, spiritual and otherwise, in the matrix. And as soon as we see the matrix for what it is, that is the beginning of the end of ego. That will feel like the scariest and worst thing that has ever happened to us, but it is in that moment that — perhaps without realizing it — we have been taken up into the freedom of God.
May 6, 2012 in
GODSTUFF with
All over the face of the earth the avarice and lust of men and women breed unceasing divisions among them, and the wounds that tear them from union with one another widen and open out into huge wars. Murder, massacres, revolution, hatred, the slaughter and torture of the bodies and souls of men and women, the destruction of cities by fire, the starvation of millions, the annihilation of populations and finally the cosmic inhumanity of atomic war: Christ is massacred in His members, torn limb from limb; God is murdered in men and women.
The history of the world, with the material destruction of cities and nations and people,. expresses the interior division that tyrannizes the souls of all men and women, and even of the saints.
Even the innocent, even those in whom Christ lives by love, even those who want with their whole heart to love one another, remain divided and separate…
As long as we are on earth, the love that unites us will bring us suffering by our very contact with one another, because this love is the resetting of a Body of broken bones. Even saints cannot live with saints on this earth without some anguish, without some pain at the differences that come between them.
There are two things which men and women can do about the pain of disunion with other men and women. They can love or they can hate.
Hatred recoils from the sacrifice and the sorrow that are the price of this resetting of bones. It refuses the pain of reunion.
There is in every weak, lost and isolated member of the human race an agony of hatred born of their own helplessness, their own isolation. Hatred is the sign and the expression of loneliness, of unworthiness, or insufficiency. And in so far as each of us is lonely, is unworthy, each one hates him/herself. Some of us are aware of this self-hatred, and because of it we reproach ourselves and punish ourselves needlessly. [But] punishment cannot cure the feeling that we are unworthy. There is nothing we can do about it as long as we feel that we are isolated, insufficient, helpless, alone.
Others, who are less conscious of their own self-hatred, realize it in a different form by projecting it onto others. There is a proud and self-confident hate, strong and cruel, which enjoys the pleasure of hating, for it is directed outward to the unworthiness of the another. But this strong and happy hate does not realize that like all hate, it destroys and consumes the [one] that hates, and not the object that is hated. Hate in any form is self-destructive, and even when it triumphs physically it triumphs in its own spiritual ruin.
Strong hate, the hate that takes joy in hating, is strong because it does not believe itself to be unworthy and alone. It feels the support of a justifying God, of an idol of war, an avenging and destroying spirit. From such blood-drinking gods the human race was once liberated, with great toil and terrible sorrow, by the death of a God Who delivered Himself to the Cross and suffered the pathological cruelty of His own creatures out of pity for them. In conquering death He opened their eyes to the reality of a love which asks no questions about worthiness, a love which overcomes hatred and destroys death. But men and women have now come to reject this divine revelation of pardon, and they are consequently returning to the old war gods, the gods that insatiably drink the blood and eat the flesh of men and women. It is easier to serve the hate gods because they thrive on the worship of collective fanaticism. To serve the hate gods, one has only to be blinded by collective passion. To serve the God of Love, one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility to love in spite of all unworthiness, whether in oneself or in one’s neighbor.
From Thomas Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation, ch. 4 (pp. 71-74)
