A Deeper Understanding of God as Refuge and Strength

The early life of King David has been rattling around inside my spirit this week. I’ve been thinking about his early life before Saul tried to have him killed, before he assumed the throne of Israel and certainly before the whole business with Bathsheba. I’ve been reflecting on what his early life might have been before he was anointed by Samuel to be King over Israel. In those early days, David, being the youngest of the family, had the dubious job of tending the family’s herds. He was a shepherd. Not that this was necessarily a throw away job, it was very important, but it didn’t carry with it a lot of honor or prestige. You wouldn’t think it to be fit training for a King (or would you? This might be the subject of another posting). What it did bring was a lot of work. It brought a lot of solitary hours. It also brought a certain aroma.

We don’t know what David did with all of those lonely hours tending the family herds. Although, one of the seminal early stories of David’s life might give us some insight into what he might have done to pass a good many of those hours. When David went out to the field of slaughter, where the Philistines, led by Goliath, were wreaking havoc on the Israelites; instead of being terrified at the carnage he was indignant at what he saw. When he saw the warriors of Israel shrink in the face of the danger and the chaos he became outraged. He determined to fight Goliath himself. He would not let this Gentile humiliate God’s chosen in this way. He went into battle supremely confident; not in his own ability, but in God’s great power and promise. He knew the Lord to be with him. He chose not to wear the armor offered to him by Saul; instead, he took the weapon he knew how to use, a sling and five smooth stones. He went into battle not on Goliath’s terms but on his own and he was assured of God’s presence.

We don’t know where this confidence, trust and assurance came from, it isn’t recorded. However, my recent experiences with God have given me a viable theory. It seems plausible that during those lonely hours of shepherding, God and David spent a great deal of time together. Before the ancient forms of Israelite worship had really taken hold, while they still worshipped in the Tabernacle in the days before the Temple, I believe that David learned a life of spirituality, one on one with God out in the pasturelands of Israel. David himself recounts the times that he knows the Lord delivered him from the dangers of herding sheep in the wild. David knew first hand the providential care of God. I am persuaded that David knew his strength was in the Lord and that is all that he needed.

In the face of the battle and the chaos that Goliath represents, David remained secure and assured in his faith. Chaos is not something to be feared, because there is not chaos that God’s power and providential care can not subdue. This has become an important lesson for me. As I continue to learn and grow and as I continue to experience God stretching me into new and ever changing landscapes there is a certain amount of chaos that can be expected with it. There are times in my life when I can take the chaos personally, as if it was my fault. Chaos brings out the worst in me. I feel as though it is my sole responsibility to overcome it. I turn into a control freak as if I had to wrestle chaos to the ground in a WWF Smack Down style contest. There are other times when the chaos simply paralyzes me. I begin to second guess myself and my decision making. It can simply grind me to a halt.

And then there’s David, confident in the face of chaos and imminent doom. He is confident not because he is cocky and self assured. He is assured of God and for him that is enough. There is a lesson in that for me. When chaos seems to break all around me, it is through the time that I spend with the Lord in prayer that I come to a deeper understanding that God is my Refuge and my Strength. Just as David must have been shaped in all of those solitary hours with God so God can shape and assure me as I continue to grow in grace and my experience of God’s abiding presence.

Answering a Question
I’m blessed by the input that I’ve received from the people who are sharing this journey with me. I’m not sure how many people read this effort, and in the end the numbers aren’t that important. If one person is finding blessing from my sharing I count it as blessing. One of the e-mails I received last week requested that I share some of the tools, methods and habit changes that have helped me to more effectively deal with the distractions to discipleship that can be so evident in our lives. So here it goes.
I’ll begin with tools and methods. For the purposes of this discussion, I’ll refer to them as spiritual practices. The primary experience that has opened the door to this change is learning (or more specifically relearning) the discipline of silence. As I stated in a previous posting, I’ve come to understand more deeply the power, purpose and nature of silence as a spiritual discipline. The intentional act of engaging in silence as a spiritual discipline is the act of connecting with the Holy Spirit who is always present and active in our life. Silence as a distinct form of prayer (distinct from praise, intercession, petition, etc.) in which we open our self to the voice of God. For me time spent in silence is not a void, rather it is a conscious effort to seek out and tune my life to the movement of the Holy Spirit.
A second spiritual practice is one that I would call “remembrance.” Following Paul’s admonition to the church to “pray without ceasing”, living in a way that our life is filled with reminders of the ongoing presence of the resurrected Christ with us is what I mean when I talk about the spiritual practice of remembrance. In this act of remembrance we remember not only that Christ is with us but that Christ has claimed us opens the gateway to an intentional way of living in a world that often stands in opposition to the Gospel. Finding ways to remember that are authentic to our life and experience are the determining factor for an effective spiritual discipline of remembrance. For instance…I use an Anglican Rosary as a means of being intentional in my prayers for others. After a while, I came to realize that that simple ring of beads could be used for another purpose. After reading a quote by Mother Teresa where she essentially prayed “may I never let go of the hand of Jesus, even under the guise of serving the poor,” I was claimed by a new prayer: may I never let go of the hand of Jesus, even under the guise of preaching the Gospel. To that end, my rosary spends a lot of time in my hand through the day and becomes a tangible reminder that my life belongs to Christ and it is Christ who I follow in the world.
A third spiritual practice is to read more in the realm of spirituality. In essence, I’m filling in learning in a discipline that has been, until now, widely absent. My reading those is not a merely academic exercise. I’m not reading so much for learning knowledge but reading to experience the witness to the transforming truth of grace. My reading list includes ancient and modern writers in the spiritual disciplines. This list includes Augustine, Thomas a Kempis and Carlo Carretto just to name a few.
What has brought all of these disciplines together is a change of perspective which has led to a change of habit. I’ve been learning to approach the entirety of my life as a spiritual practice. Everything, from my morning and evening prayer to the completion of my daily “task” list, are being transformed into spiritual disciplines. I’m learning (and it will take a while) to more completely see the totality of my life as an act of prayer and worship. Every act of my life is an act that either draws me closer to Christ (where I breathe the Spirit with every breath) or leaves me mired in the muck of “Caesar’s world.” There is a time in my life when I would have thought a life of this kind of discipline as a tall order and well beyond my reach. However, I’ve come to realize that by God’s grace this is a worthy, necessary and meaningful goal to work toward. I may or may not achieve the discipline and intentionality I envision; but I realize that the character of the journey is more important than the destination.

A Beautiful Day Apart
Monday was my monthly retreat day. The idea of a retreat day, a day apart to pray, study, meditate and simply be with God, was born out of my experience of the Academy. I’ve come to appreciate more and more the time that I spend alone with God. This last retreat day was the most powerful yet. Each one of these experiences adds to my understanding of spiritual formation and deepens my relationship with God and the cumulative affect is blowing me away.
The human condition is stressful; that is a given. Regardless of our chosen vocation, family structure or lifestyle, stress goes with the territory. There are few days that go by when we don’t encounter hurt feelings, broken relationships, pain, shame, guilt, regrets or anger in some way, shape or form. These could be our feelings or they could be someone else’s feelings projected toward us. This is not meant to be a “woe is me” attitude; this is an observed reality. It is an observation. Given the likelihood of encountering stress in our life it is a wonder that any of us get anything done.
If you browse the self-help shelf of your local bookstore you’ll notice that they are crammed with a wide variety of options for dealing with the stresses of life in the skin of humanity. From the academics to Dr. Phil everyone has an opinion and a regimen for handling stresses. I don’t know if it is stubbornness, self-reliance or something else, but I don’t often put a lot of stock in the growth industry that is the current self-help phenomenon.
In dealing with the stresses of life, other people’s and my own, I’ve had a tendency to internalize them. I have such deep empathy for other people that I can easily carry their pain as my own. This sort of internalizing of other people’s pain is an engraved invitation to any number of psychological problems. Over the years, I’ve learned how to be empathetic but not so deeply internalize the pain that is shared with me. In the last few months, I’ve learned more about my empathy and how to care for people who share their pain with me. I’ve learned more fully that I am not the source of another person’s healing. I may be an instrument of healing through my love and my empathy, but it is God who brings the healing. Through my own growth in the spirit, through prayer, silence, Sabbath, worship, study and intentionality, I’ve learned how to be present and care for people without letting their hurts become so internalized that it paralyzes me and diminishes my ability to serve for the long haul.
So now on to Monday…As I sat in the empty monastery chapel to do my morning worship I could feel the presence of the Spirit wash over me. Wave after wave, with each deep breath, through prayer, scripture, silence and journaling I could feel God’s Spirit washing me clean. For what must have been an hour this experience continued. I came to recognize that all of the stresses that had stuck to me and could have rooted like weeds in my spirit were still at the surface of my spirit and were easily washed away. Likes scales they fell off around my feet and I found myself refreshed. The things that caused the stress, the hurts, the failures, the anxieties were still present. I didn’t care less about the people or the hurts that had been shared with me. There was no thought of cutting and running from these sources of stress. Instead, this experience of being washed clean empowered me and strengthened my compassion for all of the situations. As I have grown in grace and spirit, through the disciplines I’ve learned through the Academy, I’ve discovered a new understanding of myself as an instrument rather than the source. I’ve learned new levels of trust in God. The taproot of my spirit runs more deeply into the nourishing wellspring of God’s grace.

A New Way to Think About Witnessing
I started this journal several weeks ago simply to share my journey of faith. I don’t wish to claim superior knowledge or superior faith. My only desire is to bear witness to the transformation that God is bringing into my life. In the weeks that I’ve been engaged in this intentional journaling and reflecting I’ve been struck by the extraordinary power that comes from this kind of witnessing and sharing. Teaching and preaching certainly have their place in the realm of faith. The transmission of knowledge, understanding and wisdom from one person to another are vital links in the movement of faith throughout the human community and from one generation to the next. However, the transmission of knowledge, understanding and wisdom from “teacher” to “learner” is sometimes incapable of penetrating the depth of one’s spirit in the same way that simply sharing our faith journey with another can do.
I have shared with many friends the power that they have felt, both in the giving and receiving, in sharing their journey with someone else. I believe that there is a kindred spirit that can be developed between fellow travelers, even between very different people, when in grace and openness the journey of faith is shared. There is something very exciting about sharing with someone else the good news of what God is doing in your life! From the day to day feelings of God’s abiding presence and peace to those moments of amazing grace that break unexpectedly in our life God continues to bless us.
In these last eight months of journeying God, I have been blessed in extraordinary ways. Everything that God had done in my life up to the point last fall when I became engaged in the Two Year Academy helped to create an environment of openness and readiness to receive a fuller measure of grace. I’m not sure how many people are sharing my journey through this journal, and at the end of the day, the numbers don’t matter. If I can share this journey with even one person and you feel blessed by my sharing of the ways that God has worked to transform my life, then I give thanks to God for the sharing. If you’ve been blessed through my sharing, then please share that blessing with others in your life. Pray that God would help you to find your voice for sharing your witness to God’s grace. Through this sharing God will continue to make our lives and our world new.

Getting Our Hands Dirty
One of the great obstacles of the spiritual life in the 21st Century is the influence that is exerted by the Information Age culture that surrounds us. As education levels have increased we have become an increasingly verbal and aural culture. We have become a people of words and ideas. The explosion of information oriented technologies such as e-mail, high speed internet, text messaging, PDAs and other such tools have left us in a sea of words. What we have lost is the power of experience. In a world that is becoming increasingly virtual, we are in danger of losing the importance of the visceral experience of touching something with our own hands. Ideas and intellectual thoughts play an important role in shaping our understanding of the world, but the deepest understanding of the world can’t replace the power of experiencing the world in sight and sound and touch.
This is particularly important as we consider our life with the God we know as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our theology does play an important role in shaping our life; but we have to remember that our relationship is not to words and ideas. Our relationship is with a person; our relationship is with the God who created us, the risen Christ who still walks among us and the Holy Spirit that continues to blow through our lives. Relationships aren’t intellectual endeavors. Relationships require that we roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty.
The life of a disciple is a hands-on life. We don’t deal with the demands of Matthew 25:31-46 by sitting back and only praying or by simply writing a check. To care for the least of these, the brothers and sisters of the King requires us to invest ourselves completely. We are called to more than polite pro-forma types of visits with the sick, the homeless, the hungry or the imprisoned. We are called to compassion, to walk with people who are in need.
This life of active discipleship begins with an active spiritual life. To have a prayer life that does more than simply recollect the needs of others is what is required. In our prayers for the sick, the needy, the marginalized, the broken and the hungry we are called to a life of prayer that identifies with their pain (to the best of our ability). We are called to recognition of the spiritual and not merely the physical dimensions of their need. When we worship we are called to not simply sit back and wait to be entertained. Worship isn’t what is done for us. The act of worship is our act (individually and collectively) of seeking out the God who encounters us in worship and reveals God’s self to us. We are called to engage in the songs, the prayers, the scripture readings, the offerings and every element of worship with the zeal of a new Christian seeking to soak in the presence of Christ with every pore of their being.
Getting our hands dirty in our own spiritual formation means that we do everything we can do to seek out experiences (beyond words and ideas) of the God who is in our midst.

Spiritual Thrill Seeking
I realize that the title itself might leave you with a bit of a disconnect. After all, it is difficult to compare spirituality with paragliding, base jumping, swimming with sharks or any other adrenaline junkie, x-games type pursuits. I look at these pursuits and can see how others might have some fun with it; and for the most part I realize that that sort of thing is generally not for me. However, over the weekend I had the good fortune to watch paragliders as I stood on the cliffs at Pacifica, CA, just south of San Francisco, and while I am not an adrenaline junkie, I must admit that there was something about watching others do it that was quite compelling. It looked so wonderfully peaceful. The people who were gliding on the currents above my head looked so happy and so free and I wondered what it would be like to be in their place. I know a few thrill seekers in my life and while I might not jump out of a plane with them, there is something about that free spirited, on-the-edge lifestyle that can be instructive for our spiritual pursuits.
It becomes so easy for us to get rooted into a very narrow routine of spirituality and experience with God. Most of us tend to be creatures of habit. We know what we like and we like what we know. We can easily become comfortable, then complacent and then largely unresponsive to new opportunities to experience God outside of our narrowly defined spirituality. In the process of this narrowing it is not just we who get narrowed, but in our mind, we begin to narrow and limit God. We lose the sense of the mystery, power and omnipotence of God. We lose the sense of the promise that God’s creative activity didn’t end with the sixth day. God continues to create, to recreate and to make all things new. God’s presence in our life, in the life of the church and in the world at large is a dynamic presence. This dynamic presence, when we allow it to happen (remember God seeks out our partnership on our own life), can and does continually shape our life, our experience, our understanding and our practice of Christ’s ministry in the world.
Growing in grace and our experience of God’s work in our life requires an ongoing spiritual awareness. Through prayer we attune our heart to God’s work. Through worship we continue to invest ourselves in God’s work in our life. Through study our understanding of how God has worked in the lives of our brothers and sisters is expanded. Through all of these, our experience of God grows and our eyes are opened and we see God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – in ever deepening and broadening ways. This also means learning different ways to pray. It means learning how brothers and sisters in different traditions and at different times have prayed and deepened their experience of God. This also means seeking out powerful new ways to experience and remember our Baptism and our invitation to Christ's table in communion. It means actively participating in an ongoing and deeper quest to know God (as Father, Son and Holy Spirit) more completely. When we engage in this pursuit our faith then becomes more deeply connected, in a personal way to the risen Christ in our midst. Rather than having faith focused simply on an idea, theological concept, thought or in a long ago memory, our faith is personal, rather it is in a person (Jesus). In this deepening relationship with the risen Christ in our midst, we find that our faith is not stale, but it is animated by the very breathe of God.
So, “spiritual thrill seeking?” Why not when we are willing to cast off the comfort of the familiar we will find God in some of the most exciting, challenging and unexpected places in our life. Open up, open your eyes, you’ll be amazed at what you’ll find.

The Perfection Trap
One of the most persistent challenges in my life is reconciling the things that I can do with the things that I can’t do. I feel very fortunate and very blessed with the various abilities that God has given and nurtured within me. In any given day, I could accomplish a lot of things in many areas of my life. The shadow side of this ability is the expectation that grows within me that I ought to be able to, in turn, fix everything that goes wrong in my life. This is an insidious growth…it begins slowly and imperceptibly until one day I realize that I’m living with the expectation and feeling of entitlement that I ought to be able to fix everything that goes wrong in my life and my world. I feel as though I ought to be able to quickly and effectively troubleshoot anything (and by extension, anyone) operating outside of factory specifications. When it is proven that I am unable to accomplish these fixes, I get stressed, I get angry and I find myself seeking to exercise greater control over other areas of my life both to keep other things from falling apart and to prove, if only to myself, that I’m not a hopeless failure. I know…that all sounds pretty pathological…but as I learn more about this blind spot in my life and listen to others share similar struggles I am convinced that there are many of us in the world who labor in the shadow of this image of personal perfection.
So here is what I’ve learned: I can’t fix everything that goes wrong in my life, in my ministry, with my own father or with a Little League umpire. The question I’m learning to wrestle with is “how can I learn to be faithful to my calling in Christ when there is challenge and adversity in my life?” I have to come to terms with what faithfulness requires of me in these myriad situations. To talk about faithfulness rather than "fixing" in these situations takes me out of the realm of evaluating my actions and attitudes based on the world’s standards of success and failure. Whether or not my efforts to bring change, growth, healing, etc into any or all of these situations are “successful” are not what is at issue. What good would it be for me to “win”, to be successful in these situations if it came at the cost of my soul? What would be the consequences to my soul if winning brought spiritual death through acting in ways that are in opposition to the Gospel and my calling in Christ?
The human condition is to strive, to achieve and to get ahead. This is how we are wired. However, this becomes damaging to us when the drive to get ahead becomes the be all and end all of our existence. One of the things that feeds that drive is a fear of loss, rejection and emptiness. We are averse to these feelings of emptiness and loss, for the most part, because we equate them with absence. However, Easter teaches us that death and emptiness are not signs of absence; rather they are pregnant with possibilities for new life, new growth and new hope. The emptiness of the tomb that the women encountered on Easter morning led them to fear. They saw only the loss of the body of their crucified Lord. Instead the emptiness of that tomb was not loss; instead it was the first sign of the resurrection. It became the tangible anticipation of a new hope. In the emptiness of the tomb God is present and already at work.
This becomes a source of inspiration for us as we face loss, illness, death, experiences of failure or whatever emptiness is born out of the experiences of our life. We need not fear the emptiness. We need not become consumed with the unhealthy and unholy efforts to control or fix everything that is wrong in our life. We can’t fix everything. We can’t cause the sun to shine through the night. Instead we are called to labor through the darkness and emptiness in anticipation of what new life God will reveal when the sun breaks through the darkness and a new day begins. This labor is a work of worship and prayer. It is a work of silence and hope. It is the expectant waiting, trusting that God does not abandon us to the darkness.

A Fresh Perspective
I discovered something pretty amazing this week. I had a friend turn me on to Google Earth. This is an amazing computer program that makes use of satellite coverage to get a bird’s eye overview of most of the planet. In the few hours that I’ve had it I’ve toured the Grand Canyon, Yosemite National Park, June Lake, CA, Joshua Tree National Park, Oahu, Maui, my friend’s house in Massachusetts and my own neighborhood. It allows views from more than 100 miles above the earth to just a few hundred feet. So much more can be seen from the bird’s eye view. It is easier to see the spatial relationships between landmarks, buildings and other features. Another feature of the software is the ability to tilt the angle and rotate around a fixed point. This allows for three dimensional renderings of a variety of areas on the map (I recommend the Grand Canyon 3D tour).
Would it surprise you to realize that this has led me to think a lot about perspective today? It is phenomenally easy to become locked into a narrow perspective of thought and action. With all of the things in the world around us, that push in on us, compete for our time and precious resources of spirit, energy and money; sometimes, the only thing we can do is put our head down, focus on the path and keep pushing forward. Sometimes we feel that if we don’t keep moving we might get stuck, lost and/or mired in a rut.
I’m learning that as part of my spiritual discipline I need to rise above the daily grind and look at all the pieces of my life and ministry again. The spiritual life is often like the constantly morphing jigsaw puzzle. As things change the contours of life and faith are continually transformed by grace. Just because all the pieces fit together once doesn’t mean they will always fit together the same way. Some of the pieces of our life grow continually and other pieces no longer fit at all. It is only when we take the opportunity to rise above the daily push that we gain the needed perspective to see if we are who and where we are.
This perspective is clearest when we keep our examination rooted in prayer. It is the Spirit who witnesses to us the truth about God and our self. It is also the Spirit who will witness to us the image and vision of who God has created us to be. That vision and calling will be rooted in the images of God’s continuing reign of love, mercy, justice and reconciliation. We will see our life as God sees it and as God hopes for us. In this image there will be grace and strength, power and promise to live into that vision. What’s more we know that as our life continues to be transformed in grace, the pieces of our life will continue to fit together. On the other hand, if the examination of our life is rooted in the world rather than the Spirit we will find that we are examining ourselves according to the world’s standards. We will be mired in the world’s standards of success. We will be trapped by the world’s standards of life and wealth. The world’s standards are at odds with God’s standards. To examine our life according the world’s standards rather than the Spirit’s grace we will be rendered a hollow shell, perhaps beautiful on the outside, but empty on the inside.

Taking a Step Back to Reflect
Lifting up the faith of Abraham is a common preaching theme in the church. I suspect it has been from the time that Paul used Abraham’s faith as a teaching tool in his letters. I’ve always marveled in the Abraham story. Who wouldn’t; after all there is something compelling about the story of a person advancing in years, picking up and moving to a foreign land at the request of a voice (or a God) that he had not previously known, with only a promise (whose fulfillment was suspect from the start given the nature of biology and the world) to hold on to. What an incredible story this is. The promise of God’s ongoing presence with Abraham and Sarah grows and blossoms over 25 years. As their faith grows, God reveals more and more of the nature of their covenantal relationship and pieces come more and more into place. However, the pinnacle of the promise is yet to be fulfilled. The son promised to them is not yet born. Then, as if to leave no mistake as to where the child comes from, when it seems that train has forever left the station, the son Isaac is born. Abraham and Sarah remained faithful, though not perfectly faithful they always came back to the path and the promises that guided them for so many years was fulfilled. Their faith was vindicated. As powerful a story as this is, I never really understood it as my story.
That changed this week. The Abraham story is my story…In fact; I truly believe that it is our story. I’m convinced now that Paul recognized Abraham’s faith not that it is a paragon of faith, the pinnacle of what we seek to achieve, but it is where we all begin with God. When I first began to wrestle with my call to ordination I didn’t trust it. Twice in 5 months I had recognized that God was trying to get my attention and even could have been calling me to ordination and yet each of these experiences came from very deep emotional events. At the moment, the emotion cluttered my discernment and I determined that God wasn’t calling me. About six weeks after the second call, I heard the sound of God’s voice in no uncertain terms. In that moment it was as if all of my previous life plans had never really existed. It wasn’t a thunder and lightning experience but it was nonetheless crystal clear. At that moment I could only say “yes” and I made a prayer of faith. God I know you won’t lead me astray…I trust you. What was striking was that there was nothing about my previous faith and understanding that provided what you might call a “rational basis” for answering that call. I knew God. I was growing in my faith in Christ. But those faith relationships were superficial at best. There was nothing in my relationship that would have made it rational or logical for me to turn away from my plans and my path and to follow what God had for me. And yet, that is exactly what I did. And now, twenty four years later I have no doubt that I made the right and faithful choice. Moreover, I have no regrets. Abraham’s story is my story.
Abraham’s story is our story, too. When God calls us to serve in different ways in God’s Kingdom what it takes to answer the call is not perfect faith. God does not expect perfect understanding (i.e. a graduate degree in theology). What God asks of us is the willing to trust. We have the extraordinary opportunity to step out in faith and trust not knowing where our next step will lead us, but being confident enough to know that wherever our foot lands, God will be there.

Learning to Roll with the Cyclical Nature of the Spiritual Life
A couple of weeks ago I found myself with a little extra time before a meeting and I did my morning devotion at Torrance State Beach (which incidentally is 3 blocks from my first appointment after seminary). I’d just driven through early morning Los Angeles/Orange County traffic to get there. I had to get up early to make sure I made the meeting on time. It was shaping up to be one of those days.
As I began my usual routine I was very much looking forward to my time with the Lord, but I could feel that my heart was heavy and I didn’t feel as though I had much energy. It was a down time. I have these times before. I think everyone has. Our spiritual mothers and fathers have used phrases like “dry”, “wilderness experience” and even the “dark night of the soul” to describe these experiences. There is something that is natural about these downturns in our spiritual life. When I’ve had these periods before, it was natural for me to have one or two days of this down part in the cycle quickly turn into four or five days (or more). Once one of these down slopes started I usually couldn’t stop them until I hit some sort of natural bottom. I’d fight against the feelings of dryness. I’d feel guilty for the feelings of malaise. I would allow these spiritual down times to weigh like an anchor around my soul. I just didn’t know another way.
As I sat at the beach that morning, I could feel that same feeling of malaise and dryness starting to creep into my life. Somewhere though, in the fog of my spirit, I could feel that there was a difference. As I sat watching the waves roll into the sand and then recede I remembered the classic piece of Christian prose we know as “Footprints”. I remembered my very recent experiences of being carried by God. I remembered the feelings of holding the risen Christ by the hand. The feelings of malaise didn’t evaporate…I guess I really didn’t expect them to…but I was no longer freaked out or afraid of them. I wasn’t fearful of any kind of prolonged experience. I knew…I just knew that I wouldn’t walk through this period of dryness alone. I knew that this period was not marked by an absence of God’s presence. On the contrary, I knew that I would have a constant companion through this time. I knew that Jesus would lead me through this time. I was able to engage a deeper level of trust as I moved forward in faith. This continues to be a profound realization for me. It is easy to trust God when things are going well. Trust has a profoundly different quality when it is engaged in the face of adversity or failure. I know that as long as I keep my eyes on Christ He will lead me.
The last ten days have had a wide variety of challenges…some of my own making and others that have been thrust into my life…but through it all, I’m learning to trust in ways I never have before. The foundation of this knew learning has come as I’ve been able to learn how to see, experience and grow in my ability to find God in silence. I’ve always know that God was never far from me. In these last few months I’ve learned to live into that truth.

So What Happens When We Get Distracted?

There was no doubt that things were changing in my life, my spirit and my ministry. In September, after the first week of the Two Year Academy, my spiritual horizons expanded exponentially. I had no doubt that God was powerfully at work in these changes and I was excited for them. The energy of these fresh spiritual experiences did last, however, in the face of life, schedule and the normal “stuff” of the human condition the energy did wane. The desire to continue to grow, explore and extend these changes was strong; however something quite predictable happened. Previously scheduled and planned for events, emerging crises, illnesses and the normal elements of leading in a large ministry setting began to exercise their power. As much as I tried to stay focused on establishing new patterns of work, new approaches to ministry and new approaches to spiritual formation and practice, the push of the routine and the urgent knocked out the underpinnings of even my best effort.
As I stated above, the desire to grow on this new trajectory was always there, but what I discovered is that it was still very easy to be distracted. The inertia of life was a more formidable force in my life than I realized. Before I knew it I had fallen back into old habits, old patterns of thought and old patterns of organizing my ministry and life. This backsliding created something of a spiritual struggle for me. It wasn’t a cataclysmic struggle; but it did shake me up. I began to understand Paul’s lament that “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” In spite of my best desires, I struggled over this conflict for a few weeks.
Over this period of weeks, I began to realize that even though the experiences of the first week of the Academy that were so life changing for me were indeed a gift from God, true transformation would only come when I claimed the gifts (just as I was claimed by them). Through the work of intentionally adjusting my habits of spiritual discipline, including the work of attending to my spirit independently of my vocation, the seeds that God had sown began to take root more deeply. In my battle with distractions, life and the ordinary diversions began to turn. Day by day, and sometimes even moment by moment the more I was able to turn my eyes to what the Lord was doing in my life, the broader my vision for life and ministry became.
Through this very intentional work of spiritual formation I’ve discovered one of the more interesting paradoxes of my life. A singular focus on God isn’t an escape from the world. It isn’t the act of a hermit seeking to remove the stain of a broken world. As I have learned to live in a more focused way, my view of the world, my life and my ministry have been expanded. I feel like I see more and understand more of the world and my calling as a result of keeping my eyes focused on God.
Do I still get distracted from time to time…yes? Do I still feel the pull to old habits and patterns…you bet? What is different now is that I can recognize these distractions more quickly and I’ve learned my way home. I may still find myself off the path from time to time, but I do know my way back.

Peace,
J.T.

Images of Intimacy with Jesus

Have you ever had times in your life at which you were comfortable with what you knew about life or faith; and then have that comfort shaken by ideas that were so striking, so compelling as to carry you to depths of faith that you never knew were possible? In moments such as these our perception of the universe expands. We realize that we are living in a much larger world. We also realize that the possibilities of experiencing the presence of the risen Christ are much broader than we ever thought possible.

I’ve shared in the past weeks my thoughts and experiences of learning to be with God in silence. These learnings and experiences have borne very sweet and plentiful fruit in my life and ministry. One of the most meaningful parts of that learning is that spiritual formation is not a narrow path made up of a singular thread that must be meticulously followed in order to be meaningful. I’ve learned that spiritual formation is a broad path with a smorgasbord of experiences that will be meaningful to us regardless of our personality type, life experience and personal preference.

One of the new experiences of spiritual formation that has been opened to me is the use of icons. For centuries, the Eastern Orthodox tradition has used icons as a source of spiritual practice and devotion. I know very little about the tradition (still something I need to learn), but what I do know is that the use of icons exposes one to images that draw us deeper into understanding the nature of our relationship with Jesus. There is one particular icon to which I’ve been drawn. This image is a representation of the nature of the relationship I seek to have with Jesus. The image is the Theotokos of Vladimir.

The Theotokos of Vladimir is also known as the Virgin of Vladimir. It is an important image in the Russian Orthodox Church and the icon itself is on display at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. At face value it seems like simply one more representation of the Virgin Mary with the Christ child. However as you look closer there emerges an image that has captured my spirit. First, if you look at the Virgin’s left hand, she is not holding the child; she seems to be pointing toward him, as if to offer him. In my life and ministry that is what I seek to do…offer Christ. Second, the position of their faces is striking. There is a powerful closeness. In fact, the Virgin is so close to the Christ child that she would breathe His every breath. She is so close that she is breathing in the very Spirit of Christ.

This is the image that motivates me. In my life, in my devotion and in my ministry I want that kind of closeness…that kind of intimacy. I want to be close enough to Christ to breathe His Spirit. As I worship, as I engage in my devotional practices, as I preach, as I teach, as I live and as I breathe; this is my hope. This is my deepest longing.

Crisp Around the Edges

It took something significant to get my attention…to break me out of the rut that I had created for myself as a response to the circumstances around me. Last July I was finishing (or near the end) of the most challenging three years of my ministry. Through this time the church went through significant and sometimes challenging staff changes, we were trying to get a much needed Sanctuary expansion project off the ground and completed and the church experienced an unprecedented number of serious illnesses (mostly cancer) and death. I was on the go constantly and with extraordinary commitment from the whole church we saw each of these challenges through. These experiences took a toll on my spirit. I won’t say that it was bad or worse yet awful, because even through the most difficult times I could see God’s hand sustain me and the people around me. Even in the experiences of the Pit, I knew that I wasn’t there alone. Still it took every ounce of spiritual, physical and emotional energy to get through it.

Through this time I did everything I knew how to do to take care of myself. Self care for Clergy is big in my Annual Conference and with my Superintendent; I knew enough to take it seriously, especially with what I was going through. I would take my day off each week. I continued to take continuing education when I could. I took all of the vacation that I was entitled to and I even gave up some preaching time. Yet the toll on my spirit and body was the worst I’d experienced. Physically, I began to experience mild symptoms that led to testing and treatment for early stages of an ulcer. I’m happy to say that this all turned out well. Spiritually, by the grace of God, I was muddling my way through. Thankfully I didn’t really know how cooked I was until after the Sanctuary was completed and I started a four week (pre-planned vacation). It took the distance away from the pressures of the church to realize just how tired and cooked I had become. After two weeks of decompressing in Hawaii, God brought me to a startling realization.

Through all of this period of life stress I did try and remain consistent with spiritual disciplines. I prayed, did regular devotions and journaled but too often it seemed as though I was just going through the motions. What God helped me to see was that every prayer, every worship, every journal entry had something to do with being Pastor J.T.. Even in my time alone with God I had become too consumed by my calling. Pastor J.T. may have been muddling through the circumstances, but the person underneath the calling was getting pretty well fried. I was so caught up, seemingly by necessity, in being Pastor J.T. that underneath it all J.T. wasn’t being fed. I realized that there was very little left for my ministry to stand upon.
It was at this point that I was ready to hear and ready to learn. This unleashed a week of prayer and quiet. I let go of the calling that had come to define my life so that God could heal, renew and transform the person that God had called into ordained ministry in the first place so that I might pick it up again as a whole and renewed person.

It was this experience of renewal, this readiness that God used to call me to the Academy for Spiritual Formation. While the experiences of transformation that I’ve undergone as a result of my Academy learning have begun to spill over into my ministry, it isn’t because the Academy is meant to be (at least for me) a vocation building experience. The transformation of my ministry is a result of how deeply these experiences have rooted themselves in my life. I know that through these experiences God’s grace has burrowed more deeply into my life than I ever conceived possible. It is because of the fruit that grace has born that I am changed and my ministry is changed.

Peace,
J.T.

Learning Silence

After years of toying with forms of silence, including meditation and contemplative prayer, I finally began to understand the nature of silence in prayer. I believe that I did understand the concepts behind meditation and contemplative prayer. What I didn’t understand was the true nature of the silence that rests beneath these forms of prayer.

One of the things that I need to say about myself is that I am an off the chart extrovert. I love social situations. I love being with people. I get energized by being in the crowd. As an extrovert I’ve routinely struggled with the singular practices of personal spiritual formation. From the time that I was in seminary, I’ve cycled through times of effective spiritual formation and long periods of personal dryness in my spirit. Thankfully, even during the periods of personal dryness, my passion for my own ministry and my commitment to my own sense of God’s call and claim on my life were not diminished. Through my years of ministry I’d come to understand and believe that spiritual formation is as much about what God does through our spiritual practices as it is about the practices themselves. I knew that my prayers for others and myself were more than prayers for intercession and petition. I knew that God’s grace flowed back through that channel to heal, guide, shape and transform me. Out of this understanding I’ve sought to understand more deeply Paul’s admonition to “pray without ceasing.” I’ve been learning to live more and more in the constant awareness of God’s presence in my life.

With the progress that I’d made in my spiritual journey, there were still missing pieces. There were still holes in my understanding. In the weeks to come I’ll share more about some of the experiences of the last year through which I discovered where the holes were.

Back to silence. The very next week after my first week at the Academy for Spiritual Formation (where I had learned to experience God in silence) I was right back into my regular routine. This was a routine that fit my extroverted personality and style. It was go, go, go. What I could not have anticipated was the surprise that I was in for in that first week. In the midst of an on the go week I found my self craving the silence and quiet time with God! Me…the ultimate extrovert…I couldn’t wait to be alone with God. In one short week at the Academy I discovered how much I needed silence with God. I discovered how much I needed to be with God. The seeking of silence with God became more than a spiritual discipline, more than one more thing to do; the seeking of silence with God was quickly becoming part of my very being.

What I’ve learned about silence has transformed my life, my spirit and my ministry. One of the myths that I had regarding silence is that it is a void. I was under the fallacious understanding that silence was all about absence. In essence, I was under the assumption that silence was a negative. I was constantly thwarted by my inability to experience the void, the absence, the negative that I assumed silence to be. What God has shown me is that silence in prayer is not about void; it is about fullness. It is not about absence; it is about presence. It is not about the absence of sound; it is about the sound of God’s voice in our hearts when we intentionally seek God’s presence. For an extrovert, who enjoys the experience of the crowd, I found in silence the biggest and best crowd of them all. I have had experiences of God’s presence throughout my life, yet none of them could compare to the depth of God’s presence that I’ve begun to experience through seeking out God in silence. A brand new pilgrimage has indeed begun for me. God is leading me and I can’t wait to see what God will show me next.

Peace,
J.T.

Learning to Listen

As I approached my 43rd birthday and was well into my 17th year of serving a local parish as an ordained pastor I was under no illusion that I had my act completely together. I could see holes in my life, my vocation and my spirit. Knowing that growth in the Spirit is a pilgrimage that takes a lifetime I was satisfied that I was in a generally good place. I had learned to give up nearly everything that might stand between me and God. What I hadn’t yet learned to give up was the sound of my own voice and my own thoughts.

I suppose you could say that this would be an occupational hazard for a preacher. After all, isn’t that what we get paid for? Aren’t we expected to be able to talk at length about a variety of subjects maintaining the myth that we know more than we actually do? While this skill may be valued in the parish; in my own heart and relationship with God I discovered that it was an enormous stumbling block. It was an obstacle to experiencing God more deeply in prayer. I’ve always known that it is important to take time in prayer and listen to God. We can get so caught up in petitioning, but if we don’t stop talking long enough, even God has a rough time getting through. The reality is that I had rarely experienced silence as an ongoing and vital part of my devotional life with God. I tried my hand at contemplative prayer, with no instruction or context, but it always seemed that there were pieces missing.

Then I experienced silence. Through a series of events (which I’m sure I’ll share in the weeks to come) I found myself attending the Two Year Academy for Spiritual Formation. This is an experience that I will attend once a quarter, for a week at a time through the summer of 2007. The Academy is sponsored by the Upper Room, a division of the United Methodist Church. It involves seminar teaching in and about the area of spiritual formation, worship (including Eucharist), time for reflection, covenant groups and silence…lots and lots of silence. I was spiritually ready for the challenge, but I had no idea what I was really in for.
In one of the first hour long experiences of silence I decided to walk the labyrinth that was on the grounds of the retreat center. I went into the silence with a specific idea to consider and reflect upon (one that had been assigned by one of our presenters) and as I began to walk the labyrinth I began to have one of my usual conversations with God. I made an effort to let God get a word in, but not many. Then I heard it…”Be still and know that I am God.” COOL! I have had experiences where I know that I’d heard the voice of God, so this experience wasn’t a total shock. In my excitement I proceeded with the conversation then it happened again…”Be still and know that I am God.” Just as clear as the first time. Now I was really excited. I was ready to launch back into the conversation with renewed gusto when I heard it a third time…”Be still and know that I am God.”

Now I get it…Now I understand what silence in prayer is all about. In that moment I was able to let go the sound of my own voice, my own thoughts, my own agenda in prayer and let God show the way. That was the grand beginning of the journey that I will share in the weeks to come.

Peace,
J.T.