"The kind of food our minds devour will determine the kind of person we become." - John Stott, Your Mind Matters

Thursday, January 28, 2010

The Next Course(s): Books 3 and 4

I think I'm going to write one more post about Letters to Malcolm, but I'm not sure when I'll have the chance. In the meantime, I thought I'd announce my next two books, in case anyone is following along.

Book 3 will be Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, by Kathleen Norris. I'm 60 pages into this one and enjoying it quite a bit. Since the book is a collection of 60+ short word-stories, I thought it would work well to read and comment alongside other reading.

Book 4 will be Fifty-Seven Words That Change the World: A Journey Through The Lord's Prayer, by Darrell Johnson. I've been reading this for the Bible study I am teaching, and thought it would be good to process a bit more here on Bookmeal.

I'm looking forward to growing fat with more spiritual soulfood!

Becky

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Saturday, January 23, 2010

Roses and Daffodils: In Honour of Personality

Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, by CS Lewis
Progress: completed

Some of my difficulty in presenting Lewis' Letters to Malcolm more coherently is due to the fact that 1) he tends to ramble (which is appropriate, since these are letters, after all) and 2) he is so dang smart. Sometimes he just loses me for a paragraph or two, and not just because I'm reading in bed. Case in point:

"The abstraction's value is almost entirely negative. It warns us against drawing absurd consequences from the analogical expression by prosaic extrapolations." (51) - My brain is slow to digest comments such as these.

I also had to look up the word "concupiscence" today. It means "lust," but I suppose it looks better in print. I've now bookmarked the Oxford Dictionary website on my computer to keep up with such colourful words and expand my vocabulary.

The statements which I do understand are so profound that each one deserves more time than I have to give the entire book:

"There is danger in the very concept of religion. It carries the suggestion that this is one more department of life, an extra department added to the economic, the social, the intellectual, the recreational, and all the rest. But that whose claims are infinite can have no standing as a department. Either it is an illusion or else our whole life falls under it.We have no non-religious activities; only religious and irreligious." (30) - My world gets bigger every day as I work out with more clarity what this really means. I am still discovering walls that have sprung up in my life, barriers that seek to segregate and compartmentalize what was never meant to stand alone or apart from my faith. I break them down, brick by brick.

"Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith. I don't agree at all. They are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the Passion of Christ." (41) - This is a new idea to me, and I think I like it. Anxieties are not the ideal, but neither are they sins. They can become pathways which lead us to Christ - if, as Lewis writes, we allow them to do so.

"One of the purposes for which God instituted prayer may have been to bear witness that the course of events is not governed like a state but created like a work of art to which every being makes its contribution, and in which every being is both an end and a means." (56) - I love any statement that imagines God as an Artist. This image, for me, represents love, passion, foresight, attention to detail, beauty and goodness. How much more - beyond the limits of our human imaginations - must divine creativity (Lewis would say the only creativity in an ultimate sense) demonstrate these things!

"Creation seems to be delegation through and through. He will do nothing simply of Himself which can be done by creatures. I suppose this is because He is a giver. And he has nothing to give but Himself. And to give Himself is to do His deeds - in a sense, and on varying levels to be Himself - through the things He has made. In Pantheism God is all. But the whole point of creation surely is that he was not content to be all. He intends to be 'all in all.'" (70) - This passage emphasizes at once the complete superfluity of creation (in and of itself) and the deep pleasure God derives from creating, and interacting with his creation in love. He needs nothing, so He gives, and that brings Him pleasure.

His humour keeps me smiling. Not-so-random tidbits of information from his vast storehouse of knowledge tickle my funny bone:

"You remember that the ancient Persians debated everything twice: once when they were drunk and once when they were sober." (45)

Here is one of my all-time favourite quotes from Lewis:

"If grace perfects nature it must expand all our natures into the full richness of the diversity which God intended when He made them, and Heaven will display far more variety than Hell. 'One fold' doesn't mean 'one pool.' Cultivated roses and daffodils are no more alike than wild roses and daffodils." (10)

This is a message that has shone like a beacon into the stormy waters of my spiritual journey: Personality matters to God. It was created by Him and is honoured by Him. The closer I move toward Christ, reflecting Him inside and out, the more unique I will be. In my black-sheep days of rebellion I felt that the more Christian one became, the more that person would begin to look like every other Christian: Christian robots. Predictable. Homogeneous. Standardized. Uniform. Eventually all individual thought would disappear in order to make room for more quotes from Scripture. CD and book collections would shrink until all that were left were hymns and devotionals. I wasn't sure movies would even make the cut.

In more recent years, as I have endeavoured to move out of rebellion and into obedience, I have embraced these words as a life raft. These passions, these dreams, this sense of humour, and even these limitations - are part of who God made me. They may need refining, prioritizing, postponing or redeeming, but they are part of me, and God loves all of me. These things will be perfected, not deleted, as I move closer toward Christ in obedience.

I have always taken secret pleasure in the picture of C. S. Lewis that adorns that backs of my Harvest Book/Harcourt Brace & Co editions of Lewis' books: he doesn't look robotic, does he? In fact, he looks rather impish. C. S. Lewis has always served as a sort of poster boy to remind me that people much smarter than I have struggled with the demands of Christianity and found it worthy of their lives - personalities and brains included.



Lewis has plenty more to say and I have plenty more to digest, but now it is time for bed. Goodnight, and thanks for journeying with me!

Becky

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To Clarify

Apparently I am still not talking enough about Letters to Malcolm. Steve would like to learn more about the book itself, and so I'm trying to figure out my specific purpose for this blog. I would like to introduce people to good books, I would like to encourage discussion, I would like to be challenged by the authors I read and the people who read my posts. These are all important to me, but I suppose my primary purposes are selfish ones: I want to write, I want to engage with the authors I'm reading, and most of all I want to process my own thoughts as I read. So, sometimes there may be an abundance of quotes and interaction with specific thoughts of my author friends, but other times (as of late) I may go chasing rabbit trails of my own making. I hope there will be a balance of both.

With approximately two weeks to devote to reading, processing and writing about each book, I have to pick and choose which worthy thoughts I will engage and which tasty morsels I will have to ignore (at least, in print) for now. I have been tempted to post the occasional list of good quotes, but so far have resisted. Perhaps it would be helpful. At any rate, it would help me to remember all the good stuff I've found. With some books I will discuss an overall theme, with others I may end up exploring one specific quote or passage. I may also bring in other authors I'm reading concurrently and enter them into the conversation, with or without much introduction.

What I endeavour most to accomplish is my own integrity in writing. I'm trying to be honest with myself and whomever else is reading. I'm trying to let go of worrying about what I write because of what someone else might think - of whether they will disagree or think I'm unintelligent, ignorant or uninformed. I'm trying to flesh out ideas about which I'm not always 100% convinced. I will try to be honest in admitting when I don't agree with or understand what appears to be an orthodox idea. Other times my honesty will take the form of preaching to myself something I know to be true but haven't yet fully absorbed into my spiritual walk. At any rate, please don't think I'm preaching to you!

Last of all, this honesty is forcing me to be vulnerable. As much as I would like to have something profound to offer, I am painfully aware that there are many who are infinitely more capable. This willingness to be vulnerable also brings freedom. I release my fears, insecurities and failures and entrust myself to the One who called me onto this journey in the first place. My hope is that through this blog and my fumbled attempts at engaging far superior thinkers, I might just have something profound to say by the end of the journey. Wisdom is what I seek.

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Thursday, January 21, 2010

Undragoning: Praying As We Are, Not As We Ought

Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, by CS Lewis
Progress: 56/124

"Oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off?" - Eustace Clarence Scrubb

Okay, so as my husband pointed out regarding my last post, I didn't actually mention Letters to Malcolm. True. It was meant as a sort of preamble to some more specific thoughts on his writing, which I have not yet put down on paper. The Letters are there, though, informing my thoughts and attitudes about prayer. This is a second or third reread for me, and the words in this book have come like old friends to visit me many times through the years.

The most specific words I've been thinking about recently are in his statement that "We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us." (22) Instead of simply being known by God, prayer is an opportunity for us to reveal ourselves to God, to unveil what is in us. Of course He already knows us better than ourselves; the point is that we become participants in the knowing, the revealing, and consequently, the confessing of our sins to God. There's no point in going to the doctor if we won't admit what's wrong. The doctor may know we're sick, our friends may see our disease, our very flesh may be wasting away, but healing will not happen until the patient himself is ready to admit it and receive the help and support that has always been available to him.

So, we must reveal, unveil ourselves to God. We must come to Him as we are, lovehandles and all. We might as well get it all out - all the frustration, longing, failing, needing, wanting, denying, resisting - for He already knows it's there, and yet He still desires to meet with us. There is no sin too scandalous, no request too trivial, to reveal to God. Lewis' comments revolve around the latter (innocent desires), but I believe the former (sinful desires or actions) also applies. The concern I think we both would have is that of irreverance before God. Is it proper to complain to God? No, of course not. But at the same time it is honest to admit that we have complaints, and where better to have those complaints put into proper perspective than at the feet of God? If I wait until I have no complaints before talking to God, I might be out of touch for a while. I can stew about them on my own, cut off from God by my own unconfessed sin. But if I admit my frustrations to God, they will find their answer in Him - just as Job finally got his answer from God:

"Who is this that darkens my counsel without knowldege?
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you, and you shall answer me." (Job 38:2-3)
"Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?
Let him who accuses God answer him!" (Job 40:2)

God put Job in his proper place, and that made a proper man out of Job: he agreed with God and acknowledged his own unworthiness. I find hope in the fact that although Job struggled with God and the assertions of his unhelpful friends for thirty-seven chapters, in the end, God defended him against his friends as "one who has spoken of me what is right" (Job 42:7,8). All those words of despair, complaint, depression, and challenge, and what God heard in the end was that Job agreed with Him. And then He blessed Job.

So, if we will give our brokenness to God, He will set the bone aright. We have the choice to leave the broken bone to heal on its own, sewing its cells back together with the crooked stitches of a child, forever a handicap in our lives. We also have the choice to allow Him (and yes, I believe He generally prefers to have our permission) to restore our broken bones and make them new again, so they can continue to serve our bodies as they were meant to do.

Having emphasized the importance of our willingness to be truly honest about who we are, the question remains as to what extent we are capable of doing so. As with Eustace and his "undragoning" in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, God rewards our attempts at revelation with His own truer, deeper revelation of who we are (as well as who we ought to be). Would it be fair to suggest that Eustace's first attempts at undressing himself was in part what led him to a willingness to be undressed by the Lion?
"Then the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke - 'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you,but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.
"The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off." (from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by CS Lewis, page 108-109)
If are to know God, we must strip and be stripped of all that hides the truth in our lives. As The 77s song says, we are to "Pray naked." What beautiful costumes have we rigged up to adorn ourselves in an attempt to feel better about ourselves and to make others think better of us? If must all come off, if we are to be right with God, who "reveals the deep things of darkness and brings deep shadows into the light" (Job 12:22), and He in His mercy will not leave us exposed, but will dress us in New Clothes of His own making.

"You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent." - Revelation 3:17-19

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Monday, January 18, 2010

Prayer in the Field

Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, by CS Lewis
Progress: 56/124

It shouldn't be surprising that when one sets out to learn about prayer, opportunities for practicing prayer will reveal themselves with increasing intensity. On Sunday, it was my three-and-a-half-year-old son, R, with a gash on his forehead, just about to the bone. Without naming names, I prayed that God would let there be a "good" doctor on call - that is, not one of the mean or incompetent ones I've encountered there in the past. God answered favourably, and provided a very kind doctor, whom R dubbed the "Daddy Doctor," and who was so gentle in his manner that R fell asleep on the table even as he was being stitched up (four stitches, for those interested in such things).

Tuesday brought turmoil of a more personal nature, and in my despair I went for a walk. There, under cover of darkness and in the blessed privacy of stars and snowy fields, I yelled. I accused. I was even, momentarily, sarcastic. It was not a pious prayer, but it was honest, and I hope that, at least, honoured God in some way - that I didn't lie to His face (so to speak) and try to sound submissive when in fact I was feeling about as rebellious as a goody-two-shoes like me can get. Amazingly, after the drama, I walked home with a renewed sense of peace and trust.

Tuesday also brought the devastating earthquake in Haiti. I sat transfixed before the computer, assaulted by images of pain and suffering, and unable to turn my eyes or attention away for a very long time. It occurred to me later that tragedy of this magnitude should have rendered my own problems irrelevant, at least for a while, but it didn't. I just made room in my heart for more sadness. Eventually, I remembered to pray about Haiti, too, instead of just feeling sad but helpless.

Tuesday is also my Bible study preparation day, and so I read the first few chapters of Regent College professor and Vancouver pastor Darrell Johnson's book, Fifty-Seven Words That Change The World: A Journey Through The Lord's Prayer. I read about prayer a lot more than I prayed that day, for all my woes.

On Wednesday morning I drove to Bible study, and in the silence of my car, prayed the Lord's Prayer, for the first time really praying it, letting the words draw out of me the sadness, despair, and longing that needed to be given over to those fifty-seven words and the One who hears them.

In Bible study, I taught about prayer, as a blind person leading others who could surely lead the way more capably. At the end, I burst into tears, and heard the heartfelt and teary prayers of other women on my behalf. I experienced the solidarity and community of the body of Christ at that moment, after I had been more honest and vulnerable than I've ever been with them before.

On Wednesday night I had a phone appointment, which I had arranged before my week had begun to fall apart. I was tempted to cancel, as my specific reason for calling seemed moot in light of the recent events and I felt drained. But by God's grace I did call, and was ministered to by a friend and fellow-pilgrim who had previously walked a journey similar to the one upon which I am now travelling, stumbling and grumbling along the way. She prayed through a passage in Jeremiah with me, and I saw glimpses of myself and my situation in those words of Scripture. I felt solidarity with the exiles in Babylon. I ended the phone conversation with a renewed sense of my identity and of God's purpose and plan for me in light of (no longer in contrast to) that identity. I could breathe a little deeper. For a little while I experienced joy.

Thursday brought more turmoil, although a remnant of the peace and trust from my walk on Tuesday hovered nearby, protecting me from despair.

Friday allowed me some respite from my woes and I focused again on the more pressing needs and desperate suffering of Haiti. After a growing sense that more than my prayers were required in response to the catastrophe, I donated money to aid in the relief efforts, and set my mind to thinking what else might be done on behalf of the Haitians.

On Saturday, peace came to my home. Giving and receiving, hearing and understanding, dreaming and planning were the agents of that peace.

And all these, things, I believe, were fruits of the many prayers made by me and for me this week, a personal response from Our Father, who art in heaven.

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Saturday, January 9, 2010

The Second Course is Served: Book #2

I've considered several books as the next course for bookmeal. Houston's Transforming Friendship carries on the idea of "keeping company with God," Tozer 's Pursuit of God does the same, but in the end I choose C. S. Lewis' Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, because I feel drawn to something with a bit of humour after Brother Lawrence's serious take on spirituality.

In a Facebook conversation with my friend Rosie, we got into a brief discussion about Brother Lawrence and whether he was super-spiritual or only seemed so because he lived in a monastery and we do not...Perhaps our lives seem more mundane, as Rosie pointed out. Or perhaps it was easier because he lived in a monastery. Was Brother Lawrence as honest about the trials of spirituality as he was the joys and rewards of it?

Here is my response on Facebook:

"I still have my moments of doubt...I was browsing Lewis' Letters to Malcolm this evening and felt impressed by the earthy honesty of his statment: 'Well, let's now at any rate come clean. Prayer is irksome. An excuse to omit it is never unwelcome. When it is over, this casts a feeling of relief and holiday over the rest of the day. We are reluctant to begin. We are delighted to finish. While we are at prayer, but not while we are reading a novel or solving a cross-word puzzle, any trifle is enough to distract us' (113). Now THAT I can relate to!"
So, because he is a funny, earthy guy who also calls me to deeper, truer levels of spirituality, intellectualism and imagination (often all at the same time), Lewis wins the coveted slot of Book 2! It's a reread (this will be my third time, I think) but as Lewis himself said, rereading books is a sign of a true book lover. I wonder if he ever imagined how many would read and reread his own books?

Stay tuned!

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Friday, January 8, 2010

Presence and Perspective

The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence, Part 3
progress: completed

"Do not forget Him! Think of Him often; adore Him ceaselessly; live and die with Him. That is the real business of a Christian; in a word, it is our profession. If we do not know it, we must learn it." (48)

Before I move on to the next book on my reading list, I owe comment on the topic of the presence of God, which tis he primary subject upon which Brother Lawrence so passionately expounds. In his own words, it is:
"the concentration of the soul's attention on God, remembering that He is always present...[It] is the life and nourishment of the soul, which can be acquired with the grace of God" (67, 68).
He resolved to do whatever he could for God - big or small - and to banish from his life anything that would offend or displease God. When he wandered in his thoughts, he would simply recall them back to God, gently and without condemnation from himself or God. When he was troubled by something, he simply released his concerns to God and lost himself in His love. When he was successful in his attempts at practicing the presence of God, he thanked God for the grace to do so. His life was a fleshed-out attempt at abiding, or dwelling, in Christ (John 15).

It all sounds good. It makes sense. Focus in on God and everything will fall into its proper place, and life will work. I even get that life will work because at that point you'll have transformed definitions for what it means for life to "work" (as with the delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart passage in Psalm 37). What I don't get is how to do this with children. I've had this blog entry in process for several days now, because I've been interrupted by:
  • R trying to attach a Mega-blocks sword to a non-Mega-blocks Spiderman figure (they don't fit, so I have to keep reattaching the sword for him)
  • T telling me about a monster in his dream with "powerful snot"
  • L getting into my paper trays and swatting at me when I tell her no, then collapsing on the floor in an impressive tantrum display. This is already her fourth one of the day...or more.
  • T needing me to open the tin where he is storing his fallen pine needles from the Christmas tree "for crafts"
  • T telling me his grand plan for an amazing outer space picture, which will be a present for Steve tonight
  • T needing me to draw, then cut, then redraw stars for his outer space picture
  • R and T fighting over their new Christmas present
And that's just the last ten minutes. Add to that the endless cacophony of three little people wanting to talk, needing to be heard and acknowledged, and waiting for a response from me, and focusing my mind on spiritual things get hard. True, Brother Lawrence experienced much grace in being able to "turn his little omelette in the pan for the love of God" but did he have three chattering monks in need of constant assistance in the kitchen with him at the same time?

I don't know the answer to this, but I suspect Brother Lawrence would tell me that practicing the presence simply means inviting God to join me with my three little chatterboxes, and going off to play with a thankful and grateful heart that he's entrusted them to me. He would say that motherhood is God's portion for me at this point in my life and that I can show him my love by doing it (motherhood, that is) to the best of my ability. I liked this prayer:


"My God, since You are with me, and since, by Your will, I must occupy myself with external things, please grant me the grace to remain with you, in Your presence. Work with me, so that my work might be the very best. Receive as an offering of love both my work and all my affections." (82)
Somehow it still feels like it's going to make me feel guilty rather than blessed. The truth is that it's hard to get your headspace right when your headspace is not your own - it's being bombarded by chattering, stuttering, crying, whining, grumpy and often very sweet (hence the guilt) little voices, fighting for airtime inside my consciousness. Maybe I should've figured out this whole presence thing before I had kids and then I could've been the calm, fun, intentional, idealized mother I'd always figured I would naturally be.

And yet, the only way to experience true comfort is in Christ. Brother Lawrence said that "God won't allow a soul that is searching for Him to be comforted anywhere other than with Him" (31-32). All other attempts to find comfort will fail. I think the same can be said for contentment, joy, peace, etc. So, unless I believe that being a mom makes practicing God's presence impossible, I've got to keep trying to figure it out. What does practicing God's presence look like to me at this point in my life - a wife and mother of three children, a woman struggling with guilt and failure and discontent? How does God's presence transform and redeem and alter my perspective on these things?

***

"Faith gave Brother Lawrence a firm hope in God's goodness, confidence in His providence, and the ability to completely abandon himself into God's hands. He never worried about what would become of him; rather he threw himself into the arms of infinite mercy. The more desperate things appeared to him, the more he hoped - like a rock beaten by the waves of the sea and yet settling itself more firmly in the tempest. This is why he said that the greatest glory one can give to God is to entirely mistrust one's own strength, relying completely on God's protection. This constitutes a sincere recognition of one's weakness and a true confession of the omnipotence of the creator. (89)

"Brother Lawrence saw nothing but the plan of God in everything that happened to him. Because he loved the will of the Lord so much he was able to bring his own will into total submission to it. This kept him in continuous peace." (89)

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Tuesday, January 5, 2010

The Annoyance of Spiritual Maturity and The Offense of Wise Words

The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence, Part 2
progress: completed

Although I appreciated and was challenged by Brother Lawrence's ideas about continuous living in the presence of God, I had to ask the question: Did people actually like being around this guy, or was he the teensiest bit annoying? As my husband Steve pointed out, the answer is perhaps not so telling as the question: why would I think that?

My first thought was that, in the flesh, he might exude an overpowering and obnoxious air of classic holier-than-thou, pontificating on his own spiritual prowess to the rest of us regular spiritual joes. How could you not feel condemned by this man's goodness and perfection? Ah - there! I have just exposed my faulty thinking: my feelings have given me away. It is my own sense of unholiness that is the issue here; it has little or nothing to do with this man's obvious holiness, except perhaps in that it awakens my own (human) tendency to compare. The honest answer, then, is that a very spiritually mature person such as Brother Lawrence makes me feel insecure in my own spirituality - he would be "annoying" to me because he was succeeding where I was failing. He would have the joy, peace, contentment, and radiance which I did not, and such characteristics would in fact highlight their absence in my own life.

Of course this was just my initial gut response - I'm being honest enough to admit it, embarrassing as it is. What I do with that response is what matters. Proverbs 23:9 warns, "Do not speak to a fool, for he will scorn the wisdom of your words." A fool will respond to one such as Brother Lawrence with offense at the suggestion or intimation that one can be holier than one currently is. She (or he) will find - or invent - reasons to discard the words of wisdom: It's too hard. It's not possible. It's not practical. He's annoying. I don't want to play the part of the fool, allowing my insecurities and sinfulness to cause me to scorn wisdom!

While taking the warning of Proverb 23:9 to heart, I can also take comfort in the promise of Proverbs 14:33, "Wisdom reposes in the heart of the discerning and even among fools she lets herself be known." There is hope for me yet! The wisdom reposing in me is this: Jesus' holiness and righteousness was perfect, and it offended people too. Too often I see in myself the Pharisee, so blinded by self-righteousness that I can hardly recognize the real thing. So, I have to honestly ask myself the question: Would Jesus have annoyed me too? I would like to think that he was so wonderfully mesmerizing, and charismatic, and full of authority and wisdom and compassion, and kindness-to-women that I would've just followed him around like a lovesick schoolgirl. I would like to think it would be easier to follow him if I knew him in the flesh. And yet I wonder. If I entered his world as I am today - a privileged, middle-class, seminary-educated woman, would I "need" him enough to consider his words? Or would I take offense at his presumption? I might have to keep asking myself these questions for a while, until each bit of spiritual pride, offense and hypocrisy is rounded up and exposed to the light of God's holiness.

Before I conclude this assortment of thoughts, I think it is only fair to quote from Joseph de Beaufort on the character of Brother Lawrence:

"He developed a gentle disposition, complete honesty, and the most charitable heart in the world. his kind face, his gracious and affable air, his simple and modest manner immediately won him the esteem and the good will of everyone who saw him... (83)
"Despite his simple and common life in the monastery, he did not pretend to be austere or melancholy, which only serves to rebuff people. On the contrary, he fraternized with everyone, and treated his brothers as friends, without trying to be distinguished from them. He never took the graces of God for granted, and never paraded his virtues in order to win esteem, trying rather to lead a hidden and unknown life. Though he was indeed a humble man, he never sought the glory of humility, but only its reality. He wanted no one but God to witness what he did, just as the only reward he expected was God himself." (84-85)
"Since loving God and loving one's neighbor are really the same thing, Brother Lawrence regarded those around him with the same affection he felt for the Lord." (93)
I would indeed be a fool to be offended by this man.


***   
            Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 
          All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
          Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

-Philippians 3:12-20

Monday, January 4, 2010

Life That Looks Like Death, Surrender That Brings Satisfaction

The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence, Part 1
progress: page 40/95

This book had my attention in the very first paragraph. It begins with Brother Lawrence's close friend, Joseph de Beaufort, describing Lawrence's spiritual awakening which took place after observing a tree in winter. By all appearances it was a barren, dead thing, ready for the fire. And yet, recognizing the season, he knew it would bud, flower and bear fruit again. This revelation gave him insight into God's character that changed his life. If God could bring this dead thing to life, how much more could he restore men's souls, if only they committed themselves to his care. Thus began his own journey into God's presence.

Being in what has sometimes felt like a dead place in my own life, this image resonated with me, reminding me of God's care and providence even when it is not immediately evident. In the Christian life, as in nature, what appears dead is often only in hibernation -secret happenings are taking place under the cloak of darkness and cold, preparing for new life to unfold. To be sure, it's been a long winter, but winter, by definition, is only a season, and spring will follow...eventually. Until then, there is some hope that I have some secret happenings of my own taking place within me, growth that will break through the surface like the long-awaited first green tips of crocuses in the snow.

In the meantime, according to Brother Lawrence, I should be practicing the presence of God. Or rather, there is no meantime: God himself is the end. Life, death, pleasures, and plans are all overshadowed in the pure joy of pursuing God and God alone, with no ulterior motives. To be sure, there are great treasures to be gained in wholeheartedly pursuing God, but they are trinkets compared to the gift of God himself.

"He sought only God, and not His gifts...Rather than desiring them from Him, he chose to look beyond the gift, hoping to learn more about God Himself." (10)
So, he sacrificed his pleasures (dreams?) and received for his troubles wholehearted satisfaction.

If God is the end, he is also the means to himself. God alone can lead us to God. He calls us, leads us and causes us to respond all by his grace. We get to know him by practicing the presence of God until it becomes habit - indeed, "a pleasurable habit" (21) - until we are so used to the comfort and joy of his presence that we feel a sharp and immediate sense of loss when we stray from him. For Brother Lawrence this meant complete surrender to the person and will and love of God.

"He wasn't afraid of dying to self or losing himself in Christ, because complete surrender to God's will is the only secure road to follow. In it, there is always enough light to assure safe travel." (17)

Complete surrender to the person and will and love of God? Practice, indeed!

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Saturday, January 2, 2010

What is Spiritual Reading?


"It is a way of reading that shapes the heart
at the same time that it informs the intellect,
sucking out the marrow-nourishment from the bone-words."
(Eugene Peterson, from the introduction to
Take and Read: Spiritual Reading: An Annotated List)

My understanding of spiritual reading has expanded in the years since I began my studies at Regent College (1998). Prior to that, my list would've been fairly narrow and quite homogeneous: I would read the opinions of others who thought like me. I think it was my year of studying abroad in Scotland (1996) that it all began: one of our assignments at Glasgow Bible College was to read and discuss Vatican II - quite a stretch for me, being the daughter of a Baptist pastor and all. After that it was second-year Greek exegesis class (1997), in which I rather obsessively consulted about 15 commentators per verse. I think at the time I figured a broad range of opinions would give me more to write about in my exegesis assignments, but through it I discovered the richness of sharing "conversation" with godly scholars of differing backgrounds and opinions. This was also the year I decided to try a Presbyterian church, just for a bit of change. In addition to the thoughtful sermons, beautiful music and gorgeous cathedral, I also liked the after-church coffee on fine china.

In the fall of 1998, I moved to Vancouver, British Columbia to attend graduate studies at Regent College, "An International Graduate School of Christian Studies" (http://www.regent-college.edu/) and immersed myself in Christian studies with Baptists, Anglicans, Pentecostals, Catholics, pastors, missionaries, artists, scholars, laypeople, Africans, Asians, North Americans, South Americans, Europeans, Faroe Islanders (that one's for Poul), Australians...well, you get the idea. Here I got to experience in the flesh the grace of sharing fellowship with the godly and generous body of Christ - in all its diversity. I probably learned the most from the individuals, books and authors with whom I most disagreed. Believe it or not, sometimes I even changed my mind!

Therefore, in choosing my reading list I have tried to include a broad range of books that represent viewpoints from within the realm of Christendom: Protestants, Catholics, Mennonites, Germans, Americans, Canadians,  scholars, monks, artists, proponents of social justice and earthkeeping (I'm still looking for good titles in these categories), mystics, farmers, etc. After all, it is the combination of flavours, subtle and complementary, that make a meal truly delicious, and nourishing. I expect to be affirmed, challenged, perturbed, flustered, surprised and transformed by each of these good saints.

But that's not to say that spiritual reading must be limited to Christian writers. Eugene Peterson writes, "Spiritual reading does not mean reading on spiritual or religious subjects, but reading any book that comes to hand in a spiritual way, which is to say, listening to the Spirit, alert to intimations of God." He goes on to explain that "all honest words can involve us in some way, if we read with our hearts as well as our heads, in an eternal conversation that got its start in the Word that 'became flesh'" (from the introduction to Take and Read). This is why I can call reading the newspaper or a non-Christian novel or Eat, Pray, Love "spiritual reading" - if I read it in a thoughtful way, being attentive to the Spirit who teaches us "all things" (John 14:6).

Because my goal for reading is primarily transformation and not just information, my book menu will largely consist of Christian authors who, though each of them are different from me in one way or another, hold to the basic tenet of my Christian faith (Jesus is Lord). I would like to include a few other works as well. I bought five books at Value Village last weekend and got the sixth - A Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs - for free, so I thought that might be a fun one to throw into the mix: a secular Jew's attempt to follow the Bible literally for a year. And it's absolutely essential to throw in a good novel or two as well.

But for now, my first book: The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence.

The first course is served!

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Friday, January 1, 2010

Happy New Year!

The first book I opened on this first day of the year was the Bible. I have resisted making a New Year's Resolution this year per se, although this project is sort of an extreme version of one of my typical resolutions - read more, study more, learn more. My hope is that the blog aspect of this project will provide the accountability I need to follow through with my plan.

I only have one "official" resolution this year, and I will mention it here for the same reason of accountability. My plan is to read the Bible every day. Where this resolution differs from past (failed) resolutions is in that there are no specifics: on a given day, I can read as much or as little, from wherever in the Bible that I want. No legalism. A few months ago, a friend of mine made a passing comment about how Christians often ask for wisdom but never actually get around to reading the Bible, the primary source for gaining wisdom. It's a thought that's stayed with me.

It's also occurred to me that regular Bible reading is essential for this project to succeed. Of course it's essential for a plethora of other ideas as well, but my point is this: the goal of spiritual reading is transformation, and the Bible provides a two-way street (or a double-edge sword, if you like) for that process to take place. It points outward, informing and enlightening my spiritual reading, and it points inward, drawing me into intimate relationship with Jesus, who transforms me from the inside out.

My first reading of the new year was a passage specially chosen to bless Steve and me for 2010 by Steve's dad: Psalm 20. Verse 4 especially stands out, and fills me with aching:

"May he give you the desire of your heart
and make all your plans succeed."

In many ways, 2009 was a year of failed plans and unfulfilled desires, of pain and struggle and desperation in wanting to know God's will and meeting with utter silence and darkness, or so it has often seemed to me.

It is at this final place of desperation that I am finally willing to consider anything, and that leads me to the question: What do I desire? and What should I desire? The answer to the first is a list several pages long. The answer to the second is simply: God himself. The distance between the two is infinite. I have been trying to merge the two for too long, or perhaps mistaking one for the other, as silly as that sounds, and the result is only grief and discontent.

So, it seems the first action of this verse is to transform my desire. Psalm 37:4 gives us a glimpse into the prerequisite (if you will) for Psalm 20:4. It states,

"Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of the heart."

Easier said than done. There is so much to give up, so much control to relinquish, so many dreams to lay at the altar. But this is my goal. My hope is that this project can be a part of that process, and I pray that as long as that goal remains, these plans will indeed succeed.

Let the feasting begin! And may we find nourishment, communion and joy at the table.

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