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Totemic Transformations: Shouting Dark Secrets |
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Alpine Artist
Sergeant First Class
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Location: Registered: May 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 86 |
     
 Posted Wednesday, June 13, 2007 @ 07:21 PM
Eric, just got to your letter and as always, it opens up a wide array of roads for discussion in our minds. I’ll take the one center-left in my mind.  We’ve heard it all our lives. “Thy will be done on earth as in heaven.” “Heaven on earth.” “Who could bring me heaven / when heaven’s already here?” (-Collective Soul) To learn something with nothing in experience to compare it to -so it seems to be with the bringing of heaven to earth in our lives, at least that’s how I’ve experienced it in this session of “Mind Renewal 101.” “Friends, no longer conform yourselves to the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Rom 12 It’s so true, Eric, that whether in learning a new language or a new “way,” learning can be exasperatingly slow, at first. But each breakthrough of any size builds upon the last, until, precept upon precept, line upon line, we see background develop from which to draw raw material for change, whether in vocabulary, or (in Mind Renewal 101) real wisdom and freedom. Autumn 2004. I just turned 43. Both my babies had recently grown up and moved out at once. Mom was in the last stages of cancer, soon to undergo radiation, and was in a bad place in her mind for it. I couldn’t seem to help her. We’d just undergone a major move, and I’d been working at a job that left no time or room for creative expression or personal fulfillment. Many other stresses. On the Holmes Stress Scale (where you get points for stressful life changes and at about 150 points in a given year, you begin to look for professional help) I was at about a 400. If I’d ever needed heaven on earth, it was then. I thought I had God’s peace and sustanance (after all, I’d walked with him for 25 years) but it soon became clear that something was missing. It was that peace and sustenance. Could it be that my salvation was secure, but that my mind was still conformed to this world, and I had no real idea of what His life and peace really was? In the weeks following, I began a journey of discovery that can only be described as your lump of clay in the hands of the Master, Eric. A 16-week breaking-down and “re-construction” process took place, beginning with the tender, healing touch of the Savior, and the sudden realization that my attitude stank. I’d reacted to life’s inevitabilities as I’d been conditioned to - as we all have been…before Mind Renewal 101 -with worry, fear, and unfettered self-pity and anger. Wasn’t I entitled, after all? That’s what I’d always been told. But there was a better way. And I was about to come upon it. In those weeks, God’s tender care and faithfulness to His broken child brought about a transformation. I re-learned gratitude. With determination, chalkboards, journals, and morning affirmations (one original one each day) of what in life is to be anticipated. I re-learned hope, and how it indeed “does not stay in the dark, but bursts forth into increasing light.” I re-learned many other things, but most exciting are the things I’m learning, not re-learning. I’m guessing mid-life finds us wondering if there are any new things to learn. (This is, of course, a lie, but we believe a lot of lies.) What I’m now learning anew is this: Worry is conforming. Hatred is conforming. Self-pity is conforming. Release is transforming. Rest is transforming. JOY is transforming. For lack of a better term, I’ve given up conforming. And I’m watching for opportunities to be transformed. Mom passed away not long ago, and my older sister as well unexpectedly, shortly after. In those times, the tools God that gave me in “Mind Renewal 101” served mightily. Healthy grief slowly lifted into peace and calm, and psychic consistency that felt wonderful. The lump of clay was beginning to take shape. Here’s where it gets peculiar. When alarming news comes now, or when things don’t turn out as I’d hoped, instead of ingrained old reactions, gradually, new ones take their place, and it feels so odd. There’s nothing in my experience to help me with this. People don’t understand. But what an adventure! It’s usually little things. Flowing with unexpected change, laughing at formerly frustrating things, shushing guilt out loud…never in my walk have I had more inquiries about this faith of mine. Never have I had so much fun in my life! Only now can I begin to see what Jesus meant by, “In this world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” In Him, our transformation overcomes conformation, and a little bit of heaven appears here on earth before us. I hope I’m making sense. It seems that it took darkness and utter silence in my life for me to finally hear His Voice whispering these secrets; these mysteries that only the deepest Spirit in me could hear. I believe with all my heart that these are new to most of us. Even so many who worship and pray and serve carry broken hearts and heavy burdens, and the answer is whispered… |
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Admin
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Posted Thursday, June 14, 2007 @ 09:48 PM
Thanks for your note. You know, last night I went to bed a little early and was feeling a little affected, though my prayer these last few days in particular has been really to experience that deep sense of meaning and fulfillment that I know is possible and that forms the basis of much of my writing. For whatever reason, this passage seemed to stand out in my mind: Quote: Trust in the Lord with all your heart And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge him, And he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body And nourishment to your bones. (Proverbs 3:5–8) I Googled this passage partly to remember more of it, partly to learn exactly where it was found, and partly to see if I could get a sense of just what not leaning on your own understanding means: I have never quite been able to wrap my mind around what that particular idea is trying to communicate in any kind of practical sense. I certainly understand the syntax and its surface meaning, but I’m not sure that I do in the deeper, intended sense: I’m not sure what that sort of thing “looks like” spiritually. Last night, at least, the idea of not leaning on one’s own understanding seemed to take on a slightly different sense: some of the worries and premonitions I experience are a reflection, not necessarily of a lack of trust, but a lack of focus. I don’t really think most of the time that I don’t trust God, it’s just that there are times that I don’t think to trust him (not that I’m not thinking not to trust him either): there are just times when I am not even aware that something is bothering me that could be turned over to him. But at certain moments, it seems that what occupies my head are things that do not exist: petty anxieties about imagined realities and hypothetical situations that have not happened and are not likely to happen. In fact, that was in part the subject matter of the well-received December 2006 newsletter Pray About and Continue to Clutch Tightly?: “[F]or many of us letting ‘tomorrow’ creep in from day to day means letting those things that exist only in our imaginations get the better of us, causing us untold anxiety, stress, and strain, for we worry about things that never happen and find ourselves reluctant and seemingly unable to release control of things over which we have no real control. The illusion of tomorrow creates a majority of our heartache today.” It has been said that this imaginative capability to project ourselves into the future is one thing that separates us from other creatures and is uniquely human: this ability to forecast and learn from imagined scenarios, like an actress going over her lines in her head or a performer perfecting his ballet moves while waiting stuck in traffic. That imaginative capability is a gift, certainly: it is not to be scorned. But it also possible for that imaginative faculty to be given to anxiety-inducing scenarios as well, and we all have at least some tendency toward that. To the degree that we imagine things that cause us to be a bit riddled around the edges, it seems to me, is the degree to which we are leaning on our own understanding or apprehension of the situation. So I would say that if I extend the sense as it occurred to me last night, leaning on one’s own understanding would be to accept that one’s perspective of a situation was definitive. It can’t mean chronically doubting yourself: that would be unhealthy and would not be making wise use of the gift of our mind. However, constantly checking yourself was the only kind of meaning I could seem to wrench from the apparent admonition “lean not on your own understanding,” and that is hardly freeing or life-affirming. Specifically, as it occurred to me last night, it had more to do with not believing what seems probable when God has promised more. For example, a slightly heavy-set middle-aged man might think to himself (and quite realistically): “I am not anything particularly outstanding or special: my physique is not what it once was, my stamina is not as strong, there are persons with more gifts and talents than myself.” That much is probably a pretty realistic sentiment and clear recognition of reality, even if slightly pessimistic. But if he continues on, as we’re all prone to do, in concluding that he has little to offer or any number of related perceptions, then perhaps he is then leaning on his own understanding. Why? Perhaps he is just tired: fatigue distorts our perception of the world rather quickly. There could be any number of reasons why he feels as he does. But it is possible for him to have more: it is possible for him to be free of this momentary blind spot, however inculpable he may in fact be. And if such blind spots are habit forming, it is possible for him to break their hold. If the transformative virtues are the heart and soul of the spiritual life, then during the times he entertains such thoughts, he is failing to factor in not what is seen (he’s being realistic enough about that) but what is not seen. He is factoring in only what is present but not also what is possible. His thinking is realistic in many ways and there can be a fine line between a life of faith and that of self-deception. Yet I do think most of us could realistically (note the irony of that adverb) dream bigger than we do: most of us tend to censor ourselves. The self-doubt might be realistic, but it can also be a case where, like the sinfulness I described in our recent discussions with JellyBean, it becomes the distorted glass in the fun house of mirrors, subtly making me bigger than God by exaggerating my plight and my woes over his ability to realize his perfect will. Speaking of God realizing his “perfect will,” there is quite a powerful though simple song sung by Enya’s sister Maire Brennan entitled “Perfect Time” that has been growing on me, in part because it seems to capture so well the utter simplicity of this spiritual quest and its secret. Even the music fits the song, though it took a bit to grow on me, perhaps because of its uncomplicated use of if not a major key, then certainly not one overtly minor as I tend to favor. I don’t have a link to the MP3, but the video can be seen on YouTube at http://youtube.com/watch?v=-YnRzH_wrF8: give it a few listens and see if it doesn’t grow like a mustard seed into your consciousness. It fits in very well with this idea of not leaning on one’s understanding as I am here interpreting it: one trusts in the Lord with one’s entire heart, striving to commune with him at all times and in all things, believing he is bigger and wiser and stronger and always faithful: not leaning on one’s understanding but instead trusting that he will make one’s paths straight and neither abandon nor forsake one to evil or anything else even though he/she may travel through through the very shadow of the valley of death itself and perhaps even on across to the other side. As Brennan sings, “I know you told me that I’m not alone; I know that I couldn’t do it on my own.” That, to me, must be what it means not to lean on one’s own understanding: I’m not alone, I can’t do it on my own (and in that order). Trust, surrender, fellowship, love.I smile when you write: “It is usually the little things.” That particular statement is true on myriad levels. |
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sara
Major
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: Feb 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 1253 |
Posted Friday, June 15, 2007 @ 07:28 AM
All suffering can be endured if it has a higher meaning. That’s the meaning of the cross, no? Sometimes pain is the only thing that wakes us up & makes us educable. I think it was Dostoevsky who said that “suffering is the origin of consciousness.” Or was it Paris Hilton? |
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Alpine Artist
Sergeant First Class
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: May 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 86 |
Posted Monday, June 18, 2007 @ 12:27 PM
Eric, after visiting Ms. Brennan’s lyric a few times, and your December 2006 newsletter, Pray About and Continue to Clutch Tightly, I’m reminded of two concepts that seem to keep finding me these days -at times even hunting me down- repeatedly. Each is so seemingly simple, and yet infinite in power and potential for this walk. One is that, as I stated just last week to two different acquaintances (pardon the simplification), “This whole God thing is not about the growing goodness within us as so many believe. It is about our growing ability to let go, and get free.” The other is that if I’m lacking something in that ability, I cannot acquire it on my own. The gift of letting go comes only from above. Ephesians 2:8–9 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” This faith is not of ourselves, but a gift come down from the Father of Lights. This faith is not to be somehow bolstered up from within us, stirred by the speaking and hearing of vain repetitions of affirmations…this faith only comes in response to our crying out, “Lord, I believe-please help my unbelief!” He liberally sends it every time, ubraiding not. (I have been in mid-sentence, and suddenly realized that what I was saying came from faith that I did not have before, and at once I knew He’d answered a prayer for more faith.) In the crucible we return to our innocence and trust. The pain always strips away the flesh, which is unable to encounter Him and survive. Once the ashes of self are discarded, the Spirit man within may commune, release, and enter a rest previously only dreamt of. Here’s a paradox: We grow to adulthood, and are encouraged to become self-sufficient. You know, handle life’s problems on our own, pay our own bills, make our own decisions. And it feels good to be self-sufficient. But somewhere down life’s road, a time comes when that self-sufficiency comes face-to-face with a new self-insufficiency. One rude morning we awaken to problems that we cannot handle, decisions we do not have the information or wisdom to make, and a sense of our not having been told the whole truth about life at its onset. So we make our way clumsily down the road back to innocence, encountering unforgiveness, worry, guilt and other antagonists along the way. (I’m reminded of Sara’s comments somewhere here on the forum that one can feel as if he/she are many different people in one body at times, so different are the ways in which we react to each of these antagonists, perhaps to one with unflinching confidence and to another in abject fear, and to still another in crippling ambivolence…) We must now start out on the same road again, this time balancing self-sufficiency with innocent, humble God-sufficiency, if we want to experience the power and rest that He would so rather we have. Let’s see…without faith it is impossible to please God. But God gives the faith. Lord, just how much of this is about us, really? Something here really takes the pressure off somehow. I can be happy just being formed into the image of His pleasing, no questions asked. I can be content with life lived in the moment and without tomorrows creeping in and invading my todays. I can enjoy being a kid again, letting Dad handle some things, no - everything - but Dad, like Eric said, you’ve got to remind me to ask You to, ok? |
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Admin
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Location: USA Registered: Jan 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 810 |
Posted Monday, June 18, 2007 @ 01:34 PM
That’s right. The true spiritual life isn’t religious at all, though it may find in religion a source of inspiration. The true spiritual life is really about being more fully alive, to the point at times of being an envy to the “happy, free-thinking pagan” (for indeed, the pagan has also learned a valuable and important lesson about the celebration, joy, and wonder of life often overlooked by those who exclusively court spirituality’s more institutional manifestations). There are certainly times in this journey in which one turns away from instant gratification, but it does not take a particularly spiritual person to learn from experience how bitter the sting can be of instant gratification and how rewarding the more life-affirming values are that sow harvests that may take the season to sprout and grow but result in substantial increase: ten-, hundred-, even thousand-fold. That has less to do with spirituality and more to do with wisdom, though as with all worthy things, wisdom is a gift from God. But why, aside from conceptual understanding, do we separate this from that? The spiritual life is holistic. I was lying in bed this morning thinking. In particular, I was thinking how much different my vision of the faith is than that of many persons I have known; I was thinking of my sentiments about or else as well. In particular, I was thinking how much different things look to me than those persons whose understanding of God come exclusively from the scriptures. But then it struck me that it is not an either/or: what we learn about someone, to the degree that it is true, can benefit our relation and interaction with that person. A new lover, for example, is eager to find out anything and everything he can about his beloved, preferably from her own lips. Whether from her mouth or other, most things he finds out about her delight him and in any case everything he finds out about her interests him greatly, even if at times he finds it deeply disturbing. (He is disturbed, of course, because he loves her and wants nothing short of perfection for her.) So then, what I derived was that it wasn’t an either/or: knowing God or knowing about God. Rather, it was the difference of a holistic faith: we like to learn about God, certainly, but even more we like to be with him and learn from his own lips. The biographer might say the beloved’s hair is black and fair; the lover prefers to twirl his fingers in its softness, smell its subtle fragrance, and revel in how luxurious and silky it feels flowing across his face. Everything about the beloved captivates him. He reads the words of the biographer and his heart is filled, for the words say to him what they could never say to one who has never been wrapped in her responsive embrace. Upon reading the same words, another, who knows nothing of the beloved, knows only that her hair is black and fair; her lover intimately knows not only her hair but her entire being, heart and soul. Holistic faith. Not a verse here and a verse there, not virtuous actions and righteous deeds seen as some end of their own, but holistic faith: a total package enwrapping the center and bound about with the ribbon of love. Those who know God know the difference and it is to their credit that much of the religious world wearies them. Far from indicating a lack of love, it indicates impatience with anything less. |
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sara
Major
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Location: Registered: Feb 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 1253 |
Posted Monday, June 18, 2007 @ 02:16 PM
“If religion isn’t everything, it is nothing.” Someone said something like that, but I can’t find the quote on the Internet. Oh well, I’m saying it….and it seems like you, Eric, and Alpine Artist are saying it, as well. Eric, do you think it is possible to be enchanted with an image (ideal?) of the beloved, even if you have never encountered him or her in person? Could that form of adoration be just as powerful as the other? I suppose not, but I’m not sure. |
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Posted Monday, June 18, 2007 @ 02:47 PM
do you think it is possible to be enchanted with an image (ideal?) of the beloved, even if you have never encountered him or her in person? Bear with me on my answer. A friend’s father lent me the first season of the new Battlestar Galactica airing on the SciFi channel. I was a fan of Babylon 5 and found this series quite entertaining as well: science fiction, at least good science fiction, estranges human reality, placing it in contexts in which it shines forth in new lights, allowing us to learn new things about ourselves and gain new insights. I looked into the local library to see if they had any more episodes and they have the complete second season as well, which I have been watching. As the story goes, human beings engineered a new race of robots known as the Cylons and these beings evolved, declaring war on the human race. However, some of the Cylons not only look and act as humans, but are capable of falling in love with human partners and, in the case of female Cylons, bearing human/Cylon children. Many of the human beings are understandably afraid of the Cylons and loathe them, and they disparage them by calling them “toasters.” Obviously the questions raised in this fictitious account involve “What does it mean to be a person?” as well as the perennial problem of racism, profiling, and racial slurs: “toaster!” One of the main characters turns out to be a Cylon and she was romantically involved with another main character. As with all the human characters who find out their lovers are Cylons, it creates a real tension. This particular Cylon woman attempts an assassination on the caption of the ship. We are shown that it is not black and white: it is not entirely her fault, as her machine nature wars against her essentially human heart. Miraculously, the captain survives in spite of being out of commission for an extended period, most of which he is unconscious. His would-be (or “wouldn’t be,” as the case might be) assassin, however, is assassinated herself, leaving her human lover to grieve. He, like most human lovers of Cylon persons, had said many cruel things to her and repeatedly kicks himself for “falling in love with a machine.” Yet he loves her and we, the viewers, can clearly see his struggle; his love for her is made poignant in her death as he cradles her bleeding and dying body in his arms. The captain himself struggles with what happened, for his crew is to him as family and his Cylon assassin was a bit like a daughter to him, not as close as some of the crew, but certainly one of the inner circle. Calling her lover in to see him one day, he asks this crew member: “Did you love her?” The crew member, whom we know mainly as “Chief,” replies: “I thought I did.” The captain replies, “If you thought you loved her, then you loved her. That’s what love is: thoughts.” The captain goes on to add something to the effect of: “You can’t fall in love with a machine. She was more than that: more than a machine.” He of course means, though he does not say it in so many words (I don’t think anyway): “Sharon was a person, no matter what her biological bases or lack thereof.” That is one definition of love: the feelings we harbor for another, the will to reach out. Buber would say, however, that as pleasant as such feelings are and as oriented in the right direction, in themselves they fall short of love. Love, for Buber, is more like a spiritual force that exists in and between two persons, whether those persons be man and woman, man and man, or man and God. Like the Holy Spirit existing between Father and Son, an analogy that Buber makes though he is not Christian, love is the reciprocal force that exists between the choice to reach out and embrace the other person as a person: as one entire being that fills the universe to another instead of the overtures of mere objects used and being used. So then, can one be enchanted with an image of the beloved? Certainly on the level of thoughts. And if that ideal corresponds in any way to the real, it is even possible that somewhere out there the beloved likewise is enchanted with an image of the lover: all things in God’s universe are possible. It is entirely possible that the enchantment and image were both seeds planted in the heart by the one from whom all flows. When it comes to God in particular, we have never encountered him in quite the same way as we do another human being. And, if we are to listen to Buber (a wise thing to do, in my opinion), we may not know that we have come face to face with the countenance directly. But we will always know indirectly, for our relations to all others will become more person-centered and holistic, filling the sky, so to speak, instead of simply encountering creatures to be used and experienced. Buber’s suggested evidence is something like the fruits of the Spirit (the tangible evidence of things unseen) spoken of by the Apostle: we may not know the countenance as more than an orientation or inclination that appears only to exist in our own thoughts, but the countenance knows us, and faith soon enough becomes sight. In one sense, our thoughts are all that we have: we can never leave our own heads. Yet faith, hope, and love allow us to extend beyond ourselves, connecting with the other, and enjoying the reciprocity of our exchange. What exists between us is real: it is a force that has its origins in God. |
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sara
Major
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Location: Registered: Feb 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 1253 |
Posted Tuesday, June 19, 2007 @ 06:28 AM
Experiencing God indirectly through the “Fruits of the Spirit” makes complete sense to me and confirms my own knowledge. However, in my own case (& I suspect many others), this understanding evolved gradually. For a long time, I felt like I was walking through the darkness toward a light which others claimed existed, but I never witnessed. When I asked that question of you, Eric, I was thinking of people like me, who felt puzzled and depressed when people claimed that Christ was their best friend, comforter, etc. and all you had to do was turn to Him and ask for His love and He would respond. When I tried to do that with all the sincerity I was capable of feeling, and my prayers seemed to echo through an empty Universe, I felt even more lost and alone. I decided that either Jesus was a fraud or that He knew that I was a fraud & thus unworthy of His attention. How could I pray to this guy who I didn’t really believe in? Pretend? Anyway, what changed everything for me was the decision to focus on the attributes of God rather than to appeal to God as a “person” (even tho I knew he wasn’t a “person" I dedicated my soul (if I had one) to Love, Beauty, Compassion, Courage…..THE GOOD. After all, I understood what it felt like to love and long for those things. What I’m trying to say is that these ideals became my “Beloved”; and I hungered and thirsted and adored these qualities because they were real to me. Jesus was a name & little else, aside from a lot of negative associations I couldn’t seem to ignore. But…kindness….was not only UNDENIABLE, but evocative & stirring. Can “ideals” be as inspiring as a revelatory experience? I’m not sure, because, unlike others who have commented on this website, my revelations have been few and….in retrospect….ambiguous. I’m not sure what people are talking about when they claim that Christ is their best friend and they are never alone, etc. It is an experience I can’t share. However, I do know that my response to the Universe has…through time…evolved into an I-Thou relationship and that my inner transformation is a reality. I am a radically different person than I was ten years ago. Does this “prove” that God exists? Alas, no. At least not to those who do not seek Him. |
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sara
Major
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: Feb 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 1253 |
Posted Tuesday, June 19, 2007 @ 07:23 AM
One more thing, Eric….isn’t this “holistic faith” you are talking about only attained after one has reached a rather high stage of spiritual development? I mean……So then, what I derived was that it wasn’t an either/or: knowing God or knowing about God. Rather, it was the difference of a holistic faith: we like to learn about God, certainly, but even more we like to be with him and learn from his own lips. The biographer might say the beloved’s hair is black and fair; the lover prefers to twirl his fingers in its softness, smell its subtle fragrance, and revel in how luxurious and silky it feels flowing across his face. Everything about the beloved captivates him. He reads the words of the biographer and his heart is filled, for the words say to him what they could never say to one who has never been wrapped in her responsive embrace. Upon reading the same words, another, who knows nothing of the beloved, knows only that her hair is black and fair; her lover intimately knows not only her hair but her entire being, heart and soul. I guess I’m feeling sorry for all those poor slobs who were like me (and theres a lot of them) who don’t “know” God like you do and stumble across your website and read what you’ve written. I mean…it’s beautiful and it’s true…but, gee whiz, it resulted after years of searching and blundering, no? Of course I understand what you’re saying….knowing God is quite different than knowing about God. But, don’t you think that…in the beginning, at least, and in most cases….we have to know about God before we can know Him? (esp. if we have been deprived of a revelatory experience?) But, then all sorts of dangers arise, don’t they? Like…..who do we learn from? My answer is the saints and mystics. And, of course, wonderful websites like yours. |
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Admin
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Posted Thursday, June 21, 2007 @ 09:35 AM
On a purely pragmatic level, we can only abide in what we know: we do not know what we do not know. Yet one of the key spiritual virtues is hope, and hope often involves longing. No one has seen fully, yet all long to see more no matter how much or how little they have seen. To the one whose beloved is an image of the ideal, there is a longing to make it more real. To the one who feels, at least at times, that the beloved has been and is a tangible reality, there can be an acute longing for more: that is why, in the Orthodox understanding, that longing can never fully be satisfied until heaven; as the Apostle writes in the great love chapter (1 Corinthians 13): “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” That we long for more, whether we have seen much or seen little, is itself a tangible proof that we have encountered the beloved and long for him on the level of intimacy: we seek nothing less than that: no mere talk about such things, no mere reading of scriptures or pious acts will satisfy us for long without his presence at our side. I am reminded of the paragraph we cited from Circle 6 in Pray About and Continue to Clutch Tightly? in which a wife laments her soldier husband’s deployment in Iraq: Quote: This is not just your typical loneliness, but abject, all-encompassing loneliness. There is a milder, but in no way menial, lonesomeness I have felt before—a longing for friends or a realization that something is missing. This loneliness, however, seems to indicate that everything is missing, that nothing I do is complete and nowhere I go is without longing. It is a loneliness that weaves itself into a heavy blanket that, on some days, whispers to me with an overwhelming desire to wrap myself up in its warmth and spend the remainder of my husband’s 12–18 month deployment curled up in bed with this newfound bedmate. (My Loneliness Blanket: Notes From The Home Front) It is not only in states of intensive loneliness where we often get desperate enough to seek his face, where we are desperate enough to drop the supposed sophistication that is designed to keep us from getting hurt (but thus also from risking all) and are accordingly brought to the level of naiveté that characterizes just this kind of faith, but it is also a longing that many experience after a particularly profound encounter with God. Sometimes the reasons the mystics go on and on about the Lover and his beloved is because they are dying of loneliness, yet filled with hope, yearning for what they do not yet see yet know exist. It may be that everything ultimately evens out in ways we do not see. I am again reminded of the newsletter mentioned above: Quote: … It does not particularly matter what our lot in life happens to be, each of us has our share of trials that shape us. One person’s spiritual formation happens in the midst of a busy family with diapers and dishes and PTO/PTA meetings, another’s in the midst of a foreign country with a different culture and a life of service. One person lives life in relative solitude, another requires photo ID at a major corporation, yet another assembles clocks or sermons or both. One life cannot be compared to another except in passing and to limited degree; each life has its own share of heartache and triumphs and trials and is neither to be coveted nor lamented apart from its context. We tend to think, sometimes, that one life is better than another in one way or another: this life is easier, that more conducive to spiritual growth. In the end, however, each life is equally conducive to spiritual growth: each life has its trials and its triumphs. Once everything is factored in—including the unseen providence and grace of God—it may be fairly said that the grass is rarely if ever greener on the other side of the fence. There is always a trade-off: something gained and something lost. Yet there are times in which life can cast a bleak shadow; occasions that bring great joy can also bring great sorrow as well.  Yet the great hope is and remains a perfect realization not now—as much as we yearn and long and sometimes experience it now and as much as we are constrained and even sometimes contented to live in the present—but in the life to come, for as Alpine reminds us and Moses learned, “No man sees the face of God and lives”: it is true that in the fullest sense of “being fully known even as we are fully known” requires death, for, again to cite Alpine, only the “spirit man” can survive the full encounter. In any case, it is sometimes said of the best artists that their tortured souls produce their great art, yet in a same and equal sense, the soul seized by holy longing is equally disquieted and will not ever be at rest for long until she is known even as she is herself now fully known. That is why for the Orthodox, a faith without heaven is not complete. If memory serves, Jellybean (or someone else?) recently mentioned J. Hudson Taylor, the famed Christian missionary to China. We will leave off here with his words. In “Section 1: The Unsatisfied Life And Its Remedy” of his slim Union and Communion or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon, Taylor writes:Quote: Cant. 1:2–2:7 There is no difficulty in recognizing the bride as the speaker in verses 2–7. The words are not those of one dead in trespasses and sins, to whom the LORD is as a root out of a dry ground—without form and comeliness. The speaker has had her eyes opened to behold His beauty, and longs for a fuller enjoyment of His love. Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth: For Thy love is better than wine. It is well that it should be so; it marks a distinct stage in the development of the life of grace in the soul. And this recorded experience gives, as it were, a Divine warrant for the desire for sensible manifestations of His presence—sensible communications of His love. It was not always so with her. Once she was contented in His absence—other society and other occupations sufficed her; but now it can never be so again. The world can never be to her what it once was; the betrothed bride has learnt to love her LORD, and no other society than His can satisfy her. His visits may be occasional and may be brief; but they are precious times of enjoyment. Their memory is cherished in the intervals, and their repetition longed for. There is no real satisfaction in His absence, and yet, alas! He is not always with her: He comes and goes. Now her joy in Him is a heaven below; but again she is longing, and longing in vain, for His presence. Like the ever-changing tide, her experience is an ebbing and flowing one; it may even be that unrest is the rule, satisfaction the exception. Is there no help for this? must it always continue so? Has He, can He have created these unquenchable longings only to tantalize them? Strange indeed it would be if this were the case. Yet are there not many of the LORD’s people whose habitual experience corresponds with hers? They know not the rest, the joy of abiding in CHRIST; and they know not how to attain to it, nor why it is not theirs. Are there not many who look back to the delightful times of their first espousals, who, so far from finding richer inheritance in CHRIST than they then had, are even conscious that they have lost their first love, and might express their experience in the sad lament: When first I saw the Lord? Others, again, who may not have lost their first love, may yet be feeling that the occasional interruptions to communion are becoming more and more unbearable, as the world becomes less and He becomes more. His absence is an ever-increasing distress. “Oh that I knew where I might find Him!” “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth: for Thy love is better than wine.” “Would that His love were strong and constant like mine, and that He never withdrew the light of His countenance!” Poor mistaken one! There is a love far stronger than thine waiting, longing for satisfaction. The Bridegroom is waiting for thee all the time; the conditions that debar His approach are all of thine own making. Take the right place before Him, and He will be most ready, most glad, to “Satisfy thy deepest longings, to meet, supply thine every need.” What should we think of a betrothed one whose conceit and self-will prevented not only the consummation of her own joy, but of his who had given her his heart? Though never at rest in his absence, she cannot trust him fully; and she does not care to give up her own name, her own rights and possessions, her own will to him who has become necessary for her happiness. She would fain claim him fully, without giving herself fully to him; but it can never be: while she retains her own name, she can never claim his. She may not promise to love and honour if she will not also promise to obey: and till her love reaches that point of surrender she must remain an unsatisfied lover—she cannot, as a satisfied bride, find rest in the home of her husband. While she retains her own will, and the control of her own possessions, she must be content to live on her own resources; she cannot claim his. Could there be a sadder proof of the extent and reality of the Fall than the deep seated distrust of our loving LORD and MASTER which makes us hesitate to give ourselves entirely up to Him, which fears that He might require something beyond our powers, or call for something that we should find it hard to give or to do? The real secret of an unsatisfied life lies too often in an unsurrendered will. And yet how foolish, as well as how wrong, this is! Do we fancy that we are wiser than He? or that our love for ourselves is more tender and strong than His? or that we know ourselves better than He does? How our distrust must grieve and wound afresh the tender heart of Him who was for us the Man of Sorrows! What would be the feelings of an earthly bridegroom if he discovered that his bride elect was dreading to marry him, lest, when he had the power, he should render her life insupportable? Yet how many of the LORD’S redeemed ones treat Him just so! No wonder they are neither happy nor satisfied! But true love cannot be stationary; it must either decline or grow. Despite all the unworthy fears of our poor hearts, Divine love is destined to conquer. The bride exclaims: Thine ointments have a goodly fragrance; Thy name is as ointment poured forth; Therefore do the virgins love Thee. There was no such ointment as that with which the High Priest was anointed: our Bridegroom is a Priest as well as a King. The trembling bride cannot wholly dismiss her fears; but the unrest and the longing become unbearable, and she determines to surrender all, and come what may to follow fully. She will yield her very self to Him, heart and hand, influence and possessions. Nothing can be so insupportable as His absence! If He lead to another Moriah, or even to a Calvary, she will follow Him. Draw me: we will run after Thee! But ah! what follows? A wondrously glad surprise. No Moriah, no Calvary; on the contrary, a KING! When the heart submits, then JESUS reigns. And when JESUS reigns, there is rest. And where does He lead His bride? The King hath brought me into His chambers. Not first to the banqueting house—that will come in due season; but first to be alone with Himself. How perfect! Could we be satisfied to meet a beloved one only in public? No; we want to take such an one aside—to have him all to ourselves. So with our MASTER: He takes His now fully consecrated bride aside, to taste and enjoy the sacred intimacies of His wondrous love. The Bridegroom of His Church longs for communion with His people more than they long for fellowship with Him…. |
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Alpine Artist
Sergeant First Class
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: May 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 86 |
Posted Friday, June 22, 2007 @ 07:25 PM
What a beautiful and painfully accurate portrait! So accurate, it brings tears. Not of shame or guilt, but of…grief, maybe? Of what we miss out on? Oh, what peace we often forfeit, oh, what needless pain we bear…. I have to think hard to try to remember the first glimmers of His sweet voice. I was 17, roaming the halls of high school, pondering the words of a psych teacher on her relationship with God. And you know, Sara, if I remember rightly, it was something like you’ve shared-not so much the sense of a person, but that of being enamored with high ideals and with justice and truth, and with the beauty and power of love itself. And when you think about it, perhaps that’s just what it was-getting to know Love, Himself. As I made my way through the door to speech class next hour, I stopped (holding traffic up) in the doorway and in that moment knew deep inside that it was Him, softly and tenderly calling. As time went by, this perception began to take on a personality, a sense of humor, and a voice within, though faint, that I knew I could trust as His own. No fireworks or premonitions, just that still, small, plain little whisper. So sure, and so constant, so long as I was listening. That is the hardest part, though: listening. Fast forward to this morning. (Since we don’t know one another well, it’s easy to just spill it.) I was up at 3:30 with the cold reality of what my recent distractions and preoccupations have done to our communion staring at me point-blank in the face. Unsettling. Yucky. But for peace, all I had to do was come. Just to lay it all down, and again feel the truth, the courage, the strength and beauty rise again from somewhere within this tired, spent soul… How much do we miss in our busy-ness and especially in our unwillingness to yield ourselves to His perfect care? I don’t even want to know. |
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sara
Major
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: Feb 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 1253 |
Posted Saturday, June 23, 2007 @ 12:29 PM
Alpine Artist…..a question….is the “still small voice” you hear the voice of your higher self or something apart from yourself? I guess I’m asking if God speaks through you (using your own thoughts) or to you (between your thoughts) Can you distinguish between your own voice and God’s? I can’t. I have chosen to attend to worthy ideas, whether they are mine or God’s, but I’m not sure whether it is an internal dialogue or a real communication with someone other than myself. I suppose it doesn’t matter. |
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Alpine Artist
Sergeant First Class
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: May 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 86 |
Posted Saturday, June 23, 2007 @ 08:38 PM
It would be dishonest, Sara, to say that I can easily pick out “that voice” from among the many voices that I hear every day, including my own. But there’s this impression that comes, one like no other…conveyed sometimes during thoughts, sometimes within images, sometimes in the awe of nature, even at times in a secular song on the radio or a message on a billboard that “jumps out at me” in the midst of a particular situation. It seems, as best I can describe, that the “speaking” is not so much in the vehicle of speech (songs, billboards, etc) but in the deep knowledge that at that moment, there is something to be heard. I cannot count the times I’ve been in a conversation, when suddenly, there’s this unmistakable impression that something is about to be said that is of great value. Sometimes the one with whom I speak utters it, sometimes I do, but the impression is always borne out. We humans are subject to time, and space, language, and thought. God is not. He moves about within and without those elements freely, as it is said, “all about the earth seeking someone in whom He may show Himself strong.” He needs not the sentence, but only the sense, in order to be heard. He lives not in the words, but in fragrance and cadence that transcend words. Our “Father” has revealed Himself to us as a person, but as you have sensed, Sara, He is much greater than even that, but can we grasp such a thing? He is wisdom, justice, service, and sacrifice itself, moving into the soul and very spirit of man, then (as Eric says) moving freely from man to man, man to earth, and man back to God in a sacred circle of worship. This love for the power of good in creation that you have expressed, I believe, is indeed pure pursuit of God. You are pursuing Love…Himself. And in it, not settling for the “boxes” that other men and women place Him in. You seem to want to know your Creator on true terms, without the pretense or zealous exaggeration that you have seen in many “disciples.” Would that we all would be so earnest and substantive in our ongoing search! As I write, my husband is watching “Braveheart” on tv. Remember Stephen (I think), one of William’s fellow warriors from Ireland who said that he heard audibly from God, and would bring Him into a conversation, sort of “translating” between God and whomever he was talking to? “Jesus says this and such,” he would say, leaving others looking mystified and amused. This is how some well-meaning followers appear to me. And their zeal can be confusing, even unsettling, to others whose experience is not the same. Maybe they really do hear from Him that way-who’s to know? All I know is my own experience. And that experience is without such apparitions or other unusualities, but more subtle ones, tho I think just as miraculous. When I awoke the other morning at 3:30, the impression was there, again. No one said a word, no one felt a nudge, I simply awoke, with a quiet knowing. Knowing that a previous intimacy was drifting into distance, and it was time to seek that intimacy again. There it is…just a knowing. Is that of any help? |
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sara
Major
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: Feb 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 1253 |
Posted Sunday, June 24, 2007 @ 11:37 AM
Thank you, I truly appreciate your reply and it was quite helpful to me. |
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Admin
General
Gender: Male
Location: USA Registered: Jan 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 810 |
Posted Monday, June 25, 2007 @ 10:48 PM
Yes, I too thought your reply was very well-written and thoughtful, Alpine. And you’ll be pleased to know that your earlier post inspired me as well, oddly not by anything you said (I don’t think), but just somehow by its overall spirit: a kindred spirit that had a certain joy, peace, and love to it, or at least that is how it struck me at the time. Odd, isn’t it, how our words can sometimes transcend us. |
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Admin
General
Gender: Male
Location: USA Registered: Jan 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 810 |
Posted Monday, June 25, 2007 @ 11:39 PM
I read an article this evening that I think you, in particular, might enjoy, Sara. When I saw that Bill Moyers had written a piece entitled Let’s Get Jesus Back, I was understandably curious. I know Bill Moyers best from his interviews with the late Joseph Campbell, the “guru” both consulted by George Lucas for Star Wars and originator of the famed “follow your bliss” maxim, and at some point hope to get back to watching them. He also interviewed Toni Morrison: both Campbell and Morrison appeared on his World of Ideas, if I am not mistaken. (Well, heck: who hasn’t he interviewed? These two just happen to be the ones I remember best—smile.) Anyway, check out Let’s Get Jesus Back if you’ve got time. |
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Alpine Artist
Sergeant First Class
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: May 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 86 |
Posted Tuesday, June 26, 2007 @ 04:24 PM
Quote: And you’ll be pleased to know that your earlier post inspired me as well, oddly not by anything you said (I don’t think), but just somehow by its overall spirit: Thanks, Eric. Isn’t it beautiful how God transcends words both when speaking to and when speaking through us? Even in this short time with you all, already many are the times I’ve sat back from your newsletters and been deeply moved by a certain notion or intuition, then gone back to reference the words again only to find that it was not really so much in the words, but in the context and the spirit of your expressions-it’s the way that God uses who we are to shed His beauty into one another’s lives. It’s such a wonder how he moves in the spaces between us to weave this glorious tapestry of talents and sensitivities, blessing completely all who will come! |
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sara
Major
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: Feb 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 1253 |
Posted Thursday, June 28, 2007 @ 01:05 PM
Eric, I just read the Bill Moyer’s article that you recommended and I heartily agree with his views on Jesus & social activism. I am so sickened by American politics/society today that I can only look at it from a historic perspective, even though it’s happening now. If I don’t do that, I get crazy. If we, as human beings, do not decide to evolve, we deserve to become extinct. I hope God is having better luck with beings on other planets. |
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Painter1013
Sergeant Major
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: Nov 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 390 |
Posted Sunday, November 18, 2007 @ 10:59 PM
You will know mine when you see the fruits of the spirit. Joy is not a big enough word. Like a tree silently being caressed by the wind , breaking off all the broken and damaged limbs, like rain being taken in by the tree to grow anew, like two lovers laying on a warm beach as the waves hypnotically transform them to ecstasy, to know without thinking , an assurance beyond bounds. Not unusual or unexplainable, the most unusual the most unexplainable only through experience can he be known. |
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