This weekend I began cataloging my books with My Book Collection Software on my laptop. My first entries were 30 plus Thomas Merton books, mostly journals and letters. In his author’s note to No Man Is an Island (Harcourt, Brace and company New York, 1955) I found a passage that I think has special relevance to life in the 21st Century. Merton writes:
“I consider that the spiritual life is the life of man’s real self, the life of that interior self whose flame is so often allowed to be smothered under the ashes of anxiety and futile concern. The spiritual life is oriented toward God, rather than toward the immediate satisfaction of the material needs of life, but it is not, for all that, a life of unreality or a life of dreams. On the contrary, without a life of the spirit, our whole existence becomes unsubstantial and illusory. The life of the spirit, by integrating us in the real order established by God, puts us in the fullest possible contact with reality—not as we imagine it, but as it really is. It does so by making us aware of our own real selves, and placing them in the presence of God” (pages ix-x).
Discovering passages like this in the works and writings and lives of others provides real soul food. Read this passage carefully and prayerfully and thank God today for His direction and guidance on how to have a real, integrated, spiritual life.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Understanding Takes Time
So if you have an hour to spend, two recent NPR discussions with Rev. James Cone and Rev. Dwight Hopkins provide a balanced introduction to black liberation theology.
You can find their interviews here Cone’s presentation is “Black Liberation Theology in its Founder’s Words.”
And Hopkins interview is here
his is titled, “Black Liberation Theology: A Historical Perspective.”
The Rev. James Cone is the founder of black liberation theology. Cone's books include Black Theology and Black Power, God of the Oppressed, and Risks of Faith. He teaches at Manhattan's Union Theological Seminary.
The Rev. Dwight Hopkins is an ordained Baptist minister and a professor of theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His books, include, Walk Together Children and Being Human: Race, Culture, and Religion.
I found both presentations insightful and balanced, and encourage you to check them out for yourself. Senator Obama’s complete speech can be viewed in its entirety here:
You can find their interviews here Cone’s presentation is “Black Liberation Theology in its Founder’s Words.”
And Hopkins interview is here
his is titled, “Black Liberation Theology: A Historical Perspective.”
The Rev. James Cone is the founder of black liberation theology. Cone's books include Black Theology and Black Power, God of the Oppressed, and Risks of Faith. He teaches at Manhattan's Union Theological Seminary.
The Rev. Dwight Hopkins is an ordained Baptist minister and a professor of theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His books, include, Walk Together Children and Being Human: Race, Culture, and Religion.
I found both presentations insightful and balanced, and encourage you to check them out for yourself. Senator Obama’s complete speech can be viewed in its entirety here:
Sunday, March 23, 2008
What is Spiritual Direction in the 21st Century? Part 1
While the question sounds simple, there are many possible answers. For a Christian, all forms of spiritual direction have developed out of the day-in, day-out, relationship that Jesus shared with His twelve disciples.
With nothing more than three years of constant exposure to His life, works, and words, the twelve (actually just eleven) soon became known as those who turned the then-known world upside-down.
Today, spiritual direction can happen via iPhone, text chat, email, mp3, video or audio, ebooks, web sites, books on paper, magazine articles, lectures or sermons, seminars and conferences, retreats and many other ways too numerous to list. But while we can take advantage of technological breakthroughs and online tools for virtually instant communication, there is still no substitute for the life-on-life, face-to-face, heart-to-heart in-person conversations first modeled by Jesus.
Christ’s followers in the 21st century, meeting over coffee, breakfast or lunch, sharing a park bench, or taking a walk or a cross-country trip together, can still plant seeds that will have world-changing results.
These men and women share a common purpose (promoting spiritual growth that encourages the formation of Christ in us—the lifelong goal of becoming more like Him in all of our attitudes, words, relationships, works and actions).
We will pray together and for one another. We will read, study, reflect and share the results of what we learn through our personal discoveries in and by our personal applications of the Word of God. We will encourage one another. We will learn together and grow together. We will do this person-to-person. We will give and receive spiritual direction as peers, mentors, disciplemakers, pastors, teachers, trainers and friends in Christ.
We will often do this one-on-one (men discipling men; women discipling women), sometimes three individuals will meet together in this way, and a small group of 5 to 7 can also provide the accountability and discipline and growth towards a more Christ-centered common life that our world needs to see practiced by Christ’s followers.
If you give direction, encouragement, or counsel, to brothers or sisters in Christ, be sure to do it in reliance upon the Spirit of Christ in you:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35).
“The Counselor, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14:26).
With nothing more than three years of constant exposure to His life, works, and words, the twelve (actually just eleven) soon became known as those who turned the then-known world upside-down.
Today, spiritual direction can happen via iPhone, text chat, email, mp3, video or audio, ebooks, web sites, books on paper, magazine articles, lectures or sermons, seminars and conferences, retreats and many other ways too numerous to list. But while we can take advantage of technological breakthroughs and online tools for virtually instant communication, there is still no substitute for the life-on-life, face-to-face, heart-to-heart in-person conversations first modeled by Jesus.
Christ’s followers in the 21st century, meeting over coffee, breakfast or lunch, sharing a park bench, or taking a walk or a cross-country trip together, can still plant seeds that will have world-changing results.
These men and women share a common purpose (promoting spiritual growth that encourages the formation of Christ in us—the lifelong goal of becoming more like Him in all of our attitudes, words, relationships, works and actions).
We will pray together and for one another. We will read, study, reflect and share the results of what we learn through our personal discoveries in and by our personal applications of the Word of God. We will encourage one another. We will learn together and grow together. We will do this person-to-person. We will give and receive spiritual direction as peers, mentors, disciplemakers, pastors, teachers, trainers and friends in Christ.
We will often do this one-on-one (men discipling men; women discipling women), sometimes three individuals will meet together in this way, and a small group of 5 to 7 can also provide the accountability and discipline and growth towards a more Christ-centered common life that our world needs to see practiced by Christ’s followers.
If you give direction, encouragement, or counsel, to brothers or sisters in Christ, be sure to do it in reliance upon the Spirit of Christ in you:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35).
“The Counselor, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14:26).
What is Spiritual Direction in the 21st Century? Part 2
According to Evelyn Underhill “It is the guidance of one soul by and through another soul. It is the individual and intensive side of pastoral work. God comes to and affects individuals very largely through other individuals . . . Direction work can, of course, be done only and all the time in absolute interior dependence on God; and all the most valuable part of it will be done silently, by the influence of your prayer on the souls that you are called upon to guide.”
Underhill reminds her readers that each person’s spiritual personality is unique: “the spiritual personality you are helping to form is probably quite different from your own; and perhaps even different from your own secret ideal for it . . . It needs a great deal of self-abandonment to do all this with simplicity—it means learning from those who come to you as well as trying to teach—and that is the purifying part of personal religious work.
“Moreover those who do this work are commonly themselves growing and changing; they have not arrived, but are traveling and exploring as they go. It is generally a case of one more or less dusty pilgrim helping another . . .
“This is where a strict personal training in mental prayer and spiritual reading abundantly justifies itself. You may not yourself be called to the mountains; but you will be more able to advise and understand prospective mountaineers if you have at least put on heavy boots and tried a little hill-climbing, than if you have merely spent all your time on the level growing nice little patches of devotional mustard and cress.
“It is imperative that those called to guide the souls of others, should themselves be humble pupils in the school of interior prayer.”
(Quotations from Concerning The Inner Life, Oneworld Publications, Oxford, England, 1999, pages 84-85, 90-92)
Underhill reminds her readers that each person’s spiritual personality is unique: “the spiritual personality you are helping to form is probably quite different from your own; and perhaps even different from your own secret ideal for it . . . It needs a great deal of self-abandonment to do all this with simplicity—it means learning from those who come to you as well as trying to teach—and that is the purifying part of personal religious work.
“Moreover those who do this work are commonly themselves growing and changing; they have not arrived, but are traveling and exploring as they go. It is generally a case of one more or less dusty pilgrim helping another . . .
“This is where a strict personal training in mental prayer and spiritual reading abundantly justifies itself. You may not yourself be called to the mountains; but you will be more able to advise and understand prospective mountaineers if you have at least put on heavy boots and tried a little hill-climbing, than if you have merely spent all your time on the level growing nice little patches of devotional mustard and cress.
“It is imperative that those called to guide the souls of others, should themselves be humble pupils in the school of interior prayer.”
(Quotations from Concerning The Inner Life, Oneworld Publications, Oxford, England, 1999, pages 84-85, 90-92)
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Remembering Gutenberg's Artistry
Last month we journeyed to Southern California to attend the 41st version of the California International Antiquarian Book Fair in
Nearly 200 dealers from the
This unique Library displays one of 12 copies of the 42-line Gutenberg Bible (regarded as the first book printed with moveable type by Johann Gutenberg around 1452 to 1455).
Truly amazing to see a book made over 500 years ago. Here’s a kind of contemporary tribute to Gutenberg’s pioneering accomplishments from some 20th Century artisans:
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Reading Our Family History
As our friend
“If we do it properly, such reading is a truly social act. It gives us not only information, but communion . . . with the great souls of the past, who are the pride and glory of the Christian family. Studying their lives and work slowly and with sympathy, reading the family history, the family letters; trying to grasp the family point of view, we gradually discover these people to be in origin though not in achievement very much like ourselves.
“They are people who are devoted to the same service, handicapped often by the very same difficulties; and yet whose victories and insights humble and convict us . . . The Confessions of St. Augustine, the Life of St Teresa, the little book of Brother Lawrence, the Journals of Fox, Woolman and Wesley—the meditative, gentle, receptive reading of this sort of literature immensely enlarges our social and spiritual environment.
“It is one of the ways in which the communion of saints can be most directly felt by us.
“In the saints we always have the bracing society of keen Christians . . . Their personal influence radiates, centuries after they have left the earth, reminding us of the infinite variety of ways in which the Spirit of God acts on people through people . . .
“The saints are the great experimental Christians, who, because of their unreserved self-dedication, have made the great discoveries about God, and, as we read their lives and works, they will impart to us just so much of these discoveries as we are able to bear. Indeed, as we grow more and more, the saints tell us more and more: disclosing at each fresh reading secrets that we did not suspect.
“Their books are the work of specialists, from whom we can humbly learn more of God and of our own souls” (Concerning The Inner Life, Oneworld Publications, Oxford, England, 1999, page 54-56).
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Breathe Out.
After breathing in it’s natural to breathe out. For those who pray, short “arrow prayers” are often the equivalent of exhaling. In Pray How to Be Effective in Prayer by Warren and Ruth Myers (NavPress, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1983, pages 111-115), the Myers note that “Short, concise payers offered anytime, anywhere are both scriptural and immensely useful.”
“We have had similar experiences with prayers which, like arrows quickly shot from a bow toward a target, are shot toward heaven for immediate help, guidance, or protection, or in response to special prompting.”
“We can use arrow prayers to intercede for others, even strangers,” writes Warren Myers. “Many times when I pass a person on the street or see someone on a bus, the Lord prompts me to pray that the person might come to know Him or have a special need met. Though we seldom learn of specific answers to such prayers, God hears them.”
“Nehemiah was a master of such prayers. While he was serving as cupbearer for Artaxerxes, ruler of the Persian Empire, he received the distressing news that the wall of Jerusalem had been broken down and the gates had been burned. Later, when King Artaxerxes unexpectedly asked Nehemiah to state his request regarding Jerusalem, he quickly ‘prayed to the God of heaven,” then answered the King. Later in Jerusalem, when enemies tried to frighten Nehemiah and his men to prevent them from rebuilding the city wall, his emergency prayer was, ‘But now, O God, strengthen my hands.’ Nehemiah concluded his book with a brief cry to God that he often used, with variations: ‘Remember me, O my God for good.’”
The so-called “prayer of aspirations” is the technical term used by old school writers like Evelyn Underhill to describe arrow prayers more formally “The frequent and attentive use of little phrases of love and worship . . . keep our minds pointing the right way, and never lose their power of forming and maintaining in us an adoring temper of soul . . . They stretch and re-stretch our spiritual muscles; and, even in the stuffiest surroundings can make us take deep breaths of mountain air. The habit of aspiration is difficult to form, but once acquired exerts a growing influence over the soul’s life” (Concerning the Inner Life, Oneworld Publications, Oxford, England, 1999, pages 52-53).
In other words: practice, practice, practice. Pray. Breathe Out.
“We have had similar experiences with prayers which, like arrows quickly shot from a bow toward a target, are shot toward heaven for immediate help, guidance, or protection, or in response to special prompting.”
“We can use arrow prayers to intercede for others, even strangers,” writes Warren Myers. “Many times when I pass a person on the street or see someone on a bus, the Lord prompts me to pray that the person might come to know Him or have a special need met. Though we seldom learn of specific answers to such prayers, God hears them.”
“Nehemiah was a master of such prayers. While he was serving as cupbearer for Artaxerxes, ruler of the Persian Empire, he received the distressing news that the wall of Jerusalem had been broken down and the gates had been burned. Later, when King Artaxerxes unexpectedly asked Nehemiah to state his request regarding Jerusalem, he quickly ‘prayed to the God of heaven,” then answered the King. Later in Jerusalem, when enemies tried to frighten Nehemiah and his men to prevent them from rebuilding the city wall, his emergency prayer was, ‘But now, O God, strengthen my hands.’ Nehemiah concluded his book with a brief cry to God that he often used, with variations: ‘Remember me, O my God for good.’”
The so-called “prayer of aspirations” is the technical term used by old school writers like Evelyn Underhill to describe arrow prayers more formally “The frequent and attentive use of little phrases of love and worship . . . keep our minds pointing the right way, and never lose their power of forming and maintaining in us an adoring temper of soul . . . They stretch and re-stretch our spiritual muscles; and, even in the stuffiest surroundings can make us take deep breaths of mountain air. The habit of aspiration is difficult to form, but once acquired exerts a growing influence over the soul’s life” (Concerning the Inner Life, Oneworld Publications, Oxford, England, 1999, pages 52-53).
In other words: practice, practice, practice. Pray. Breathe Out.
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