The Awfulness of Christmas

Have you ever described your experience of something negative as awful i.e. isn’t that awful?  I’m sure you probably have or at the least heard someone else do it.  That is a perfectly appropriate use of the word ‘awful’.  One on-line source defines it as:

1.       very bad or unpleasant. "the place smelled awful"

2.       used to emphasize the extent of something, especially something unpleasant or negative. "I've made an awful fool of myself"

Now if I was to describe my experience of Christmas as awful, it might be correct if that season of peace on earth and goodwill to all did not live up to my expectations that Christmas would be just that – peaceful and full of good will.  That can happen to people especially when the culture places such high expectations on Christmas being the ‘most wonderful time of the year’, as the Christmas song goes.

However, there is a more traditional meaning to ‘awful’ which fits very well with the season of Christmas.  Google provided an appropriate summary of this:

The traditional, archaic definition of awful was "arousing or inspiring awe" or "worthy of profound respect or fear". It described something that was solemnly impressive, majestic, or terrifying in a way that commanded reverence, such as "the awful majesty of alpine peaks".

In effect awe means just what it says i.e. that we are full of awe.  As is often the case, Richard Rohr is helpful by providing some clarity on having a sense of awe:

We have is a sense of awe and radical amazement in the face of a mystery that staggers our ability to sense it.  Awe is more than an emotion; it is a way of understanding, insight into a meaning greater than ourselves. The beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe.

Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme. Awe is a sense for the … mystery beyond all things. It enables us … to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe. 

I try not to object too strongly each year to the growing secularization of Christmas as the emphasis becomes less and less on the Christ Child and more on the Bacchanalia of excessive materialization and making the season just right from going into debt to outdo last year’s extravagance.  I believe the key difference between the secular Christmas and the real Christmas is that the secular Christmas lacks a sense of awe.  Again, Richard Rohr is helpful on what happens when the sense of awe is missing:

Forfeit your sense of awe, let your conceit diminish your ability to revere, and the universe becomes a market place for you. The loss of awe is the avoidance of insight. A return to reverence is the first prerequisite for a revival of wisdom, for the discovery of the world as an allusion to God. 

In this season of Christmas – yes, it is still Christmas until at least Epiphany when we celebrate the visit of the Wise Men aka the Three Kings – may you experience the awfulness of Christmas. 

Letting God Love Me More

The issue – if I can call it that – of what we can do when God seems to be absent in our lives, has been presented to me frequently in the past week or so.  This is true in my personal life and with a couple of people raising that with me.  This has also come up a few places in the messages I receive regularly from different sources.  There are times when God does not seem to be making God’s presence known to me.  These raises (or perhaps begs) the question, how can I help God to be more present in my life?

One of the Daily Meditations by Richard Rohr from last week was on point: 

Seeking to experience God’s love more fully, spiritual director Colette Lafia asks a monk with whom she is friends, “How do I let God love me more?”:  

Without missing a beat, Brother Paul answered in his joyful tone, "God cannot love you more. God already loves you infinitely. You just need to become more aware of [God’s] love … by becoming more present to it. It’s like hearing birdcalls. By paying attention and delighting in it.”  

The Advent Reflection by the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine was also applicable:

If we aren't paying attention then that narrow space between pleasure and anxiety can trip us up, and just like a crack in the pavement, cause our steps to stumble and our resolve to falter. Henri Nouwen reminds us, "The Lord is coming, always coming. When you have ears to hear and eyes to see, you will recognize him at any moment of your life. Life is Advent; life is recognizing the coming of the Lord." SSJD Advent Reflection 2025

This brought to mind the line from Leonard Cohen’s song, Anthem, “there is a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in.”

I have believed – known - for quite a while, that God is always present n our lives.  God makes Godself known to us in many ways.  However, because of who we are and how God created us to be - ironically – we are blind and deaf and dumb to many of these ways.  Due to who and how we are, we are not open to many of the ways in which God is present to us.  This is, in part, because of our personalities and in part because we are often unavailable to God presence in our lives.  If we quiet ourselves and pay attention, we may be able to discern more clearly God’s presence in ways that are familiar to us or even ways that are not familiar to us.  For me, I am not usually attuned to the outer world around me – walking in nature does not do much for me but I am working on that. 

I will close with another message that I received this morning from Richard Rohr:

Marabi Starr offers this stirring description of the Dark Night of the Soul, in which God moves from dynamic presence to loving absence:

Say what’s secretly going on is that the Beloved is loving you back. That your first glimpse of the Absolute was God’s first great gift to you. That your years of revelation inside his many vessels was his second gift, wherein, like a mother, he was holding you, like a child, close to his breast, tenderly feeding you. And that this darkness of the soul you have come upon and cannot seem to come out of is his final and greatest gift to you.

I would disagree on one point.  It is not a case of God {the Beloved} loving us back.  It is a case that God always loves us, and we have to opportunity to love God back.  It is not a question of God being more present in my life?  The question is, how can I be more aware or God’s presence in my life?  When I do, how can I respond? 

I hope we can be blessed to do that on our journey. 

 

 

 

Being the Salt of the Earth

I have been appreciating salt recently on my food. Actually, I have been using salt in the many cobs of corn which I have been consuming.  I generally don’t add salt to my food as it is not recommended for people who deal with high blood pressure.  In any case, I find it essential for eating corn on the cob and here at the cottage we have a great local source for this food group – Keddy’s Corn.

With that as context, the bible passage came to mind about salt losing its saltiness: “For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.”  —Mark 9:49–50

That led me to wonder if it is actually possible for salt to lose its saltiness?  With this kind of question, I turn to AI for an answer: 

Pure salt (sodium chloride) cannot lose its saltiness because its taste is an inherent property of its stable chemical compound. However, impure or ancient salts mixed with other minerals could lose their taste if exposed to water, causing the actual sodium chloride to dissolve and wash away, leaving behind flavorless fillers. Additionally, if someone has a taste disorder, they might perceive salt as not being salty, even if the salt itself remains unchanged. 

That, in turn, left me with the question of what was the point of this parable that Jesus was trying to give us?  Jesus used many common situations and real-life examples in his parables, so this must have been a common experience for the people listening to him.  What was the spiritual message that Jesus was giving to his audience two thousand years ago and us today?  Well, fortunately I was given an answer to that question in one the Daily Meditations from Richard Rhor:

Jesus connects using our power to honor and protect others with being a transforming presence or “salt” in the world. 

When we keep in mind the context of this whole passage in which the disciples have been jostling for power and Jesus gives stark warnings to those who misuse their power (Mark 9:33–48), we discover a piercing challenge. Here, the gathering together of imagery of being “salted with fire,” ideas of sacrifice and the challenge to live peaceably together, may reflect ideas about being purified and refined for peace. That is, in the process of allowing our lives to become a salty offering, no longer driven by power plays, but instead focused upon honouring and protecting others, especially the “little ones,” our ego-driven agendas are burned away. Like the fighting disciples, this will be a costly process of having our assumptions about power deconstructed, so that we may actually be able to embody God’s peace together…. Australian theologian Sally Douglas

As it happens, today I was not really feeling like producing another edition of this blog.  I was convincing myself that I didn’t really need o do it and probably it wouldn’t be missed if I didn’t.  I had the topic on salt as a topic and decided to buck up and put the computer version of pen to paper.  I think that feeling of why bother and not feeling up to a task and what does it matter anyway is an aspect of losing my saltiness and especially being salted with fire.  So, for what it’s worth - here it is my effort to get in touch with my saltiness.

May you be blessed to be the salt of the earth on your journey.  

  

The Dark Pub-Night of the Soul

Richard Rohr is currently exploring the dance between darkness and light in which darkness often gets, in my view, an undeserved primarily negative view.  In the Rohr blog, he notes that, “periods of darkness, confusion, and struggle as necessary for our transformation and growth.  Experiences of darkness are good and necessary teachers. They are not to be avoided, denied, run from, or explained away.”  He further explains that, “It really feels like the total absence of light, and thus the saints and mystics called it “the dark night.”   In classic spirituality this is referred to as ‘the dark night of the soul’. 

This concept resonates with me and brings to mind my experience of the dark night which I refer to as the dark pub night of the soul.  The circumstances of this case are one of the most embarrassing of my life.  It happened when I was in my mid-fifties and was in the process of ordination in the Anglican Church of Canada.  Part of that process is to spend time as a theology student in a parish under the supervision of the parish priest.

I was, in my mind, a mature individual who was very self aware and should have few problems in this role.  Indeed, I set out to make a very favourable impression on my supervisor and the members of the congregation.  I was, in effect, going to shine and ride to glory.  It turned out this was my overarching mistake which would be very definite my Felix Culpa – my fortunate fall. 

In my experience in this role, I discovered a lot of my limitations which, although I was aware of them, I was unaware to the extent to which they would be a challenge for me.  My supervisor was very good at pointing these out to me and not letting me ignore them.  These challenges came to a head when the parish was holding a pub night in which I had an opportunity to perform – singing and playing my guitar.  I decided that this was my opportunity to shine and show some of my strengths rather than, in my mind, the weaknesses that had been growing In my awareness.

I decided that I would sing and play one of my long-standing favourite pieces, Suzanne by Leonard Cohen.  I attended with my wife Lorna and two close friends.  As I waited my turn to take centre stage, I began to drink wine, and I didn’t stop after a few drinks.  By the time I was called up to the stage I was well in my cups, as they say.  I don’t remember much of my time on stage except I attempted to say a few well slurred words and launched into my version of the song.  It did not do well to say the least, but I did eventually manage to stagger off the stage without falling down. 

I came home – or rather was brought home and fell into bed.  I woke up at some point in the night and turned the radio on and heard a piece of music on CBC radio which I had not heard before and haven’t heard on the radio since.  I was Whythorne’s Shadow by the composer Earnest Moeran.  Ah yes, confirmation of what I had started to realize, I had been in thrall to my Shadow.  Just to clarify, this is not normal behaviour for me.  I had been exposed in front of the very people I wanted desperately to impress.  I made a fool of myself and not in the sense of a Fool in which I was in charge of the archetype.  As noted in Wikipedia, “bohemian lifestyle and heavy drinking during this period interrupted his creativity for a while and sowed the seeds of the alcoholism that would blight his later life.”  By the way, he was, as I was, the son of a clergyman.  Yes, the Shadow certainly knows how to pick them.

I appear to have been doubly blessed with a visit from the Shadow and synchronicity.  Whythorne’s Shadow indeed.  I will close with a quotation form the poem Whythorne’s song  by the composer Thomas Whythorne on which Moeran’s work is based:

As thy shadow itself apply'th
To follow thee whereso thou go,
And when thou bends, itself it wry'th,
Turning as thou both to and fro:
The flatterer doth even so,
And shopes himself the same to gloze,
With many a fawning and gay show,
Whom he would frame for his purpose.

 

That’s How the Light Gets In

As is often the case, one of the Daily Meditations from Richard Rohr gave me something to reflect on.  This one reminded me of the challenges that we are given and give ourselves to be perfect.  This apparent decree by Jesus to be perfect is something that needs to be reframed or understood differently. 

Divine perfection is precisely the ability to include what seems like imperfection. Indigenous religions largely understand this, as do the Scriptures (see Psalms 98, 104, 148, or Daniel 3:57–82 [1]). In Job 12:7–10, and most of Job 38–39, YHWH praises strange animals and elements for their inherently available wisdom—the “pent up sea,” the “wild ass,” the “ostrich’s wing”—reminding humans that we’re part of a much greater ecosystem, which offers lessons in all directions.   Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations April 30, 2025

Years ago, I discovered a small book, or I should say it found me.  It was entitled A Prayer for the Cosmos by Neil Douglas-Klotz.  This little gem is a translation of The Lord’s Prayer and other saying of Jesus from Aramaic sources.  One of the passages that the book addressed was from the Gospel of Matthew (5: 48).  This is traditionally translated as ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’.  However, the translation by this author is, ‘Be all-embracing, as you heavenly Father is all-embracing.” 

This passage and similar ones direct Christians to seek perfection and the understanding of God, as all good.  I could not reconcile them with my understanding of humanity as creatures of God, created in the image of God.  This new translation reconciled that dichotomy for me and brought my Perfection Complex into a conscious awareness.  This enables me to reconcile these passages with my understanding of the human psyche.  We are to seek wholeness not perfection.  I will continue to relate to my Perfection Complex in new consciousness and new appreciation for the drive for perfection that has been part of me – recognized or not though much of my life.  I will continue to offer my imperfect offerings to the source of my being which desires my wholeness and not my perfection.

Finally, I offer you my favourite lyrics from Leonard Cohen which encourages us to forget our attempts at perfection:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

I invite you to reconsider your desire for perfection and let the light into your life. 

Things Hoped For

For those of us who do not jump into the Christmas season early and often, we began the season of Advent a week ago.  Yesterday was the second Sunday of Advent.  I believe that Advent is more important than ever.   The secular Christmas season is well under way in our society.  I haven’t been to a mall recently, but I imagine that Christmas carols are being played to encourage people to buy, buy and yes, buy more to honour the child that was born in a stable with a manger for a bed.  It is, all in all, the height of irony that Christmas bacchanalia has the world - at least the Western world - in its death grip.  Sorry – I am being rather over the top here.  I promised myself that I wouldn’t indulge in my annual Christmas/Advent rant, but I seem to have broken it – and it wasn’t even a New Years resolution.  There will be lots of opportunities to not live up to any New Year's resolutions that I might rashly make in about a month’s time.

Back to Advent which is supposed to be the topic of today’s rant, sorry, – reflection.  In the worship service I was part of yesterday, we celebrated the Second Sunday of Advent.   We had the ritual of the lighting of the first and second of four Advent candles on the Advent Wreath.  Each of the four candles represent a theme, or value, or virtue which we can reflect on during Advent in our preparation for the coming (the advent) of the Christ Child.  There can be some variation in the themes but generally they are, Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love.  The order may vary but we lit the first candle representing Hope and yesterday, Peace.  Peace is what many people associate with Jesus as he is often named the Prince of Peace, so, let me reflect on Hope. 

Hope, generally, means a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.  We can hope for many different things.  If you reflect on what you may have hoped for in the past or what you hope for today, what things would they be?  I can think of times when I hoped for fame, fortune, happiness and generally the fulfillment of what I happened to desire.  This could vary greatly depending on my circumstances.  However, they were usually focused on what I thought would fulfill my life.  There was an element of being like the kind of person I admired at that time. 

If I examine what I hope for these days, what comes to mind is things like good health and happiness for me and for my loved ones.  , I also think of hope that our leaders will be wise and bring a sense of right purpose to the decision they make – although, with the re-election of Donald Trump as President of the United States at times that seems like a very faint hope.  However, if I turn my thoughts to more spiritual things which does seem appropriate when we consider Advent, there are many possibilities of what we can hope for.  One source noted that in the Bible, hope is the confident expectation of what God has promised, and its strength is in His faithfulness. Turning to one of the sources I depend on, Richard Rohr writes, “Hope, it seems to me, is the fruit of a learned capacity to suffer wisely and generously. The ego needs success to thrive; the soul needs only meaning.” (Daily Meditation December 3, 2014)

On reflection, much of what I have hoped for in my life have been ego driven.  The ego does not want to have to suffer, even when the suffering will bring us to a better place – which is not true of all suffering.  What doesn’t kill us does not necessarily make us stronger.  But we can (appropriately) hope that we will be able to see that God is with us even, or especially in our suffering.  We can hope for soul work in our lives that will open us more fully to God.  That is something to be devoutly hoped for.

Blessings on your Advent journey.

 

Lord, Teach Me To Pray

I have often pondered what prayer actually does.  In my personal prayers, I pray for many people who are sick in body, mind or estate – including myself.  But what am I asking God to actually do?  Do I want God to hear my prayer requests and decide He/She/It will respond to my request?  On one level that doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.  If God is all good and all powerful, wouldn’t God do it anyway?  God shouldn’t need my urging to act.  I end my prayers with the caveat – “You know our needs better than we know them ourselves.  Fulfill these requests and petitions as may be best for us.”  However, deep in my heart I hope God’s will and mine line up and are in sync.

 There are stories in the Bible of people changing God’s mind.  In one case Abraham bargains with God about the number of righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah to change God’s mind and not destroy the city (Genesis 18).  Abraham negotiated the number of righteous men required down to 10.  The bible has other instances where God had a change of mind (heart?)  However, in today’s times there are many prayers in which God doesn’t seem to answer them.  If God did there would be many people alive today who were stuck down before what seemed to be their time.  There would be many fewer displaced and injured innocent people in war zones.  I could go on but I’m sure you get the point. 

There is the case of Gretta Vosper, a United Church of Canada ordained minister who is a declared atheist.   She declares that she changed her belief about God because her daughter’s beloved teacher was ill and died despite her and her daughter’s prayers.  From what I read; Vosper believes in a God but not one that intervenes in human affairs in any way.  In the United Church congregation where she is minister, she has eliminated the Lord’s Prayer and probably other prayers of intercession.  The question remains: what do I believe about prayer?  I have prayed for people who have not been healed and returned to health and wholeness.  Some I have prayed for have recovered from sickness in body or mind or estate.  But is that because of prayers by me and/or others?  I have found Richard Rohr to be very helpful in all this. He writes:

I believe prayer is a symbiotic relationship with life and with God, a synergy which creates a result larger than the exchange itself. We ask not to change God, but to change ourselves. We pray to form a living relationship, not to get things done. (That is why Jesus says all prayers are answered, which does not appear to be true, according to the evidence!) God knows that we need to pray to keep the symbiotic relationship moving and growing. Prayer is not a way to try to control God, or even to get what we want.  

Prayers of intercession or petition are one way of situating our life within total honesty and structural truth. We are all forever beggars before God and the universe. We can never engineer or guide our own transformation or conversion. If we try, don’t it will be a self-centered and well-controlled version of conversion, with most of our preferences and addictions still fully in place, but now well-disguised.  Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation July 21, 2024

For me this is a good reason to pray.  I cannot say if prayers of intercession work in the way that people want them to i.e. with the results they pray for.  We do have the example of Jesus Christ who did prayer and taught his disciples and us how to pray.  However, I also believe that prayer changes the person who prays. That is more than enough reason to continue to pray.     

May you be blessed to pray and be prayed for on your journey.

 

Souls Lost and Found

I have been rereading Soul Making by Alan Jones and finding it to be good for my soul.  I decided that I would write about the soul for this edition following up on one that I wrote about a year ago.  Seemed to be the right thing to do when I received a Daily Meditation for Richard Rohr which spoke about the soul:

The heart of Rumi’s teaching lies in the Sufi concept of tawhid (or “oneness”). This is a longing for mystical union with the Beloved, with the divine lover from whom one has been separated. In the opening lines of his most famous work, the Masnavi (his “flute songs”), Rumi portrays the soul as a reed cut from the damp reed-bed of God’s own heart. It yearns to return to its source, finding a transient joy in becoming a reed flute through which the divine breath of love’s fire passes. [1] Like a drunken fool, Rumi is smitten by love. He can think of nothing else.  The core of discernment for him, therefore, isn’t a question of “What should I do?” or “What is expected of me?” It is rather “What do I love? 

All was well and all manner of things were well, as Julien of Norwich might say, when I left the book on the Via train to Toronto on Thursday.  So, this seemed to turn into a case of a lost soul.  The question then was, what happens when you lose your soul?  Is that possible or is it just mis-placed?  Perhaps it is a case of a broken reed that needs mending, or a reed flute that is out of tune.   

Well, my plans for this changed again when I was driving to a near-by town of Nairn Sunday morning to be the guest preacher.  I left in what should have been lots of time only to find that the road was closed and there was a detour which took me to my destination by the long way around.  I did manage to make it to the church on time but I was a bit rattled.  The theme of detours seemed to fit well with my thoughts about the soul.  So, I am now wondering about the detours that lead us from the path we are intended to be on in the journey of soul making in our lives? 

I noted in my exploration of the soul a year ago that none of the books I have that deal with the soul, including Soul Making, actually have a definition of soul. I turned to a definition of soul in The Encyclopedia Britannica which defines soul thus:

soul, in religion and philosophy, the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being, that which confers individuality and humanity, often considered to be synonymous with the mind or the self. In theology, the soul is further defined as that part of the individual which partakes of divinity and often is considered to survive the death of the body.

Turning back to the idea of detours in the soul-journey Richard Rohr again addressed this in one of his Daily Meditations while I was away in Toronto:

Falling down and moving up is the most counter-intuitive message in most of the world’s religions, including Christianity. We grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right. That just might be the central message of how spiritual growth happens, yet nothing in us wants to believe it. I actually think it’s the only workable meaning of any remaining notion of “original sin.” There seems to have been a fly in the ointment from the beginning, but the key is recognizing and dealing with the fly rather than throwing out the whole ointment! (Richard Rohr)

It is my natural inclination to avoid detours in my life and unexpected things that throw me off my planned journey.  However, I have to acknowledge that the detours in life are a part of life and the falling down on that journey will lead to places, both physically and spiritually, that may be what I am intended to take.  If not that, at least what will open new possibilities and new awareness of where the spirit is calling me.   So, those detours and even dead ends can lead to unexpected places and in this case tow wrongs may make a right. 

May you be blessed by those detours on your journey and who knows where they may take you.

"Growing” Old; Growing Aware

 I shall say no more except that I already told you many years ago of the alternative journey you are now called to take – a journey which does indeed lie on the slopes of that mountain but holds no fame or glory for you; only loneliness and sadness.  The choice is yours.  Will you deceive yourself as Dante’s Ulysses did in a sin far worse than the deceit of the Trojan horse? (Old Age 12)

 These words of the poet Teiresias, the blind poet, imagined by Helen Luke, addressed to Odysseus resting from his toils and trials of youth.  They sum up the choice which all of us must make when we face the journey into old age.  Are we truly to continue “grow old”—to continue to grow in psychic maturity or will we simply succumb to the aging process—sinking, perhaps not gently, into that perceived, not so sweet night, fighting that inevitable journey every step of the way.

As we baby boomers continue our journey into old age, the question of “growing old” or succumbing to the aging process becomes one which is looming larger in our lives.  I originally explored the questions raised by Helen Luke in her work, Old Age, about ten years ago when I was approaching the traditional retirement age of 65 (although I had retired for the first time quite a while before that).  Although, at the time, that age seemed to be appropriate for exploring the issue, I have realized that I was not truly able to appreciate the journey into old age that lies ahead of me.  I am beginning to appreciate the wisdom of Helen Lukes words to a much greater extent than when I began that exploration.  The question of whether I will “grow old” or succumb to the aging process is one that stares me in the face every morning when I regard the old man who stares back at me in the mirror.  It is one that I struggle with as I decide what I will do each day.  

Richard Rohr addressed this in one of his Daily Meditations this week:

It’s true that the second half of life is a certain kind of weight to carry, but no other way of being makes sense or gives us the deep satisfaction our soul now demands and even enjoys. This new and deeper passion is what people mean when they say, “I must do this particular thing or my life will not make sense” or “It is no longer a choice.” Our life and our delivery system are now one, whereas before, our life and our occupation seemed like two different things. Our concern is not so much to have what we love anymore, but to love what we have—right now. This is a monumental change from the first half of life, so much so that it is almost the litmus test of whether we are in the second half of life at all… Aging can be either a life of nostalgia or a wholehearted engagement with the future.  (Richard Rohr)

 I believe that what we face in our journey into old age is call to be aware, aware that we are created in the image of God for a purpose that can only be revealed throughout our lives.  The purpose is different at differ times in our life and can only be revealed if and when we are awake of the path that inner voice is calling us to follow.

May we be blessed to hear that voice on our journey.

 

 

Beyond Information

I remember a long time ago – perhaps forty year or so - thinking that all the information I had to deal with in my job was rather challenging.  Well, little did I know – perhaps in my naivety – that what lay ahead for everyone was an overwhelming flood of information.  That seems to be what we have now – so much information available at our fingertips – literally with a click of a mouse (if you still use are old fashioned enough to use one), that, if we are so inclined or trapped, we can spend all day every day falling down one rabbit hole after another on social media in a never-ending desire for more information.  At least Alice only had one rabbit hole to fall into. 

Today, we seem to be consumed with the search for more information and usually we only want to look for information to affirm and confirm what we already believe.  The algorithms on the various social media platforms seem to ensure this will happen or at least make it difficult to avoid.   The question we have to face today is, is there such a thing as too much information?  The answer is probably self evident – of course there is! (I don’t use exclamation points very often but I think this is an occasion to use one).

I realize my wording has been rather convoluted and meandering but perhaps that reflects the nature of the subject and is an example of more of something not always being better. 

So, given that we are faced with an epidemic of information of all kinds – good and bad, relevant and irrelevant – how can we deal with it?  I believe the answer lies first in the realization about what information does.  I was helped in gaining an understanding about the nature of information in one of Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations this past week, “Mere information tends to break things apart into competing ideologies.” 

For me, this summed up what is so evident today in the dominance of social media and the availability of information in the cloud of computing.  As I write that, I realize how that phrase, cloud computing, is so unintentionally revealing about its nature.  Instead of the cloud of knowing, it is the ‘cloud of unknowing’ (with apologies to the unknown author of the classic in mystical writing).  I guess we could all join in with the cry of TMI, TMI – too much information.

The idea that mere information breaks things apart, really gets to the essence of the problem.  We need to work to bring things together and not engage in things that separate us.  What we need is not more information; what we need desperately, is to find wisdom.   That is not an easy thing- true wisdom is hard to find and perhaps is not always easy to recognize.  However, that statement of Rohr’s is an example of wisdom, “Mere information tends to break things apart into competing ideologies.”  Here is the complete quote which addresses one way in which we can find wisdom

Mere information tends to break things apart into competing ideologies. Wisdom received through contemplative seeing puts things back together again. At the CAC (Center for Action and Contemplation), we have found that the most radical, political, and effective thing we can do for the world and the church is to teach contemplation: a way of seeing beyond the surface of things that moves people toward credible action.  

Contemplation is, unfortunately, not something which is natural or easy to people, especially these days when we are distracted and obsessed by all that information.  However, that recognition is a place to start. 

May you be blessed with the gift of contemplation on your journey.

 

All Embracing Thanksgiving

I have two subjects in mind today; thanksgiving – because it is the Canadian Thanksgiving, and perfection which I have intended to write about before I realized it would be Thanksgiving Monday today (not great planning ahead but there you go).  I hope I will be able to connect the two topics in a reasonable, if not meaningful way.

I have been interested in the issue/topic of perfection for a while now and wrote an article about my encounters with perfection – which I have dabbled in over my life.  The issue of perfectionism, or the drive for perfection, came into my awareness and consciousness some years ago when I was attending one of the intensives as part of my training as a dream group facilitator with the Haden Institute.  Here is the passage from that article which I want to share with you:

While I was at the Intensive, I found a small book at the Kanuga bookstore, or I should say, it found me. It is entitled A Prayer for the Cosmos by Neil Douglas-Klotz.  This little gem is a translation from Aramaic sources of The Lord’s Prayer and other sayings of Jesus. One of the passages that the book addresses is from the Gospel of Matthew chapter 5 verse 48, that is traditionally translated, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” However, the translation by this author reads, “Be all-embracing, as your heavenly Father is all-embracing.” I felt my discovery of this book and this passage to be a physical gift from the Divine.

The gift of this book came after a dream which challenged my desire for perfection which I had not recognized consciously.  I had, for many years been uncomfortable about the commandment by Jesus that we should ‘be perfect’ so I was very grateful for this different interpretation of Jesus’ words. 

One of the impetuses for writing about perfection this week was that it was the theme for Richard Rohr daily missives last week.  Here are two excepts from his Daily Meditations:

Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life. Knowing this gives me hope that human wholeness—mine, yours, ours—need not be a utopian dream, if we can use devastation as a seedbed for new life.

On one level, soul, consciousness, love, and the Holy Spirit can all be thought of as one and the same. Each of these point to something larger than the self, shared with God, and even eternal. That’s what Jesus means when he speaks of “giving” us the Spirit or sharing his consciousness with us. One whose soul is thus awakened has the “mind of Christ” (see 1 Corinthians 2:10–16). That doesn’t mean the person is psychologically or morally perfect (my emphasis), although such a transformed person does see things in a much more expanded and compassionate way. Ephesians calls it a “spiritual revolution of the mind” (4:23)—and it is!  Our outer world and its inner significance must come together for there to be any wholeness—and holiness. The result is both deep joy and a resounding sense of coherent beauty.  Richard Rohr 

To emphasize the selection of this topic for today, when returning from a family gathering in London today, there was an interview with Thomas Curran, the author of a book about perfectionism in our society, The Perfection Trap: Embracing the Power of Good Enough.

So, what has all this perfection have to do with thanksgiving and Thanksgiving?  We can be thankful that we are who God created us to be in all our strengths and weaknesses – I know that those weaknesses are the ghosts that visit me in the wee hours of the night.  However, they are what make me who I am as do the strengths. They are what makes me who God created me.  Now if only I would truly believe that in the depths of my soul all manner of things would be well – that would be good enough but not perfect thank be to God.

May we be thankful for all that God has given us on our journey.    

 

Compassion Meditation

Last week, Richard Rohr quoted the following passage on “Compassionate Meditation.”  A practice I was not aware of but which engaged me:

Thich Nhat Hanh and other Buddhist practitioners recommend that we regularly engage in a Compassion Meditation that is also known as metta or loving-kindness.…

May you be happy.

May you be blessed.

May you be free and peaceful.

May you be ever loved.

May you be always loving.

Now repeat the exercise, this time picturing someone you hardly know. Wish them the same loving desires. You may choose someone you saw on the bus, someone in the supermarket or a church group, or perhaps someone you’ve read about in the news. Make the image clear and pray for them as sincerely as you can. Your goal is to open to them/give them their humanity. 

I can see how this would be a powerful practice for being compassionate and helping someone to be more compassionate.  To riff on Burt Bacharach, what the world needs now is love, sweet love. Compassion is one of the expressions of love.   

I can also see how it would be a is a means in which Christians can practice the great commandment of Jesus Crist to love one another as he loves us – and that includes our enemies as Jesus so inconveniently declares.  Yes, that is not a typo – inconveniently for Christians – as it is, at least for me – as Jesus is commanding me to do what seems to be impossible. 

To do this as a part of compassionate meditation, what I suggest is a third step which would be for someone who is, or seems to you to be your enemy:

Now repeat the exercise, this time picturing someone you consider your enemy. Wish them the same loving desires. You may choose someone who is currently in your life, someone who is no longer physically a part of your life, but who has injured you deeply in the past, or someone in the news who is not directly in your life. Make the image clear and pray for them as sincerely as you can. Your goal is to open to them/give them their humanity. 

I hope that you will try this several times as see what happens.  I am going to do this as part of my daily practice this week.  Also, do not forget to do this for yourself.  It is important that you show yourself compassion.  

May you be blessed to give and receive compassion on your journey. 

Apatheia and Apathy

 I encountered a word last week that I was not familiar with.  Now this is not unusual as I am often challenged by the limits of my vocabulary.  This word is, apatheia.  It surprized me because it is very similar to a common word which most people are familiar with - apathy.  So my initial reaction was  - it must just be a variation on apathy.  However, the context in which it was used made it quite clear that it definitely had a very different meaning from apathy.  Let’s explore together how these two words that seem very similar are actually very different.

Apathy is generally understood to mean having a general interest in something or perhaps not caring.  The dictionary definition (Wikipedia) is, “a lack of feeling, emotion, interest, or concern about something.” Apatheia, as I noted, means something quite different.  It is defined in the same source as, “a state of mind in which one is not disturbed by the passions.”  This confirmed that the way in which it was used is correct.  They do mean different things but there is a connection between the two meanings.

The distinction between the two words is similar to the difference between uninterested and disinterested.  These two words are sometimes incorrectly used interchangeably but, again, they are very different.  Uninterested means simply, not interested in or concerned about something or someone. However, disinterested means, not influenced by considerations of personal advantage. 

So, if you are uninterested or have apathy, you are not concerned about the person or thing.  If you have apatheia or are disinterested, you are not influenced by your emotions or feelings about a person or thing but are involved or engaged in some way. 

Richard Rohr used this distinction in exploring a saying of Jesus which I find not that easy to get my head around – being poor in spirit:

We have to learn to be spiritually empty, or, as Jesus says in his first beatitude, “How blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3). If we are filled with ourselves, there is no room for another, and certainly not for God. We need contemplative prayer, in which we simply let go of our constantly changing ego needs, so Something Eternal can take over.  

This may sound simple, but it’s not easy! Because we’ve lost the art of detachment, we’ve become almost fully identified with our stream of consciousness and our feelings. Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not saying we should repress or deny our feelings. I’m challenging us to name them and observe them, but not to directly fight them, identify with them, or attach to them. Unless we learn to let go of our feelings, we don’t have our feelings; our feelings have us.  

This does not mean that we should not care.  We can and should care deeply about people and things – about the world that God has created and given to us to be stewards of.  But, in caring we should not be ruled or possessed by our feelings and emotions.  We can be very conscious of them but not be ruled by them. 

May you be blessed with apatheia on your journey.

I acknowledge that we are on the original homelands of the many Indigenous Nations who have lived since time  immemorial in Canada or as many First and other Indigenous Nations  note; Turtle Island.  All of the lands in Canada are the subject of up  to one hundred Treaties signed by the Crown in the right of Canada
with these Nations. I will only mention a few of the Nations: the  Cree, Ojibway, Blackfoot, Blood, Dakota, Mig M'ag, Huron, Inuit and  these lands are also home to the Metis people.

A Lenten Journey of Five Minutes a Day or More

 On the first Sunday in Lent.  I was preaching at the Mennonite Church in Nairn.  My theme was Lent as a time of testing – a time to test a call you have discerned that God is giving you.  Every journey, no matter how short or long, begins with the first step.  Here is one simple way of testing out a call to be more available to God (whatever you consider your ultimate concern).  It is a small step to make yourself fully available to God for five minutes as day – or longer if that is right for you.

“Here I am, Lord. Send me!” (Isaiah 6:8). Such was Isaiah’s response to God’s call. Today, try this simple “Here I Am” prayer from spiritual director and writer Teresa Blythe as a way to become available to God:

·        Resolve to be in prayer for at least five minutes. Do not answer the phone or allow yourself to be distracted from your goal.

·        Be seated and say to yourself, “Here I am seated, doing nothing. I will do nothing for five minutes” (or longer, depending on the time you set for yourself).

·        ​​​​​​​Begin noticing your own bodily presence—how your body feels next to the chair; how your feet feel against the floor. Relax your body. Notice what you feel inside.

·        Now notice the presence of all that is around you. Say to yourself, “Here I am in the presence of the room (garden, chapel, wherever you are).” Be aware of the furniture, walls, and any pets or people in the room. Just be present and silent in your environment. Relax even more.

·        Now say to yourself, “Here I am in the presence of God.” Repeat silently to God, “Here I am.” Bask in the presence of the Holy One until your time goal has been reached.

 I will close with a quote from Richard Rohr – a modern prophet, “Following Jesus is a vocation to share the fate of God for the life of the world.  To allow what God for some reason allows—and uses. And to suffer ever so slightly what God suffers eternally. Often, this has little to do with believing the right things about God—beyond the fact that God is love itself.”

Let us begin a blessed Lenten journey.

 

Love Your Enemies – Yes Really.

Sunday, Christians celebrated The Reign of Christ in the Christian Calendar.  Does this mean that the Kingdom of God has been established?   Well, yes and no.

Jesus gives us the great commandment which will be the rule when the Kingdom is fully established.  The Great Commandment from Matthew 22: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’

That certainly is a challenge but Jesus does not stop there.  He ups the ante, “You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

This is the essence of the Kingdom of God; love – love your neighbours and even your enemies.  Can you imagine if you were to tell this to someone who is not Christian or even many Christians?  I haven’t seen a lot of evidence of people loving their enemies on the news.    If we are honest, how many of us can say that we love those who persecute us or even neighbours who are difficult or even nasty?  If asked I will admit that I may be able to love the difficult people in my life with a lot of effort.  However, the nasty people are very difficult, if not impossible. 

How then, are we to love our neighbours of every variety and type- pleasant and nasty, good or bad or even your enemy – how are we to live out the Great Commandment that our Lord and Saviour gives to us as Christians?  I don’t know if you are familiar with Richard Rohr.   He is a Roman Catholic priest who I find very helpful in my journey following Jesus Christ.  He recently provided something which I believe can be helpful in this challenge to love our enemies.  I would like to invite you to participate in this short exercise.

Father Richard offers a practice of deepening love and healing:

How do we come to know love so that we can live from its depths? Love cannot be understood by the mind. And if God is love, God will never be subject to the mind as we know it. God and love can only be experienced. This simple practice is an invitation to encounter love in its very physical, connective reality.

Place the palm of one of your hands on your heart. Feel your heart beating, letting its rhythm bring you into the present moment and into the awareness of God’s blessing on your life, beat after beat after beat.

Bring to your conscious mind a loved one, an ancestor, a favorite place or animal, or anything that makes you smile with undeniable, spontaneous, unconditional love and joy.

Bring that particular beloved being or thing down from your mind and place it right under your palm, in your heart space. Relax your mind and let your heart relax at the same time, feeling the sensation of blood vessels, muscles, and chest cavity opening in warmth and love for that particular loved thing. Smile.

Now humbly place a challenging person, issue, or problem directly under your palm, within your wide-open heart space. This could be someone or something currently challenging you or an old hurt from a person gone from the living world. Silently continue to smile and hold this challenging thing in the warmth of your heart.

With closed eyes, look at the thing that causes you pain, visualizing the detail that bothers you the most, all the while smiling. Consider that there may be reasons why this thing brings hurt. Smile at the fragility, suffering, or misunderstanding that makes it this way.

Finally, give the person or problem to your heart and ask that your heart’s wisdom and love take over. Rest in the Love that loves both you and the other and wants to transform all into its loving image.  Open your eyes and return to what is around you. 

Let us love one another as Jesus loves us.  With God’s help it is possible.  May you be blessed on your journey to experience the love of Jesus and share that love with your neighbours - even those who are your enemies.

I acknowledge that we are on Turtle Island, the original homelands of the many Indigenous Nations who have lived since time immemorial in Canada or as many First and other Indigenous Nations
All of the lands in Canada are the subject of up to one hundred Treaties signed by the Crown in the right of Canada with these Nations.  I will only mention a few of the Nations: the Cree, Ojibway, Blackfoot, Blood, Dakota, Mig M'ag, Huron, Inuit and these lands are also home to the Metis people.