Wake Up and Live

 

Late last year I took part in a course on Benedictine Spirituality with the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine in Toronto.  Of course, in this time of COVID-19, we did this course via Zoom.  One of the books we used in the course was The Rule of Benedict, by Joan Chittister.  It provides daily commentary on the Rule developed by Benedict which I find to be a very good way to explore and inwardly digest the charters of the Rule.  The Rule has stood the test of time since it was written twelve hundred years ago. The Rule (rules actually) are very applicable to our world today and the commentary by Joan Chittister make them very accessible to the modern reader.

Today, I want to explore the commentary of the author on the Prologue to the Rule which begins, “Listen carefully, my child, to my instruction, and attend to them with the ear of your heart.”   Chittister writes:

Let nothing go by without being open to being nourished by the inner meaning of that event in life.  There is an Oriental proverb that teaches, “Take from death before is takes from thee.”  If we do not live life consciously (my emphasis), in other words, we may not be living at all.

The question that I want to explore from this statement is, what does it mean to live consciously?  Coincidentally, if you believe in coincidences, I was listening, about the same time as I read this, to an interview with Noam Chomsky, the famous (some might say infamous) linguist and philosopher.  He noted that people spend most of their lives in unconsciousness.  The concept of consciousness is one that has interested me for quite a few years.  In my view consciousness is the great gift of God and what it means to be created in God’s image as we are told in the book of Genesis. 

Chomsky was proposing that people - many, if not most - are not conscious most of the time they are in a waking state.  Your reaction to this may be one of rejection and you might well say, of course I am conscious when I am awake.  There is a simple way to test this proposition.  Think about the last time someone was talking to you.  How much of the time were you thinking of something else whether it is being somewhere else, or thinking of another person, of something that happened some time in the past, or anything else.  If you are honest you will admit that those thoughts, intentional or not, consumed much of the time you were ‘engaged’ in that conversation.  Another test you could engage in is trying to think about nothing.  Empty you mind – or try to – and see how long it is before some thought enters into you head unsought.

One of my regular spiritual practices is to engage in Centering Prayer on a daily basis.  This involved being in a state in which I empty my mind of thoughts for twenty minutes.  The idea is this allows God full access to my self without the day-to-day thoughts getting in the way.  If, or better when, thoughts enter I let them go using a “sacred word” to return my focus or non-focus to being open and receptive.  In invite you to give it a try and see how it works for you.

If you want an example of what happens when they are in an unconscious state, you only have to look at the videos of the mob which invaded the United States Capital building last week.  Many of them were there without being conscious of the consequences of their actions and or even their actual motivations.  It was a case of mob rule.  The collective consciousness of a mob is much lower than the consciousness of the individuals involved. 

If you want to practice consciousness and live more fully, one way you can do this is to pay attention for a set period and see if you can identify the times in which your mind wanders or times in which thoughts enter your mind unsought.  Do this for a perhaps five or ten minutes at ta time and be conscious of what is going on in your head.  Remember, if we do not live life consciously, we may not be living at all.

Blessing on your journey and be conscious of where God is on that journey. 

A New Plan and A New Commandment

Last week I wrote about how God’s plan seemed to be much more specific and detailed in the Old Testament than the New Testament.  The instructions from God given to Moses on how to build the tabernacle were detailed down to the last jot and title.  Indeed, all the instructions in and around the law and how God was to be worshiped were extremely detailed.  However, the plan that we were given in the New Testament was, in comparison, a big picture approach which was built around the Great Commandment i.e. it all comes down to love.  That is all well and good, but how in God’s name are we supposed to manage that?  I find that to be a challenge; there are many people including me who find it a challenge to love as we are commanded despite our best efforts.

I received a comment on what I had written and I am always grateful for feedback.  I will quote the comment as I found it to be thoughtful and thought provoking, “I disagree that God is not a detail-oriented today. I think God is. God sent many prophets, gave us the law and the commandments, and then sent Jesus Christ, who established a church, filled with many saints and holy people. How much more detail do we want?”

I must agree, however, it seems that God does is working more indirectly in the New Testament and today, if I understand what the commenter is saying. Indeed, God does seem to be giving us a plan in different ways today than in the Old Testament.  That, of course, is what the new covenant in Jesus Christ is proclaiming and fulfilling.  Rather than a law which is incredibly detailed as in the Mosaic code, we have a law which can be summarized in the Great Commandment to love.  That does give us freedom.  We don’t have to worry about putting a step which is not in exact correct place.  However, with the freedom comes responsibility.  It is a responsibility which leaves a great deal up to us try and figure out what it means to love our neighbour and how we go about doing that.  Needless to say, this is not easy.  We need to discern on an ongoing basis if what we are doing is fulfilling that commandment and if not, how can we repent i.e. to turn around and get back on the correct path. 

I agree with the comment that God has also given us holy people to guide us in finding the path God intends for us.  Indeed, I recently attended a retreat which offered such help.  The retreat was offered by the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine in Toronto.  It was entitled Praying With Evelyn Underhill.  Evelyn Underhill was one of those holy people who God sent us to give a guidance.  She was an Anglican mystic and spiritual guide who lived and practiced in England in the first part of the 20^th Century.

The retreat was different than many I had attended as it focussed on the practice of prayer rather than on transmitting information.  We were invited to do just what the retreat title said, to pray rather than to absorb a lot of information about Underhill and her life and teaching.  There was some of that but primarily we were to practice rather than being in what is more comfortable for me, a place where I can be in my head.  The approach which we were invited to participate in has three ways of praying which were taught by Underhill; Adoration, Communion, and Self-offering.  After a short introduction to each way we were given time to engage in that way.  Here is a brief summary of the three ways in Underhill’s words.

Adoration: “takes us out of ourselves, out of limited capacities and our own needs and emotions, sweeping us past all this to God as objective fact, as mysterious gift to us―sweeping us to a place where things of God enter the MIND.”

Communion: “The mystic is in love with God not in any idle or sentimental manner, but in the vital sense which presses at all costs through all dangers towards union with the beloved.”

Self-offering: “More is required of those who wake up to the reality than the passive adoration of God or intimate communion with God.  Those responses, great as they are, do not cover the purposes of our creation…The Church is in the world to save the world.  It is a tool of God for that purpose , not a comfortable religious club set in fine historical premises.”

On refection, the commandment of Jesus is where the rubber hits the road.  We have to come to that third step of self-offering which is the most difficult for me and probably for most people.  Most of us are not going to be able to jump to the third way without travelling the path through the first two.  However, the blessing that is offered by Evelyn Underhill and other holy and wise people is to give us a road map to follow on that journey.

Blessings on you journey.