The Cloud of Unknowing Yesterday, Today and Always

I have recently returned to a classic writing on Spiritual Direction - The Cloud of Knowing by Anonymous.  It is a 14^th century classic of Contemplative Spirituality by an unnamed author who was probably a cleric.  It is written to a 24-year-old novice whom he is advising.  It is an early classic in Spiritual Direction and was formative for such people as Julian of Norwich, Friedrick von Hugel, John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila.  It was also formative in the development of modern Centering Prayer by Thomas Keating. 

In reading it again. What strikes me about it is its modern feel.  This is in part probably due to the masterful translation.  However, it also seems to be dealing with themes that resonate with today’s culture.  Anonymous speaks of the desire by people to solve problems through intellect and advises that this approach is not going to work for spiritual issues and our relationship with God.  He (we know that anonymous was a man) notes, “The self-important, hyper analytical intellect must always and in every way be quashed.  Stomp it under foot, if you want to do the work of contemplation with integrity”.  In this I believe it is a wonderful tonic to the approach today which believes that intellect and the products of intellect can solve all the world’s problems. 

Anonymous has a very dim view of the problems caused by what can be seen today as people being ego-centric, “You’re human, so watch out for that enemy, pride. Never think you're holier or better than anyone else.  Never confuse the worthiness of your calling with who you are”.  The more I experience life and observe what is going on in the world the more convinced I am that ego plays a central role in many of the problems in relationships between individuals and groups.  To overcome our ego-centric position has been the challenge that people have faced ever since humankind was exiled from the Garden.  Anonymous certainly seems to have identified it as a significant block to our relationship to God. 

I will close today with the prayer that Anonymous uses to close the preface to his book:

Dear spiritual friend in God, examine your life.  Pay careful attention to the way you live your calling.  With all your heart, thank God for your blessings, and his grace will help you stand strong in the face or subtle attacks from within and without, until you win the everlasting crown of life.  Amen

 

 

Are Our Relationships with God High Maintenance?

 

I recently spent a couple of days looking after our (I really should say my wife’s) cat while Lorna was away visiting a friend.  This was the first time this opportunity fell to me.  Trixie the cat and I have a rather strained relationship as she has never really trusted me after being taken in as a feral cat. We have speculated about this with no real answers’ forthcoming.  In any case, Trixie and I both survived the experience. 

However, what became clearer than ever before was that Trixie is a very high maintenance cat.  We have all probably experienced or know about relationships that are high maintenance as opposed to some that are less so.  Trixie is definitely high maintenance.  I know that Lorna has no question about it being worthwhile. 

As a result of this experience, I got to wondering about the relationship between God and people.  Is that relationship high maintenance and, if so, so what?  In my experience personally and as a Spiritual Director, it seems that the relationship between God and people takes a lot of conscious effort on the part of the people of God.  Often, we are not aware of how God is present and active in our lives.  As modern people in a secular world, we have forgotten how to recognize that presence.  We may be aware of what it takes to recognize where God is present in our lives.  However, we often do not know how to respond to that.  If people are part of a Christian community, hopefully they will be given information about how to identify and respond to that presence.  They are called to gather together as a community to worship God and, hopefully, are encouraged to study scripture, to pray regularly, study, and to share that experience of God with others through acts of kindness and Christian charity. 

However, even if we know God’s presence and blessing in our lives, we can easily ignore and avoid what it takes to maintain that relationship.  We might have good intentions about doing more to keep God in our conscious awareness and deepen that relationship but things in life seem to get in the way of doing that. We can sometimes, conveniently or not, forget to make that effort.  Sometimes life does seem to get in the way of doing those things.  If we neglect to keep up our end of the relationship, the relationship will wither and even die.  However, God is always present in our lives and that relationship can be resurrected and reestablished. 

I will use an analogy to illustrate this. Everyone dreams, and scientific studies have shown that dreams are necessary for our psychological and physiological health.  Many people will be aware that they dreamed last night when they awaken in the morning.  However, many people have difficulty remembering their dreams.  However, if they pay attention to their dreams they will begin to remember them more frequently and in more detail.  They can pay attention by recording their dreams and making associations with the images in the dream.  In that way, dreams are also high maintenance.  They require attention, and work to maintain the relationship that you have with your dreams. 

Now I believe that dreams are one way in which God maintains the relationship with us.  Culturally we have forgotten the language of dreams – dreams are, in effect, God’s forgotten language in our culture today.  But, even if you don’t subscribe to this understanding of dreams, they are important for our health and wholeness as human beings, and it is beneficial to pay attention to them.  Regardless, it takes two to tango.  We must keep our part of the bargain – our part of the relationship.  It definitely is a high maintenance relationship; it requires work to maintain but it is definitely worth it.  That is exactly with same with my relationship with God. 

My relationship with Trixie – not so sure but I will keep trying. 

May you be blessed to keep working on your relationship with God. 

 

Offering Our Suffering to God

It would be easy to question the efficacy of prayer in these times of the Corona virus pandemic.  Where is God?  How can God allow this to happen when so many innocent people are suffering and dying?  How can God let the world close down and allow so many people be the victims of the plague of famine?  How can God allow this? 

It would be easy for people to turn their backs and say there is no point in these futile prayers that seem to go into the depth of this darkness which has fallen on the world – which are swallowed up by the silence which seems to fill the vacuum that has been created by God’s seeming indifference?

I am not sure – perhaps I am sure that I do not have a good answer to these questions that have arisen this morning.  Perhaps the only answer is faith – faith that we are called to pray, to call out in our distress – to lament in this time when lamentation seems to be the best and only appropriate response.

Sunday, I was at St. James Anglican Church in Parkhill again to ring the bell at 9:00 a.m.  I have been doing this each Sunday beginning on Easter Sunday and, God willing, will continue to do it until we can meet in worship together.  At these times I offer a prayer despite any reservations I might have about the efficacy of prayer.  The prayer I used this Sunday was in response to the devastation which has been wrought by the Corona Virus.  The call to God is,” Out of the depths.”   We are calling from the depths of our despair, from the depths of our lamenting, out of the depth of our anger and frustration.  The response to this call is, “We cry out to you. Protect them.”

Out of the depths we cry out to you in the face of the Corona virus

Adapted from Anne and Jeffery Rowthorn, current Resident Scholars at the Collegeville Institute, wrote the following litany for use in places of worship in the midst of the spreading coronavirus.

Creator God of the universe, God of a thousand names and faces, divine source of health and wholeness, whose compassion embraces the entire community of Earth: behold your fearful people all over the world as we confront the corona virus. Out of the depths we cry to you, O God. Holy God, hear our voices. Let your ear be attentive to our cries as we pray for all who may be affected by the virus:

For all health caregivers – nurses, physicians, aides, EMTs, paramedics, technicians and therapists; out of the depths, O God–We cry out to you. Protect them.

For hospital and nursing home medical staff, assistants, and housekeepers who have close contact with patients and for the patients themselves; out of the depths, O God–We cry out to you. Protect them.

For all who travel for their daily work over land and sea and through the air—flight attendants, pilots, ship captains and sailors, bus drivers, passengers and long-distance truck drivers; out of the depths, O God–We cry out to you. Protect them.

For all who handle money—bankers, supermarket, village market and convenience store cashiers; out of the depths, O God–We cry out to you. Protect them.

For all who provide services to anyone travelling; out of the depths, O God–We cry out to you. Protect them.

For all who are providing food to the hungry; out of the depths, O God–We cry out to you. Protect them.

For all who provide care and comfort to children and for all children; out of the depths, O God–We cry out to you. Protect them.

For teachers who are providing education for students in many new and different methods; out of the depths, O God–We cry out to you. Protect them.

For the homeless, the poor, the lonely, the vulnerable, migrants, and the isolated elderly who have no protectors; out of the depths, O God–We cry out to you. Protect them.

For clergy and people who are fasting from the eucharist and are leading worship when we cannot gather together in God’s house; out of the depths O God–We cry out to you. Protect them.

For all who have tested positive, all who are waiting for test results, and all who are quarantined; out of the depths—We cry out to you. Protect them.

For all who have already died of the corona virus, now free from pain and suffering. May the God of hope carry them all the way home, and comfort their families and friends; out of the depths—We cry out to you. Protect them.

Loving God, hasten the day when the virus will have run its course; quicken scientists to develop medications and vaccines; call out the best instincts of your people—love, neighborliness, compassion, and a sense of caring for every member of your beloved community on Earth. We pray out of the depths to you, O God of hope, whom we call Jesus, Allah, YHWH, Divine Mystery, Great Spirit. Amen.

Blessings on your journey in this time of Corona virus.  

Listening to God in Times of Transition

I find that I am in transition once again.  Perhaps I should have expected it but, on some level at least, I am surprized by this development.  I have accepted the offer to be Honourary Assistant in a neighbouring parish which has three congregations including St. James, Parkhill where I was rector until my retirement.  In the five years since I retired as a parish priest, Lorna and I have been worshiping at St. John’s-by-the-Lake in Grand Bend Ontario.  After this coming Sunday I will be beginning a new phase of parish ministry at St. John the Evangelist, Strathroy, St. James, Parkhill, and St. Paul’s Kerwood (amazing how many Anglican churches are named St. John’s).  It will be a new experience being an Honourary Assistant to the rector Rev. Karen Nelles, but one that I am looking forward to. 

One interesting development is that Lorna has decide to continue to worship at the St. John’s in Grand Bend.  She doesn’t want to embrace another change at this point in her life enjoying the congregation and the parishioners.  I am pleased she will be able to continue to worship at our current congregation and we will continue to schedule around the transportation issues of having only one car. 

It is an interesting coincidence (if you believe in them) that yesterday’s Gospel reading, Mark 1: 29-39, dealt with a transition for Jesus.  He was in Capernaum, his home territory.  He was given the honour of teaching in the Synagogue and was successfully healing people and casting out demons.  The demands on him were great to continue as the local hero and doing the wonderful, miraculous work of relieving the suffering of many.  However, after what I believe must have been a sleepless night, he rose early in the morning and spent some time in prayer.

His prayer was answered and he arose to a new realization about what his heavenly Father intended him to do.  His disciples had other ideas about what he should do, “When they found him, they said to him, ‘Everyone is searching for you.’  He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.”  I don’t know how Jesus felt about the path his Heavenly Father had set for him, however, he had no doubt about what it was.

One of the lessons I take from this passage is the importance of prayer.  This is always true for us but particularly in times in transition when there is more than one path ahead.  I particularly lie the fact that Jesus withdrew to a quite place to get away from the demands of people around him.  As an introvert who needs to retreat regularly to my small corner and recharge my batteries, even when retired, I find it affirming that Jesus did just that at different times.

 

The lesson for me from this passage is, as I noted, the importance of prayer, particularly in times of transition.  I use the term “prayer” very broadly.  Prayer can take many different forms as God speaks to us in many different ways.  Our calling is to be intentional about listening to God speaking to us in different ways.  For me one important way is through my dreams, which for me and many others are, God’s Forgotten Language.  It is significant that last night after the decision to become Honourary Assistant was announced, I had a dream which seems, at least at first consideration, to affirm my decision. 

I hope that you

 will be blessed to hear what God is saying to you in times of transition in your life.

Greg

In Tune With God

Last week I reflected on why I pray.  I concluded with the statement that I pray because I know it is necessary for my salvation and the salvation of the world regardless of those theological questions which can be voiced by me within or by others in the outer life.  This week I want to reflect further on what I mean when I say it is necessary for salvation, mine and the world.  Perhaps this is where fools rush in because salvation is a topic which is fraught with possibilities and misunderstanding; Hence, my further rumination on the subject.

One of Richard Rohr’s daily meditations this week spoke of contemplative prayer as being like striking a tuning fork.  He notes, “All you can really do in the spiritual life is resonate to the true pitch, to receive the always-present message…Most simply put, prayer is something that happens to you (Romans 8:26-27), much more than anything you privately do”.

This begins to approach what I believe about prayer; or I should say trying to believe. Prayer of all kinds, contemplative, intercessory, thanksgiving, is, I believe, about becoming more in tune with God, what God is, what God’s intention for us is and what God’s intention is for God’s world. The challenge in prayer is that we try to have our intention take precedence over God’s. This is where the ego gets in the way.  We want different things in life; sometimes it is for the benefit of others e.g. healing from disease; sometimes it is for the benefit of the world e.g. caring for God’s creation; but often it is for our own benefit.  We believe that we can bring God’s will into line with our own because we know what is best for whatever it is we are praying for.  We can add at the end of our prayers, your will be done.  Jesus emphasized that in the prayer which he taught us, “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.  I do just that at the end of my prayers.  However, I question to what extent I or other people truly believe that they want God’s will to be done when it doesn’t coincide with ours. 

I have been practicing Centering Prayer for a few years now as part of my daily prayer practice (my daily intention in any case). Centering Prayer is a form of silent prayer in which you make space for you to be more aware of God’s presence in your life.  This can be a bit of a challenge because generally nothing seems to be happening, other than having many distracting thought as my “monkey brain” keeps interrupting my non-thoughts.  My ego wants to be able to accomplish something, to measure success or at least that I am becoming better at centering prayer; perhaps going the usual 20 minutes without any distracting thoughts.  However, that is not the point.  Distracting thoughts are not a defeat.  The goal is to just let them go; to not hold on to them and return to the centering emptiness. 

The goal, if it is not counterproductive to think of a goal, to become more in tune with God.  This in turn will, hopefully, bring all of my life more in tune with God’s intention for me and for the world.  It is not a replacement for living in the world; rather it is a tuning to God’s intention for the world and try to live in a way that is more in tune with that.  That, for me, is salvation. 

Blessing on your journey.

Of Holidays and Holy Days

Happy Victoria Day to those of you who celebrate today as a Holiday.  Holiday originally meant holy day but it has lost much of that meaning for many people.  There is not too much that is holy about the 2-4 weekend in today’s society except for those who worship beer at the cottage. Of course many of our holidays originally had a religious connotation being connected to Christmas and Boxing Day, Good Friday and Easter Sunday and even Easter Monday.  But even those have taken on a secular connotation in modern culture.  I recently bemoaned that fact that the Easter Egg hunt in this part of my world is held on Good Friday morning.  I had a letter to the local paper publish those remarks to which I received some positive response.  There is also the new custom of wishing people happy holiday instead of Merry Christmas.  People obviously are oblivious to the fact they are wishing people a happy holy day.  However, the secularization of our Holy Days cannot be denied.

Perhaps this is why my thoughts this morning have turned to prayer even though Victoria Day is one of those holidays which does not have religious connotations.  I have been in a couple of discussions recently about why we pray.  I am reminded of the reflection I used for a Diocesan Council meeting some years ago which follows:

Dean Alan Jones of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco has noted that there are only two prayers: ‘Help’ and ‘Thank-you’.  Everything else is just a footnote or variation and expansion on the basic theme—whether it is praise, adoration, confession, supplication or thanksgiving.

I believe that the essence of those two prayers ‘Help’ and ‘Thank you’ can in turn be summed up by ‘O God’ depending on how you speak that phrase.  ‘O God!!!’ which could be followed by ‘what was I thinking’ or ‘what were they thinking’ or ‘what were you thinking God’.  Or ‘O God!!!’ which could be followed by ‘isn’t this wonderful’ or ‘aren’t you wonderful’.    These true prayers probably should always followed by exclamation marks. 

Whether it is ‘Help’ or ‘Thank you’, to pray is to strive to place ourselves more closely in right relationship with God and with God’s creation.  We need our God-given imagination to apprehend what that right relationship is or can be.  The poet Mary Oliver tells us that the world gives us an invitation to right relationship through our imagination every day: 

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

The world offers itself to your imagination,

Calls you like the wild geese,

Harsh and exciting,

Over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

In today’s meeting let us pray ‘Help’.

Gracious and loving God help us to open our imaginations to all that you are offering us.  Help us to imagine and see the path to our right place in the family of things—in God’s family—in our lives as God’s children, in our parishes and especially in our work today for the part of God’s kingdom that is the Diocese of Huron.   In silence let us open our hearts and minds and bodies and souls and imaginations to the help that God offers us.  Amen.

Afternoon Session

This morning I noted that there are two prayers ‘Help’ and ‘Thank you’.  We ended with the prayer ‘Help’ that God would enable us to open our imaginations to right relationship with God for ourselves, our parishes, and the Diocese.  Let us pause and reflect on where we have been this morning.  Let us reflect on where have we had difficulty in opening our imagination to see where that right relationship could be?   Let us reflect on where we have opened our imagination to what the right relationship with God is. Let us reflect on where we have seen but not followed the path of right relationship.   Let us reflect on where have we have moved to be more in right relationship with God and God’s creation.

Let us pray.  Gracious God we thank you for all that you have given us this morning. ‘Thank you’ for all that you will continue to give us this afternoon and when we return to our homes and parishes to continue to seek the right relationship that God intends for us as God’s Children and God’s Church.  Amen. 

Sometimes the answer to prayer isn’t what you want to hear

Sunday at church one of the parishioners gave what might be described as a small testimonial.  He had been recovering from a quadruple bypass and was back at church for the first time in many months.  After thanking people for their prayers and general support he told is of an experience he had a couple of days after the surgery.  He was starting to feel more human and he started to pray.  In effect he said to God that he was 88 years old and has never been in hospital before.  He told God that God had better make sure he never was in hospital again.  These aren’t his exact world but that was the gist of what he said.  After that he heard a voice but couldn’t make out what was said.  So he asked that the message be repeated.  He heard it this time, “Sonny boy don’t ever tell me what to do again.”

I don’t know if this can be classified as revelation but it certainly is revealing.  It reveals a lot about our expectations for prayer and the purpose of prayer.  In prayer I believe it is hard not to substitute our will for God’s will.  Sometimes these two things seem to be indistinguishable or at least we would like them to be.  We may not create God in our own image or perhaps it is inevitable that we always do to a certain extent as God is certainly beyond all the ways we can think of God.  However, we certainly do substitute our will for God’s at times whether it is desire for healing when someone we love or we ourselves are in poor health physically, spiritually or mentally.  We pay for peace in times of conflict and that those who serve in our armed forces will not come to harm physically, mentally or spiritually.  We even pray for good weather and for abundant harvests.  In all this we hope and prayer that our hopes and prayers will be answered by God – in the way we would like them to be answered. 

Richard Rohr has spoken about this:

We need forms of prayer that free us from fixating on our own egos and from identifying with our own thoughts and feelings. We have to learn to become spiritually empty. If we are filled with ourselves, there is no room for another, and certainly not God. We need contemplative prayer, in which we simply let go of our passing ego needs, which change from moment to moment, so Something Eternal can take over.

In all this it is good to remember the closing sentence in Anglican prayer which I find helpful, “Loving God, you know our needs better than we know them ourselves.  Fulfil now our desires and petitions, as may be best for us, in this world knowledge of you truth, and in the age to come eternal life.”  Amen

Reading the Bible 21 Gen 30: Jacob – Up to His Old Tricks

When we last left Jacob he was dealing with being out tricked by his father-in-law Laban.  Laban had substituted his daughter Leah for Rachael for whom he had laboured seven years.  After many years and many children with these two women as well as their maid-servants Bilhah and Zilpha, Jacob returns the favour and tricks Laban out of a disproportionate part of Laban’s flocks.  Jacob has decided to leave Laban’s household and set out on his own. 

He asks for a settlement of what he is owed for serving Laban all these years.  Laban seems to be generous and asks, “What shall I give you?”  Now this seems generous as he is evidently asking Jacob to name his own prove.  However, Jacob doesn’t appear to trust the offer – probably with good reason given Laban’s past performance – and asks for what seems to be a modest request,

“But if you will do this one thing for me, I will go on tending your flocks and watching over them: ³² Let me go through all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb and every spotted or speckled goat.

Now I don’t know much about raising sheep and goats but from what I have seen spotted ones don’t seem to be that numerous.  Laban probably believes he has gotten the best of his son-in-law again and is likely rejoicing inside – although he would be trying as hard as possible not to show it.  Now we know that Jacob is no fool – at least not in the popular sense – and has a trick up his sleeve.  He uses what can be described as sympathetic magic to have the flock produce striped, speckled and spotted.  These he claimed for his own and as it says he, ‘grew exceedingly rich’. 

The use of magic and divination is quite common in the bible but it always makes me sit up and take notice when I read it again for the first time.  My best understanding of magic as opposed to asking God to intervene in our affairs is that magic is used to manipulate creation for our own ends.  Sometimes this can be doe good (white magic) and sometimes for evil (black magic).  However, it is directed by our will and not God’s.  When we pray to God we are asking that things be done if it is God’s will.  We are hoping (and praying) that our will is in line with God’s but we have no way of knowing God’s as that is beyond our comprehension as mere mortals.  In this case Jacob’s will happens to coincide with God’s. 

My last entry used the rather trite expression, ‘God can make lemonade out of lemons’ to describe God’s seeming favour for Jacob when Jacob was shall we say less than a perfect person.  This was my rather feeble attempt to be cute which I regretted after I pressed the send button.  As I noted in email exchanges with a friend, Alan Jones said it much better in his book Soul Making, ,”God wills our good. This means that everything that happens to us, including our sinning, can be turned to our good.”