Wisdom for every day
In various monastic writings we find two verses emphasized as being among the most spiritually effective prayers. Psalm 71:1-2 (NIV)–
In you, LORD, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame. In your righteousness, rescue me and save me.
It is emphasized because it is the prayer of desperation, encapsulating a heart’s cry, pointing it efficiently towards God. The spiritually wise suggested repeating this regularly, throughout the day. Not only for those who are encountering crises. For everyone. Because while it is the prayer of the oppressed, pleading for God’s salvation, it is also a prayer of grounding. Those who deal with pride, or arrogance, or easy living are reminded of their status and their goal. This establishes the relationship, a pledge of allegiance of sorts. We are all in need of God’s salvation, and asking for it reminds us of those places that we might like to hide from or ignore–or do not see in the moments of bounty.
Worth looking at other translations.
New Living Translation:
O Lord, I have come to you for protection;
don’t let me be disgraced.
Save me and rescue me,
for you do what is right.
Turn your ear to listen to me,
and set me free.
New King James:
In You, O LORD, I put my trust;
Let me never be put to shame.
Deliver me in Your righteousness, and cause me to escape;
Incline Your ear to me, and save me.
NRSV:
In you, O LORD, I take refuge; let me never be put to shame. In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me and save me.
Along with the Jesus prayer–”Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”–these verses are a way to center and re-center, orienting us right in the midst of our busy lives. Easy and profound expressions of deep theology and deep faith.
As I’m writing today I’m hit with another passage that serves much the same purpose. Rather than being prayer towards God, however, this one is a reminder from God to us.
Exodus 14:13-14
Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
Here we have an antecedent to Ephesians 6 and Isaiah 31.
The Israelites have been freed from Egypt, but they are not yet free. They stand at the edge of the Red Sea, blocked. Pharaoh realizes he made a mistake. Who is this God of Israel that could take away his slaves? He gathers his army. He pursues the newly emancipated.
Exodus tells us:
They were terrified and cried out to the LORD. They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”
Life became overwhelming. They were terrified, broken, emptied of hope. They saw what was following them and they despaired.
“Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the LORD will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”
The Egyptians throughout Scripture represent ‘the world’–its terrors, its promises, its enslavements, or its companionship. Sometimes it is a place of God given safety. More often it is the feared oppressor or the false security. We run from Egypt because of its power. We embrace Egypt because it promises protection.
We see the Egyptians about us. In our struggles and in our temptations. We fear. We lose hope. We stumble in the strain. We go crazy, act angry, no longer reflections of Christ.
And God reminds us.
“Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the LORD will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”
property
I am going to speak, as you would have the right to expect me to speak, of what affects us at the present moment here in this State—of one of those problems with which we, who are for the time being your servants and representatives in public life, are trying to deal.
Now, take the very question that you have seen advocated and which you will see advocated some more during the next fen days—the question of the taxation of franchises. On the one hand we have the perfectly simple savage who believes that you should tax franchises to the extent of confiscating them, and that it is the duty of all rail¬road corporations to carry everybody free and give him a chromo. On the other, we have the scarcely less primitive mortal who believes that there is something sacred in a franchise, and that there is no reason why it should pay its share of the burdens at all.
Wow, gentlemen, remember that the man who occupies the last position inevitably tends to produce the man who occupies the first position, and that the worst enemy of property is the man who, whether from unscrupulousness or from mere heedlessness and thoughtlessness, takes the ground that there shall be something sacred about all property—-that the owners of it are to occupy a different position in the community from all others, and are to have their burdens not increased, but diminished, because of their wealth.
~Teddy Roosevelt, 1899.
claiming the Spirit
Kirsteen Kim, writing about the views of Indian theologian Stanley Samartha, intrigues me with the following:
Similarly, he cautioned Christians against assuming that they could always claim to have the Spirit of God, insisting that such a claim is not for us to make but for our neighbors to recognize. Christians, therefore, encounter their neighbors of other faiths with humility, not knowing how the Spirit will blow, but in anticipation that the Spirit will work to lead the participants further into “all truth”. Discernment is intended to recognize the activities of the Spirit, not to control them, and therefore, he argued, the evidence of the fruit of the Spirit must be given greater weight than prior doctrines of the Spirit.
Religion, America, and the world
President Bush welcomes Pope Benedict XIV
PRESIDENT BUSH: Holy Father, Laura and I are privileged to have you here at the White House. We welcome you with the ancient words commended by Saint Augustine: “Pax Tecum.” Peace be with you.
You’ve chosen to visit America on your birthday. Well, birthdays are traditionally spent with close friends, so our entire nation is moved and honored that you’ve decided to share this special day with us. We wish you much health and happiness — today and for many years to come. (Applause.)
This is your first trip to the United States since you ascended to the Chair of Saint Peter. You will visit two of our greatest cities and meet countless Americans, including many who have traveled from across the country to see with you and to share in the joy of this visit. Here in America you’ll find a nation of prayer. Each day millions of our citizens approach our Maker on bended knee, seeking His grace and giving thanks for the many blessings He bestows upon us. Millions of Americans have been praying for your visit, and millions look forward to praying with you this week.
Here in America you’ll find a nation of compassion. Americans believe that the measure of a free society is how we treat the weakest and most vulnerable among us. So each day citizens across America answer the universal call to feed the hungry and comfort the sick and care for the infirm. Each day across the world the United States is working to eradicate disease, alleviate poverty, promote peace and bring the light of hope to places still mired in the darkness of tyranny and despair.
Here in America you’ll find a nation that welcomes the role of faith in the public square. When our Founders declared our nation’s independence, they rested their case on an appeal to the “laws of nature, and of nature’s God.” We believe in religious liberty. We also believe that a love for freedom and a common moral law are written into every human heart, and that these constitute the firm foundation on which any successful free society must be built.
Here in America, you’ll find a nation that is fully modern, yet guided by ancient and eternal truths. The United States is the most innovative, creative and dynamic country on earth — it is also among the most religious. In our nation, faith and reason coexist in harmony. This is one of our country’s greatest strengths, and one of the reasons that our land remains a beacon of hope and opportunity for millions across the world.
Most of all, Holy Father, you will find in America people whose hearts are open to your message of hope. And America and the world need this message. In a world where some invoke the name of God to justify acts of terror and murder and hate, we need your message that “God is love.” And embracing this love is the surest way to save men from “falling prey to the teaching of fanaticism and terrorism.”
In a world where some treat life as something to be debased and discarded, we need your message that all human life is sacred, and that “each of us is willed, each of us is loved” — (applause) — and your message that “each of us is willed, each of us is loved, and each of us is necessary.”
In a world where some no longer believe that we can distinguish between simple right and wrong, we need your message to reject this “dictatorship of relativism,” and embrace a culture of justice and truth. (Applause.)
In a world where some see freedom as simply the right to do as they wish, we need your message that true liberty requires us to live our freedom not just for ourselves, but “in a spirit of mutual support.”
Holy Father, thank you for making this journey to America. Our nation welcomes you. We appreciate the example you set for the world, and we ask that you always keep us in your prayers. (Applause.)
Pope Benedict responds, and greets America with kind and deep words:
POPE BENEDICT XVI: Mr. President, thank you for your gracious words of welcome on behalf of the people of the United States of America. I deeply appreciate your invitation to visit this great country. My visit coincides with an important moment in the life of the Catholic community in America: the celebration of the 200th anniversary of elevation of the country’s first Diocese — Baltimore — to a metropolitan Archdiocese and the establishment of the Sees of New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Louisville.
Yet I am happy to be here as a guest of all Americans. I come as a friend, a preacher of the Gospel, and one with great respect for this vast pluralistic society. America’s Catholics have made, and continue to make, an excellent contribution to the life of their country. As I begin my visit, I trust that my presence will be a source of renewal and hope for the Church in the United States, and strengthen the resolve of Catholics to contribute ever more responsibly to the life of this nation, of which they are proud to be citizens.
From the dawn of the Republic, America’s quest for freedom has been guided by the conviction that the principles governing political and social life are intimately linked to a moral order based on the dominion of God the Creator. The framers of this nation’s founding documents drew upon this conviction when they proclaimed the self-evident truth that all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights grounded in the laws of nature and of nature’s God.
The course of American history demonstrates the difficulties, the struggles, and the great intellectual and moral resolve which were demanded to shape a society which faithfully embodied these noble principles. In that process, which forged the soul of the nation, religious beliefs were a constant inspiration and driving force, as for example in the struggle against slavery and in the civil rights movement. In our time, too, particularly in moments of crisis, Americans continue to find their strength in a commitment to this patrimony of shared ideas and aspirations.
In the next few days, I look forward to meeting not only with America’s Catholic community, but with other Christian communities and representatives of the many religious traditions present in this country. Historically, not only Catholics, but all believers have found here the freedom to worship God in accordance with the dictates of their conscience, while at the same time being accepted as part of a commonwealth in which each individual group can make its voice heard.
As the nation faces the increasingly complex political and ethical issues of our time, I am confident that the American people will find in their religious beliefs a precious source of insight and an inspiration to pursue reasoned, responsible and respectful dialogue in the effort to build a more human and free society.
Freedom is not only a gift, but also a summons to personal responsibility. Americans know this from experience — almost every town in this country has its monuments honoring those who sacrificed their lives in defense of freedom, both at home and abroad. The preservation of freedom calls for the cultivation of virtue, self-discipline, sacrifice for the common good, and a sense of responsibility towards the less fortunate. It also demands the courage to engage in civic life and to bring one’s deepest beliefs and values to reasoned public debate.
In a word, freedom is ever new. It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good. Few have understood this as clearly as the late Pope John Paul II. In reflecting on the spiritual victory of freedom over totalitarianism in his native Poland and in Eastern Europe, he reminded us that history shows time and again that “in a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation,” and a democracy without values can lose its very soul. Those prophetic words in some sense echo the conviction of President Washington, expressed in his Farewell Address, that religion and morality represent “indispensable supports” of political prosperity.
The Church, for her part, wishes to contribute to building a world ever more worthy of the human person, created in the image and likeness of God. She is convinced that faith sheds new light on all things, and that the Gospel reveals the noble vocation and sublime destiny of every man and woman. Faith also gives us the strength to respond to our high calling and to hope that inspires us to work for an ever more just and fraternal society. Democracy can only flourish, as your founding fathers realized, when political leaders and those whom they represent are guided by truth and bring the wisdom born of firm moral principle to decisions affecting the life and future of the nation.
For well over a century, the United States of America has played an important role in the international community. On Friday, God willing, I will have the honor of addressing the United Nations organization, where I hope to encourage the efforts underway to make that institution an ever more effective voice for the legitimate aspirations of all the world’s peoples.
On this, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the need for global solidarity is as urgent as ever, if all people are to live in a way worthy of their dignity — as brothers and sisters dwelling in the same house and around that table which God’s bounty has set for all his children. America has traditionally shown herself generous in meeting immediate human needs, fostering development and offering relief to the victims of natural catastrophes. I am confident that this concern for the greater human family will continue to find expression in support for the patient efforts of international diplomacy to resolve conflicts and promote progress. In this way, coming generations will be able to live in a world where truth, freedom and justice can flourish — a world where the God-given dignity and the rights of every man, women and child are cherished, protected and effectively advanced.
Mr. President, dear friends, as I begin my visit to the United States, I express once more my gratitude for your invitation, my joy to be in your midst, and my fervent prayers that Almighty God will confirm this nation and its people in the ways of justice, prosperity and peace. God bless America. (Applause.)
“my fervent prayers that Almighty God will confirm this nation and its people in the ways of justice, prosperity and peace. God bless America.”
What a wonderful, wonderful way to end, challenging and complimentary, full of hope and life. I wish so many who have the same heart for much the same causes in this country would see how expressing hope, rather than anger, and peace, rather than disdain, and encouragement, rather than rejection, are fruit of the Spirit and lead to real progress.
So Brave, Young, and Handsome
Got a nice selection of items from the Amazon Vine program this month. One I especially want to feature here. The novel So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Lief Enger. Here’s my review:
“I said, ‘Most men never have the chance to be both things at once, the hero and the devil.’
‘That is ignorant. Most men are hero and devil. All men. That is what ruins it with wives.’
‘She wanted just the hero?’
‘Bad men or good she would’ve had me either way. She couldn’t endure both, however. She said to pick one and to be that thing only so that she might trust me until the day of Jesus.’”
There is a perspective in some ancient cultures about in-between places and times. Dawn and dusk, which lie between night and day. The seashore, that lies between water and land. Halloween, that time in which the spirit world and the physical world are perilously close. During these moments, in these places, it is both and neither all at once, indistinct and undefined. So too human life encounters these moments in identity. People are often caught in this nebulous middle, seeming one thing and another all at once. Sometimes this is being caught between their actions and their ideals, or their sin and their virtue. They are half-people of a sort, unrealized and unformed, without an identity of their own.
Some stay in this place their whole lives, never becoming, and never discovering themselves for who they really are. Others cast off from the dock, refusing to settle any longer for what was, and yet not yet knowing who they can or should be. It is a journey of becoming a whole person.
So Brave, Young, and Handsome is this story told of three primary characters, with a few others thrown in along the way. It is a road story telling of a physical journey that brings out the metaphysical of each of the characters, but not in a mushy, spiritualistic, heavy-laden way. And that’s what is so brilliant about the book. It’s not philosophy. It’s a great tale in the tradition of great American writers from decades past.
This is a book about in between times and in between people drawn with immense clarity and insight, while retaining a direct and sparse prose. Enger tells us of an era and certain characters, a story not a message. It is in this story, however, that we see so much of real life as it so often is: in between.
We are between the old and the new, the good and the bad, the honest and the false, the artist and the laborer, the young and the aged, the adventurous an the prosaic. The characters hope, but don’t know how to find this hope. What they do is carry on, having tasted something of who they know themselves to be they won’t let themselves go back. As Enger says in his acknowledgments, “Sometimes heroism is nothing more than patience, curiosity, and a refusal to panic.”
What I like so much about Enger’s work is that it is so hopeful. Absolutely honest, mind you, there’s no false hope to be found here or sentimentalism seeking to manipulate our emotions. These are real people, faults and all. But unlike so much contemporary literature and film Enger doesn’t feel a need to obsess with corruption or ruin. His is a book that shows people who are not handsome, or young, and rarely brave. But they want to be, and be such in ways that matter to them, not to others around them. They are seeking wholeness for themselves.
Not all succeed. Some do, but not in the expected ways.
“For at the same time he lost everything–the very direction of his own steps–he won the thing he held so precious he wouldn’t approach it in words.”
It is a story of real life. Not gritty, corrupted, malformed caricatures. Real people, or at least characters who are desperate to become real people, who learn what it is to be a real person.
With all this depth and insight it might sound ponderous. But it’s not. It’s very gentle and easy-going. It moves along at a varied pace, with enough movement to never seem tiresome and enough twists to never seem predictable. My only slight irritation is that sometimes Enger jumps ahead a bit and is so eager to bring a slight twist that he breaks the moment with unnecessary foreshadowing, sort of a “you’ll love what comes next!” moments. I wish he just let us experience the story as it happened a bit more. But this is a minor qualm and he does even this within the contexts of a fitting narration.
It’s a brilliant book, in craft and theme and insight. It’s the best work of contemporary fiction I’ve read in a very long time and guess it will be my favorite book of 2008.
Good Friday
Good Friday
O my chief good,
How shall I measure out thy blood?
How shall I count what thee befell,
And each grief tell?Shall I thy woes
Number according to thy foes?
Or, since one start show’d thy first breath,
Shall all thy death?Or shall each leaf,
Which falls in Autumn, score a grief?
Or cannot leaves, but fruit, be sign
Of the true vine?Then let each hour
Of my whole life one grief devour:
That thy distress through all may run,
And be my sun.Or rather let
My several sins their sorrows get;
That as each beast his cure doth know,
Each sin may so.Since blood is fittest, Lord, to write
Thy sorrows in, and bloody fight;
My heart hath store, write there, where in
One box doth lie both ink and sin:That when sin spies so many foes,
Thy whips, thy nails, thy wounds, thy woes
All come to lodge there, sin may say,
No room for me, and fly away.Sin being gone, oh fill the place,
And keep possession with thy grace;
Lest sin take courage and return,
And all the writings blot or burn.
~George Herbert
The High Calling
A good friend sent me this today and it very much was what I was needing to hear and be reminded about.
The High Calling
If God has called you to be truly like Jesus, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility and put on you demands of obedience that sometimes will not allow you to follow other Christians. In many ways He will seem to let other good people do things He will not let you do.
Other Christians, and even ministers, who seem very religious and useful may push themselves, pull strings, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do these things. And if you attempt them, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you [deeply remorseful]. Others can brag about themselves, about their work, about their success, about their writing, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing; and if you begin bragging, He will lead you into some deep [humiliation] that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.
Others will be allowed to succeed in making great sums of money, or having a legacy left to them, or in having luxuries, but God may only supply you daily, because he wants you to have something far better than gold – a helpless dependence on Him – that He may have the privilege of providing your needs daily out of the unseen treasury.
The Lord may let others be honored and keep you hidden away in obscurity, because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade.
God will let others be great, but keep you small. He will let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but He will make you work and toil without knowing how much you are doing. And then to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work which you have done, and this will make your reward ten times greater when Jesus comes.
The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch on you, with jealous love, and rebuke you for little words and feelings or for wasted time, which other Christians never seem distressed over.
So make up you mind that God is an infinite Sovereign who has a right to do as He pleases with His own and needs not explain to you a thousand things with may puzzle your reason in His dealings with you.
God will take you at your word; and if you absolutely sell yourself to be His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and let other people say and do many things you cannot do or say.
Settle it forever that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes in ways that others are not disciplined.
Now when you are so possessed with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Hold Spirit over your life, you will have found the [entrance hall] of heaven.
~Anonymous
Religion of the Heart
I say of the heart, because religion does not consist of right opinions or orthodoxy. While such matters are not necessarily outward things, they are not of the heart, but of the understanding. A person may be orthodox in every point, espousing right opinions and zealously defending them; he may think correctly concerning the Trinity, and every other approved doctrine taken from the Scriptures; he may agree with al of the historical creeds, and yet have no religion at all. He may be as orthodox as the devil, and still have no more religion than a pagan. He is indeed a pagan if he is a stranger to the religion of the heart.
This alone is religion as it is truly so-called. This alone is of value in the sight of God. Paul summarized religion in three particulars: righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
~John Wesley, “The Way to God”
a little political humor
In a conversation about Obama on NPR’s Wait, wait.. don’t tell me!
“Every single one, of the millions and millions of people who support him, are becoming more like Tom Cruise everyday. They’re all jumping on couches.”
~host Peter Sagal .
Made me laugh out loud while driving on the 210.
emerging on Amazon
I saw a link to a discussion on Amazon a couple of weeks ago about the emerging church. Discussions over there are often filled with people talking past each other. But this one was really good. I joined in, and added my thoughts. The discussion slowed a bit, but it has continued. This morning there was a post that, I think, is really hitting on something worth discussing more.
N. Burcham wrote:
My pastor said something a few months ago that really resonated with this same issue that I had been struggling myself: “The church should not be following culture and creating ‘Christian shadows’ of everything the world does; Christians should LEAD the culture and let the secular culture shadow the church.”
I have been pondering what this means for a few months and I have a few thoughts.
At one time the church did LEAD culture, but it wasn’t anything like the church of today. The Catholic church during the middle ages is a perfect example. Music, art, books, etc.–almost everything stemmed from the church’s influence on society. Now, I do not agree with how it was exercised, but as you can see, it is not impossible for the church to lead the culture.
Today’s Christianity seems to mirror, or shadow, the methods of expression of the secular world. Looking at music is a prime example: Coldplay style worship bands are a dime a dozen. Is this wrong? No. Is it optimal? Probably not. Coffee bars in church foyers is another example–not wrong, but just a reflection of where the secular culture has already been.
To me these two examples show a half-hearted effort to “gimmick” people into coming into our churches. Instead of changing what needs to changed, saying what needs to be said, and doing what needs to be done, we are changing what is easiest to change–the exterior. I have been working out for a little over a month and I have fairly drastically changed my exterior–however my interior is still the same. It takes a lot longer than a month to stop being the idiot that I am that always sticks my foot in my mouth. It is the same with our churches: it is easy to change the worship style, put some coffee in the foyer, change the lingo, and change the service time to a more culturally-convenient time (none of these are wrong in and of themselves) than it is to change the way we live our lives as Christians to BE the church instead of just HAVING church.
Expressing our worship to God is always going to be cultural. For example, African evangelical worship is going to look a lot different than evangelicals in Massachusetts–simple facts of localized culture.
Now to my original premise: how can we make our Christianity LEAD the secular culture? Not so simple is it? We must first evaluate where the culture is located at the moment and where God would like to have it.
This goes to issues a lot deeper than worship style. American culture puts self before anything else: byproduct in the church would most noticeably be Prosperity Gospel influenced Theology. Materialistic churches with amazing buildings full of people that do nothing for each other, the poor, their neighbors, or society are another byproduct of selfish American Christianity.
Maybe “Leading” culture starts by leading Biblical lives. Then creative expression of our worship to God ensues. Then creative methods to reach people ensue. Then other creative elements can be discussed.
Join in with the Spirit, and the Spirit opens up new creativity. But we have to let go and first wait and pray and trust that it is the Spirit who is the most wonderful artist and most passionate missionary and most all around creative expression of life.
Read the whole discussion over there. And maybe even join in.
