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October 15 - November 2, 2017
By means of all created things, without exception, The Divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagine it as distant and inaccessible. In fact, we live steeped in its burning layers. —Teilhard de Chardin
One of the pillars of spiritual teaching in Eastern Christianity is deification (Greek: theosis),1 which means participating or sharing in the divine nature. This is our inheritance, according to St. Dorotheus of Gaza; it is an inborn spark of divinity like a light burning deep within our hearts, within the core of our being, guiding us as we discern what pleases God, and illuminating our journey upon this earth. Christ speaks about this same light when he says we are not to hide our light under a bushel but bring it into the light of day.
St. Gregory of Nazianzus says, “Whatever is not consciously embraced cannot be transformed.”
We are personally called to be transformed and transfigured into our God-likeness, but not just for ourselves; we are called personally to become God’s agents and to enable God’s ongoing creation of this world of ours.3
Several aspects of the icon highlight our journey toward discernment. First, the bush is actually a thorn bush, typical of the desert, indicating that there isn’t any place where God cannot be encountered! Next, we see the blackened sandals behind Moses. Sandals are made of the skin of animals; they are dead skins, indicating the passing nature of our persona, our identity in this world. Moses puts behind him his sense of who he has been; without it, he is vulnerable and full of fear. Yet, the icon manifests his readiness to follow the call into an unknown, to a mysterious and awesome divine
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What ensues is a dialogue with God. Moses’ first reaction is “Who am I?” Stripped of his former security in who he thought he was, he now is aware of his limitations, his sense of inadequacy. But his former identity doesn’t just totally disappear; for now it will become God’s agent in responding to the plight of his people. God assures him, “I will be with you.” To us as to Moses, this is the invitation to center our attention on a new identity—on God consciousness, on a God who is full of compassion. After the divine awakening comes the descent into the daily: the call for us to incarnate
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Our experience may not be as dramatic as Moses’ or St. Paul’s experience, but even if it is more subtle, it is nonetheless real. It is one thing, however, to experience this divine presence and another to flesh it out in our lives. This process requires serious reflection on the tools for the spiritual journey. Who am I? What am I called to by God? How do I discern the path ahead? Discernment grows as we are purified in all the areas of our being.
Listen to the teachings and turn to them with the ear of your heart. —Rule of St. Benedict
First, we must renounce our former way of life and move closer to our heart’s desire, toward the interior life. Second, we must do the inner work (of asceticism) by renouncing our mindless thoughts. This renunciation is particularly difficult because we have little control over our thoughts. Third, we must renounce our own images of God so that we can enter into contemplation of God as God.
This book is about the second of those three renunciations: with thoughts, we grapple. Recurring themes or trains of thoughts run constantly through our consciousness. These thoughts—which can lead to desires and ultimately to passions—cluster in predictable ways: they are about food, sex, things, anger, dejection, acedia (weariness of soul), vainglory, and pride. Some are as familiar as breathing in and out. Some are starkly revealing, self-made obstacles that stand between us and our deepest desire.
A mind at peace, stilled, available for conscious thinking at will is of major value for those of us who confront chaos, confusion, noise, and numbness as our pace of life quickens with the ever more of things.
All the thoughts are in service of our relationship with God, not primarily about the wise use of food, sex, things, etc. The teachings are for using the thoughts as a skillful means on the spiritual journey.
one person who is awake can transform the whole world community.
In the old, oft-told story of Abba Anthony, we hear him tell about the vicissitudes of renouncing wealth, honor, status, relationships, and comfort, only to find that the thoughts of wealth, honor, status, relationships, and comfort had followed him into his solitude. Rather than moving into a mystical experience with God, his mind kept his previous life before him. Prayer was very difficult because, although he was in the desert, his mind was back home. He had a second renunciation to undergo. He realized that his thoughts mattered and that they had to be taken seriously, because if he did
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Thinkers many years before Anthony had discovered that there were clusters of themes that recurred over and over in the silence of their hearts: thoughts about food, sex, things, anger, dejection, acedia, vainglory, and pride. The wrestling with these thoughts they considered the negative part of the practice of controlling them; the alternate, positive action was to fill their minds with inspired and traditional prayers.
listen to the Scriptures with the ear of one’s heart.
lectio divina has three books: the book of nature, the book of experience, and the book of Scripture.
Experience is considered the basis of self-reflection.
Early desert fathers and mothers of the third to fifth centuries noticed that thoughts and an awareness of thoughts was the key to insight into the body, mind, and soul.
The body was considered a vehicle for the soul. The mind enlivens the body and gives it the ability to be reflective about its own being. When the mind leaves the body, the body is dead. The soul enlivens the body and the mind and unites the body-mind into a person that transcends time and space. The soul, which will live beyond the lifespan of the body and the mind, is the ideal state for experiencing happiness.
the Holy Spirit is the soul of the soul who enlivens the total human person.
Thoughts, these teachers said, rise in the mind. They come in a sequence, a train of thoughts. We are not our thoughts. Thoughts come and thoughts go. Unaccompanied thoughts pass quickly.
Thoughts that are thought about become desires. Desires that are thought about become passions.
We can redirect our thoughts. We do this by noticing our thoughts rather than thinking our thoughts. When thinking pauses we are at peace.
Attention to our thoughts reveals our intentions.
what to eat, what to wear, what to do all day long, and how to live in the desert environment.
how to deal with the eight thoughts: about food, about sex, about things, about anger, about dejection, about acedia, about vainglory, and about pride.
all persons, no matter what their way of life, are subject to the eight thoughts. We make choices about our food and drink, about how we express ourselves sexually, and about how to get things that we need. None of us has had a week without angry feelings and thoughts of dejection and elation. We become weary and tired of the spiritual struggle some days, perhaps, even for years. And finally, who of us has not felt the surge of pride that is pervasively behind every one of our accomplishments and underneath our every failure?
accept our given vocation.
We didn’t create it for ourselves. We are responding to a longing embedded deep in our hearts.
Today, seekers renounce their former way of life through many choices. Some choose to join a religious community or go to a seminary. Some renounce their former way of life of being single, of owning property, of following a particular profession, or of being socially prominent.
I’ve seen both nuns and lay seekers become serious enough about their interior practice to rearrange their schedule or make a special space for prayer in their bedrooms, houses, or apartments. I’ve seen them begin to stop at a sacred shrine or chapel on a daily basis, change previous interests, relationships, hobbies, and patterns in order to take up a serious meditation practice that requires time, silence, and solitude. It seems that the first step to an ongoing practice is this first renunciation, the renunciation of our former way of life. Even though the work is interior, we mortals
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A certain brother went to Abbot Moses in Scete and asked him for a good word. And the elder said to him, “Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.” The Evangelist says that the kingdom of God comes not with observation, nor here and there, but from within. But nothing else can be within you (Conf. 1.13). To get to the place of
Each one of us ought to battle against the thought that vexes us, whether it’s first or third or eighth on the list. We must see what’s in our eyes, as in a mirror, and start there.
It does seem, however, that a state of quiet did emerge for many of them. The goal was prayer, not freedom from the work it takes to pray.
Since God is beyond all images, thoughts, and concepts, we must renounce our cherished beliefs for the sake of loving and knowing God as God.
Through lectio divina we move naturally from image to image and finally become “at home” in imageless prayer, pure prayer.
St. Anthony said that the prayer of the monk is not perfect until he no longer realizes that he is praying
This deepest form of prayer, contemplation, is described as a fire that burns without consuming, drawing the soul...
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Pure prayer is beyond thoughts.
As we become detached from the ego, we shed the biases of our culture and we move toward pure prayer.
it is easy to think that our thoughts are God. God is both beyond our grasping—not our next thought after this one—and also not a thought at all!
There are three thoughts that afflict the body: food, sex, and things. There are two thoughts that afflict the mind: anger and dejection. Finally, there are three thoughts that afflict the soul: acedia, vainglory, and pride. The first thought that matters most for beginners is the one “about food.”
“Excesses meet,” say the ancients
“You’ll be judged as you judge. It’s dangerous to act like you are God, the Judge. You don’t know why they are doing what they are doing. They might be pardoned, but we will have sinned”
When some of the brethren were wondering at the splendid light of his knowledge and were asking of Theodore some meanings of Scripture, he said that a monk who wanted to acquire a knowledge of the Scriptures ought not to spend his labor on the works of commentators but rather keep all the efforts of his mind and intentions of his heart set on purifying himself from vices. When these are driven out, at once the eye of the heart, as if the veil of the passions were removed, will begin, as it were, naturally to gaze on the mysteries of Scripture: since they were not declared to us by the grace of
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When we set too high of expectations for ourselves, we tend to be hard on others and then overcompensate with ourselves in overeating and overdrinking.
surrender my willfulness in order to enter into a willingness
it is by being human that we are saved.
What has brought us to our knees may not be enough to keep us humbled for a lifetime.
